50shadesofbrave

After five days of solo travelling around Andalusia, I met up with my kids in Malaga for the second half of my adventure. I arrived by train and picked up the keys to our AirBnB, while they flew in from Bristol and made their way by local train. Our first evening involved a trip to the supermarket and a relaxing meal at home.

On our first full day, we did a walking tour of the historic centre in an attempt to get our bearings. We started at Plaza de la Constitución, saw Malaga Cathedral and Bishop’s Palace, the Alcazabar and the museum. We grabbed a small / quick bite to eat, had a wander through the park to the port, and then split up for Owen to go to see the football stadium and Georgia and I to investigate the main shopping street. After some down time back at the apartment we went out for dinner. My last evening of being 59…

I was first up on Saturday, and was greeted by balloons and a banner in the living room! Eventually the others emerged and we popped a bottle of Bollinger to toast my 60th birthday! The rest of the morning consisted of sprucing ourselves up ready for our lunch booking at the Michelin-starred Jose Carlos Garcia restaurant at the port. Wanting it to be a memorable experience, I had booked the 12 course tasting menu. I have to say, I was slightly apprehensive about whether / how we would get through it, but the portions were suitably small. We started with an array of appetizers, followed by a scallop tart, a couple of different soups / broths (quite surprisingly tasty), a fish course of red mackerel, a meat course of pigeon (absolutely delicious), two desserts (the nicest of which was like a deconstructed pina colada), and coffee and petit fours to finish. I could hardly move by the end 😂. We were there for over 4 hours, and got a taxi back to the apartment to collapse into a food coma and enjoy a quiet evening of cards and chatting. All in all a fantastic and exceptionally memorable day ❤️

Sunday started early as we were picking up a hire car to do a day trip to Granada to see the Alhambra Palace. It was around a 90 minute drive, which we did as a square – up the mountains and inland to get there, down the valley and along the coast to get home. I found the Alhambra very beautiful, especially the Nasrid Palace with its stunning carved walls and bright white marble courtyards. The views were amazing, with the snow-capped Sierra Nevada as a backdrop. And the Generalife gardens / palace were also very beautiful… although by that point we were very hot and very tired! A good day out, topped off by a really interesting drive back (across the viaducts of the Rules reservoir) and a meal in a little village overlooking Nerja and the sea. We were very late home and all very glad to hit the hay.

Our last day (Monday) was pretty chill. A lazy morning, an afternoon of souvenir shopping and ice-cream eating, a cocktail in Plaza de Merced, and an evening meal out in the old town.

I liked Malaga and its upmarket shopping and port, and it is somewhere I would return to as a base to explore more of Andalusia. I wish we had had time to spent at least a night in Granada to see the town as well as the Palace… maybe next time.

And so, my cross-decade trip has come to an end. There aren’t enough affirmative adjectives to do justice to all the wonderful things I saw and did and to the joy of spending a part of the trip and my actual 60th birthday with the two people I love most in the world. A truly memorable holiday.

This will be the final post in ‘Blogging through my 50s’… ‘Blogging through my 60s’ here I come!!