The Balcon de Europe, Nerja on the 12th night - awaiting the arrival of the 3 Kings!
Looking north from the Balcon de Europe, in Nerja.
3 Roman watchtowers along the coast heading towards La Herradura - quite a hilly route!
La Herradura - we had a very pleasant picnic lunch of avocados, cheese, sherry and toblerone sitting on some steps in the corner of the beach.
A Roman aquaduct near Nerja, which took water from the hills near Granada to Nerja for irrigation, sanitation and drinking!
Tuesday 5th - Wednesday 6th January
Torres del Mar – Nerja – la Herradura
You can’t even say that we are inching our way along the map - more like centimeters, but we had made steady progress along from Torres to Nerja and then decided to book there for 2 nights to try to get rid of my cold.
It is a charming town, albeit very touristy, built around the ‘Balcon de Europe’ about 100 meters above sea level. This is a cliff face which juts out over the bay and the site of an old castle, but now a large plaza with beautiful views. We found a great little hotel in the middle (only 2 *s ) but with everything you could want. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to how the *ing process works as the standards vary enormously. There was another fantastic thunder storm last night with lots of flooding locally, and some of the roads were shut due to landslides. We realized this when a lyra clad beauty doing about 35k’s an hour passed us going the other way in the middle of the road. This was excellent and we proceeded from then on as if we owned the place.
Alec left me for a day with his bike and to get some peace and quiet and work off his excess energy as we hadn’t done many miles. I had a blissful day sitting in the sun on the Balcon de Europe reading an excellent Katie Fforde novel bought in the local charity shop - so both happy. The town is buzzing as tomorrow is 12th night and that is when the 3 Kings finally arrive (despite what Julia says happens in Great Durnford) and the Spanish really celebrate Christmas and the children get yet more heaps of presents. All the shops were open till 11.00 and lots of children were rushing about dressed in beautiful costumes and ‘Wise men’ hats. The bars and restaurants were heaving. The only place closed all day was the church but I finally got into it at 4pm when there was an enormous funeral to which everyone seemed to have been invited. I’m sorry that I never discovered whose funeral it was. When it was over a procession of hundreds followed the hearse all the way up the street and into a bar!! Now that really did add to the excitement of the 3 King's arrival.
We have had a break from Spanish food for the last couple of nights, Italian and then Greek as after 6 weeks it is difficult to work out what (if anything) you want to see on the menu again. A bar was advertising Flamenco dancing to start at 10.30pm but by 10.45 it hadn’t started, the place was empty but for the beautiful Flamenco dancers and a bloke with castanets and sadly they could not serve us ‘dos polyo menta’. Unfortunately we simply don’t have the stamina of the locals when it comes to staying up all night.
In the mornings we are embarrassed coming down to breakfast at 9.30 as it finishes at 10. The locals meander in from about 10.15 onwards. We find it a little disconcerting to be surrounded by mostly elderly British people obviously whiling away the winters happily. There are also a lot of Germans and all the waiters speak this, as does Alec, so he now communicates with the Spanish in a language alien to both. I have to remain silent as I can’t speak a word, which is probably why he does it!
We are now traveling along the ‘Avocado route’ on the Costa del Tropical, which is as good as being in Australia. Lovely lush avocado orchards and quiet agricultural areas between towns growing broad beans and potatoes. We are enjoying the biking although it is a bit of a switchback road along the coast, with stunning views. We fully intended to visit the famous Nerja caves with the biggest stalactite in Europe, but missed the sign to it. By the time we knew this we had done a fair distance up hills and down the other side so couldn’t bear the thought of repeating it all. However, no matter as it is such a pretty area we will definitely be back at another time.
Arriving in La Herradura we cycled along the beach in search of a) our hotel and b) somewhere to have our picnic. Stopping to buy tangerines and toothpaste (one for lunch the other should be obvious) we found them selling avocados in crates - as if they were apples. So a couple of them (ready to eat right now) added hugely to the joy of a picnic on the beach in the sunshine.
Our hotel of course was nowhere near to where we had lunch and involved a 450ft climb up a cliff face to get to. Perfect for the paragliders circling above it but phew – what a hike!
Oh and a really good bit of news, we bought a family lottery ticket for Christmas. Yesterday we presented it at the 'winnings' store and to our amazement were handed 45 euros. So we promptly reinvested half of it in the Epiphany Draw and are still waiting to see if we've made the family millions.
The Spanish are addicted to Lotteries and every time whatever time of day you go past a lottery shop there is always a Q standing in the road!
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