Categories
Europe Spain

Costa Del Sol: Beaches, Burros, and Bartering

We stayed in Torremolinos while we were there, and our hotel was beachfront and beautiful.  Our first afternoon we went to Mijas, which was a cute little whitewashed village, and we got to spend a couple hours looking around.  They have “burro taxis” there too, with little license plates.  When we got back to Torremolinos, we went to dinner at a beachfront restaurant and they made me a vegetable paella, which was very good.  I’ve discovered I like the taste of saffron, which is unfortunate since it’s typically very expensive!  We also had freshly squeezed orange juice on the beach, which was amazing.  After dinner my mom and I headed up to a shop where we’d seen a souvenir she wanted.  We also ended up bartering with a different shopkeeper for a leather bag, which was fun.  He spoke a little French with me, and the price went down from 45 euros to 32 euros so I felt accomplished!

The next morning we went out to Malaga, and saw Roman ruins, checked out souvenir shops, and tried some sangria.  We got back in Torremolinos around noon, which left us the rest of the day to have lunch and go to the beach!

We went to lunch at a really good pizza place, where I got in an argument with the management over the fact that they charged us for bread.  Because, seriously, you can’t bring us something we didn’t order, not tell us it costs money, mislabel it on the menu, and then expect us to pay 1.50 euro per person for it.  They took it off our bill.

The beach was incredibly relaxing.  I found some seashells and sea glass, fell asleep on the beach, got a sunburn on my legs, went up to people from Norway to ask which Scandinavian country they were from because their language sounded like Danish, and saw my first live jellyfish, a little neon purple one floating about six inches from my leg.  And for dinner, we got ice cream at this tiny place on the boardwalk, which was some of the best I’ve ever had.  They had all these amazing flavors, like Twix and a gingerbread cookie kind and donut flavor, which tasted like cake and was delicious.  So, all in all, a pretty great day, and a much needed break in the craziness of constant city tours.

Adios!