Author: Eric and Shazza

I can start this current ramble with the good news that our Residency Permit Renewal applications, which we submitted seven weeks ago, have been approved 🥳 However, let us not get too carried away or ahead of ourselves just yet, because if we had believed that with those approval notifications, we would have automatically received our new biometric identity cards (TIE), then that would of course have been a very silly assumption for us to have made, for, as we have already come to learn here in Spain, Bureaucracy reigns supreme, and with this bureaucracy comes the opportunity, or excuse, for them to just continue to keep making a little extra money from foreigners who have taken the decision to come and live here, and in order to justify the payment of this additional money, they of course need you to submit even more paperwork, so yes, there was now even more form filling as an essential requirement of the renewal process, before we actually get issued with our renewed TIE Cards, but hey, you just have to do what you have to do 🤷‍♂️ It won’t be long before they introduce an application form, with an associated fee of course, to apply for an application form, but I better keep that thought to myself, just in case they realise that they have missed a trick 😲

So, now that we do have ‘formal’ notification of those extended residency approvals, the next stage is for us (Our Solicitors) to make an appointment to attend the Estepona Police Station, which is also the Immigration Office, with the additional paperwork required, which comes in the form of individual applications that we need to submit in order to actually physically obtain our new biometric TIE residency permit cards, a process which also includes the requirement for us to provide new updated photographs, even though we have not changed our appearance over the last 12 months, apart I suppose from having a bit better sun tans of course 🤭 and, whilst we are at that appointment, we also have to have our fingerprints taken, yet again, well I suppose it is remotely possible that Shazza could have solar basted for a little longer than she should, or I could have had an accident with the Barbecue, and we had both suffered badly burnt fingers, so the fingerprints that they had taken last year would be no longer any good to confirm our identities. The bureaucracy doesn’t finish there though, oh no, that would be far too easy so, after that appointment, we will have to wait, for anything between 5-6 weeks, until they notify us that our physical TIE cards are ready for collection, at that point we (Our Solicitors) then have to make yet ‘another’ appointment to go and actually collect them, although, believe it or not, that will not encounter any further daylight robbery 🤗 but, your guess will be as good as mine as to how long that may then take, to actually get yet another appointment date 🙄 Now I guess you could look at it from the perspective that we have nothing better to do with our lives, now that we are retired and just dossing around on a day to day basis, taking things easy just living this life of leisure, whiling away our days drinking coffee and eating tostados, taking leisurely lunches, with of course using some periods of this leisure time to fill in various application forms for numerous bureaucratic processes, which of course will inevitably require having to obtain more supporting documentation, which may, or may not, require translating into Spanish by an ‘official’ translator, at an additional cost of course, albeit that these documents are probably already held by these authorities anyway, from all of our previously completed bureaucratic process. But I suppose the question that I should be asking of anyone reading this, who may be considering taking up residency themselves here in Spain, is ? Have I sold this lifestyle to you yet 😂😂

Now okay, to be completely honest with you, this actual residency renewals process, from start to finish, has not really been that cumbersome in the grand scheme of things, the biggest anxiety is probably the ‘waiting game’ to find out wether the applications to renew the Residency Permits have, or have not, been approved. It cannot be considered as a done deal, just because you may have lived here for the first year and still meet all the requirements for the next two years of residency, no, it is not something that can just be taken for granted, as some who have already gone through this renewals process and, to their horror, had their ‘Renewal Applications Rejected’, have already discovered, which then entailed them having to go through an ‘Appeals Process’, which, yes you have guessed it, entails even more bureaucracy, cost, appointments and waiting time, let alone the stress of not knowing wether at the end of it they may still not get approval and have to re-pack their bags and return from whence they came 😲 However, and fortunately for us, on this particular occasion at least, the ‘Dark Forces’ had elected to bugger around with some other people’s lives for a change and not our’s, so that is worth a small celebration.

The only downside of the whole renewals process for us, is that we were, and currently still are, unable to make any concrete plans to go anywhere else, well at least not for any extended periods of time, as we really did not know how long we would have to wait for each part of the process to be completed or, like now, when appointments will become available and, as they are currently like the proverbial ‘Rocking Horse S**T’, you daren’t risk not being available to attend them when they do finally materialise 🙄 I guess we should have had a little more forethought about timelines when we were considering applying for our initial NLV Visa and Residency Permits, and then we would not have ended up commencing our Spanish Residency, and subsequent renewal processes, over the Summer months, which are periods when we would be more likely to want to go travelling to some other warm parts of Europe, and not have to have had our movements restricted by waiting for bureaucratic processes and procedures to be completed 🤷‍♂️ But of course, at the time, we had no knowledge, or experience, of just how slow Spanish Bureaucracy really was, so I guess that in hindsight we should accept the fact that it probably really is all our own fault 😂

Now when we did our initial Residency Applications last year, we were fortunate enough to get an appointment at the Police Station in Estepona within a week, but not so this time around, as currently there are no appointments available, our Solicitors, who have been doing some of the administrative process on our behalf, have to go on to the Immigration Department Database every morning, to check to see if there are any available appointment dates, but so far, after trying for the past week, their are still none available in the foreseeable future 🤷‍♂️

The unavailability of appointments are primarily due to the upcoming new European EES/ETIAS system, which is now scheduled to come into force at the back end of this year (6th October), although it was scheduled to come into force a couple of year’s ago and has consistently been postponed, time and time again, due to ‘Technical IT issues’, so it has never actually materialised, so we will not hold our breaths, as there is still no real guarantees that it will happen this time either 🤷‍♂️ This EES/ETIA process is a similar system to the one also being introduced by the UK, the UK one being called the ETA system, which is also scheduled to come into operation on the same date as the European EES/ETIAS.

So, okay, as this new EES/ETIAS process will not directly effect us, as we are now official residents of Spain and have Biometric TIE Cards, you may well be asking yourselves, why then would this have any impact on us ? Well, under normal circumstances it wouldn’t, but, prior to that ‘gift that keeps on giving’, and yes I do mean Brexshit (Who would have thought that I would still be using that disgusting terminology after nearly two and a half years 🤔). Anyway, I won’t get into that subject again, so quickly moving on, for those who had opted to take permanent Residency here in Spain, prior to that Brexshit nonsense, they were not issued with the Biometric TIE Cards and at that time, were issued with Green paper documents, which do actually serve exactly the same purpose as the biometric cards and they do still remain valid legal identity and travel documents. However, once the new EES scheme does come into operation, apparently those paper forms ‘may not’ now be accepted by ‘other’ EU Border Force Countries Immigration Authorities 😲 I do now have to allow myself a bit of a wry smile because I thought that all these EU member countries were now supposed to be a joined up community, but apparently not it would appear 🤷‍♂️ So, as a consequence, both the British, and the Spanish Governments, have issued the advice that those in possession of the old paper forms, should apply to have them replaced with the new Biometric TIE Cards, and so, as you may well imagine, this is now creating a huge backlog in the appointment systems.

There is nothing that we as mere mortals can do about it, we just have to sit and patiently wait until an appointment date/time becomes available and, if that is not before the expiry date on our current TIE cards, well, in theory at least, that shouldn’t be an issue as we will be able to produce a copy of the letter from the Spanish Immigration Authorities stating that our Residency Permit Renewals have been approved, although, I have to say that it does beg the question, will any of these ‘other’ EU countries Immigration Authorities also actually accept that official Spanish piece of paper either 🤷‍♂️ You really couldn’t make any of this stuff up could you, this really is a ‘Real Life Comedy At It’s Best’, although it is also actually a bit scary, because if any of the people making these sort of decisions had an ounce of intelligence, they could end up actually being bloody dangerous. I mean it isn’t as if we don’t already have enough ‘Loony Tunes’ already running various Countries and Governments around the world as it is 😲 But realistically, at least for the time being, or in the very near future, I do not think that Shazza and I anticipate travelling back to the UK so not having our updated TIE Cards is not an immediate concern. If and when we do decide to return to the UK on family visits, we too may now have to be registered on the UK ETA system, which is probably good news for me as it provides another good reason for not having to return 🤭

Now is it just me or does anyone else remember when travelling anywhere around the world, although perhaps not Eastern Bloc countries, used to be quite a simple and straightforward affair as long as you had a valid passport 🤔 Now we are rapidly moving towards all aspects of our lives being dictated by Artificial Intelligence (AI), having to book transport on-line, having to print boarding cards on-line, having to pre-book luggage on-line, having to have on-line facial, or fingerprint, recognition protocols, double protective security password procedures, all which rely on mobile technology that also relies on you being able to gain a signal to actually gain access to these protocols 😤 Bring back the horse and cart so that we can just go back to quite literally taking care of our own horse s**t, that’s what I say 😁

You know what, us Dinosaurs used to be quite happy just getting on with our own lives, sleeping when we wanted, going for walks, afternoon naps, doing a spot of foraging when we got hungry, nobody else caring wether we did any exercise or wether we were overweight or unhealthy, it was more a case of jungle survival, survival of the fittest, but these days everybody just seems to want a piece of you, to know everything about you, to control you, and to dictate the way that they want you to lead your lives, sometimes I have to wonder wether ‘Progress’ is really the healthy option 🤔

However, after digressing slightly 🤭 Notwithstanding the above, it is actually a rather nice feeling to now know that we can ‘officially’ remain here as ‘Legal Immigrants’, even without our horse and cart, well for another two years at least, before we have to again go through these renewals process and procedures to then apply for what should be our last 2 years extension on our ‘Temporary’ residency status. Then, and only then, if we still want to, we can apply for our ‘Permanent’ residency permits which, thereafter, are only renewed at five year intervals. After being a resident for a minimum of 10 years we could, if we so wanted, apply for ‘Spanish Citizenship’, which then totally negates the requirement to keep renewing our five year residency permits. That process however does involve a lot more bureaucracy and is also dependent on attaining a higher, more formal level, of Spanish. But, I hasten to add, ‘Citizenship’ is not a mandatory requirement after being a resident for ten years, as we could, if we wanted to continue living here, just keep renewing our residency permits at five year intervals 🤔

So moving on to other things, and another piece of good news for us, is that at long last, finally our kitchen installation, which you may recall that we had done at the beginning of March, is now all complete. We did have some minor ‘snagging’ issues and were just waiting for replacement parts to be produced, and delivered, by the external suppliers to our kitchen Installation company, which has taken much longer than expected. So, although at the time of the installation completion we had still been able to use 99% of our kitchen space, and the majority of the appliances, it is now nice to see the final touches and replacements all completed. We ended up with an upgraded Fridge/Freezer and a better quality side panel to the new breakfast bar, at no additional cost to ourselves, and the Kitchen Installation Firm gave us a discount on the final installation payment, by way of a gesture for their delay in the completion and our patience.

We are now entering the much busier Summer season over here, a period when lots of ‘Fiestas’ and ‘Carnivals’ will be taking place all over Spain, whilst some ‘Fiestas’ are celebrated Nationally, other’s are just localised events held within certain ‘Regional’, ‘Provincial’ or ‘Municipal’ communities. So, just by way of potential interest to some of you, I have listed below some of the events that are being held within our own local municipality, although it doesn’t list the additional Medieval Markets that will also be held in the former fishing village and our local town of San Luis de Sabinillas, however, those dates have not yet been publicised. Additionally, although Shazza and I consider the likes of Estepona (20 mins), San Pedro de Alcantara (30 mins), Marbella (40 mins) and even Malaga (60 mins) to be pretty local to us, and within our ‘Province’ of Malaga, they are not within our Municipality so they have their own calendar and schedule of events, which we currently do not have but, if last Summer was anything to go by, should mean that almost every weekend of these ‘official’ Summer months there will be something or other going off in our neck of the woods, although I am not certain that we will attend all of them again this year 🤔

As it conveniently works out, there is an event on whilst Stacey and Dean are with us for a week, in July and, fortunately, neither do we miss out on anything during the period that we are away in Austria at the beginning of August, also in mid-August, there are events on during the eleven day period that Chris, Sarah and our three grandchildren are staying with us 👍 So, as you may imagine, I am very pleased that I had the forethought to give our local Mayor an advance copy of our busy Summer Itinerary, so that he could organise the event dates to fit in with our own upcoming hectic schedule 😂

Our communal pool is accessible once again, as are all the other’s in the neighbourhood, and so all the sun beds are out, there are the associated sounds of people enjoying being out in the hot sunshine and once again enjoying the cooling water, our ‘residential’ community, and the one adjacent to us, are not large, so the noise from the pool areas is not intrusive, although I do have to confess that we have not actually used our own pool facilities yet 🤷‍♂️ Both the day and night temperatures are now such that we keep the french style doors and windows open both day and night, so the ‘Mosquito Net’ is now up over our bed again, although there are no signs, or sounds, of them just yet, but better to be safe than sorry 🙄

Now I know that it may also sound a little bit strange for me to say, as we live here all year and so are used to the sun shining and having warm temperatures most of the year, but even for us, it does now actually feel that the Summer proper has arrived, with all the associated holiday ‘vibes’ that come with it. Although we have spent many Summers here in the past, albeit only on a temporary basis, and although last year was our first full Summer here, we did seem to miss out on a lot of it, with being distracted by all the initial residency stuff which dragged on and on, and then getting the car imported, so by the end of it all we found ourselves at the start of the Autumn months, although, now that I reflect upon that period, we did actually manage to attend several ‘Fiestas’. Now though, we can actually enjoy and fully appreciate the transition, from the much quieter months, as we see the place coming to life with tourists of all Nationalities. The Spanish holiday makers, who also flock here in their droves from the north of the country or further inland, will also arrive here soon too, many of them living away from coastal areas. The Schools in Spain close their doors for summer around the 24th June and do not re-open them again until around the middle of September. The more popular ‘Costa’ resorts, a little further up along our coastline, will be very much busier than us of course, but it is all relative really and we are pretty grateful that we are further away from the more rowdy holiday ‘clique’, we don’t have the Nightclubs, Casinos or the ‘all night’ Bars, although during the Fiesta’s the revelry does tend to go on until the early hours, but if I were to do a comparison with the UK seaside resorts then I would certainly say that here it is a much more family orientated and civilised affair, ‘More Like ‘Bournemouth’ than ‘Blackpool’ if you know what I mean 🤭

But this year I am going to be a little more prepared for the hot Summer months. I need a hat to protect me from the heat of the sun, I do not suit Baseball style caps, or those straw type hats or even the linen hats that a lot of people here seem to wear, my Winter cap is far too heavy for Summer use. Last year I made a hasty purchase from one of the Medieval Market Stalls, and no it wasn’t a suit of armour before you ask, it was one of those trilby style hats, in a nice shade of blue, which, initially, I thought looked okay, but you know what they say “Act In Haste And Repent At Leisure”, fortunately the price I paid for it didn’t leave me in tears when I threw it in the bin. So I have been on the hunt for a hat that may suit me, a proper hat this time, quality as opposed to ‘Tourist Tat’ and doing some research I found myself drawn towards the Panama Hat, which comes in several different styles. Now you know by now what I am like for ‘History’, but whilst looking at the different styles on several different on-line resources I read a little about its origin, which, strangely enough, was slightly interesting. It originally became popular during the Gold Rush in 1849, when it was worn by people whilst crossing the Isthmus of Panama, and although it is referred to as a ‘Panama’, it actually originates from Ecuador. It is described as a ‘practical’ but ‘elegant’ form of sun protection, although I already know that neither of those words can actually be used to describe myself 🤭 It is completely hand woven from 100% natural fibre, renowned for its fine weave, strength but also its lightness, a straw which is made from the bleached leaves of the ‘Toquilla Palma’ 🤷‍♂️ Well, I was looking for something practical and hard wearing so the description sold it to me, just what I was looking for, rather than one of those awful ‘Kiss Me Quick’ things, or other hats that one may mistakingly purchase off Medieval Market Stalls 🙄 I discovered that there was a local hat shop in Estepona, and one in the rather plush Marina complex at ‘Sotogrande’, that sold ‘Panama Hats’, so my quest commenced, although it was cut short prematurely in Estepona when we discovered that the shop had closed down. Would I have a little more luck in the plush Marina Resort of Sotogrande ? Of course I would, a place that accommodated multi-million pound Motor Yachts, a place that personified both ‘Quality’ and ‘Elegance’ by the bucket-full, but the question would be, would they let us in with our non-designer short-sleeved shirts, shorts and well worn flip flops 😲

