Hey everyone,

I am taking my first trip to Spain next week and because of a timeshare, will be based out of Estepona for 7 days. In that time period I was hoping to get suggestions on possible road trips and activities along the coast. (We will definately rent a car once there.) I think we will definately do Ronda since its only an hour away, but I'm also considering Cadiz, Cordoba and maybe Granada. is that too ambitous since we have to drive back each day to Estepona? Would it make sense to focus on only 2 cities and explore the rest of Costa del Sol--leisurely? After the 7 days we will head south to Morocco for 5 days and then back up to Seville.
Also, I don't drive stick-shift. Will that be a problem or are there plenty of automatic cars for rent? Any help would be appreciated since this is my first trip to Spain!!
nl.

Why will you rent a care once there? You'll undoubtedly pay a good deal more for it that way, and won't have anywhere near as much control over the issue of, say , stick versus automatic. No, automatics are not common in Spain or anywhere in Europe.

I suggest you contact AutoEurope immediately - www.autoeurope.com or www.autoeurope.uk or from the States call 1-800-223-5555.

What timeshare are you staying at? We just returned from that area staying at a timeshare also. Let me know and maybe I can be of some help

There are a few more automatic available in certain rental fleets, but they are still fairly rare, and will cost a bit more. As already recommended, you should book your car ahead of time, but depending on how much you plan on driving, you may be better off taking the bus.

Just as a note, Europcar says that they have automatics available in a standard car and full size cars only, some of which need at least 48 hours advance reservations.

Thanks for the heads up on advance booking for the car. I would much rather skip the responsbility of driving, but from the maps I've seen, it doesn't look like estepona is directly accessible to other cities. I think you have to go through malaga or fuengirola? we are staying at the macdonald villacana Resort in estepona. Is anyone familiar with that resort?

Hi Noralisa We were just in Spain (Oct8-15) and stayed at the Villacana. You are going to be very pleased with it. It is a lovely resort with a beautiful pool and flowers and fountains in all the the little patios down the middle of the resort. We were in Dom Pietro #222. Have you been advised what unit you will be in? It is a short walk down to the beach.





















Diego was on duty for the 4-midnight



shift and was a great help to us in finding tours etc. Everyone spoke perfect English, in fact some






















times we felt like we were in Britain.

We didn't rent a car and had no problem getting around. The resort is not in Estepona but in a little town called Cancelada about 20 min. east. You will not feel isolated at all as the bus service stops right in front of the resort. We took tours to Gibraltor, Rhonda and Grenada. The resort offered a tour to Mijas on the Monday for 7 euros which was a must. Other than that we caught the bus into Estepona, Marbella, Fuerengola etc. The buses are pretty cheap and regular.

We had dinner twice across the highway (there is a walkway overpass) at a great restaurant called El Carnicero. It was prixe fix menu with a wonderful assortment of choices and then at the end of the meal they brought out two frosted bottles and shooter glasses for us to enjoy as much as we liked. Service was wonderful. There was also a Chinese restaurant and another rest. in the area. We only had lunch at the Villacana so can't comment on the food since we loved the other restaurant so much. The grocery store on sight is okay but quite expensive. We found one up the highway on the other side that was great and good prices. We really only cooked our breakfast of toast and juice and ate out our other meals.

If you have any other questions please feel free to ask. We had a great time.

Sorry about how the above message came through, I asked my husband to help me fix the paragraphs and he pressed the post my reply arrows and it was gone. Anyway, if you need anymore info I would be more than happy to help you.

Carley,
that is soooo helpful. After reading everyones comments I looked into reserving a car and found the prices too expensive. It makes me feel a heck of a lot better to read about your experience and the easy access you had to other towns. *sigh of relief* As I said in my first post, after the one-week stay at Villacana, I will head south to Morocco , via Gibraltar or algeciras for another week. Do you happen to recall if the ferry in Gibraltar was operating? According to Lonely Planet 2005 edition, it was non-operational at the time of publishing... Just curious about the update. At this point I do not know what unit we will be in but I'm calling the resort some time today for final confirmation. Were there any other stand out restaurants in the other towns you visited?
nl.

Hi Noralisa Hope you get this before you go. Just looking over our journal to try and remember what we did. We highly recommend the El Carnicero across the highway. The first night the prixe fix was 18.50E and on the Friday night it had dropped to 15.50E because of the time of year. There are lots of restaurants in Marbella in the old town. Just walk around and see what suits you. Every time we turned a corner there was another one. In Rhonda we ate at a little one that our book recommended and it was great. It was called Bar La Farola. You could actually just catch a local bus to Rhonda if you wished. We realized this when we went to the bus station to catch our bus to Seville. Depends on how adventurous you are, but must say we did enjoy the train/bus tour.

I don't know about the ferry to Morocco as it wasn't of interest to us. We did hear that it is best to take a tour there as it could be dangerous.

We enjoyed seeing Gibraltor but were amazed at how expensive it was. We are Canadian and with the pound at such a high rate against our $ shopping was not an option. The British were having a great time shopping for liquor and cigarettes. We throughly enjoyed the tour as it was a joint shopping/tour trip.

Make sure you go into Estepona as it is a lovely little town and has a great boardwalk to walk along. We found a wonderful ice cream parlour on one of the little plazas. It is a very short bus ride from the resort going west.

We had to pay for the electricity we used but it only amounted to about 10 Euros so don't panic. Must say it made us much more conscious of turning lights off.

We caught a bus from the airport into Malaga bus station right in town for one Eruo and then caught a bus from there to the resort. It was about 7 euro's each I think. It was quite a long way but then we were exhausted. I think I remember Diego telling us that we could have caught a bus right from the airport to the resort. If you tell the drivers you are going to the Villacana they all know where it is. I did read on Tug it is something like 80 Euros by taxi. It was chaos when we arrived at Malaga airport so we were somewhat overwhelmed an extremely exhausted as we had been travelling for more than 30 hours as our flight on Lufthansa from Frankfurt was delayed so had a long wait in Madrid waiting for our flight to Malaga as we missed the one we were supposed to catch.

Hope some of this has been of help to you. Enjoy your trip and if there is anything else I can help you with please ask.