With the abundance of small mom & pop produce and grocery stores, it’s easy to find favorites and actually get to know the owners.  This was ‘my’ produce guy in Fuengirola.  Open 7 days a week, he has some killer deals, and had nice words for everyone.  He also sold baked sweet potatoes that looked sticky sweet. – Laura

Our stay here has been great – it’s kind of sad to leave.  But a whirlwind of stops await us.  We have 3 stays of 3 nights each lined up, followed by a  longer stay of 10 days.

Today we’re off to Ronda, a 1.75 hour bus ride to the NE.  A typical white village hill town, it promises some dramatic scenery.

The Airbnb listing of our ‘home’ . Laura

Miscellaneous images of the area – Laura

As promised, we sampled the churros and hot chocolate.  They were airier than expected, but firmer that our (U.S.) puffy raised donuts.  Hot out of the fryer, easy to see why they’re popular.

Some restaurants advertise them –

Their cheesecake, on the other hand, is airier than our typically dense cake.  Still very tasty, with a unique presentation on a slate tile

Dave & I are notoriously slow to make friends, but he seemed to have no problem here.  They welcomed him with open arms.  He kept a hand on his wallet, not knowing if their friendship gestures were genuine.

These are the temptations that call out from the streets of Southern Spain.  For the most part we’ve resisted. – Laura

Tacoma has America’s Car Museum, and I’d bet one could make an adventure out of visiting car museums all over the world.  They’re tucked away in odd places – like Malaga and Nashville.  The following verbiage has been stolen (by me!) from several websites.

“The car museum, which opened in 2010, contains more than 100 cars.   The owner is Portuguese collector Joao Magalhaes, and the fully restored models range from years 1898 to 2011 . Housed in the city’s historic tobacco factory building, they include Hispano Suiza, Rolls Royce, Mercedes Benz, Bentley, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Bugatti, Porsche, and Ferrari, and an extensive collection of antique and rare  cars. The museum also features a unique display of engines converted to art.   Finally, there are over  300 original hats by great designers such as Dior, Chanel and Balenciaga among others.”

In addition to this awesome hat collection (I’ll do a separate post for them), the museum displayed many cars with a dress or coat and hat of the same vintage.   They made some beautiful pairings.

At the museum’s website, select the British flag in the top right hand to get a little English translation, and poke around the site to get some great images. The last selection under the “Museum” tab is a “Virtual Tour’, which will take you through the museum using the same technology as Google Earth – street view.  This Virtual Tour does not include the fashion pairing I mentioned above.

The only bad thing about the abundance of windows in the building is that it resulted in backlighting – bad for photo taking.    Below are some of my better shots with details when I remembered to take them.   Enjoy! Laura

Two of the “art’ engines on display.

We actually took a tour!  A one day bus excursion to Granada (about 150 km to the NE) to visit the Alhambra Palace.  I would love to tell you details about it, but our tour guide’s microphone didn’t work… we heard few details.  But, it is beautiful, and has a fascinating history – from what I’ve read.  The Moors took over 2 centuries (1238-1492) to build it, and they were eventually booted by the Christians.   I regret not reading up on it before the tour, but now have another topic on my reading list.

The bus ride revealed olive trees for as far as the eye could see.  Did you know Spain is the number one producer of olives in the world?  Producing more than double that of the #2 country – Italy.  Most of Spain’s olive oil is exported to Italy, and any olive can be made into olive oil.  It only has to be allowed to ripen to a black color.  Yup – the microphone of the tour guide on the bus DID work 🙂

Photos of Alhambra Palace – the exterior one is not mine.  There is skiing in the mountains in the background.

– Laura

Yes, I will be adding a new file folder of museum brochures and city maps to my ‘travel’ box at home.  I don’t revisit them often,  but it’s always like Christmas when I do, as I’ve forgotten most of the excursions.

The Tourist Information offices so far have been most helpful in providing maps which also highlight local sights and attractions.  Fuengirola’s office has free WIFI as well as a couple of gratis computers. They produced the map below when I asked about hiking trails – the trails we’ve been exploring.   Not all of their advice was spot on, though:  they recommended the train, not the bus, to Malaga, for a quicker, more pleasant ride.  We found the bus was more comfortable, faster (way fewer stops), more scenic, and cheaper.  Laura

This will be a catch-all for random observations around Fuengirola.

We’re 3/4 of the way through our visit here, and even though it’s a very built up area from Fuengirola to Malaga, I’d stay in the area again.  With the exception of the direct beach area, it retains a local feel.

We’re off to the Automobile Museum in Malaga, which should provide some great photo opportunities.  Be well – Laura

Nothing but blue skies here so we’re off to another visit to Mijas and surrounds.

In Mijas:

Our hike:  We chose some different trails in same area.    Dave noted these are some of the best hikes he’s been on – a combination of awesome scenery, a variety of terrain, and a little bit of a climbing challenge.  We’d see 2-4 other hikers on the trail.

Sorry I’m always showing you his backside!  We were pretty warm with the sun out, and were happy to see some light clouds come in.

Looks like Michigan to me! The pine is similar to jack pine.

Dave spotted the Rock of Gibraltar in the distant haze – center of the photo.

The trail crossed a road I would guess was for the Forest Service equivalent.  Right about here we caught some staggering wind from the north coming through a break in the hills.

We finished our hike quicker than expected, so decided to walk back to Fuengirola instead of taking the local bus.  Couldn’t have done it without Google maps, which took us on some true farm trails that we would not have found before we hit the outlying neighborhoods where street choices were more obvious.  It added 9.3 km to the hike , for a total time of 5 hours.  We earned our happy hour!

The above photo is looking back at Mijas.  Look closely and you can see that Forest Road about 2/3rds of the way up the hill, running pretty horizontal.  We hiked well above it.  My guess is we weren’t  quite halfway home when I took this photo.   Aurg – I had a sore knee the next day for all of the downhill.  Laura

Spanish Translation: “my grandmother’s casserole”.

Dave’s translation:” Best Happy Hour EVER“.

How lucky are we to be in Fuengirola for the 4th annual La cazuela de la Abuela Competition. Eighty seven restaurants (of the 583 in town) chose to participate.

 

Participating restaurants make a ‘winning’ casserole (stew, soup, whatever) and hope to win your vote.  Entries varied widely: chickpeas & chicken, yummy seafood stews, and Moroccan-spiced pork with roasted potatoes (above – our favorite!!)  are examples.

To play:  Put 2€ (about $2.35) in your pocket for each restaurant you’ll visit, and to the streets & alley ways of Fuengirola you go!

After you’ve collected a stamp from 5 different restaurants (see above), record your favorite, and return the form to the tourist bureau. They will check it over before putting it in the ballot box, and letting you select a little prize.  (It was fun to watch entire families, kids and all, turning in their passports.)

The contest runs for 2 weeks, and March 5 (we’ll still be here in Fuengirola) names will be drawn for a boatload of prizes – seven day stay for 6 at a resort, a 42″TV (our luck we’ll win this!!), a 19″ TV , tablets, dinners etc.

Not sure if the winning restaurant gets anything other than bragging rights.

So, 2 visits a night was typical, but once we did 3. If we liked the looks of their tapas dishes on display, we might get one or two (another 2€ each) and call it a meal.