Christmas Break Part 2 - Calhonda and Malaga

  Málaga, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands
Friday, January 9, 2009

The combination jet lag and 4:30 bed time meant that I slept until almost 2:30 on New Years Day. We lazed around for the majority of the afternoon ... we sat and read in the sunshine. Melinda, the over achiever, had gone running in the morning, and suggested we enjoy the rest of the afternoon/evening at a restaurant that she had seen while running. So, we set off!

We walked along the beach,  put our feet in the water, and looked at all the shells/rocks on the beach. The restaurant was pretty far from our resort, but the weather was absolutely beautiful! We finally reached the restaurant, which sat on a bluff and overlooked the Mediterranean.

Walking along the beach

Stairs to the restaurant

Since this was our first, and only meal of the day, we ordered a TON of food - 10 appetizer-y things. Clearly this needed to be washed down by 2 wonderful pitchers of sangria!

ALL our food

Sangria Gone

We sat and enjoyed the beautiful weather and the even more beautiful sunset ... then we ordered dessert! (Note: Custard in Spain is not the same as custard in the US ... thus, the liquid stuff around these desserts was supposed to be icecream-y custard, and not what it was ... but it was still good!)

Dessert Time

We enjoyed the end of the sunset, then trudged back to the resort and enjoyed the complimentary champagne that was given to us when we checked in. We hung out and watched terribly dubbed movies the rest of the night ... not a bad start to 2009!

Sun starting to set

The Moon's Up

Friday we were supposed to go to Cordoba, but the day trip was canceled. Our resort was actually in Calhonda, so we decided to go into Malaga and see what it had to offer. When we got into town, we wondered aimlessly and enjoyed all the festive Christmas decorations. They are really into the 3 kings in Spain (you'll hear more about this later), so they even had them made out of flowers, etc in one of the roundabouts!

3 Kings in a Roundabout

Later, we went to the Picasso museum. Not much to say about it ... we looked at art? ;)
Then, we had some tapas and sangria (note: we were on a really bizarre schedule most of our trip, and the Spanish siesta REALLY got in our way. Whenever we wanted to eat, it was ALWAYS during their siesta and most things were closed ... Lame!) However, we found some good food and it was nice to sit down for a while.

We had seen a castle on the bluff when we were walking to the Picasso museum and decided it would be a good idea to go check it out. It turned out to be a pretty good time to go, since the sun was setting and the city lights were turning on. It was absolutely beautiful!

Castle

Walking up the Castle Path

We made it all the way to the top, just in time for them to lock the castle gates. We couldn't actually go into the castle, but we enjoyed the views!

Top of the Castle - not so cold anymore

Bull Fighting Ring

There was a nice town market set up, so we wandered through it on our way back to the train station. All the Christmas decorations were lit up at that point too! Down every street they had a different type of Christmas light. We also passed our first Palestinian protest of the trip ... which we quickly walked away from! That night we packed up all of our stuff, so we could check out bright and early the next morning!

Our "Sopresa" en the Market

Christmas Decorations on Main Road

Decorations & Our First Palestinian Protest