We had the best week ever on Spring Break! I don’t think any of us realized how much we really needed a sunny vacation, but we did and we are all going home feeling truly refreshed.
It started on Sunday morning, after about an hour of sleep after the wedding, the night before. There have been some pretty big transport strikes in Germany lately that have shut everything down. Monday was going to be another strike, so the airport was a madhouse, even at 3am on a Sunday morning. We arrived three hours early and barely made it to the gate on time. All four of us slept the entire flight to Malaga. We landed at 10am, picked up our rental car, and made our way to the resort, the Marriott Vacation Club in Marbella.
Wow, the hotel was so amazing and the best place to stay for a week long trip. We had a two bedroom-two bathroom apartment with fully stocked kitchen, laundry room, and living room. All on a resort with restaurants, pools, beach, and lots of activities for kids. We went to the store for groceries and saved a lot of money by eating breakfast and some meals in the room. The apartment was also cleaned daily. And, it was so reasonably priced! It was less than 1000 for the week. We were also able to wash all our clothes before leaving so we wouldn’t need to spend all week washing everything in our tiny washer and dryer at home. We could definitely go back there again and again.
We spent the rest of our first day by the pool, where we were able to have paella for our first meal.
In the evening, we drove into downtown Marbella and walked around and then had more paella at a local restaurant.
On our first full day, we drove to Ronda, one of the famous hill-top, white washed towns of Andalucia. It is especially famous because the town spans a tall gorge and has an old, very tall, stone bridge which connects the old town to the ‘new’ town. We did quite a bit of walking around the New Town first. Ronda has one of the oldest bull fighting rings in Spain. Unfortunately, it was closed the day we were there but we were able to peak inside.
Next we walked along the Mirador and the esplanade which had great views out over the valley and at the Old Town across the gorge.
We made our way across the bridge and into the Old Town. We did a lot of shopping, and had a sign made of our name, spelled out in Spanish tiles. Then, we ate more paella for lunch, did more walking, ate some churros, and headed back to Marbella.
Wednesday was undisputedly the most exciting day of the trip. We drove about an hour and a half west to Gibraltar, and crossed into the British Territory.
First we had to clear both Spanish and British customs, which has become trickier lately due to Brexit. We passed customs but then had to wait to cross the actual border, which is an active runway, for a plane to take off. Everyone got out of their cars to film the take-off. Then, we were on our way.
Our first stop on Gibraltar was the cable car, which would take us up to the Gibraltar Nature Reserve, aka “The Rock of Gibraltar.” On the way up, a pre-recorded warning was played on the speaker reminding riders to be careful with The Rock’s indigenous monkeys, the macaques. They might look cute, but they are wild animals that have become increasingly aggressive over many generations due to the number of people who feed them. They have come to associate any kind of shopping or tote bag with food and will attempt to take them from people.
Lo and behold, as soon as I got off the cable car, a macaque tried to steal my sunglasses. I’m not sure why it wanted them but luckily our friend already had his camera rolling and caught it all on video. I was afraid to let go of my hat and sunglasses after that.
After I had recovered from the Macaque Attack, we checked out the views of the Bay of Gibraltar from the viewing platform.
Then, we hiked along the ridge where we could take in the views of the Rock of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean Sea. It was pretty hazy, but we could still make out the faint outline of Africa across the Straight of Gibraltar. Of course, the macaques were following us the whole time so I didn’t let go of my hat. The kids thoroughly enjoyed watching them and trying to coax them over to us with sticks and grass. There were several trees within the Nature Reserve where the macaques had hung all of their stolen items; lot of bags and hats, as if they were trophies.
We hiked down to the cave of St. Michael, which is a stalagmite/stalagtite cave where the vision of St. Michael visited some explorers at one point. There are some rock formations that definitely look like an angel and the cave had set up an illuminations program that lit up the whole cave in vibrant colors. It was pretty similar to Luray Caverns, but much smaller.
