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Marbella, Spain
Tomorrow we leave Spain. When
we arrived here four days ago, it was raining and cloudy..."The
Costa del Rain" we called it...330 days of sun every year,
they said when we checked in. The next day we drove (Carlos
is our driver...29 and cute buns) to Granada...still cloudy
& rainy. Not too many people get to tour the Alhambra in the
rain, so we felt really special. The Alhambra is a Moorish
palace & gardens overlooking the countryside. We met up with
our English-speaking guide there. Lucinda was actually English,
had lived in Spain for 13 years and loved her job. Carlos
was Spanish and took great pride in his car (a 4WD Renault).
He also enjoyed eating and introduced us to fine restaurants
which served lunch around 2:00 or 3:00 and lasted for 2 hours.
Now, you know we're not going to do this EVERY DAY!
Anyway, needless to say, it cleared
up the next day for a tour of Cordoba and the Mezquita (9th
century mosque with Moorish arches made of brick & limestone,
so they were all red & white striped (all 880 of them). Well,
Ferdinand & Isabella (yep! The same) were Christians & turned
the mosque into a cathedral in...1492, so no more columns
but a huge cathedral in the middle with all the carvings,
huge silver thing and, of course, lots of Christian art which
was so old you could hardly make out what it was. With all
that opulence you'd think they could afford to do a little
cleaning. Our guide was a very pretty Spanish young mother
named Lola. She used her hands when she talked like a Flemenco
dancer and was good but a little difficult to understand with
that heavy Spanish accent. After the tour, Carlos arrived
to take us to lunch in front of a store that had some fantastic
Spanish shawls (... and guess what! ... yep!).
I forgot to mention that Pat
didn't come with us (Tom, Pam & me) this day, because he got
2 hours of sleep and was a zombie and also no fun and who
needs that!...so I took El Toro by the horns and said, "No
more 2-hr. lunches!". Just as I thought, Pat forgot to eat
lunch & was starved by the time we got back at 7:00pm........The
ride back....was quite festive. Carlos had a nice collection
of Spanish music, and I was eager to try out the castenets
that I bought at the Shawl Shop. Everybody got their turn
to "Malagena". A little Bocelli was nice through the countryside,
and Carlos even had "Ave Maria" with a rock beat, not to forget
Sagovia...be still my heart! After a 2 1/2-hour drive back
(that's 5 hrs of driving) I found Pat (where else?) on the
computer downloading his pictures from the camera. Does this
trip sound like that other 4-letter word (WORK)?
By now I'm hearing the guy in
the tower two blocks away call all the believers to prayer,
and I figured that must be the same as cocktail time for us,
so Pat shut down the computer and we went to the bar for cocktails.
The bar was a two-room affair with palms, piano and lots of
foreigners. We sat on a corner sofa and made up stories about
everybody...NO Americans! Well, it was Saturday night, and
the "working girls" were out in style, so when they finally
called us to the dining room at midnight we hardly noticed
the time...but we realized it the next morning when Carlos
rang our doorbell at 8:00am (sunrise is at 8:30) to take us
to Valderama to play golf...You've had that feeling before,
so I don't have to go into detail.
On the way, we looked out to
the Mediterranean to see Gibraltar and beyond that, the mountains
of Morocco peeking above the clouds in the distance. The day
turned out to be perfect...sweater weather with dew all over,
warming to around 78. A member of the club and his wife met
us there (friends of friends of friends, etc...), delightful
people from England (Angus & Kay Robertson) about our age.
Needless to say, we didn't play our best, but the course was
a little difficult and contained thousands of Cork Trees (Yep,
that's what they make the wine corks from...the bark of these
trees.).
At 2:00 we showered and changed
into something more appropriate for Sunday lunch (nice Club!)
and selected from a buffet. I had never seen huge shrimp with
pinchers and was told that they were crawfish. The regular
shrimp was pink & red striped like I guess you'd call'em Tiger
Shrimp. The crabs were tiny, and I don't think they were cooked,
so I didn't go there! Beef Stroganoff was good but had to
ask for rice. Beef kidney was great. A large ice cream machine
(big stainless steel box) was cranking out pistaccio ice cream.
Tasted like it had some mint in it ... yum...and, of course,
all the usual fare. The dining room opened (huge sliding doors)
out onto the golf course & ... cork trees which looked like
old gnarly live oaks. The flies had free rein of the whole
scene, and I reminded Pat that Morocco was just a few miles
away, but that didn't stop him from eating the desserts. [On
another trip years ago to Morocco, The flies circled our buffet
and feasted on the fruit desserts after paying the peasants
a visit after they "did their business" outside the hotel
walls.] I know this is more than you wanted to know. Carlos
picked us up at 4:30 and took us back to the hotel. We napped
and ordered room service with Sangria.
Ashley
Alhambra |
Alhambra |
Alhambra |
Alhambra |
Alhambra |
Alhambra |
Alhambra |
Alhambra |
Church in Granada |
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