The elegant elderly lady in the shop was very nice and extremely patient as I started to search, for not only the right style of Panama, but also the right colour, and of course size. I trusted Shazza’s opinion and so, as I tried each one on, if she said that I looked like a “Twat In A Hat” then that was good enough for me and it was instantly discarded. It came down to just two styles and colours but we both agreed on the same one. “Do I look like our man in Havana” I asked, as I preened myself admiringly in front of the large mirror, she laughed, “More like the man from Del Monte” she quipped 😲 So it was, the decision was taken and the man from Del Monte, he say ‘Yes’ 😂 (Only people of a certain age group will remember that particular TV Advertisement)

Mission accomplished and we spent some time enjoying looking at the wonderfully expensive and shiny Motor Yachts on their moorings, now if only I could have finished off the perfect day by walking up the boarding ladder, wearing of course my new ‘Panama’ hat, onto my very own ‘Bering 65’, or ‘Nordhaven 60’, its what dreams are made of 😉 Instead we promenaded through the Marina complex, stopped for a coffee amongst the elite and then, before the security guards could catch us and throw us out, we returned to the car, drove to a cliff top restaurant, overlooking the beach and sparkling blue waters and enjoyed a very pleasant lunch accompanied with a rather pleasant Anti-Covid Vaccine, well it would have been rude not to 😉

Until the next ramble,

Hasta Luego mi Amigos (La Vida Es Buena)

We had returned home from our Granada trip to some much awaited good news, and although the drought conditions here in Andalusia are still very much in place, our area of the Malaga Province has now been downgraded to ‘Moderate’, as opposed to the ‘Severe’ conditions that we had previously been under. This is as a consequence of the two storms that we had back in March, both of which had provided our Province with some much needed rainfall to start to refill the Embalces, although they are still not to 100% of their capacities and with the hot Summer months creating some loss through evaporation, and with the additional demand on the water supply, with the increase in population over the busy summer tourist season, these current water capacities will again start to reduce, although the authorities have stated that they estimate that we currently have sufficient to last for 8 months. So, the good news for us came in two parts, first, with effect from 1st June, our personal domestic water usage allowance has been raised again, from what had been an allowance of only 160 Litres each per day, to then, very recently, an increase up to 200 Litres each per day, however, as from 1st June, that will now be increased yet again to a new ‘daily’ individual personal usage allowance of 225 Litres 🤗. To be completely honest with you, Shazza and I have not really been affected too much, even with the 160 Litre limitation, we just had to change our water usage habits slightly and, in reality, even with this increased usage allowance, we will still continue to try and reduce our water usage (Wastage) wherever possible, although, we cannot deny that it is now very nice, especially as the temperatures are now also continuing to rise on a daily basis, that we can now take a shower on a daily basis again, instead of just every other day. The second piece of good news for us, although in all honesty it does tend to pale a little bit into insignificance against the very much more important rise in the ‘domestic’ water usage allowance, but, also effective from 1st June, we will be permitted to once again use our private communal swimming pools, so we are really looking forward to daily life beginning to start to smell a little bit sweeter again 😂

Although we did not know about it beforehand, a week after we had returned home from our mini-break, during the weekend, there was an ‘International Families Day’ event being held at the ‘Castillon’ (Castle) in the former fishing village. Previous events of this nature had been relatively small affairs, but the event has grown so much in popularity over the last couple of years, that it now occupies a much larger area, on the public road that encircles the castle and into the adjacent public park. I guess that it reflects the different Nationalities that now reside in this area, it came as a bit of a surprise to us, we were obviously aware of the large European, American and Canadian Expat presence, but we were certainly not really that aware of the large presence from the much wider Asian and South American countries. We certainly cannot recall us ever attending any of these events over the last nine years or so, which is surprising as Shazza and I like these type of local community events. Perhaps they were held during the ninety-day ‘Schengen Shuffle’ periods when we had to exit the EU 🤔 Well at least that is now no longer an issue for us.

This International Families Event continued over two full days, and nights, with ‘live’ bands performing well into the early hours, fortunately, whilst we live only a few minutes drive away from where it is held, it is also far enough away for us not to be disturbed by the night’s revelries 😉

After our mini-break and doing our own touristy stuff in Granada, once back at home we effortlessly slipped back into what are now just our ‘normal’ more relaxed daily routines. However, although we had only been away for a few days, we noticed a bit of a change when we went on our first daily walk along the seafront promenade and into the town. All the beachfront Chiringuitos were now open, with their beach frontages and sun loungers looking pretty busy with customers, the wooden boardwalks, leading from the promenade down onto the beach had been laid, to stop people from burning their bare feet on the scorching sand when making their way down to the sea, but more noticeable were the amount of people actually on the beach with their sun chairs, sun umbrellas, cool boxes and paddle-boards and the towns seafront Cafe’s were certainly far busier than they had been, so although the school half term holidays had not yet officially commenced, it looked as if ‘It Was All Beginning To Kick Off’ now, the tourist season it would seem has arrived, albeit a couple of weeks earlier than anticipated, but it is nice to see the place starting to come alive again, we may not like crowds but boy does it give us plenty of people watching opportunities 😁

I had thought that back in February, when I had submitted our Income Tax related forms to our Tax Consultants, that that was it, in respect of the payment of our Income tax for the last 2023 Financial Year, and that we would just have to wait to be advised of the amount of the tax bill. So I was a little surprised when I recently received another Email from our Tax Consultant asking me to submit even more Tax Forms 🤔 I obviously questioned this, only to be informed that the financial information that I had previously submitted was just to enable us to be formally registered, as individuals, with the Spanish Tax Authorities who would then allocate and issue us with our Individual Tax Reference Numbers (in reality those reference numbers would be sent to our Tax Consultants who do all the formal stuff on our behalf). Fortunately, this registration process and procedure only has to be done the once and not annually. However, now that we are officially tax residents, in May each year we are required to submit our formal Income Tax Declaration Forms, for all our incomes received over the previous Fiscal Year, in Spain the Fiscal Year runs from 1st January-31st December, the tax due has to be paid in June, failure to do so results in a fine, although, if you wish, you can elect to make split payments, 60% in June and 40% in November. Now I cannot go into the complexities of the Spanish Taxation System, as I am not qualified to provide such advice, and especially as individuals will have their own income sources and financial circumstances, but I will offer this one piece of advice, do your research before you elect to make the move here, as the tax system may be very different to what it is in your own home country and, if you do choose to come and live here, unless you are professionally qualified, it is a good idea to employ the services of a ‘reputable’ Tax Professional to submit your annual tax declarations on your behalf, they know the in’s and out’s of the Spanish Taxation System and will also be able to advise on wether it is more financially advantageous for you to submit either ‘Individual’ or ‘Joint’ Tax Returns. However, below I will provide some current basic tax information just to give you some idea, but this is all readily available on-line by doing a search on ‘Google’ 👍

The other thing to be aware of is that ‘All’ income you receive Globally is taxable in Spain, unless the country you originate from has a ‘No Double Taxation Agreement’ in force with Spain. This means that ‘some’ Incomes that you receive may be ‘Exempt’ from paying Spanish Tax e.g. Government Issued Pensions (Military, Civil Service, Police, Fire Service, some Teacher’s Pensions) which, under the agreement, remain taxed at source, unlike the majority of ‘Private’ Pensions, which ‘generally’ do not fall under the exemptions of the ‘No Double Taxation Agreement’. However, and particularly relevant to know for individuals coming from the UK, is that the UK issued State Pension IS subject to being taxed in Spain, so in this instance you have to apply retrospectively to UK HMRC, for a refund of the tax paid to the Spanish Tax Authorities (There is a form on the UK Government website to enable you to do this), also note that there are Tax Professionals here in Spain who can assist with this procedure. Also worth noting are two other things, first, ‘everyone’ who is ‘registered’ as a ‘Tax Resident’ of Spain, has to submit an annual tax return, even if that is a ‘Nil’ return e.g. Dependents under pension age who may have no independent personal income sources themselves (Spouses or Partners), secondly, even if some incomes are ‘Exempt’ from Spanish Tax (Under the ‘No Double Taxation Agreement), they still have to be declared on the Spanish Tax Forms.

Now this may all sound very complicated and may even deter you wanting to come and live in Spain, but provided you are aware of the tax requirements in Spain in relation to your own Financial circumstances, especially what incomes that you have that are, or are not, exempt from Spanish Tax, then it is not as complicated as it may at first sound, once you get your head around it. As you will probably imagine, myself and my OCD buddy have always maintained detailed personal financial records, even when we lived in the UK, so I had all the information required to complete the tax declarations for both myself and Shazza, including our latest annual P60’s and any other official financial administrative records. So, within only a couple of days of submitting this information to our Tax Consultant, we received confirmation of what this year’s tax bill would be, we were pleasantly surprised, and happy in the knowledge that we will get ‘some’ of this tax back, refunded from the UK HMRC, albeit that involves even more form filling, although we strongly suspect that getting money back from the UK Tax Authorities, at the speed they deal with refunds, may actually take some time to receive back 🙄

The only other commitment that we had to do this month was to get our car serviced, or so we believed !! So back in January I had pre-booked a service on-line, through the main KIA Espana website, to have my car serviced at the ‘Malaga’ Dealership, I received a confirmation Email that this had been booked. I had selected the Malaga dealership because I had used them on two previous occasions when I had issues with my car and they proved to be extremely helpful and efficient, regular readers of my rambles will already be aware of those issues. However, the dealership is a one hour drive away so it would entail and early start to get the car delivered to them in the morning, and then having to spend the best part of the day waiting for it to be finished. Fortunately, it was only an easy thirty minute walk from the dealership to a large shopping mall at ‘Plaza Mayor’, which has recently been extended and now also accommodates a large ‘McArthur Glen’ retail outlet, so although neither of us are really shoppers, at least we could pass our time whilst we waited for the call to tell us our car was ready to collect.

When we arrived we were greeted by a very friendly male receptionist who spoke a reasonable level of English, certainly much more fluent than my Spanish, and he proceeded to check the car in. He noticed that we had already had two Services conducted, both in the UK, one in 2022, after the first year of ownership, and another in 2023, he queried as to why we had had two services conducted, when they are only required every 20,000 miles or at two year intervals, whichever came first, so we should not have had the first service until 2023 and the second would not have been due until 2025 🤔 Now in hindsight I should already have known this, it was the same principle for the Motorhome, in my defence I can only think that things had got confused with the major engine issue that we had with the car in the first year that we had it and, irritatingly, the KIA Dealership in Doncaster had not informed us when we took the car in, for what we thought was the first service due date, in May 2022, that in fact it was not due a service until 2023, but neither did they tell us this when we took it for its second service the following year that it was now not due a service until May 2025 😡 It isn’t as if they were making any money from us, as under the 7 Year Warranty, the first two services were ‘Free’ 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, ‘Luis’ the dealership service receptionist in Malaga, did tell me that the car did not require another routine service until next year, which was a bit of a bonus as I had budgeted for it being done this year, and so, to my complete joy, I had now unexpectedly saved some money, or at least that had been my initial happy thought until a couple of hours later that day……………….🙄 There were still a couple of Administrative and Technical things that I needed to have done with the car, now that it has been imported into and registered in Spain, and a possible technical issue that I needed them to check out, which would involve them putting it on their diagnostics machine. So we still needed to leave the car with them and then wait until he called us to say that it was ready to collect, which he informed us could be anytime up to 4pm. However, we had planned for a full day out and had nowhere else we needed to be 🤷‍♂️

When we had left the car in this dealership, on the last occasion we were here, we discovered a nice little Cafe, and conveniently it was on our walking route to ‘Plaza Mayor’, we decided to stop there again for a Coffee, and okay, yes I confess, we also had a Tostado with it, but come on now, it would have been really disrespectful not to 🤭 It seems a little pointless telling you that it was yet again another nice warm day, however, it was not as hot as we had anticipated that it was going to be at only around 23 degrees(c), over the last couple of days in our local town, just a little further down the coastline, the temperatures had been a searingly hot and humid 28 degrees(c) 🥵 so we had rather expected much of the same here.

As I may have mentioned a few times in these ramblings, neither of us are shoppers but, for our upcoming large family three day event in Austria in August, on the second day, the Saturday, it is a little more formal, a smart, but casual, sort of affair, so whilst Shazza had already got her dress sorted, she of course needed some new shoes, and of course a matching handbag, to go with her outfit 🙄 However, I cannot put all the focus of attention on her for all the additional expenditure, but I also can neither confirm, or deny, that I too ‘may’ also have taken the opportunity to make a ‘few’ clothing and footwear purchases myself, albeit in truth mine were not really absolutely ‘necessary’ purchases for the Austria trip 🤭 but the long and short of it is, between the pair of us, on this particular day, we spent very much more than what the actual car service would have cost us. I think the really scary thing about it though was, especially for a usually much more very thrifty Yorkshireman, we had both agreed that we had actually enjoyed this rare retail therapy session and, if the truth be known, perhaps just a little bit too much 😲 Fortunately, two hours earlier than anticipated, we were saved from any further decline to our rapidly diminishing bank balance, by the phone call from the garage telling us that our car was ready for collection. However, on our way home we also called in at another large shopping mall, the ‘Miramar’ at Fuengirola, only because that is where there was a ‘Holland & Barrett’ herbal health type store which sold the Herbal Teas that Shazza likes, and as we rarely go there she always like to buy a batch of them to last a couple of months. We had planned to have a proper lunch whilst at ‘Plaza Mayor’ but, because of the earlier than anticipated collection of the car, that lunch did not materialise and so now we were both beginning to feel a little hungry, so we decided that whilst at the Fuengirola mall we would have a late lunch, or as it turned out, an early dinner, and settled for a very nice Italian restaurant. It had actually turned out to be a really enjoyable day out, not a completely wasted trip either, in respect of the car not requiring a service, as the dealership did now have us registered on their database with all the Spanish registration details, including our Spanish Address and Telephone numbers and, the Diagnostics checks that they had conducted, had revealed no issues whatsoever with the car, which was a relief, as when it went through its ITV Test (equivalent of MOT), as part of the importation process, they had said that their was an error code which related to a serious fault with the Engine Compression, albeit no warning lights had come up on the dashboard display and I certainly had not experienced any lack of performance when driving the car, but these sort of things tend to weigh on your mind a bit, but not any longer. The KIA dealership made no charge for the time spent on conducting these diagnostic checks and also, when we went to collect the car, they had offered to put it through a car wash before we drove it away, free of charge and a normal part of their customer service, but as we had put it through a car wash the previous day we declined their generous offer.