Afterwards, we headed back to the cable car. Of course, the kids were still playing with the macaques. The ones at the cable car were quite aggressive and even tried to steal a lady’s tote bag right off her shoulder as we waited for the cable car. At this point, Brooklyn was wearing Ryan’s hat and started teasing one of the macaques, who promptly jumped over and stole Ryan’s hat off her head. Ryan tried to steal the hat back, but the mother macaque jumped on Ryan and bit his arm and scratched him up in several places. The younger macaque, who had the hat, jumped over the handrails and down the mountainside, to a spot where he could not be reached. At this point, Ryan was screaming and Brooklyn was just repeating, “I’m sorry Ryan!” over and over. I walked towards the ledge, stooped down and acted like I had food in my hand to get the young macaque to come back. He eventually did and once he was close, I snatched the hat back and then started to walk quickly to the cable car. At that point, I felt my own hat ripped off my head and my ponytail being pulled backwards. The mother macaque had come back and she wanted all of our hats. I ran towards the cable car and the group of macaques which had gathered, chased and jumped on to the cable car, hanging through the open windows and squawking at me. I just sat on the ground covering all our hats and sunglasses while park rangers beat the macaques away with sticks. The macaques did not leave us alone until the cable car started its descent. It was certainly an experience none of us will forget. Ryan had his bite and scratches treated at the bottom of the Rock where we were assured the monkeys posed no health threats; they are actually at more risk of disease from us as they are regularly vaccinated and tracked by the park rangers.
We had lunch at a British pub at the base of the cable car and then walked around Gibraltar Town before heading back into Spain and back to the resort.
Wednesday, we took a day off from traveling and hung by the pool all day. We were all exhausted and needed a day of rest. For dinner, we went to Simbad, which is a beach front terrace for more paella for dinner and a beautiful sunset.
Thursday, we made the two hour drive to Granada in order to visit the Alhambra. The Alhambra is a huge palace complex that was started in the 1200s by the Islamic Moors during the period they ruled Spain, and was continually added to over the years. After the Reconquista in the 1400s, the Spanish took over and continued adding to it.
There are several palaces within the compound and we toured three of them; The Generalife, the Nasrid Palace, and the Old Fortress. The Nasrid Palace is the most impressive so you have to get timed tickets many weeks in advance. Our entrance was not until 2pm, so we checked out the other palaces while waiting. It was a full day after we added in the gardens and lunch and we didn’t have a chance to see anything else in Granada. It was also a ton of walking and steps, which was tough on Matt. We definitely would love to come back another time to see more of the city itself.
We made the two hour drive back to Marbella and arrived just in time for a Flamenco show and paella dinner at the hotel.
On Friday, our friends headed back to Stuttgart and we decided to have another rest day at the pool after all the walking the day before. Saturday was our last full day and I had planned another day of sightseeing but we decided to call it off and hang at the pool one more day. Going to the pool or beach two days in a row is something we almost NEVER do, but we really enjoyed it. Brooklyn and Matt also visited the hotel gym a couple of times and they really enjoyed that.
Sunday, we left the hotel super early, and super sad to be leaving. We were back in Stuttgart by early afternoon. We do not do a lot of repeat trips but we will definitely make it a point to come back here. There are still a lot towns and cities in Andalucia we would like to visit and we definitely want to come back to the hotel. We loved having an apartment to ourselves and there were so many restaurant options right outside of the hotel. We usually try to get out and see more but we made resting a priority so having so many amenities close by was awesome. The timing was also perfect. In late March, it was still warm enough to sit by the pool (and get a bad sunburn in my case), but not crowded like summer. We almost had to be dragged to the airport at the end of the trip, we did not want to leave and the kids are already asking when we can come back.
The pups did not miss us at all as they spent the week with Tobi and Paisley. We picked them up, got everything put away at home, and even had time to go grocery shopping for the week before Sunday was over.
Gilcrests Abroad 