Just back from Andalusia and had a blast! It was really a very great trip. I recommend it to all!!! I apologize for the length, but this is my travel journal to remember this great trip and I'm not leaving anything out.

Day 1, Wednesday, March 28, 2007.
Detroit - Paris - Madrid
Late flight from Detroit to Paris and then Paris to Madrid. Air France only gave us an hour to change planes in CDG, and there is some construction going on so we literally had to RUN! I got through security first and ran to the gate where the pilot was telling the gate people to close it up. They said they would let me on, but I said we had to wait for my husband. They looked wary, but then he came jogging right up so they were going to get us on. But then they scanned our tickets and they had been cancelled! They said there was nothing they could do (they were frequent flyer tickets) and even though we had our boarding passes, we still had to go to the customer service desk about 50 feet away. So we go there and are told that we can't get on the next flight in an hour, we would have to wait five hours until the next one because our luggage wouldn't make it and you have to fly with your luggage. We just start to let that sink in and are about to freak out when the gate lady from our original flight comes running over to us and tells us to follow her. She and the other gate agent grab our boarding passes, furiously do some computer button punching, and suddenly we are running down the ramp jumping on the plane! We were so happy. Our luggage didn't make it with us, but we didn't really care. Air France had DHL send it to our destination and we had it the next morning. I had all of our needed things in the carry on, so it worked out great. We still have no idea what happened, but we just don't really care.

Day 2, Thursday, March 29, 2007.
Madrid - Jaen
We hoped in the rental car (which I had used the British AutoEurope site to book because of a much better price on an automatic car and had NO problems) and take off for Jaen. At the rental counter, the lady had started to tell me how small the car was and work me up for an upgrade, but I found out we were definitely getting the Mercedes A class tiny little thing and I was so excited about it because I'd wanted to drive one of those and we don't have them here. So that smooshed her sales pitch. But then I had a $20 coupon from Hertz that was supposed to be entered at booking, but she gave me the $20 off the extra cost of adding another driver so that was nice of her. So when you find out which company your car will be from, take along those coupons you have lying around because they just might honor them.

So we get outside of Madrid and are starving. So we stop at a little town along the road and find a tiny little restaurant. I had two years of Spanish in high school and two in college, but that was 14 years ago and I basically failed, so I'm an idiot when it comes down to it. Yet I was elected translator because my husband had taken German. So this little restaurant speaks NO English at all. But they were very nice and we got our beers and great soup and other things we guessed at or pointed to, even dessert. The bill comes and the guy writes 17 euros on our tablecloth. We couldn't believe it was so cheap. Then we forgot that we had a beer in the bar, so tried to communicate that to them, so he changed it to 18 euros. We thought he was just being nice to us until we traveled more and found that beer is the cheapest liquid you can buy in Spain.

We drive into Jaen. You may want to splurge on the GPS system while in Spain. We had a map, and there were signs, but boy did we get lost a fair amount. It was the only thing my husband and I argued about the whole time. Anyway, we knew we were staying at the Paradore next to the fortress at the top of the town. We could see it no problem. Getting there was another story. Anyway, we eventually found it and it was soooo great! For those that don't know, the Spanish government took old buildings in the twenties and converted them into first class government run hotels. So we stayed in a recreated castle next to a real castle at the top of the hill. Our room was great and the view was amazing. We had dinner at the Paradore which actually wasn't that great, but it did introduce us to sherry. Yum.

Day 3, Friday, March 30, 2007.
Jaen - Cordoba - Seville
The Parador had a menu you could fill out and hang on your door and they brought you breakfast in bed. It was an incredibly awesome way to start the day! Then we toured the castle next door. Very cool. They have wonderful helpful guides in Spain. Then we packed up and stopped in Cordoba on our way to Seville. We saw the cathedral (incredible) and then had a really great lunch at El Churrasco. We sat in a covered courtyard and I ordered the battered eggplant. They waiter tried to talk me into ordering the soup too to put on top the eggplant. He said everybody ordered it that way. I thought he was just trying to talk me into ordering more, but I agreed. I'm so glad I did. It was so good. And as I looked around the restaurant, everyone was indeed eating it that way. That was the only lesson that I needed that Spanish waiters are very good at their jobs and will try to bring you the best thing and really try to work through the language barrier. My husband had an amazing gazpacho. They brought the soup base and then a waiter came over and added the tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and bread crumbs separately. It was very good. Then we had some very good cooked meat. We ate a lot of cooked meat this trip.