We have no other mini-breaks, or day trips, planned for the coming weeks, although that of course does not guarantee that Shazza will not spring one of her spontaneous one’s on me 😂 We have no other ‘known’ commitments now until the middle of June, we are just awaiting confirmation that our Residency Permit renewal applications have been approved, and an appointment date to go and collect our new TIE Residency Cards, however, we know that they will not issue them before 13th June when our current one’s expire. But we are quite excited at the prospect of not having to go through this residency permit renewal process again for a further two years, in June 2026.

So, until my next ramble, wherever you may be, if in the Northern hemisphere, enjoy the start of your Summer, or if in the Southern hemisphere, get wrapped up for the commencement of your Winter.

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, “La Vida Es Buena”

After having such a long second day, it wasn’t surprising that we both had another excellent sleep, we had awoken reasonably early again and fully refreshed, thankfully with no adverse effects in our legs. The sun was once again already high in the sky rapidly warming the cooler overnight mountain air, the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast yet another 27 degree(c) day, by mid-afternoon, and I have to say that it had been pretty much accurate with it’s predictions over the last couple of days, so fingers crossed that there are no blips on what was to be our last full day here in Granada.

When we had first arrived at the hotel, and had been given the tourist street map by the receptionists, I had enquired about what the area was like around the ‘Puerta Romano’ bridge over the river ‘Genil’, which I had seen photographs of when I was doing some pre-visit research, it looked quite a nice area with a tree lined riverside walk, however, they had been less than enthusiastic about that particular part of town, stating that it was quite a long walk to get to it, and intimating that there was little of interest there, so, in their personal opinions, it was not worth the effort. However, for us, it was now the only district that we had not visited, so we both agreed that we would still go and take a look and, if their was not much to maintain our interest, then we would just return to the Centro area, have another very pleasant lunch and then return to the hotel and perhaps finish the afternoon by the pool. We also agreed that after enjoying another buffet breakfast, and seeing as it may be a long walk to our intended destination, that on this occasion, instead of walking down into the city and then on into the ‘Realejo’ district, we would take the fifteen minute bus ride into the city centre and then walk from there. I had already checked out the route and memorised some landmarks but, to be quite honest it looked a pretty much straightforward route, or it would be unless of course we did our usual trick of deviating off it, to explore side streets and alleyways, which was always a possibility 🤔

Fortunately there was a bus already at the stop when we arrived outside the Alhambra, and it was pretty much devoid of passengers, so it made a nice change to be able to look out of the windows and see some different views over the city as we descended. On our journey down we discussed the fact that, even if we had have managed to obtained tickets to view the Alhambra Palaces and Gardens, which would have entailed us spending a lot more time at the Alhambra, we still both felt that three full days here was sufficient for us to see and do what we had wanted to do. Although, I should say that those who are much more into the historical, architectural or even the religious aspects of the city, then you could of course spend very much longer here, additionally, it was a good base to explore a lot more of the surrounding villages and towns, and tour around the beautiful landscapes that lay within the ‘Sierra Nevada National Park’.

We got off the bus, at the same stop in the city that we had been getting on it each evening to return to the hotel. This stop wasn’t at the actual central bus station, which funny enough, although they do have one, we had not actually come across it on any of our meanderings 🤔 We needed to head South down the Main Street, until we came to a large crossroads junction, at that point there should be a large Correos (Post Office) building on the corner, then from there we would bear left and head East onto a long pedestrianised tree lined walkway and then just follow it, until we came to a large fountain, across from that, the park, bridge and the riverside walk. It looked simple enough and as it happened, with no deviations taken, intended or otherwise, it was 👍

It had taken us no more than twenty-minutes from getting off the bus to getting to the river bridge, and it was a flat walk conducted at a leisurely pace, so we concluded that perhaps our two receptionists were not people who enjoyed walking very much. From the ‘Puerta Romana’ bridge we elected to turn left, away from the more built up areas of that part of the city, to just take a stroll along the very pleasant tree-lined riverside walk, although we could have opted to walk through the very nice park that ran adjacent to the riverside path. Their was a reasonable flow of water in the river but it was unusual, because it did not have the appearance of a natural river but more like a Canal, it had a concrete base and side walls, and every 100 metres or so their were, what we guessed were flood barriers. As we enjoyed the sunshine, and the views of the snow capped mountains, we could not understand why our receptionists didn’t think that their was anything of interest here, probably because it was not laden with retail outlets, cafe’s or restaurants, but to us it was so peaceful, the manicured park had various statues, mini water fountains, flower gardens and shaded benches under the trees, whilst the riverside walk provided both shade and colour too, with the gentle sound of running water that gave it such a tranquil feeling, a nice change from all the hustle and bustle of the city.

We continued walking for quite a while, but we started heading further and further out so we decided to turn back and to go and explore what was on the other side of the ‘Puerta Romano’ bridge, to be honest we were now ready for a late-morning coffee and their wasn’t very much on offer walking in our current direction. Once back at the bridge we crossed on to the opposite bank, along a much wider area that, on the map, looked as if it was another Plaza, but in reality it was just a large concreted area, with a few trees here and there, with a large open air sports area and beyond it a large Ferris Wheel, that wasn’t actually in operation, again we speculated and thought that this was perhaps the area that would house the Circus or Fairground attractions when they came to town 🤷‍♂️ Their were quite a few large Commercial type buildings, car dealerships etc but primarily it was a residential urbanisation comprising of mainly old style apartment blocks, it had the look and feel of being perhaps in the less affluent area of the city, although it wasn’t scruffy or dirty and we certainly didn’t feel unsafe, it was just an ordinary area were the local people lived which didn’t have nice flower lined roads or fountained Plaza’s. But we did find a small pavement Cafe so we stopped for a very much overdue ‘Cafe con Leche’ and you could tell immediately that this was outside the tourist enclave, the cost of two very nice coffee’s were half the price of anywhere else we had been during the last couple of days. But we probably had a better understanding now of why our receptionists had said that there was nothing of interest here, tourist wise that is, unless of course, like us, you enjoy the peacefulness and tranquility of walking in nice parks or along a riverside walk. So, suitably refreshed, we headed back in the direction we had come, towards the hustle and bustle, we were both beginning to look forward to getting home again now as we were all ‘citied’ out.

When we got back to the junction with the ‘Correos’ building on the corner, instead of just following it straight up, we crossed the road and did our usual thing, we disappeared into a labyrinth of narrow alleyways, for no particular reason other than we could, and knowing that we would be in the shade and out of the now stifling heat of the sun. When we had first arrived in Granada centre on our first afternoon, it had looked quite vast, the tourist map also made it look as if the different districts were much farther apart, however, as with most cities, once you have familiarised yourself with them, they actually become quite small really, it is mainly only the residential buildings that make them appear to be a sprawling metropolis. So it wasn’t long before our back street wanderings through maze like alleyways started to become familiar to us and we soon found ourselves back in the long and cobbled, pedestrianised street which, on both sides were full of the more familiar International branded stores that you find in every single city throughout the world. We now knew which alleyways to take to get towards the many small central Plazas which were adorned with Cafe/Bars and Restaurants.

We found a Cafe that we had not used before, and at first we thought that it was a new Plaza that we had just fallen across, we sat and enjoyed the traditional Spanish pre-lunch aperitif of ‘Vermut’, which is basically very similar to Martini Rosso, and enjoyed another period of people watching, well it would have been rude not to. However, once we had finished our drinks it was time to try and seek out a preferred establishment in which to partake of our final lunch here in Granada, which is when we actually discovered that the Plaza we were in was not actually a new one, but just the opposite end of one where we had previously enjoyed a ‘Menu del Dia’ lunch 🤷‍♂️

On one of our previous days explorations, we had fallen across another row of pavement Cafe’s/Restaurants, there were probably four or five next to each other, where we had enjoyed a couple of cooling drinks, whilst being serenade by a young lad playing a tune, first on a Saxophone and then another on a Clarinet, which made a change from the more usual guitar players or those with a microphone and Karaoke music box. We had both commented on how good he was, confirmed by the huge applause he had received from the patrons of all the Cafe’s when he finished, needless to say he was well rewarded for his musical talent. What we began to realise was that each ‘Busker’ only gave a maximum of two renditions before packing up and quickly moving on, this was probably because they didn’t have a street licence and if caught ‘in the act’ so to speak, could be arrested, or more likely to be formally cautioned, by the Police, we had actually witnessed a couple of entertainers stopped mid-flow by uniformed officers, whilst we were having lunch on our first day.

The thing about these particular establishments was that they were up more of a side side street than being in a Plaza, which made it more peaceful, apart from them being on the route where the actual ‘Tourist Train’ stopped to drop off and pick up passengers, but that ended up being entertainment in its own right. So this is where we decided we would try to get a table and partake of another leisurely lunch, if we could remember which side street it was on that is 🤔 Fortunately we did, but this time we selected a different establishment to honour our presence with, only because we preferred the menu selections, although this time our selection would not be one from the ‘Menu del Dia’ options. The young male waiter was very friendly and chatty, we said that we would be eating ‘Almuerzo’ (Lunch), but first we wanted to enjoy a drink and just look at the menu, “No problem, take your time, 15 minutes, 30 minutes an hour, no problem” he said, with a smile on his face. We ordered two ‘Vermut’s’ and with them came two Tapas on a plate, consisting of a slice of Baguette with a tomato paste spread on it and topped with a quite a sizeable piece of grilled pork fillet 😋 Sharon obviously declined her portion and said that I could have them both, “Are you sure, I could take the meat off the top and let you have the bread and tomato” I offered, “No that’s all right, you have them both” she said, well I didn’t need to be told twice 😁

After looking at the menu options, and there was loads that we could have both selected to suit our individual preferences, but we decided that we would order two mains dishes and share them between ourselves, but we delayed ordering as we wanted to stretch out our leisurely afternoon, enjoying being serenaded by the ‘Buskers’, we ended up with three or four during the lunch time period that we were there. Our friendly waiter was quite observant, seeing that our glasses were empty he looked across and gestured as to wether we wanted two more, with a nod of my head he came across to confirm what we wanted, this time we ordered two cold beers and when he returned with them, this time he brought a large bowl of ‘Patatas Bravas’ (Small roasted potatoes covered in a spicy sauce), Shazza was the fortunate recipient this time as I don’t like the spicy sauce, so this Tapas would be all hers this time. We did consider not ordering lunch off the menu and just keep ordering more drinks, if they kept being served with various Tapas, but as we couldn’t guarantee what sort of Tapas food items would come out, there was a strong possibility that as well as ending up very inebriated, one of us could quite possibly end up hungry, because the Spanish tend to like their meat products, so I wonder who on earth that would have been 🤔 I don’t actually drink a lot of beer so, when we did finally order our lunch I switched to my more normal Anti-Covid Vaccine 🍷 whilst Shazza stuck to beer. We ordered a ‘Tropical Salad’ (Rocket, Tomatoes, Avocado, Orange, sliced Strawberries and Feta) and Tuna Skewers on a bed of Potatoes (which actually turned out to be French Fries). We expected the two dishes to be served together, however, a huge bowl of Tropical Salad came out first, accompanied by another round of requested drinks 🍷🍺😲 well it was a very hot day and they just seemed to be evaporating ever so quickly 😳 Then out came the Tuna Skewers and French Fries, there were six ‘fully loaded’ skewers and piles of chips and to be honest, I just couldn’t manage more than two of the skewers and a few chips, well I had also devoured two grilled pork fillets beforehand, so I left the rest to Shazza to polish off which she did. I needed another Anti-Covid Vaccine to assist in washing it all down but Shazza opted for a bottle of water on this occasion, and considering that normally she rarely drinks alcohol these days, but when she does, she rarely has more than two beers, but today she had already had two large ‘Vermut’s’ and three ‘Beers’ 😲 So I am not sure wether it was as a result of the heat of the sun, or just that Shazza had enjoyed her day so much that she was in an usually over friendly mood, but for some reason she had begun to give a ‘Royal Wave’ to all the passengers on the tourist trains that passed by, and she accompanied her wave with a bout of churlish laughter and then sat with a rather inane grin on her face. I quickly gave the waiter an urgent glance, “La Cuenta, Por Favor” (Bill Please !!) before it got too messy 😲

Now we don’t generally eat more than one proper full meal per day and, when at home, that would usually be dinner in the evening, but here we had been having breakfasts in the hotel and then lunches out, but by early evening we still generally just needed a snack, a bag of crisps or some biscuits to have with our evening cuppa’s, probably due to all the calories we had been burning off. However, on this our last day, when we were enjoying our first ‘Vermut’, prior to lunch, in the Plaza, I couldn’t help but notice two small artisan stores, one that sold a variety of ‘Empanadas’ (Similar shape to the British Cornish Pastie) and a ‘Pasteleria’ that was advertising slices of ‘Baileys’ flavoured cheesecake, so when we left our lunchtime restaurant, we made our way back to that Plaza and purchased some tasty treats for later that evening, that was if either of us were to actually awake from our alcohol induced late afternoon siestas 😂😴

How, I do not know, but we did manage to maintain a dignified stature back through the town, to the bus stop and through the hotel lobby, well we didn’t want to get categorised as being typical ‘Brits Abroad’ now did we, or worse, have the locals protesting outside the hotel with Placards saying ‘Tourists Go Home’ 😲

I should just confirm that actually we did enjoy a rather extended ‘Siesta’ that particular afternoon and we never actually made it to the hotel’s swimming pool, no surprise there then. However, I can also confirm that later that evening our ‘snacks’ were absolutely delicious but, after this trip, we may both delay our getting on the bathroom scales for perhaps a week or two when we return home 🤭

The following morning we packed our cases before going for our final buffet breakfast. I was pleased that we had agreed beforehand that I did the driving on the outward journey, and that Shazza would do the driving on this return trip, so that I could enjoy the scenery. Initially though we had entertained the idea that we would do a stop on the way back at a small village, about an hour South East of Granada, called ‘Soportújar’, better known as the ‘Witches Village’, however, whilst it was a good idea at the time, now we just wanted to get back home and agreed that we could do that visit as a day trip visit at some point in the future.

It is nice to get away sometimes and see different places and landscapes, wether that be for just a day or, like this trip, just a little longer, but it is always nice to return home again, not just to the comforts of our own bricks ‘n’ mortar, but to the familiarity of our own territory. National Parks with their mountains and forests are absolutely wonderful but for us, well there is nothing better than descending back down to sea level, looking out upon the sparkling blueness.

It wasn’t long before we reached those sea views, as we turned off the A44 from Granada and on to the A7 towards Malaga, and then beyond to our home, but we still had around a two hour drive ahead of us.

We had both enjoyed our short trip to Granada, I had certainly enjoyed it more than I had initially expected to, and sometimes you do just need to get away, to explore new areas, those right on your doorstep and other’s further afield. However, going away also serves another purpose as it makes you appreciate the area where you already live. I often said in my earlier rambles that I wondered just how long it would take, now that we had moved here permanently, before the ‘pinch me’ and the ‘WOW’ moments would stop. Well after almost one year of living here I think I can say that the ‘Pinch Me’ moments have stopped, although occasionally we do still have those ‘WOW’ moments. I guess we are now at the stage where we have fallen into the trap of just taking for granted where we live, and what we have on our doorstep, it had become our normal and so, whilst going away and visiting new places, new regions and even new countries, is a good experience, it also takes going away, even if just for a couple of days, to then returning, to make us appreciate once again this wonderful location, and the lifestyle that we are now very fortunate to be able to enjoy.

