Road-tripping the long way round
Trip Start
May 23, 2008
1
31
54
Trip End
Ongoing
Córdoba,
Andalusia,
Spain and Canary Islands
Sunday, August 24, 2008
I met Sean and Georgie at their hostel at 9am yesterday (Friday) and walked with Sean to get the car from the car park around the corner. Its such a cute little car, called a Nissan Note, quite new and its bright blue and has the same sort of boxy look as a Getz, with 4 doors. I pretty much have the back seat all to myself, which is pretty sweet! We managed to get out of the city without too much trouble, Georgie is navigating off this crazy map of the whole of Spain, so its pretty much a matter of driving around till you see the sign for the place that you want, or the motorway number that you want, and hoping for the best! I am very impressed by how good Sean has picked up the driving, as i would freak out having to drive on the wrong side of the road for one, let alone the fact that you have to deal with traffic and that the car is manual and everything is on the wrong side! He recons that the main thing to concéntrate on is not hitting anything. I agree with that idea.
Our first stop of the day was in Cadiz, which is actually in the complete opposite direction to where we were planning to go (its actually on the way to Tarifa), but they wanted to check out the town so we drove the hour and a bit to get there. Cadiz is a beachside town with Goldcoast style apartment buildings lining the foreshore. The beach isnt that impressive but on this particular day it was totally packed out. We stopped in at a supermarket to get some stuff for lunch and lay on the beach for a couple of hours.
beach at Cadiz
It was about a 3 hour drive to Cordoba from there, so we left mid afternoon and drove back past Seville, arriving into the town just before dinnertime. Cordoba was absolutely dead and so we managed to find a park really close to the hostel, out by the river. The hostel was pretty cool, they had a welcome board where they wrote our names! They also had a rooftop terrace. I dumped my stuff and went off in search of milk, which proved to be unsucessful as the 3 closest markets only had the dirty UHT stuff, and i returned to the hostel sad and empty handed.
We went out for dinner at a restaurant in a small square down the road, then decided to go hunting for some gelati and on an instinct, headed for Plaza de la Corredera, which turned out to have a fantastic gelati shop. The Plaza is filled with restaurants and kebab joints, and around the outside 3 or 4 stories tall are apartments and balconies. We sat out in the square and enjoyed our gelati, and headed back later to the hostel and went to bed as we had a big day of sightseeing planned for the following day.
Saturday we got up early and had breakfast before heading to the most famous and beautiful Mosque in Spain, the Mezquita. Cordoba was ruled by Muslims for many years when the Moors took over Spain, and the Mezquita is one of the only mosques from that time left standing in modern day Spain. It was built in 785AD and it is absolutely gorgeous... not to mention huge! Its filled with candy-striped pillars and elaborate decorations and paintings.
beach at Cadiz
We wandered around in awe for quite a while. When we made it out we had a good chuckle at the suckers lining up to buy tickets, as if you go between 8 and 10am its free to enter. The square outside the mosque is also quite pretty, featuring a tower to one side and orange trees through a bed in the middle.Next we headed to the Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos, from the 14th century, was the home of the Christian kings during that time. We climbed up the fortress walls to see views over the city, and explored the gorgeous gardens filled with ponds full of fish and bright flowerbeds. There was one particularly long pool with shutes of water spraying out from either side that i could have quite easily imagined a king backstroking down, as it litterally looked ´fit for a king´ (see the photo).
Although it was lunchtime we decided to go and find what we had read was a beautiful Synagogue, or Sinagoga to the Spainards, but after wandering almost every street around where the map showed us it would be, we couldnt find it and gave up. We also had no luck trying to get into one of the other palaces, after walking halfway across the city only to find it closed. So we had icecream instead.
