| We had such a fantastic time watching Spain face Italy in the Europa Cup Finals. We watched in a large open square with lots of restaurants with outdoor seating and many tv's, just steps from our hotel, Balcon De Europa. It seemed all of Spain was wearing the national teams color of red! We arrived right at start time and found the last open table which just happened to be at an Italian restaurant! The wait staff there were all dressed in the official green shirts of the Italian soccer team. At first we were a little uncomfortable that we had seated ourselves in the rival nation section of the square, but soon decided it was all in good fun as the localSpanish restaurant wait staff all ran over taunting the restaurant owner with Spanish flags waiving and horns blowing as Spain made their first two goals in the first half of the game. Spain went on to win 4 to 0 and the whole of Spain erupted in celebration! Our area in Nerja was no exception to the celebrations, as young and old flooded the streets chanting ", Espana, Espana,!" singing and cheering! We have some great pictures of the crowds that we will post later.
 After we left Bubion we headed to Nerja on the adsvice of the Polacks we met on our hike down from the summit of Mulhacen. We have been very lucky on our trip to run into the right people at the right time!we spent our "free" day in Nerja and fell in love with it! We visited the caves of Nerja that has the largest cave column in the world! while in Nerja we read in the news that there is very current research going on to determine if the cave paintings found here are the oldest in the world. Currently US researches have dated the paintings back to the times of the Neanderthals. If this is verified by the current research then it will change the way we view the Neanderthals. Current science believes they didn't have the brainpower to interpret their world thru pictures. it is really exciting to us that we r visiting the cave at the same time that people may b advancing their understanding of early humans evolution.
FUENGIROLA we left Nerja for fuengirola on Thursday. When we got to fuengirola, it was all built up, the hotel staff were not friendly and we immediately changed our reservations to go back to Nerja. We could only get Monday thruThursday so we called the hotel and asked to speak to our friendly porter (who we had been tipping well) named Juan. He immediately arranged to get us into a room for the weekend!!after a major hassle with the unfriendly staff in fuengirola we immediately jumped in our car and drove as fast as we could back to Nerja, (oh, I failed to mention we did take a detour to the large port city of Malaga to visit the Picaso Museum!) The Picasso Museum had no signs directing us to where it was. So we were once again stuck following the directions of our GPS unit . Mark has dubbed her Malenche. He claims that Vera very derogatory word in Spanish! We enjoyed the museum and Picasos art very much. Then looked intoshipping some extra clothes back to the US only to find that it was going to cost us $400. We decided to hold onto our stuff and pat the extra $60 at the airport BACK IN NERJA back at the hotel balcony of Europe, they upgraded us to a nicer suite for the rest of the week! We couldn't be happier to be back and to be "planted" here for the week!! We have gorgeous ocean views and are right on the beach. Their breakfasts are wonderful. Lots of fruit, smoked salmon, natural yoghurt, ham,ham and moe ham, fresh squeezed OJchampagne,cheeses,fresh eggs and on and on. All open to the Mediterranean. We walk out the hotel door right to the beach where we rent a chaise lounge with shade cover for the day.soooo beautiful and relaxing! We both want to stay here forever! The plaza in this town is very walker friendly with small boutiques and restaurants everywhere. Tonight Spain plays Italy in the EuropaCup finals. We can't help but get caught up in the frenzy to cheer Spain on in the championships!,     Mark  Sunday we left Granada and headed for our Hotel, Villa Touristica de Bubion. Monday morning we parked our car at the hoya de portillo and hiked in to the refugion poquera, a hostel at 2,500 meters or 8,000 feet. It was very rustic accomodations, but there was cold beer, food and conversation to be had. We met a sindle lady from England, 2 hikers from Manchester england and a gal from Israel named Natasha. They were all on a hiking trek with a guide from England who establishes his base in Spain fro the tourist season. There was also a High School group from Rhonda that came up to the poquera in the afternnon and finalized our decision to stay for one night instead