Until the next ramble…………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos (La Vida Es Buena)

We had both had a very good night’s sleep and awoke at 7:30am, refreshed and ready to commence Day 2 of our mini-adventure in Granada. On our way down to the restaurant, for our Buffet breakfast, we stopped at the reception desk, as after checking the reviews for the different Flamenco trips the previous evening, we opted to book for the one that departed our hotel at 9:15pm later that evening. Shazza and I had agreed a sort of loose plan for our second day, so after breakfast we would spend the rest of the morning visiting the grounds of the Alhambra, that was of course if we could have a little more success than the previous afternoon in finding the right gate to get in to it 😂 After that we would take the forest path, a different one to the one we took the previous day, down to the City where we aimed to cover some of the ‘Albaicin’ and ‘Centro’ districts of the city, but with our record of getting lost it would be interesting to see how that turns out 🤔

As we stepped outside of the air-conditioned hotel entrance the sun was already high in the sky, it was pleasantly warm but not yet stifling hot, it seemed strange to be looking over the nearby snow capped Sierra Nevada peaks whilst dressed in shorts, short-sleeved tops and our comfortable walking shoes. Although it was still relatively early, the tourist groups were already amassing at the Alhambra main entry ticket gates, we weaved our way through them and headed for the Information Centre, more in hope than actual expectation, to see if we could purchase any ‘Day Tickets’, unfortunately there were still none available. We walked a little way past part of the outer walls and started to follow a path towards the forest, although this time not taking the first path that we came to, as we had done the previous day, and a short couple of minutes walk later we came to a large stone tower with an archway, we went through the arch and then a small door, set in a much larger set of wooden doors, a walk uphill and finally there we were, in the extensive inner grounds of the Alhambra, this was where we saw, with our own eyes and not from photographs, just how large this inner sanctum area really was, I guess it had to be, to accommodate not only three separate Palaces but so many more buildings of quite epic proportions, it was more like the size of a small town.

The name ‘Alhambra’ has its origins in an Arabic word meaning “red castle or vermilion”, perhaps due to the colour tone of the towers and walls that completely surround the hill of La Sabica, which under the light of the stars is said to be of a silver colour, but in the light of the sun it acquires a golden tone. Created originally for military purposes, the Alhambra was initially a fortress, a palace and a small medina, all at the same time. Over the years, with many different conquerors and rulers, more palaces and gardens were constructed. However, if you need to know more on the quite extensive history of the Alhambra I will just respectfully request that you check out ‘Mr Google’ for yourselves as it has quite an interesting, but lengthy, history, and yes, I did actually just use the words, ‘Interesting’ and ‘History’ in the same sentence 😉 Alternatively you could just search out either, or both, of the TV programmes I previously mentioned, ‘Michael Portillo’s Andalusia’ and ‘Anton and Giovani’s Spanish Road Trip’ 👍

We had already witnessed the large number of tourists waiting to enter the Alhambra grounds, but inside there were already quite a few tourist groups doing the rounds, encircled around their tour group leaders who were reeling off their obvious well versed rhetoric’s on the history of the place, in numerous languages, it would have been easy enough I guess to have found an English speaking guide group and just tagged on to the back of the group, I don’t think that anybody would have noticed 🤔 However, being the history heathens that we are, we would have soon got bored and our eye lids would have started to glaze over, so we preferred the freedom of just wandering around under our own steam. Of course, this being a major tourist attraction, modern day capitalism and the historical aspects now sat side by side, so their were Cafe’s and Gift Shops spread around the different areas in order to entice the visiting hoards to relinquish even more of their tourist Euro’s, their was also a very plush ‘Parador’ Hotel within the walls, with a Cafe/Bar that the general public were permitted to use, separate to the hotel residents area of course. They were definitely on to a loser with Shazza and I though, as we had already eaten a hearty breakfast, and we don’t do ‘Tourist Tat’. As former Motorhome full timers we already know how to seek out the more authentic value for money establishments when we need them, so we decided to wait until we got into the back streets of the city.

We were now mixed amongst ‘all’ the visitor’s to the Alhambra, those who had parted with money to obtain tickets, and freeloaders like ourselves, the only difference being that their were locations around the grounds that had boundary markers to enter the ‘Ticket Only’ areas, much like the one’s you find at Airports to shepherd people into the correct check-in lanes, or through the security control x-ray machines, some entrances even had manned ticket booths where you had to physically show your entry tickets, so certainly not accessible to the likes of us. In reality, it isn’t that expensive to purchase tickets, when they are available that is. Now we may sometimes be considered ‘thrifty’ with our money but we would have been more than willing to purchase tickets for ‘unguided’ access, to do all the areas, for a cost of €35 each, although the prices do vary and are dependent on wether you want to do a guided or unguided tour, or wether you want to do a private guided tour during the day, or one at night, there are actually lots of options and the costs vary, from access to only one Palace area at €19, up to €150 for the ‘Full Monty’. However, at least we did get to go inside the walled grounds and had the opportunity to wander around many of the areas at our own leisure.

There were lots of huge buildings inside the grounds, and one that we could enter, and have a wander around, was one that also housed the Art Museum. It was a deceptive building because from the outside it looked like a square building, but once inside we found ourselves inside a large circular courtyard with an upper level, so we just wandered around both levels looking at the impressive decorative stonework and large ornately carved doors, although, unfortunately many of them were locked ☹️

There were lots of differing levels to wander around, from the upper inner walls down to lower outer walls, some with garden areas, some with archaeological remains still being uncovered, we spent a good couple of hours just leisurely exploring every nook and cranny that we could, and trying to imagine what it must have been like to live in such a place.

When we had exhausted all the parts of the Alhambra that we were permitted to, it was time to head down towards the city. The temperature had risen enormously since we had left the hotel earlier that morning, so we were glad to get into the shade of the forest, which also had lots of other paths to explore, but not for us on this day. the question we asked ourselves was wether it would be worth us coming back to Granada, at some point in the future, to visit the actual Palaces and Gardens and do a few more of the forest trails 🤔 However, we both agreed that we probably wouldn’t, a case of seen it, done it, but didn’t bother buying the Tee-shirt, but for those who have never been here before, then it is certainly worth the visit, just make sure you purchase your tickets for the Palaces and Gardens well in advance 😉

The twisting walk down the hill was no less strenuous on the calf muscles and knee joints as it had been the previous day, but there was lots to look at on the way down and so it was quite pleasant. As we walked down we could see the other forest paths, winding their way up to other areas, the map also reflected that there were other attractions, statues, fountains, flower gardens etc. but going back up to explore them was certainly not going to be an option that we were going to choose, at least not today.

We were attempting to take the mandatory ‘selfie’ when another couple asked if we would like them to take the photo for us, they didn’t look the type to run off with my camera so we thanked them, and of course returned the same gesture for them, as you do. We actually didn’t have much of a clue as to where we were at that point, the street map wasn’t that detailed, so we just walked in what we thought was generally the correct direction then, as is our way, we would stray off the natural track to explore pretty alleyways, climbing up narrow steps between residential buildings, it gave us a different aspect of the city, the everyday life, and as we did so we discovered, tucked away in one of the quiet streets what, from the outside, just looked like one of the many other houses on the street, but looking closer, on a sign attached to the wall next to the door we discovered that inside was actually where they hand made guitars.

We just continued to wander aimlessly, some streets were maze like so we lost our orientation, but nevertheless we continued to just keep wandering, we were in no hurry to be anywhere in particular and eventually we knew that we would come across a main thoroughfare, provided of course that we didn’t start walking uphill again, as we knew that the centre was in a downwards direction.

Suddenly, without any sort of warning, we emerged into a back street that was as if we had been transported to another Country, it reminded us of places such as Egypt, Tunisia or Morroco and it was like walking through a ‘Bazaar’, there were little shops on either side of the long narrow cobbled alleyway selling trinkets, leather goods, clothes and brightly woven jumpers and coats, and the smell of aromatic spices filled our nostrils, mixed in were the usual Arabic type restaurants, not one Chinese restaurant did we see but there were a couple of Indian one’s, several Syrian along with Kebab and Halal retailers, yes we had wandered into the Arabic quarter. However, and unlike when we were on holiday in those other destinations, we were not hassled, nobody standing outside the entrances trying to usher us inside with phrases like “Good price, ASDA price”, it was all a rather pleasant experience, the people we did see sat inside the different shops just smiled, some must have guessed that we looked Northern European and said “Hello”, other’s the usual “Buenas Tardes”, as it was now afternoon and not morning.

Purely by coincidence, rather than by our navigation technique, we managed to find ourselves out of the back street and on to quite a busy main road, although there was no handy street sign so that we could check the street map to establish exactly where we were. We turned Right, for no good reason, but rather fortuitously, or perhaps by some divine intervention, after only a few paces, Shazza saw a Religious looking building across the other side of the road, which turned out to be the Monasterio de San Jerónimo, one which she had read about when she had been researching Granada.

Shazza likes Religious type buildings, Churches, Cathedrals, Convents, Monasteries etc. so we went to take a look. Now as I may have previously said, other than the Cathedral there are also absolutely loads of Churches, Convents and Monasteries within the city, let alone those outside of it, but she had been drawn to this particular one for no reason that she could explain. As with a lot of these places these days, there is an admission fee, but it was only €3 each, and she said that she would like to go inside and take a look so, inside we went. Now I do not mind visiting Religious buildings, they are not at the top of my particular ‘must see’ visit locations, but some of them can be quite interesting and Convents and Monasteries in particular do tend to have nice external grounds and inner courtyards. Once inside we wandered first around the lower square quadrant that had an Orange and Lemon orchard in the middle, there were several rooms off to the side, some housing religious Artefact’s or Paintings, others were different prayer rooms and then we arrived at the main church. I let Shazza have her moment alone just wandering around, she lit a candle and then continued to wander. I sat myself on a Pew at the front, just really so that I could rest my walk weary legs until she had finished her reflective period. As I sat there in the calm and tranquil surroundings I started to let my eyes wander, as you do, and what became evident to me was the lack of the amount of Gold that I have seen in other churches, but the architecture in here was truly magnificent, in the stonework around the sides, in the central knave and in the ceiling, were small hand carved, and painted, figurines which must have taken year’s to complete. I don’t tend to ‘gush’ over most religious buildings, ‘Seville’ and ‘Burgos’ Cathedrals were the only two that actually stand out in my mind, but I do have to confess that this Monastery church was actually quite beautiful and more than worth the small entrance fee.

Now that we had a reference point, once we left the Monastery we were able to start to navigate our way back towards the main area, we still decided to do the back streets and alleyways and eventually we came across a nice corner Cafe, overlooking a Convent, although when I asked Shazza if she wanted to go and take a look at that, after our Coffee stop, she said that she was having ‘Nun’ of that 🤭

It wasn’t long and we found ourselves in the centre, amongst numerous Plazas, some tucked away in little corners, other’s in grand floral squares, but they were all pretty close to each other. We wandered through a couple of them, occasionally just sitting down on a bench, soaking up the sunshine and doing a spot of people watching, until our stomachs began to remind us that it was gone 2pm and a long time since we had eaten breakfast, so off we went in search of somewhere in which to enjoy a leisurely lunch.

It had been a long walking day, we had certainly seen a lot, what with the Alhambra in the morning and then the streets of Granada in the afternoon, but we were aware that even when we returned to the hotel, at around 4pm, that our day was not over, time for perhaps a short ‘Siesta’, showered, change of clothing and then a 9:15pm appointment with a coach, a walking trip and a Flamenco show 😳

Our coach party consisted of twenty-two people, five of which needed picking up at a different downtown hotel. However, that actually worked out pretty well for us, as our final area to visit the following day was going to be the ‘Realejo’ district, located in the South East of the city and exactly where the other hotel was located. So we had an unexpected familiarisation bus tour of the area beforehand, funny though how things just work out sometimes because, in addition to that, and although earlier in the day we had walked through the lower parts of the ‘Albaicin’ district, we had not walked through the uphill part of that area, but once again, and very conveniently, our coach route would take us up and through that area, and also to the only other area that we had not visited, the ‘Sacromonte’ district, where we would have a ‘guided’ walking trip and where our Flamenco venue was located.

A very brief history of the Sacromonte District of Granada

The Sacromonte district is located on the Valparaiso hill of Granada and borders the north-east side of the Arab El Albaícin district. In the 15th century, a large group of Roma, or the Spanish gypsies (the Gitanos) situated themselves here. They created houses by making cave homes in the hills; the Sacromonte district owes its fame to these houses. In the 15th century, the Valparaiso hill received the status of holy mountain, because people believed the caves in the hill contained the remnants of the city’s patron saint, San Cecilio. The literal meaning of Sacromonte is therefore holy mountain. The Gitanos have a long-standing tradition with the flamenco, the typical Spanish dance and music. They mixed the traditional Spanish flamenco with Arab belly dancing. During the day, the Sacromonte district is often deserted, but at night, the quarter comes to life.

Now here is another coincidence 🤔 If any of you reading this ramble have watched either the ‘Portillo’ or the ‘Anton & Giovani’ programmes, the episodes where they visited Granada, the Alhambra, and the Flamenco District, you may have noticed that they both actually visited the same Flamenco Cave House and took part in the same show. But this is not the only Flamenco show in town, however, we too arrived at this very same cave house, with the very same group members of Flamenco dancers 😲

Now I have to be perfectly honest with you, ‘Flamenco’ ? I just don’t get it, I really don’t 🤷‍♂️ To me it is just a lot of really loud banging noise, wailing in a language that doesn’t even sound Spanish, not that you can actually understand any words anyway, then the clapping of hands and stamping of feet to such a crescendo it gives you a headache. Now even though we went to a show in Seville, that was in a large room, we were sat at a nice table with comfy seats and had a three-course meal before it started, the performers sat on an elevated platform so that the whole audience could see them and the most important part, the feet movements, but even then, I still didn’t get it 🤷‍♂️ Nobody explained a story line, it was more like the ‘walking dead’ performing at Eurovision and even then they would have scored more points than the UK 😂 But here, we were not in a large room, there must have been at least fifty of us packed in like sardines in to a relatively small cave house that didn’t have any air-conditioning, we were sat on very uncomfortable wooden stool like chairs, it was hot, loud and uncomfortable and the performers were not on a raised platform in order that you could see their feet. When the first group of performers had finished, after around half an hour later, I was relieved, until that was that they announced that their would be a short break and then another different younger group would begin their half hour performance 😳😖 However, at the end of the day, which in reality it actually was, this was not about me, Shazza had wanted to see a proper traditional Flamenco, performed by authentic ‘Gitanos’ and so now she has, and she said that she had enjoyed it, so that is all that really matters.