By mid afternoon it was so hot that we retreated back to the hostel for a siesta, and then met up to walk over to the huge shopping centre about 15 minutes away, where there was a big supermarket to buy some dinner supplies. I was under the full assumption that i would be able to purchase milk from this place, as this place not only sold groceries, you could probably fit out your whole house and dress your family at the same time, it was like a huge hypermarket.
view over beach
HOW THE HELL CAN THEY SELL ALL THAT CRAP AND NOT HAVE ONE BOTTLE OF FRESH MILK????? I was so mad, i was having major withdrawls. Meanwhile, it was there that we saw heaps of people dressed up in the local soccer team gear and chanting, and so we acertained that there must be a match on over at the stadium which was quite close to the shops. When we got back to the hostel we asked the girls at reception and they told us what time it was starting and although Georgie wasnt feeling up to it, me and Sean (who is a soccer nut) decided to check it out.The stadium was pretty nice, although not very full. I was entertained by what i nicknamed as ´parrot man´, a guy who was next to me munching on a bag of sunflower seeds. The amusing thing was that he would crack the seeds in his mouth just like a parrot, remove the outer shell and then throw it onto the ground. All around us people were eating them and it sounded like we were sitting in an aviary at feeding time! By the time he had finished he had made a right mess. By the time that we arrived the crowd was pumped, and we didnt have to wait too long for the game to start. I have never been to a soccer game so it was good to have Sean to explain the basics to me, and im glad that i saw a match in spain as these people are soccer fanatics! Cordoba played like crap though and consequently lost, so there was a disapointed vibe for the walk home. It would have been great to see the people if they had won, even so the car park was full of people with bbq´s and deckchairs afterwards, i felt like i was back in Melbourne at a local footy match! It was pretty cool.
Today we left Cordoba and headed for the coast and Malaga, via a small town called Ronda, which proved to be harder to get to than first thought.
view over beach
The road that we needed had a detour which lead to a tiny town on the top of a hill, which turned out to be a maze of one way streets and after driving around in circles managed to escape and somehow find a road out of there. Ronda is a small town situated over a small but dramatic and stunning gorge. We had lunch there and walked out over the bridge, it was pretty cool to see the birds circling beneath us. We walked to the bottom and then back up the other side, took some photos, had the worst gelati ever, used McDonalds for its toilets, then promptly left. The drive over the mountains and down to the coast was absolutely spectacular. We ended up taking a wrong turn, which ended up being a fantastic wrong turn as the scenery that we drove through was amazing. Coming down towards the ocean we passed huge resort-like estates filled with golf courses and great big houses hanging off the hillsides. Driving along the motorways along the coast was even better, with sweeping views of the ocean and the most stunning spanish mansions i have ever seen. I felt so sorry for sean as he had to concéntrate on driving, but me and Georgie stared out the window in awe. Im ready to move here, im totally sold! It is utterly breathtakingly lush and beautiful. We were winding along the coast for about an hour before getting to Malaga, and consequently getting incredibly lost, going in circles due to the one way streets, and travelling around roundabouts two or 3 times while we try to work out which exit to take! The signage of roads in spain is utterly terrible, not to mention the labryth of random streets! We eventually found Georgie and Seans hostel, they are staying in a different place to me, but luckily its on the same road and about a 20minute walk away. Sean dropped me off at mine so i didnt have to walk with my pack, and after a shower i walked back over and we headed into town for some dinner.
We were recommended this cool little place which i cant remember the name of, and sat out on the sidewalk enjoying the pleasant evening and watching the people walk by. We then went for a wander, found some gelati, walked out past the cathedral to the port, and then back to the hostels sometime around midnight.
Tomorrow we are off for a daytrip back along the stunning coastline!
Comments
Mansions and Moves
I think you need to cut your trip short Kate and come home to earn some more cash if you are thinking of moving to coastal Spain!!! Your pics look fantastic. It must have been quite a trip and especially so to do it with some friends in a car instead of public transport. Could you handle driving in their traffic if you lived there? And you thought our roads were bad at times. Luv U lots Mumxox. PS your next blog just posted. Got to go rear it.
No Milk Today
Hey Kate, my title is actually a song title lol, I can't believe no milk!! What fun getting lost on your road trip at least it's a good way to see things you may not have seen. Oh yeah could you imagine me if dirty parrot man came to stay at my house. Glad you enjoyed the soccer.
Luv Donna xx