of two since the walls of the rooms were open near the ceiling and not enclosed and teenagers, no matter where they are from are chatty late at night!!! Tuesday morning we took our packs and hiked to the top of Mulhacen, the highest peak in Spain at 3,482 meters, roughly 11,000 feet. The hike was beautiful at the top, rugged like our Sierra Nevada and steep near the top, but very hikable. Just slower going near the top, but not bad. The views were beautiful. We made the top in 3 hours, which included stopping for taking in the views and taking pictures. At the very top we saw a female mountain goat, or Ibex!!! Richard, the hiker from Manchester got an amazing close up photo and promised to email it to us. We hiked down the back side and saw lots and lots of male Ibex! We got a great shot of one of the big ones that we will post here. Both of our cameras ran out of batteries just as we came upon a group of 9 HUGE male Ibex!!!! They were amazing docile creatures that let us sit still and enjoy there prescence from only about 30 feet away!!! The experience of a lifetime. These animals were almost extinct and are nmow protected and have a population base of about 10,000 now. We leterally saw about 100 of them on our way down from the top!!!! Today, Wednesday is a relaxed day and a "free" day that we hadn't booked for anywhere. We decided to go to the coastal town of Nerja today and start our stay on the coast. We will spend one day in Nerja exploring what we hear is a spectacular cave with stalagtites and stalagmites. Thenn we move to Fueringola (which we can not pronounce correctly in Spanish) for our week stay on the beach there before heading back to granada through the white towns of Rhonda!!!  Jill We found our way to our hotel after following our GPS into some veeery NARROW streets in Bubion. we finally decided to get out and walk and actually speak to someone about its location! We thought we'd escape the heat of granada here but it is still near 100 degrees. We plan to start hiking to the refugio poquera early tomorrow around 6am to beat the heat. It is a 2-3 hr hike. Mark's heart has been really good so we think the hike will go fine. Cant wait toe hike and relax in the mountains for a couple of days!! Back in Bubion on Wednesday. Right now enjoying some wine on the front porch. It has pribably cooled down to 80. The sun is still very bright at 8 PM  We took a 3 hour guided tour of the expansive Alhambra Palace on the hilltop above Spain today. I am glad we had a guide because it would have taken mark and I twice as long to cover the same ground without a tour! We saw beautiful moorish architecture and the same palacial room where the queen paid Christopher Columbus in the Santa Cruz palace. The original "Santa Cruz". We will have to post pics later because our wifi connecion is slow at this hotel. Tonight we take a tour of the Albaicin (moorish) section of town and go have dinner at sunset on a terrace overlooking the town followed by authentic Flamenco dancing!! Cant wait to wear my special red dress for the event tonight!! Spain plays France in soccer tonight so the town is abuzz in anticipation of that sporting event! Well everyone is on siesta right now, so I better do as the locals do. Ciao for now!  see pic figured out how to upload. just this for now. more later. Our Wedding was GORGEOUS and fun was had by all!!! I can't believe we just spent our first day in Granada Spain!! The first great thing I saw when we got to the Madrid airport was this guy in spanish flamenco dancer drag!! Wow did I wish I had my camera then! It was classic. He was eating at a cafe and surrounded by guys on his sports team...probably soccer....he had huge side burns and big hairy legs and they were all chatting laughing and having a good time. We have a pretty hotel in Granada. Now I know why they take siestas here. The plaza was sweltering and empty when we got here at 4pm, took a couple hour nap and by the time we got back out at 9:30 (it was still really light and cooled off a bit), the plaza was bustling with people and had come to life!! We had four beers and four tapas for dinner and the whole thing cost us 10 euros, or $13!!!! they offer free tapas with the beer here in Granads. And the beer is REALLY good!!!
going to bed after mignight now, the plaza is still abuzz with people eating and laughing and drinking. We are headed to bed and looking forward to touring the Alhambra plaza tomorrow morning. We will post some pics....look at photo album for more pics to come later....uploads are slow. Sending out our invites in a few minutes here!!! Mark and I hope to add short blogs every now and then!! |