We returned back to the hotel at around half past midnight, it had truly been a very long day, the question was, would our legs be up to another walk on our final full day in Granada 🤔 Neither of us mentioned it, we both just collapsed into bed and were asleep before our heads even touched the pillows 😴

Until the next, and final part, of our mini-adventure to Granada…………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos

The city of Granada is a little under a three hour drive away from us, located in the North Eastern Andalusia Region within a part of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. We already knew in advance that our three day trip would not enable us to visit certain areas of the famous UNESCO World Heritage Site that is the ‘Alhambra’, as all the tickets had been sold out and there were none available for several weeks, but there were other areas inside this massive hilltop enclave that we could have a wander around, and which did not require us to pay an entrance fee, so that suited my wallet very nicely thank you very much. As it was, I didn’t feel particularly disappointed at not getting tickets to see the three main Palaces or Gardens, as I already felt that we had seen these on numerous occasions anyway, after already watching several ‘Netflix’, ‘You Tube’ and television travel related programmes about visits to the Alhambra, the two most very recent ones being ‘Michael Portillo’s Andalucía’ and ‘Anton & Giovani’s Spanish Trip’ and, to be completely honest, after now having actually been there and witnessing the hoards of organised tourist groups that visit on a daily basis, literally crowds of them occupying every bit of space on the internal pavements and roads with even more alighting from tourist coaches every couple of minutes, just serving to expand this already gigantic mass of bodies, backpacks, walking poles and camera bags, no I was not particularly disappointed at all, although I think Shazza would have liked the opportunity to have said that she had actually been inside at least one of the Palaces. To be completely honest, we had probably already had a much better view of these Palaces and Gardens from watching the television programmes anyway although I guess it cannot replicate actually being there yourself and viewing it with your own eyes 🤷‍♂️ Even before the Covid Pandemic, neither Shazza or myself particularly enjoyed being in over crowded environments, but probably now even more so since that Pandemic.

As you may imagine, the Alhambra attracts visitor’s from all over the world and from what we saw, and the crescendo from the multitude of loud voices, they were predominantly Asian and American, although their was a reasonably sized presence too from European countries. In our hotel we discovered people from Turkey, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Poland as well as the more usual French, German, Dutch and of course British and Irish contingents, it was more like a United Nations gathering for some sort of Global Conference, if only Putin had known, he could have taken a large chunk of the Western Population out with just one strike, although I was rather hoping that he wouldn’t, well not until after breakfast on Thursday morning when we would have departed the City.

We had a simple travel plan, although we hadn’t told my OCD buddy as we would be attempting to leave him behind on this trip and just trying to go with the flow, rather than having a pre-prepared and timed itinerary. We we would depart home at around 9:30am and, as we were in no particular hurry to arrive in Granada, as we could not check-in to our pre-booked hotel until 2pm, so on this outward leg of the journey we would take the AP7 (Toll Road) to Malaga, then North up the A46, where we knew of a decent stop to get our usual late breakfast of ‘Cafe con Leche y Tostado’. From there we would then head East, along the A92 which would take us through the spectacular and very scenic mountain ranges before finally dropping into Granada from the North down along the A44, arriving at our hotel at somewhere close to 13:30pm, didn’t I just say that we didn’t have a timed plan 🤭 This is actually another one of those routes that is very familiar to us, having driven along it on numerous occasions over the last nine years or so, in both the Motorhome and the car, when driving North, via Madrid, to get to the ferry port in Bilbao, by way of a change from the Seville route. But we should of course know by now never to make plans, it was just a matter of complete luck, and good fortune, that for some reason before departing home that morning, I had decided to check the route on ‘Google Maps’ on my iPhone, where I discovered that a part of the A92, heading East, was completely closed due to motorway improvements, so we went to Plan B, which we quickly hatched and was to just stay on the A7, the Coastal route, all the way to ‘Motril’, where we would then turn off on to the A44 and head North into Granada, although that now meant that our mid-morning breakfast stop, between Malaga and Granada, would now have to be a ‘Pot Luck’ sort of affair, as we were not as familiar with the service stops along this particular coastal route.

I am not sure wether the ‘Works of Fiction’ for our part of the Costa del Sol was trying to tell us how sad it was that we were once again leaving it behind, but once again, after days and days of the more usual awakening to Sunshine and Blue sky, the morning of our departure was rather overcast, the same as it had been when we departed on our day trip to the Faro de Trafalgar just a week or so ago 🤔 However, it was still warm, a very pleasant 20 degrees(c), Granada, albeit in the mountains, was forecast to hit 28 degrees(c) by mid-afternoon 😎 I had elected to do the first stint at the wheel, although for you my reader’s that may not have been the best decision as Shazza, as you already know by now, does not have a very pro-active camera clicker finger and, as it happened, there also ended up being no breakfast stop either, resulting in no change of driver, so unfortunately there are no photographs of our outbound trip through the snow capped mountains ☹️ But as you will discover, I more than adequately make up for that 😉

Having no stops and with pretty much clear roads all the way, we made good time and arrived at our hotel at 12:15pm, so we were not sure wether we would be able to check-in early to our room. As it was, it turned out that our timing was perfect, not only was our room available but we also managed to obtain the last available secure parking space at the hotel, otherwise it would have been a case of parking across the road in the extensive, but insecure, Alhambra car parking area. In the hotel we were greeted by two very friendly and personable ladies at the reception desk, Susana and Ines, now wether it was because we spoke to them in our bestest Espanol and produced our Spanish Residency permits, instead of British Passports, I do not know, but they seemed to go out of their way to provide us with lots of information such as the best entry gate to use to get into the ‘Free’ areas of the Alhambra grounds, the location of the bus stop, with relevant bus numbers (30 or 32) to get us in and out of the City, they also highlighted the walking routes through the well paved, and lit, forest paths in case we preferred to walk in and out of the city, also some ‘personal’ advice on Cafes/Bars & Restaurants to steer clear of in and around the Alhambra, and also within the central parts of the City, which they told us were expensive, not good quality or not particularly tourist friendly, although in truth, as far as we knew, it could just have been a case that the establishments they were recommending were actually owned by family members, or friends, or is that just a case of the more cynical side of my nature 🤷‍♂️ Although they marked some of their ‘Recommended’ establishments on the street plan that they had provided us with, we would just leave it to chance to discover the good, or the bad, for ourselves once we went on our explorations, what is it they say about ‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison’, well I for one certainly hope we don’t come across the latter 😲 it won’t matter to Shazza as she doesn’t eat meat. They also asked if we were intending visiting any ‘Flamenco’ venues, although we have already been to a Flamenco show in Seville, we had done some research on the different venues that there were in Granada as I knew Shazza would quite like to go to one, there were numerous venues all around the city which came with some very mixed reviews, some where you paid over the odds for a one hour show, inclusive of one drink, for upwards of €50 each, I would expect Shazza to get a dance lesson thrown in for that price 😲 We told them that we were considering it, they then told us that they could book us a trip if we wanted them too, or we could just do it ourselves. The cheapest and most basic that they offered being €28, which meant finding your own way to and from the venue, alternatively, one that included transport which didn’t depart the hotel until 9:15pm and combined a short walking tour of the ‘Sacramento’ area, which is the traditional historic area of the city where the Flamenco originated, the tour also included a visit to a ‘Mirador’ that had the best views of the Alhambra at night (See photo at beginning of this Ramble), then we would be taken to a traditional Cave House where we would see a Flamenco show, which included a drink of our choice, and then the transport back to the hotel, this would cost €35 (each) which actually sounded like good value, or a final choice of a 7:15pm departure by bus to a Restaurant, where we would have a 3 course Dinner, followed by a walking tour, the Flamenco show and then transport back to the hotel, at a cost of €65 (each). We said that we would let them know, which would give us time to check out the individual tours, and all important reviews, online 😉

Shazza had pre-booked us a Standard Double Room with a Terrace and had requested a ‘Quiet’ area of the hotel, we were given a room on the 5th floor right at the end of a corridor, away from the three lifts, and positioned on a corner of the five-storey building. When we entered the large room we saw that there was one massive double bed and a single bed (I allocated the single to Shazza 🤭), there were the usual en-suite facilities, a fridge, tea and coffee making facilities a flat screen TV and free WiFi, generally all the usual stuff provided by a four star hotel and the room was immaculately clean and, as we were to discover during the period of our stay, our room was serviced every morning whilst we were enjoying the very nice self-service buffet breakfast, which catered for all dietary requirements. I went to look at what view we had and to see what size of terrace we had, expecting one of those small Juliet style balcony affairs, so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered a large very sunny balcony, with a table and chairs with views over part of the pool area with far reaching views overlooking the snow capped mountains and on the other side, a view over an extensive orchard sweeping down over the valley, very nice, very nice indeed.

By the time we had parked the car, checked-in and settled in to our room we were beginning to feel a little hungry, having not found a convenient stop en-route in which to partake of our usual late breakfast. As the hotel was only a short walk to the Alhambra, no more than five minutes, we decided that for the remainder of the afternoon we would first find a place for a coffee and a snack and then we would explore the areas of the Alhambra that we were permitted to, leaving us two full days to then concentrate on exploring the City itself, from the map we were issued with, the layout of the City looked like most other’s we have visited, being divided into separate quarters, but it looked vast so how much of it we would get to explore we didn’t know. We discovered a nice Cafe opposite the Alhambra main entrance so that was our first stop. Now we are both usually pretty much accomplished at deciphering tourist street maps and finding our way around, I say ‘usually’ because on this occasion we got it totally wrong and so, instead of finding our way to one of the two ‘Free Entrance’ gates that led into the Alhambra grounds, we ended up on one of the many forest paths that lead in a steep downward direction towards the City, the clue of course should have been that the Alhambra is located at the top of the hill and we were definitely going in a downwards direction. We would need to do a little more detailed familiarisation of the map I think 🙄

However, it was quite a pleasant scenic walk, once we reached the bottom where our calf muscles and knees could be heard sighing in relief. The very narrow streets were crowded, with both people and traffic, the narrow cobbled roads did not have enough space for more than one car width, so when a car, or a shuttle bus came along, pedestrians had to stand with their backs to building walls, taking in a deep intake of breath, some more than other’s 😂 or dart into doorways, it was a bit of a battle to make much headway at first until we got closer to the city centre and to the much more spacious pedestrianised areas and Plaza’s.

Now I have to just say that this visit to ‘Granada’ was one that was on Shazza’s ‘To Do’ List and not mine. Don’t ask me why, but it is one place that has never actually appealed to me, probably because I had seen it on so many television programmes and apart from the Alhambra, wasn’t that impressed and whenever we had looked down on it, from the Motorhome or car as we passed it on the A92 when we were travelling towards Madrid, it didn’t shout out at me ‘That looks a nice place to visit’. BUT, Shazza and I have always agreed that if one of us wanted to do something, or go somewhere, and there was no good reason for the other person not to do it, then we would do these things together. Let’s face it, how many Castles, or Lighthouses, have I dragged Shazza around over the last twenty-years 🤔 So, she had wanted to do this visit and there was no good reason why I couldn’t or shouldn’t, so here we are.

Now our usual method of exploring large Towns or Cities is to just not have a method and to just wander aimlessly up and down streets, getting lost, several times, finding somewhere to have a drink or getting something to eat, whilst perusing the street map in order to find our way back in the general direction of where we wanted, or needed, to be. And so it was that after wandering through numerous maze like, narrow cobbled streets and alleyways, that tended to all look very much the same, although they all had some amazing building architecture, apartments built in stone that still looked much like they would have done when they were first built, very ornate stone, small balconies, wooden window shutters, iron railings garnished with colourful plants and shrubs. They certainly have lots of Monastries, Convents and Churches in this City, on almost every street, and it was whilst we were wandering along one of these narrow cobbled streets that we came across the very small but pretty ‘Plaza Trinidad’. There was a small ‘Kiosko’, which sold a variety of soft drinks and snacks, however, in one corner of the Plaza there was a little pavement Cafe nestled under some Orange trees which shaded it from the heat of the sun and, as luck would have it, there was one unoccupied table, that very quickly became occupied, by us !! We were appreciative of the shade as we sat with our cold beers, from the local brewery of course, ‘Alhambra Especial’, what else ? Although we discovered this particular brand in a Promenade Cafe down in our own local town on the Costa del Sol and I have to say that we prefer it to some of the other’s on offer. We spent some time just enjoying the calmness of what was now fast becoming the late afternoon, with a spot of people watching thrown in for good measure, well it would have been rude not to 🤭 There were lots of Backpackers scurrying around with their heavy loads on their backs, maps in hand, probably attempting to seek out cheap overnight hostel accommodations, and they were of all age groups and not just youngster’s, there were men and women in suits dashing to and fro, probably on their way back to their work locations after their 2 hour ‘Siesta’ lunch periods and of course lots of tourists, like us, clearly obvious with their tourist street maps in hand and stopping briefly to check and orientate themselves as to where they were, even here their were the ‘Lookie, Lookie Traders’ going from table to table, or park bench to park bench, attempting to sell their ‘Tourist Tat’ and then, just as prolific, were the street buskers, some not so good as other’s, but it all added to the ambience.

We orientated ourselves with where we were on the map and then made our way back towards the main central area of the City, to where all the main food Plaza’s were located with their vast array of Restaurants, many offering very good ‘Menu del Dia’ options, at, I have to say, very good value prices, a drink (Wine, Beer, Sangria or Soft Drink) with a small tapas, followed by three courses, each of which had multiple options ranged in price between no more than €15-€18 which was not bad for a major tourist city. We were now hungry again and needed something a little more substantial than a snack, but also somewhere that would also fulfil Shazza’s ‘Plant Based’ dietary requirements, although, with her palate now accommodating a wider variety of fish and cheese products, even she had quite a wide choice of available options. She has always said that whilst at home she will stick to her more disciplined ‘Plant Based’ regime, and when at home we do ‘both’ tend to eat the same ‘meat free’ meals, however she is more flexible when we are away from home on our ‘mini-adventures’, and as for me, as you well know by now, I just eat whatever I fancy, I felt as if I had already done my healthy bit by devouring several bowls of ‘Plant Based’ Olives with my Anti-Covid Vaccines 😋

After a delicious meal we were both beginning to wilt, a combination of having full stomach’s, several Anti-Covid Vaccines throughout the day and the searing heat, so we made our way towards where we would hopefully catch our bus back to the hotel. When I say bus it was more a mini-bus that could accommodate twenty passengers, a larger vehicle would not have been able to wind its way through the narrow twisting cobbled roads and up the steep hills, so as you may imagine there were lots of these public mini-buses racing around the city. We found our bus stop, there was quite a queue, but the buses ran every 10-15 minutes so if we were unable to get on one we would not have long to wait for another. Fortunately though we managed to put our Covid fears aside and ‘squeezed’ ourselves, standing room only, on to the first one that arrived and so, after a short fifteen minute journey, we were back outside the main entrance to the Alhambra and a very short walk away from our hotel.

Although we had very good Air-Conditioning in the room, we preferred to just keep the balcony doors open, and a large side window, so there was enough cross breeze to keep us cool, it seemed a shame to lock all the doors and windows on such a beautifully warm evening, and with sunset now not happening until well after 9pm, it was nice to be able to wander out on to the balcony into the cooling air and listen to the chitter chattering of the birds whilst still being able to look out upon the mountains and the valley. Of course, not being at home with access to all of the English speaking TV Channel’s, or ‘Netflix’, we only had the BBC World News channel on the TV, so we found ourselves watching the Spanish ‘Andalusian’ TV Channel, which had news from around all of our Provinces, including our own, but there were also some quite interesting programmes, some similar to the ‘U.K. Countryfile’ nature programme, some on regional travel locations which provided us with some new local travel ideas, their was coverage of the drought situation, which is still quite bad in some Provinces of Andalusia, unlike our own where we now have 75% capacity in our Embalse (Reservoir) which has enabled us to now have an increased ‘daily’ allowance of 200 Litres each for domestic usage, and with the news that the opening of our communal Swimming Pool is likely to be permitted from June 22nd, so things are beginning to look good for the Summer months when the temperatures will be nearer the 40 degree(c) mark 🥵 The best bit though was that we were now both able to sit, watch, listen and understand much more of the Spanish speaking TV channels, not every word mind you, but we are getting there ‘Poco Poco’ as they say in Spanish (Little by Little).

