Day 5 - Benahavis and the Costa del Sol

We had breakfast booked in the hotel at 10am, so more alarms! We literally cannot stop sleeping. We managed to wake Oli and sat by the beautiful pool with some fruit and some eggs and toast. We watched the birds busy themselves eating crumbs from our toast. It is quite cloudy today, but still hot.

We collected the car from its parking space and set off for Marbella.

When planning this trip, the coast had not featured massively, but Andrew had expressed a desire to see the Costa del Sol for himself.

As a child, many of our Read family holidays were spent here (and the Costa Blanca) - package holidays in hotels with food laid on and they were great. My dad had a real desire to give us a good life - to have all that he had not, and to experience different places. He was very much ahead of his time, and probably means, and he worked really hard for our two week holiday. I have very happy memories (and photos) of us playing cards, playing on the pool, buying Spanish dolls and donkeys to take home and dancing in the hotel with my mum to the hotel entertainment. But I have not ventured back to this part of Spain for a holiday. Mainly because of it’s reputation for beer swilling, football shirt wearing English men that only want to eat egg and chips when on holiday.

So I gave Andrew fair warning and off we set to Marbella.

Marbella was probably a good choice as it tends to attract a more wealthy crowd and maybe an older set of people. I know it has featured on The Only Way is Essex on occasion. Within 30 minutes we were parked in the smallest car park ever in the old town Marbella and set off for the seaside.

There were row upon row of sun beds and sun shades, but it was not at all busy. We kicked off our shoes and trotted into the sea and took a slow walk. There were mainly Spanish families on the beach, which we hadn’t expected.

We walked to the marina to look at the rather lovely boats and then sat down for a light lunch. Very pleasant. There were lots and lots of shops, and some very tall hotels, but no signs for ‘beer for a euro’ or any kind of English grub at all.

Before we set off back to the hotel, we walked around the tiny old town, the main square, Plaza de los Naranjos and looked in the shop windows at Spanish souvenirs.

We negotiated our way out of the tiny car park and back to the hotel via Acequia del Guadalmina. This is a hiking trail very close to where we are staying. We had seen people walking there on our way out in various states of undress and wondered what was happening. After parking and walking up hill in the heat for ten minutes we saw a nice bridge and the reason for the lack of clothes - a river! It looked like a great reward for making it to the end of the trail and it also looked like a wonderful way to spend a day. We spent some time watching the fun and then headed back for the hotel.

There was no one around apart from the owner setting tables for dinner, so we changed straight into our swimming costumes and took a nice long dip in the pool. We then had a long nap and booked dinner - Korean tonight - that well known cuisine for a Spanish rooftop village.