Andaluza: Granada & Estapona – November 3-10

Breakfast alone on the beach just after sunrise

We traded some time share points that we were about to lose for a week at the Marriott’s Playa Andaluza figuring a bit of a “vacation week” would be a nice break from our full speed travel schedule. We thought the beach would be nice and the resort would be a great hub for day trips. We found that the beach was lovely to look at, watching the sun set behind the Rock of Gibraltar, lighting up the mountains of Morocco. The sea, however, was not nice, not even something you could swim in. Luckily, in typical fashion, the Marriott property and staff was great. So we decided pretty much to just hang out, enjoy the resort activities, and take only one day trip to Granada to visit the Alhambra.

We read books, went in and out of the hot tub and sauna, played bingo, volleyball, badminton, ping pong, mini-golf, bocce, and even did a PlayStation dance off. We discovered the Aldi Supermarket, a pretty great, German discount chain which had most of the ingredients we needed, especially since we also made the biggest haul of our trip at a local farmers market in Marbella, the next town up the coast.

Straight from the farm! We had a lovely time picking out fruits and vegetables from this man’s farm.

So we ate well, making all of our meals in our unit.

The drive to Granada is pretty long, but the Alhambra was spectacular and the guided tour very interesting. As expected, it was a bit like herding cattle. We had the one restaurant meal of the week in Granada at a noisy, fun tapas place in the old town. Our highlight came while hiking back up the hill to the Alhambra parking lot where we stumbling upon Carmen de los Martires, a slightly neglected but still beautiful 19th-century home offering landscaped gardens with statues, fountains & sweeping valley views. We were able to get lost wandering its paths encountering only a half a dozen people over an hour.