So in the end our first day, although not going strictly to plan, had actually been quite productive and given us an idea of the layout of the City, but we were able to be quite flexible on what we decided to do over the next couple of days as it appears that my OCD buddy had not managed to stow himself away in the boot of the car before we left home 👍

As I still have two more days activities to ramble about, and photo’s to include, I have decided to divide these rambles into separate parts, so until I get around to writing Part 2………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos (La Vida Es Buena)

It is funny when you sometimes look back on your life at just how much not only life changes, but how your personal ambitions and goals in life sometimes change too. I remember thinking, probably when I was around my late thirties or very early forties, that my own personal success in life, when I finally reached retirement age, would primarily be measured by how much money I had managed to save in the bank in which to comfortably enjoy those retirement year’s, with the goal of being able to retire mortgage and completely debt free, owning my own house, bungalow or cottage outright, located somewhere where I actually ‘wanted’ to live, not just where I could only afford to live, with of course the metaphoric roses around the door, the nice conservatory and sun drenched patio, for lazing away the warm sunny days looking upon the perfectly mowed and manicured green and weed free lawn, with perhaps a small greenhouse and potting shed tucked away at the bottom of the garden, full of ripening red tomatoes. Naturally there would be the nice brightly polished car on the driveway, for taking us out on day trips, or to a country pub for Sunday lunches or to use to go and visit the children and grandchildren and perhaps even great grandchildren. That was how I was brought up, believing that this end goal was the ‘only’ purpose for working the best part of fifty years of my life.

Now you may be thinking ‘What’s wrong with that ?’, that actually sounds pretty much perfect, and yes, I cannot deny that it does, and I would probably have been perfectly happy if that was how my life had ended up. But life often has the habit of kicking you in the ‘crown jewels’, putting numerous obstacles in your way in an attempt to prevent you from attaining that retirement bliss. I certainly could never have imagined that only one year after celebrating my Silver Wedding Anniversary, that I would quite suddenly find myself divorced, there were no obvious warning signs that my then wife would have an affair with a man ten years my junior, I mean I was still only 47 years old at the time, but there I was, suddenly faced with looking after two daughter’s, a 12 year old, and an 18 year old who had only just left home to commence her University life, but who still needed both emotional and financial support, I was fortunate enough to be able to keep the marital home, but had to get into more debt to pay my ex-wife her half share of it’s value, half of the contents of the Bank balance and half of our meagre savings, my life, my ambitions, my dreams and my long term financial plan had suddenly just crumbled before my very eyes. I was never one to believe in ‘Fate’ or ‘Serendipity’, however, three years later, and then over the next twenty-years, I was to come to believe that both those things did actually exist, and that ‘things do sometimes happen for a reason’ and to discover what real happiness looked and felt like.

During the period, living full time in the Motorhome, Shazza and I both had big plans to travel, although on a very limited, but doable, budget, initially we would travel throughout Europe, but then wider afield, perhaps shipping the van to the USA or Canada and perhaps even to Australia and New Zealand, travelling until such time as we had either done it all, got fed up, or until we were forced to stop due to other reasons. Now circumstances, some of which were totally beyond ‘our’ own control, and other’s through decisions we ourselves were to make, or through family medical issues, prevented those initial much wider travel dreams from coming to fruition, but we had by then both developed ‘Itchy Feet’ syndrome and so the ‘Wanderlust’ remained. Although we had a rough direction of travel, I was more than happy for Shazza to come up with the destinations where we would stop, wether overnight, or for a few days or sometimes even longer, she was always very eager to plan a sort of loose itinerary for the places that we would visit and would spend hours looking at maps and researching guide books for the areas that we were in. But yet again fate was to intervene, although at the time we didn’t know just how big an impact that particular piece of fate, purchasing a ‘Lock and Leave’ property in Spain, was to have on our future lives. Anyway, I have already documented that part of our our lives in my numerous previously published blogs.

However, back to the here and now. It would be fair to say that the processes and procedures of obtaining our Retirement Visas (NLV) to come and live here in Spain on a more permanent basis, was a little more protracted than we had envisaged, although in truth, part of that additional time was the process and procedures for importing our car from the UK, but basically our ‘Itchy Feet’ for some wider travels had to be put on hold, although we have still managed, in our first ten months of living here, to conduct some shorter more localised trips, which you will already be familiar with from the associated rambles I published about them, but I was now beginning to look forward to being able to start to think about planning, and fulfilling, some of our ‘Bucket List’ travels. I have said many times previously in these rambles at just how lucky we feel to have, through ‘Fate’, managed to find ourselves living in a perfect property, in this perfect coastal location in Southern Spain, with everything we need within an easy walking distance, or only a very short drive away, a swimming pool, several beaches, chiringuito’s, shops etc. all quite literally on our doorstep, and it is a location which is very similar to many of the holiday destinations that, in our past conventional lives, we had payed a lot of money to fly out to for a short two-week holiday.

What I had not anticipated was that Shazza would become so content with our location and lifestyle here, that she would not feel the need, or desire, to want to be or go anywhere else, even for a holiday, she feels that living here is just like being on one permanent holiday. Now I fully understand how she feels, to a degree, as I too thoroughly enjoy where we now live, but for me, well what is that saying about ‘Familiarity Can Breed Contempt’, routines can bring ‘boredom’ for me, and so, whilst I do really enjoy this lifestyle and location, I do however still get ‘Itchy Feet Syndrome’, so I still want to travel to see new places, both here in Spain and also much wider afield, not necessarily typically tourist towns, cities or attractions, as I much prefer landscapes and nature, but there will certainly come a time when, for whatever the reason, wether it be age, health, mobility or even just financial constraints, we will not be able to do the sort of travelling that we are still currently able to do 🤷‍♂️ I am also very conscious that I am nearly nine years older than my beloved, and whilst I am still currently very healthy and relatively fit, that age difference ‘may’ start to become more apparent as our future years together progress, a topic that we have discussed between ourselves quite openly several times. However, currently being equally as fit and healthy as Shazza and very much motivated and excited for new travel adventures doesn’t currently help my argument in respect of my potential future geriatric state or for my desire to do things sooner, rather than later 🤔

So, as mentioned in my last ramble, It appeared that I would now have to take over the initiative for getting us ‘both’ out of our ‘Comfort Zones’, planning either day trips locally, like the last one I wrote about, just being within a couple of hour’s drive, but very enjoyable, but also for some wider more extended duration travel trips, to take at some point in the future. Now, wether it be because she is concerned that such trips will be to locations that are completely of my choosing, or because she fears that it may re-ignite the more organised side of my OCD, which she believed she now had under some sort of control, but anyway, whatever the reason, thankfully, and to my complete and utter surprise, the old Shazza suddenly re-ignited.

We were sat on the balcony, it was Wednesday afternoon, just a week after returning from our recent day trip to the ‘Faro de Trafalgar’, when she suddenly blurts out without any kind of pre-warning, “How do you fancy going to Granada ?”, now this has always been a location on our travel ‘To Do List’, “That sounds good, when do you want to go ?” I respond, “On Monday, and we can stay until the Thursday as the Hotel prices are reduced doing the week” she says very excitedly, she had obviously already planned this and looked at the hotels in advance of her sudden announcement to me, as is her more usual modus operandi As soon as I had agreed she was straight on to the on-line accommodation booking site and job done, Yes ! That’s the Shazza I know and love, welcome back, I thought to myself. The rest of that afternoon we both spent looking at ‘Google’ maps, on our own respective iPads, checking out the hotel and its proximity to some of the other places that we had both identified that we wanted to visit in and around the city. Unfortunately, there are parts of the ‘Alhambra’ that require the purchase of tickets to get into, but these are booked up months in advance, however, we discovered that you can still possibly visit various other areas of the extensive grounds without the need to purchase tickets and, with the added bonus of our selected, and now pre-booked hotel, being only a few minutes walk away, so it would be one of the first places that we would visit 👍 Shazza also then got on to one of her ‘You Tube’ foodie channels and has loosely planned a ‘Tapas Route’ in and around the city, listing some of the recommended establishments, and she also identified the area of the city most associated to the origins of the ‘Flamenco’ culture, with some of the renovated traditional cave houses providing hourly shows. So mi amigos, you now you know in advance of what my next ramble after this will be all about 😉

The following morning we just conducted our normal daily routine, a leisurely morning for me on the balcony with my coffee, Shazza in bed with her’s, as usual, but unusually that morning, we were both washed and dressed and out on our daily walk slightly earlier than normal. It has to be said that it was a beautiful morning once again, but with the added bonus that the recent strong winds had subsided, so it was now more of just a very gentle breeze. Whilst in our local town, and after partaking of the now obligatory ‘Cafe con Leche y Tostado’ at our usual Spanish cafe on the seafront promenade, I went to get my haircut, an event that takes place every six weeks or so, I cannot wait to go bald, that will save a few sheckles 😂 Shazza went to the ‘Fruiterias’ to get a few bits for our salad dinner later that evening, our timings were impeccable as just as I had paid for my haircut, Shazza arrived at the door having finished her mini-shop. We never have a plan for how long our walks will take, we can be out for just a couple of hours, other times it can be sometimes four or five, it depends a lot on the weather and our mood. On this particular morning we were both quite excited with the thought of our upcoming adventure to Granada, and that was the subject that monopolised our conversation, so we stopped for another coffee in the town at another one of our now favourite Spanish Cafe’s, a couple of streets back from the seafront promenade, before heading back towards the Marina. Sometimes, if we are just enjoying being out, we will stop at the Marina and have a lunchtime drink and Tapas and, on other occasions we just walk straight through to the village, where we usually park the car, and then we return home. On this particular day neither of us was ready to return home, we were enjoying the sunshine too much, but we were not hungry, so we just stopped and whilst Shazza enjoyed a small cold beer I sat and enjoyed a rather pleasant ‘copa de vino tinto’ (glass of red wine), we practiced our Spanish together by conducting short general conversations with each other, we were both quite pleased with how we have progressed, but we also enjoyed listening in to other people’s conversations at the tables around us, which was easy to do on this occasion as the majority of the customer’s in this particular Marina Cafe were also British, so between that and the usual spot of conducting our ‘Fashion Police’ duties on what people who were passing by were wearing, with just some general people and boat watching thrown in for good measure, which of course would have been so rude not to 🤭 so we easily passed another hour of our not so busy day before returning home. On another day we would have conducted very similar activities, but perhaps in the nearby town of Estepona, just by way of a change of scenery.

So I guess that looking back on our lives, our ambitions, our dreams, there was an acceptance by the both of us, that it is now no longer a case of us continually searching for something, although neither of us really knowing at the time what that something really was, but now we have both found a certain contentment in discovering that, what we once thought that we ‘wanted’, has actually turned into an appreciation of realising what we both already now ‘have’. There is actually no need to rush around from place to place, or even country to country, as contrary to my sometimes unnecessary age anxieties, we do still have plenty of time to conduct many of our travel adventures, or is that just her excuse for keeping me on a healthy plant based diet 🤔 In reality, the truth of the matter is that Shazza prefers her travel adventures to be conducted on a more spontaneous basis, whilst me and my OCD buddy just sometimes need a little more time to formulate a plan 😉 It reminds me of the Nursery Rhyme….. Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean, so between the both of them, they licked the platter clean…….

Until the next ramble……….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos (La Vida Es Buena)

After days and days of awakening to the usual clear blue skies and warm sunshine, it was a more overcast start to our morning, on the day that we decided to head out on a short mini-adventure. Now this trip had not been one of those spontaneous decisions, pre-empted with a morning conference call on the balcony with Shazza, no starting gambit by her of “What do you want to do today”, we hadn’t actually had any of those for some time now, what with Shazza these days more than content with her new life here, and of course with us no longer being on a strict ninety-day time schedule. So although there was no formal handing over of the baton ceremony, it would appear that the responsibility to take over the mantle of planning any ‘Adventures’ has been put onto my shoulders. Of course, there was no way that my OCD buddy would ever permit me to make spontaneous decisions, not that any of Shazza’s previous adventures were really that spontaneous, she had always planned them in advance and kept them to herself, the only short notice notification was when she decided to inform me of them. So, although over the last couple of months I have been actively researching and planning some future, more extended, travel itineraries, this particular ‘mini-adventure’ had also actually been on the cards for a good couple of weeks, only the weather, and ‘other’ domestic type priority commitments, had delayed this particular departure.

We have already travelled a lot of the Atlantic coast over the last nine years or so, both in Portugal and here in Spain, most of it during the course of our more nomadic Motor homing days, but we had also visited some parts of the Cadiz Province coastline on day trips, when we had come across to stay at our ‘Bolt Hole’ from the UK with our car. Much like the Mediterranean side of the coast, the Western Atlantic side, although more rugged, also has its own spectacular landscapes, with fantastic long golden stretches of sandy beaches along with the usual historic Villages, Towns and Cities and also several National Parks. However, the Atlantic coast is notorious for experiencing very much more wilder weather, battered frequently by storms originating many thousand of miles away and carried across on the Gulf Stream from the Eastern seaboards of America, so that meant that some consideration to the weather conditions along that coastline was an essential part of any trip planning. So, provided that the ‘Works of Fiction’ was to get its ‘forecast’ at least somewhere near correct, my fingers were crossed that I had selected the right day for our particular trip, with shorts and short sleeve shirts being the dress code for the day, and no picnic lunch required, as I had planed to find somewhere nice to have lunch.

Although we have already driven along the majority of this particular stretch of the Atlantic coastline, from Huelva in the North, right down to Tarifa in the South, we hadn’t stopped and visited every single location along that stretch of coastline and, as I particularly like coastline locations, there were still a number of places that I wanted to visit. I guess the same could be said of our own Mediterranean side, from Gibraltar right up to Malaga, however, the majority of locations along that stretch are primarily full of tourist hotels, private beach clubs, Villas, Private apartment complexes, numerous golf courses and of course campsites. But it is still possible to find the secluded bays, if you are adventurous enough, and prepared to traverse rough and uneven stone tracks, which are only really generally suitable for four-wheeled vehicles, although it has to be said that all types and sizes of Motorhomes, and Camper Vans, appear to always manage to find such hidden gems, if only they would learn to stop sharing such idyllic secret hideaways, then they may remain idyllic and secluded 😉

I have actually wanted, for some time now, to go across to look at the ‘Faro D Trafalgar’, a lighthouse, and you may well ask ‘Why’ ? Knowing by now that we are both self-confessed history heathens, but Lighthouses and Castles just hold a certain fascination for me, although perhaps not so much for Shazza, but if their is a chance of a lunch thrown in, that she has not had to prepare and cook, then she is generally up for a ride out in the car. This particular lighthouse was located almost directly on a beach, surrounded by sand dunes, as opposed to being hundreds of metres up above the sea and sat precariously on a cliff edge. Apart from the history of such places, I actually enjoy the romanticism of them, I find myself imagining what it must have been like to have lived in one, making sure that the lenses of the massive lamp were always clean and that the lights remained serviceable and of course lit, then sitting inside the thick brick walls listening to the raging storm outside, the storm force winds whistling and the raging waves banging on the doors and windows. Unfortunately these days, not many lighthouses are actually permanently manned. Most being automated and managed remotely, with only the occasional routine visits for maintenance purposes. So, for those of you that may be interested in the more historical related facts, I have once again enlisted the help of ‘Mr Google’ to supply a little bit of background for you, yes I know, you don’t have to say it, I am good like that 😁

During Roman times, it was the site of a temple dedicated to the god Juno. Many divers claim to have seen its remains and, in particular, its sacrificial altar, beneath the surface at Cape Trafalgar. Later on, in the ninth century, the Muslims built a settlement whose remains lie next to the lighthouse. In 1805, one of the most famous and bloody battles in history took place. French and Spanish ships clashed against the British fleet of Admiral Nelson, (he led them to victory in some six hours, although he died from a gunshot wound that same afternoon). During the battle, 60 ships bombarded and collided with one another, with some sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor on the Cádiz coast. With over 5,000 dead and 4,000 injured, the splendour of the Spanish navy was finally finished with.

In 1860, little over half a century after the famous battle, Trafalgar Lighthouse was erected in this place but long before the battle of Trafalgar, pirates of Berber origin used to attack the area, and, in order to defend against them, Philip II built a watchtower (whose archaeological remains can still be found). Nevertheless, they were not the first, as the Romans had already established a fish nursery and salting factory long before. 

So, as you all well know, road trips are not always about the final destination but more about the journey getting there. There were three potential routes to our destination, although there was only a difference of twelve minutes between the three of them and, as I would be doing the driving on the outbound portion of the trip, I chose the shortest, as far as Kilometres were concerned, although, contrary to what the map below may show, it wasn’t necessarily the quickest, but quite conveniently this route would take us through the central part of the ‘Parque Natural Los Alcornocales’. Unlike the two alternative routes, it would entail driving on more quieter rural roads, side by side with nature, which is far more enjoyable to drive than the often boring dual-carriage ways.

We had to initially take the A7 South towards Los Barrios before joining the dual carriage way along the A381, which is a very familiar stretch of road to us and one that, on another day, would have taken us as far as Jerez de la Frontera, before turning on to the A4 Motorway Northwards to Seville, then on up to the ferry ports at either Santander or Bilbao. However, this time we would only be going a short way along the A381 before turning off to go cross country. Although it had been 18 degrees(c) and a little overcast when we departed home that morning at 10:00am, by the time we reached the turn off on the A381 ‘the sun had got his hat on and was coming out to play’, the country road was ghostly quiet, very winding and undulating with no safety edges or barriers along the road, so their was no room for lack of concentration, misjudging a curve in the road could be disastrous, but it was an exciting route to drive and I thoroughly enjoyed it, Shazza on the other hand is actually quite a nervous passenger at the best of times, even on much wider and straighter roads, more to do with her not being in control than my actual driving abilities, and I had to smile to myself when I saw her leg keep pushing down on an imaginary brake pedal when we approached bends in the road 😂

Now I know that I may possibly be showing my ignorance here, but I have always associated Spain with traditional home grown produce such as, Olives, Oranges, Lemons, Apples, Grapes, Pomegranates, Almonds, Tomatoes, Peppers, well basically all of the fresh produce that you see growing around the normal Spanish countryside and which is all readily available on the supermarket shelves, the only exception to that being that in some parts of Spain they even grow the type of rice that is used for making the traditional Paella dishes. So what I am attempting to say is that I am more used to driving and seeing hectares of Olive groves, as far as the eye can see, or orchards laden with their numerous different fruits, from the brightly coloured Oranges that stand out amongst their surrounding deep vivid green leaves, or the citrus yellow of the Lemons, the green Apples and Pears. Additionally, driving through the more elevated areas and rockier outcrops we were pretty used to seeing Goats, seemingly just wandering unsupervised along the roadside or climbing up trees to feast amongst the leaves, buds and berries, although we knew that somewhere, not too far behind them, more usually following them under the shade of the trees, would be the shepherd with his canine companion who, upon command, would herd the seemingly disorganised rabble of animals and force them into the direction they needed to go. So as I sat driving along narrow winding roads, through the lush greenery of the undulating Natural Park, along roads lined with forests of tall Pines, all of which bore the most picturesque wide green canopied hats, providing us with shade from the heat of the now bright sunshine, I was surprised to see so much lush green landscape, especially when this part of Andalusia has been in drought conditions for well over a year. Now I don’t know if it is just me, but I do not usually associate Spain with Beef, or Milk, as most Beef you see advertised in Restaurants generally originates from outside the Country, Argentina and even Scotland, and the Spanish only usually consume ‘Long Life Milk’, the fresh cow’s milk is only generally available in the more tourist areas. Yes, you are right in thinking that the Spanish do make their own Cheese, but this is more often produced from Sheep or Goat’s milk, so, you can imagine my surprise to suddenly come across fields and fields of herds of Cows, from herds of pure white breeds, to the more usual tan brown colour, all of which, I hasten to add, had large threatening horns emanating from their heads, and yes, in case you think I am getting confused, they were cows and not Spanish Bulls, the gender difference is easy to spot, even with my bad eye 🤭 But that wasn’t the only surprise, I know that in the North of Spain, it is mainly Agricultural and so when we have been travelling to the Ferry Ports we have seen the fields of Wheat, and Corn, and other associated field grown vegetables, but I have never seen that sort of produce being grown this far South in Andalusia, well at least not until this particular day. Some of the wheat fields had already been harvested whilst other’s waited patiently, wafting their heads of fruit in the light breeze, just waiting their turn to be plucked from their stems. Seeing fields of square shaped straw bales made me smile, as it took me back to when I was a young lad and worked on a farm in the school holidays, loading these heavy bales on to a trailer, these days I am more used to seeing large round shaped bales, wrapped in metres and metres of different coloured plastic, just stood in fields waiting for a tractor to come, with a fork type mechanism on the front which would lift them onto the trailer, so not many Summer farm jobs for schoolboys these days I imagine. My god 😲 I can actually hear myself sounding old as I reminisce about those days, surely I cannot be at that time of life when everything was of course much better in ‘our day’ !!

Then, and to be totally honest, I saw something that ordinarily I would not normally get too excited about, in fact in the UK it was always the cause of much frustration and irritation when driving, on an almost daily basis. That frustration and irritation being caused by getting stuck behind tractor’s and trailers, or big combine harvesters, but I can confidently say that in ten years of driving here on Spanish roads this has never happened to us. However, on this day I saw three tractors, and all within less than ten minutes of each other, fortunately, they were all going in the opposite direction to us.

I was really enjoying my drive through this piece of rural countryside, driving for miles, rarely seeing another vehicle, let alone another human being, it seemed strange, because you would drive past the Olive groves, the Orchards, or even fields full of grazing animals, cows, horses, goats, but rarely did you catch sight of a farmhouse, although sometimes you could see them way off in the distance, but even though you couldn’t see them, you knew they were there, because at various points along this quiet country road you would come across tracks, which had two large ornate metal gates at the entrance, or a brick or stone entrance, and somewhere along that track you knew that eventually you would arrive at the farm and outbuildings. Because of the narrow winding roads I barely got above a speed of 40mph, but this enabled me to enjoy the scenery around me, this is the sort of driving that I enjoy the most, not the breakneck speeds that are travelled on the boring Motorways or Dual-Carriageway roads and, to be honest, it is what I enjoyed about driving in different countries in our Motorhomes, having of course the added advantage of having a more elevated driving and passenger position.

Speaking of Motorhomes, appearing out of nowhere, we had turned a corner and started to climb a hill, to discover in front of us a small German registered motorhome and, in front of that, a UK registered Campervan, with no room or long straight stretches for us to overtake them, not that we were in any hurry anyway, although my forward view was now somewhat limited, so we just sat behind them and remembered the not so distant days when that would have been us holding up traffic.

Eventually, we entered the lively town of ‘Benalup-Casas-Viejas’, to give it its Sunday name, any other time it is simply referred to as ‘Benalup’. There were lots of Yellow ‘tourist’ street signs, these can be seen in most tourist towns, advertising mainly the direction of Hotels and other local sightseeing Attractions, so this was evidence of it being a popular tourist location, albeit well off the beaten track. There were plenty of pedestrians, and vehicles, in the town, although it wasn’t crowded and the roads themselves were quite wide, enough space for vehicles like buses and lorries to pass each other comfortably. Our route was well signposted, well it was the only main road along this route so it wasn’t difficult and we soon found ourselves at the far end of the town, where the road quietened down again, although I still had my two escorts for company.

At the next slightly smaller town of ‘Vejer-de-la-Frontera’, which in this instance the main road actually by-passed, we came to a roundabout, here we would turn right and be on the road that would take us to our ultimate destination, you could almost smell the sea air. Just across the roundabout there was a nice looking Cafe with an external patio, we both needed a ‘Comfort Break’ and so decided that as we had not eaten breakfast before departing, it was just about the right time for our customary ‘Cafe con Leche y Tostado’ and by way of a bonus it would also enable us to allow our travel escorts to head off, with us no longer in their rear view cab side mirrors.

The friendliness of the Spanish still amazes me, you would think that we would be used to it by now, but even though we are strangers, whenever you walk in to Cafe’s, or small shops, anyone else who happens to be in there at the time all look and say ‘Buenas Dias’, promoting the same cordial response back. The same when people leave, they say ‘Adios’ or ‘Hasta Luego’ to the whole room as they leave and so of course, we returned the polite gestures, although using ‘Adios’ when we left, rather than ‘Hasta Luego’, as it was very unlikely that we would see any of them again soon. The elderly waiter arrived and greeted us with a smile, with the same friendly welcome, we ordered, in our bestest Spanish of course, with these particular Spanish words being very familiar to us by now, at least we will never go hungry or thirsty wherever we are in Spain 😉 Once we finished our later than usual breakfast, I went inside to pay the bill, this time a different elderly gentleman was stood behind the bar area, it was his duty to make the drinks, plate up the food and issue the bills. Anyway, he started to converse with me, in Spanish, this was going to be my first real test, and I have to confess that I only managed to get the gist of his conversation from some of the key words that I recognised when he spoke. I knew that he was enquiring wether I was a tourist and what Country I came from, so I was able to explain that I was English, that I now live in Spain and also explained whereabouts we live. He then asked where we were going and it became immediately obvious to me, from his facial expression, that he was familiar with the words ‘Faro de Trafalgar’, he then said that the town, ‘Vejer’, where this Cafe was located, was the bridge between the two coastlines of Malaga Province and Cadiz Province, I realised that he was speaking metaphorically as there wasn’t actually a bridge and we had entered the Province of Cadiz almost an hour earlier, as we actually live on the edge of the Malaga Province, just a couple of Kilometres from the border with our neighbouring province of Cadiz. This whole conversation had been spoken in Spanish and so I came away with a smile of self-satisfaction on my face, generally I am used to speaking smatterings of small conversations with some of the locals in our home town, but they also understand and speak English, so when I come across words that I forget, or do not know in Spanish, I can say them in English and so it still makes sense to them, but this was the first time that I had held a conversation, albeit still only a relatively short one, in Spanish, with a complete stranger, my day just kept getting better and better and we hadn’t even arrived at our destination yet.

Having checked Google maps beforehand, I knew exactly where the car park that we needed was located, it was behind a chain link fence and all the bays were clearly marked, although it was pretty much empty other than a couple of other vehicles. It cost us €3 to park there, but this was for ‘all day’ parking, which I thought was pretty good value for money, although had we have known, we could have easily have found a place on the side of the road which would have cost us nothing, but come on, in the UK, parking a few minutes walk from an expansive sandy beach, sand dunes and a Tourist Attraction, you would have been lucky to have seen any change from £10 !!

Around the perimeter fence a boardwalk had been erected so we had a stroll, admiring the views and the vast expanse of the surrounding sand dunes, it is quite amazing at the variety of grasses, flowers and shrubs that will grow in sand. There were of course 360 degree views and with the bay, beach and small village of Los Canos de Meca on one side (where we had parked the car), the town and beach of Zahora on the other, and with the for once quite calm Atlantic Ocean stretching out before us, what an idyllic location. Facing West, out to sea, many people come here in the evenings to watch the sunset, we wouldn’t be here that long though. Although there was a tarmac road up to the lighthouse, which was closed off to traffic of the general public, even so, the majority of it was covered in thick but soft golden sand and, with the lighthouse of course being erected on higher ground, walking uphill, barefoot in thick soft sand, it started to tell on the calf muscles, so it was a nice relief when we got to the top. We walked around the lighthouse building, although from outside the tall fence there was not a lot to see and then we decided to descend to the rocky shoreline below, initially via some wooden steps, and then using the crags and rock pools down to the shoreline where we had to zig zag a way around to the sheltered beach area in the bay. Of course we had to dip our toes and have a paddle, it would have been rude not to, but we soon discovered that the Atlantic certainly wasn’t yet at a comfortable swimming temperature 🥶

Now when I had initially planned this trip, this had been the ultimate destination, I had not scheduled anything else in to the itinerary, thinking that perhaps we may have found a ‘Chiringuito’ in which to enjoy a casual lunch, we had the sun chairs in the boot of the car, so we could have spent the remainder of the afternoon just doing a spot of sunbathing, before returning home later that afternoon, I really had not made any other plans. There were several hostelries available near the beach, however, neither had we scheduled a late breakfast stop into the proceedings so neither of us were now hungry, albeit it was now a little after 1pm. So, with my OCD buddy feeling quite relaxed we decided to risk conducting some further spontaneous travels, namely making our way 11 Kilometres further down the coastal road, to the seaside town of Barbate.

Barbate is located at the mouth of the River Barbate, along the coast east of Cape Trafalgar and within the La Brenda y Marissa’s del Barbate Natural park. Barbate has a long history of fishing stretching back to Roman times when fish salting was at its peak. Along with several other coastal towns along this coastal region of Cadiz Province, it is now renowned for its sustainable Tuna fishing heritage and unique technique of catching them. The town also has an interactive Tuna Industry Museum, but as is usual with us, it was closed at the time that we chose to visit it 🙄

We managed to find a small car park at the entrance to the town, it was ‘Free’ with the added bonus of it having a sun shelter over each bay. A quick look on Google Maps showed that the town had a long seafront promenade, so we just followed our noses and within a few minutes we were there. The beach was vast, the water a beautiful turquoise colour and the sand was once again of the soft and golden variety, but it was very very quiet, everywhere 🤔 Their were rows and rows of Cafe/Bars and Restaurants, and although open, most were empty, or at best, had a couple of people sat at just one table. Fortunately we were still not hungry, but we were beginning to get quite thirsty, so we made our way to the first available Cafe/Bar and with our two small ‘ice-cold’ Cruzcampo beers, we just sat, soaking up the sunshine and enjoying the tranquility of the place.

Now at this stage we had to decide what to do next as there was still more than enough daylight left ? Did we make our way back and have a late afternoon lunch back at our own Marina ? or perhaps we may find somewhere en route and stop there ? Shazza had volunteered to do the drive back and she opted to just return the same way we had come, we could even stop at the same Cafe where we had our late breakfast as they also served lunches, so decision made. However, just a few miles outside of Barbate, we (Shazza 🤭) had a slight misunderstanding with our Sat Nav and so instead of making our way back along the route we had come, we ended up taking the coastal road South towards Tarifa, although it was a much faster and better surfaced road and to be honest it wasn’t a massive deviation. As it turned out, and as we have often discovered during many of our previous nomadic Adventures, a ‘Swerve In The Road’ can sometimes turn out to be a blessing in disguise, we have always said that things happen for a reason ?

Just a little way out from Tarifa I saw a sign for ‘Bolonia’, now this dislodged a memory that had been stored somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain. Our Spanish neighbour, ‘Miguel’, had once asked, back in the days when we still had our Motorhome, whether we had ever wild-camped at Bolonia Beach, which as it turned out we hadn’t. He had told us how beautiful it was, the glorious beach, the turquoise coloured sea and a big sand dune that you can climb up. So, having reminded Shazza of that conversation she said, “Shall we go and take a look ?”, “Why not” I replied, and so that is how we not only discovered an exquisite tropical looking paradise (See Photo at top of this Page), but where we ended up having a lovely late afternoon fish lunch, washed down with a rather pleasant glass of Anti-Covid Vaccine 🍷 at a wonderful Chiringuito overlooking yet another gorgeous beach.

Well I guess that fate is till working its magic for us from time to time, for had we have not taken the ‘alternative’ route home, then to this day we still would never have visited Bolonia Beach, or found such an idyllic place to enjoy what was to be either a very late lunch, or an early dinner 🤔

We continued to follow the coast road, past Tarifa, where we could still see all the kite sails out on the water, then we turned East towards Algeciras and Gibraltar, this road now very familiar to us from several previous journeys along it, our journey ‘From The Med To The Atlantic’ was almost over, we returned home at just a little after 5:30pm having experienced a most wonderful day, even my OCD buddy had not been perturbed at conducting a number of unplanned deviations, perhaps he too is beginning to learn how to relax into this kind of lifestyle 😉

Until the next ramble……………………….

Hasta Luego Mi Amigos (La Vida Es Buena)

According to the local media, the Airport at Malaga is getting much busier now, not that it ever seemed to be not busy whenever we go there, our local campsite just five minutes down the road already has its ‘Site Full’ sign out at the front entrance 😲 Shazza and I have also observed that there are a lot more Motorhomes on our local roads up and down the Costa del Sol coastline, as well as the nearby AP7 motorway, which gives a fast link for the ferries for those going to, or returning from, Morocco. The car park spaces in our village and town are certainly much fuller than they were just a few short weeks ago and the prices in the Chiringuito’s, Cafe’s, Bars and Restaurants have all suddenly increased, so I guess that you don’t have to be a brain surgeon to realise that the 2024 holiday season has once again commenced. However, the seafront promenades, at least the one in our town and the one in Estepona, both still appear to be a little quieter than we had anticipated, but I am sure that that will change, as the temperatures begin to improve, from the chilly Winter 18-20 degrees(c) 🤭 climbing gradually towards the much warmer and hotter Summer 30-40 degrees(c) 🥵 Fortunately for us, as it would not have impacted on the tourists staying in Hotels or ‘Officially Certified’ holiday accommodations, both the storms we have had recently, the four day one swiftly followed by the seven day one, with the subsequent assistance of the ‘run offs’ from the mountains, has meant that the reservoir suppling our area has now reached just a little over 70% capacity, resulting in the Andalusian Government raising our personal domestic water usage allowance by 25%, from 160 Litres each, per day, to 200 Litres each, at least that will now mean we can save some money on not having to purchase as many wet wipes and deodorant sprays 😂 I did think about continuing to utilise my prayer mat to try and get a few more drops of the wet stuff to try and raise the reservoir capacity to 100%, but to be honest, I didn’t want to push my luck too far with the big man upstairs who had already generously answered my previous requests, BUT, just in case he is my ‘Anonymous’ subscriber to these rambles, a little bit more before the end of April would be very much appreciated 🙄

The decision, on whether our communal swimming pool will be allowed to be opened again, has now been delegated down to the local Mayors in each Municipality, so the jungle drums on our local social media forums are already reporting optimistic news for our locality. However, even if it were to be a favourable decision, it is still too early in the year to use unheated pools like our’s, as whilst the ‘air’ temperature may be reasonably warm, the ‘water’ temperatures are still pretty cold, which also includes the sea temperature. So, unless you come from Scandinavia, or other similar locations, and enjoy wild swimming in icy lakes and rivers, then for Shazza and myself it will probably be nearer the end of May before we dare to risk putting any of our lower bodily extremities into it 😲

We have however had yet another visit from the ‘Clima’, that orange coloured sand blown in from the Sahara, but this time the authorities issued a warning stating that the air quality was ‘Very Unhealthy’, last time it was only categorised as ‘Unhealthy’, so, and probably very much like ourselves, you may also be very well asking, “What makes the difference between the two categories ?” The answer to that is………………………..🤷‍♂️ However, that latest ‘Clima’ event only lasted for a couple of days before ‘Normal Service Was Resumed’ 😎

We have now submitted all of our documentation to our Solicitor’s so that they can now submit our residency permit renewal applications to the Spanish Immigration Authorities, for as we know, we are classed as ‘Immigrants’ in the eyes of the Spanish, and not ‘Expats’, as some of our fellow countrymen, and women, prefer to refer to themselves. Now whilst we continue to fulfill all of the criteria required, you cannot take it as a given that the renewed residency permit will be granted, for which some have already discovered when their renewal applications were refused, although they were subsequently successfully issued upon appeal 🤷‍♂️ So, until our solicitor’s come back to us stating that our applications have been approved, we are not taking anything for granted, so to quote the proverbial operatic themed saying, it is not over ‘Until The Fat Lady Sings’. At least if we are successful with our applications, then we will not have to go through this procedure again for a further two years 👍

Now you may also have to get used to a change in the title of our travel adventures, only by way of them becoming ‘Eric’s Adventures’ as opposed to what you previously knew as ‘Shazza Adventures’. I have recently planned what could be one extended road trip, within Spain, or what could probably become four or five shorter road trips of four or five day durations, which I think would be much more enjoyable and which would allow us to conduct them at a more leisurely pace with time to see a lot more things in each of the areas we intend to visit. Additionally I have a few single day trips planned, just to give us a bit of a change from our current more regular and routine daily schedules. However, these will have to be slotted in, between ‘other’ necessary personal upcoming commitments, and visitor’s that have already been scheduled into our diaries, but at least now the opportunity for us to travel a bit more is now beginning to open up and, once we get our residency permits renewed, we can then at least plan a lot further ahead and to then perhaps widen our travel horizons further afield 👍

Now you will know how I often complain about all the ‘Doom and Gloom’ in the news media publications, in all their forms, televised, printed publications or indeed, much more these days, on Social Media platforms. Interestingly enough I cannot remember when we last watched the U.K. News broadcasts on the television and even on my iPad I now only speed read through the headlines, ignoring the Political, Celebrity and even Environmentally focused ones and concentrate a bit more on any Financial one’s that may impact on us personally, Bank Interest Rates, Pensions etc. However, it isn’t just the U.K. press that are full of ‘Doom and Gloom’, Spanish media is just as bad and so what I try to do now is to seek out the more humorous, lighthearted or totally outrageous headlines, which tends to brighten my mornings. By way of example I have selected a few to share with you from the Spanish newspapers:

Now in our own little village where we park our car, in the mornings, we often see an elderly lady, probably in her 80’s, stood on the corner of the street in her dressing gown, just watching the world go by and waving at passing pedestrians and people passing by in their car’s, and yes, we often wave back, it would be rude not to. In the U.K. in Shazza’s mums village we have also seen women, not necessarily in their senior years, go to the Newsagent/Tobacconist in their ‘Onesies’. However I have to confess that I have never seen anyone go into a town hall on business in their nightwear, I suppose we should be thankful that they elect to put on some sort of clothing, as many people these days don’t wear any form of nightwear 🫣

I guess that if he had stuck to just wearing his Angel wings and guitar the worst he would have suffered from would have been candle wax burns. Thank goodness it wasn’t a female priest reading the sermon about the ‘burning bush’ 🤭

Now I am sure that we have all done it at some point whilst on holiday, purchased from the battalions of ‘Looky Looky’ traders, a cheap carton or two of cigarettes, some sort of headwear to shade ourselves from the scorching Spanish sun, perhaps even a handbag or purse etc. etc. and of course all at ‘ASDA’ or Walmart’ price no less. But now, and currently only in Benalmádena, although if successful could stretch right along the Spanish coastline, you could be fined for contributing to aiding and abetting illegal street crime 😲 It will be interesting to see how they manage to find the resources to police this latest initiative 🤔

And finally, I have saved the best till last as this my friends is no April Fool joke……………

Yes, public tax payers money has been spent on conducting a study on this 😲 Now if that isn’t reason enough to ask the question as to why tax payers money has been spent on this study, the other obvious question should be, who thought that it would be a good idea to publish this information, especially the map and named location of the safe locations because, from the limited zombie apocolypse movies that I, ‘for some inexplicable reason’ I hasten to add, have watched, the zombies always seem to be able to seek out the hiding places of the unaffected, but now someone has gone to the trouble of provided them with a map and names of the ‘safe’ hiding locations 🤷‍♂️ So my friends, an obvious piece of advice I know, but do not come to Spain if their is a Zombie Apocolypse, as they will already know where to find you, unless of course they are already waiting at the Airport when you land and they are dressed as Immigration officials, who all have that humourless look and brain dead appearance anyway 😂 The study did reflect that those who own Motorhomes, Campervans or Caravans, would actually have a higher life expectancy rate because they can be both mobile and self-sufficient, able to move quickly between locations seeking out food and water supplies and even other safe haven communities, damn it, I knew importing the car and selling our Motorhome was the wrong choice 🤬

Anyway, Shazza and I decided to get out before the Zombie Apocalypse arrives, when I say ‘get out’ I don’t actually mean leave Spain, I mean get outdoors and enjoy the current safe environment whilst it lasts, although, in all honesty it may also have had something to do with their being a ‘Classic Motor Scooter Rally’ being held in our local town 🤭 It was beautiful warm and sunny day, and yes the sky was blue and cloudless, the sea was a glistening shade of turquoise and blue, but you didn’t need me to tell you that really did you ? We wandered into the town mid-afternoon, although when we got there it looked and sounded a little too quiet, the music stage had been erected, the loudspeakers and amplifiers were in position, but there was a serious lack of presence of any people and no tell tale smells of two-stroke fuel or the noise of any hairdryers, sorry I mean Scooter motors 😂 Perhaps the Zombie Apocolypse had already commenced 😲But I was wearing my ‘Indiana Jones’ hat, purchased of course many years previously from one of those illegal ‘Looky Looky’ criminals, Shazza was dressed nin her leather cat suit outfit with whip, but I digress, that’s a story for another day 😂 so we both felt brave enough to continue walking along the promenade. We saw several people, who we adjudged not to be looking brain dead, although it was a close call with some of them, and we risked stopping at a convenient beach side hostelry to partake of a cold Anti-Covid Vaccine 🍺 to quench our raging thirsts. We continued to just wander along the full length of the promenade before then turning back via one of the back streets, to shade from the heat of the sun. We could hear music, live music, as opposed to the usual stuff emanating from the numerous bars, but it was too far away from where the Scooter Rally was gathering, so we just followed the noise and discovered a couple of back street bars in the ‘Plaza de Naranja’, an Irish Bar and a Spanish bar. The Spanish bar was pretty much full, although we found one table, in a corner of the small Plaza their was a stage and an elderly gentleman crooner singing, mainly Spanish songs, but with a few English ones thrown in. He was actually quite good and so we sat and enjoyed a couple more Anti-Covid Vaccines, as you do, and just enjoyed ourselves amongst our Spanish brethren. The Irish bar wasn’t anywhere near as busy but the handful of customer’s seemed to also be enjoying the late afternoon entertainment.

The afternoon turned to early evening and we both began to feel hungry, we had only eaten a light lunch at home, deciding to eat dinner out for a change, as it was the weekend. As we got back to the Motor Scooter Rally point the small square was crowded, this was where another one of our Spanish Cafe/Bars is located, and where we sometimes come to enjoy our morning Cafe con Leche’s and Tostado’s, there are actually four small Cafe/Bars in this square but they were all crowded, the music stage opposite was still empty, there was no music so we assumed it was going to be more of a late night event, but at least now their was a decent number of Motor Scooters parked up in one long line.

A brief look along the lines, just to remind me of my youth, although in those days I only ever had a 50cc moped which certainly didn’t warrant me worthy of being a member of such an elite club. We strolled back along the sun-drenched seafront promenade, even now at 6pm it was still hot in the sun, which would not set for another three hours, we headed back towards the Marina with it’s numerous eateries, although we had already decided that it would be ‘Pizza Night’, not something we eat on a regular basis, and we knew exactly what we would each be ordering, Shazza her ‘Veggie’ favourite and me my usual ‘Meat Feast’ washed down of course with another couple of Anti-Covid Vaccines, well you have to look after your own health these days and as always, it would have been rude not to 😉

We returned home an hour before sunset and sat for a while on the balcony just enjoying the view out to sea. It had been a very pleasant and relaxed afternoon, the sort of days we both enjoy, although we had no expectations beforehand of how that afternoon was to turn out, we certainly hadn’t anticipated the live music in the Plaza and being sat amongst the Spanish enjoying it, so it was nice to find something a bit different to do during one of our normal walks into the town. The Fiesta season hasn’t started proper yet, with the parades, the music, the fairground stalls and of course the crowds, but these will happen on an almost weekly basis very very soon, we both like the atmosphere of the Fiesta’s but not so much the crowds, I think it’s an age thing these days.

So there has not been very much going on, or exciting, to perhaps tell you about in this particular ramble, although as you know that never actually stops me, but for us, these are just our normal days now, and we like the freedom of it, some days, even if the sun is shining, we may choose to have a day indoors, sometimes out of necessity, cleaning, washing etc. but always confident in the knowledge that more often than not, the sun will be out the next day, and the day after that. It wasn’t that long ago when we would pay good money just to enjoy a couple of weeks of this, even our year’s of living full time in our motorhome, there was always the constant moving on, the time restrictions, but now we don’t have to worry about any of that. You may think that it is just a throw away line when I say that we both think ourselves very fortunate to now be living this lifestyle, but it is actually true and both Shazza and I do remind ourselves of our good fortune quite frequently in our conversations wether that be whilst sat on our balcony just enjoying the views, or sat at one of the seafront Cafe/Bars enjoying a morning Coffee and Toast, or an afternoon weekend lunch at our favourite seafront seafood restaurant, or dinner in the Marina overlooking the boats on their moorings or just walking along the Estepona seafront promenade, we didn’t need to win the Lottery to be able to come here and enjoy this lifestyle and you do not need to be rich to live here, in fact it is a lot cheaper when you compare it with the cost of living in the UK and you don’t even need to speak the language, although it has obvious advantages if you can at least converse a little in the local lingo. The truth is, you just need to want to give it a go, I will be honest, at first I did not want to but it was a combination of the impact of ‘Brexit’ and the ‘Covid’ Pandemic that was instrumental in me wanting to give it a go, Shazza has always wanted to live here. I realised that living here wasn’t actually a prison sentence, that we can choose to leave whenever we want to, but for now, we will stay for a little bit longer and, who knows, maybe we will never leave 🤷‍♂️

Until my next ramble…………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, (La Vida Es Buena)