Then we went off to our Moorish bath reservations. That was amazing. It was in a restored Moorish bath house. Men and women went together, everyone in a bathing suit. Medium temperature first, then the really hot tub, and then really, really cold tub and then back to the medium tub. Your entire body would tingle after a round of that. It was very very relaxing. I highly recommend it.

Then we set off for Seville. I had a map for our hotel (Dona Maria), but we were having a really hard time finding it. So I called them (our T-Mobile US cell phones worked great there) and he said it was "muy deficil" and to hail a cab and follow it. Well my husband thought this was absurd, so we drove around for another half hour until we hailed a cab. I got in and my husband followed in the car. Turns out that there is construction blocking the main way in, so you have to go around the back way through the old town. We turned down about a zillion "streets". The cabbie had to roll down his window and ask a bar patron to step back a bit so he could turn down the last street. They were literally just wide enough for our little car. But we made it and the hotel was wonderful. It is right across the square from the cathedral. It is just an amazing location. We put the car away for a few days and just lived like locals. Our hotel guy told us about a tapas place two doors down and we had an amazing dinner.

Day 4, Saturday, March 31, 2007
Seville
It rained a bit this day, so we toured the Cathedral (loved the bell tower) and really just lived like drunken locals. We had beer and sherry and orange wine with all of our tapas and just had a really great time. The orange blossoms were out in Seville and oh my goodness you've never smelled such a wonderful thing in your life.

Day 5, Sunday, April 1, 2007
Seville
Did the Alcazar. Beautiful palace. The king and queen still stay there when in town. I loved it and the gardens. Get the audio guide, it is very good. In the afternoon the processions started. Semana Santa it is called. During holy week, they basically have walking plays that act out Jesus' easter story. They have grandstands set up, but we just walked all over the city running into them here and there. We saw tons of different penitents, people carrying crosses, horses, great bands, and "floats". These are basically big old structures carried by a bunch of guys underneath. It was very cool to wander and see them, but sitting and watching it for hours would have been awfully boring. The marchers were mostly kids (girls and boys), so it was a big family atmosphere. And everybody was partying.

Day 6, Monday, April 2, 2007.
Seville - Ronda
We got out of Seville early because the processions close down streets and made our way to Ronda. We tried to go to Italica first to see the Roman ruins, but our hotel concierge forgot to tell us they are closed on Mondays, so we drove that route for no reason. But I should mention here that as soon as you cross into Andalusia, the scenery just becomes absolutely amazing. The mountains are beautiful and there are just olive trees as far as the eye can see. So we make our way into Ronda and find our next Parador. This one is in the old town hall on the edge of a 300 foot gorge. I paid 20 euros extra an night for a room with a view and it was the best 40 euros I've ever spent in my life. We had a balcony on the top floor that you could literally fall off into the gorge from. We opened the curtains and the whole valley was below us. Unbelievable. My husband said that it would have been the stupidist 40 euros ever saved it we hadn't paid for the view. We walked around town and I shopped a bit. Then we had dinner at the hotel across the street. Unfortunately it was too cold to sit on the balcony over the gorge, but the food was wonderful and Ronda is a cool town. There are a lot of tourists there, but it hasn't become a tourist town.

Day 7, Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Ronda
We wake up to see these crazy dudes flying ultralight planes over the gorge and valley right in front of our balcony. There were three of them. Crazy dudes.

I wanted to get some more shopping in, but my husband said we should do the caves in the morning before the tourists all got there. So we drove about 20 miles to the Cueva de la Pileta to see the cave paintings and it was truly incredible. My husband was right. Go early. First of all the drive there is just beautiful. Then when you get there you have to hike up a ton of stairs up the side of the mountain. We arrived just in time to join a tour that had just started. The cave is still scientifically preserved, which means that human access is strictly limited. They only take 20 people an hour so if you arrive once a tour is full, you have to wait an hour for the next one. Anyway, the guides are wonderful. They speak in Spanish first, and then English to explain everything. There is no electric light. We were given a kerosene lantern to light our path. The guide pointed out all these amazing cave paintings dating back from between 4000 and 20,000 years ago. It was incredibly cool. Buy the book at the end of the tour. The cave was discovered 100 years ago and has been fiercely protected by many generations of that family. The great granddaughter is currently getting a graduate degree in archeology.

After the cave we stopped for lunch at a little hotel that I had been recommended in a guidebook. We had amazing food next to a rushing river with chickens and goats on the other side. It is called Hotel Molino del Santo. Highly recommended.

After lunch we decided to see a few white towns. After getting a bit lost (again) we made it to the Sentenil, which was the one I really wanted to see. Basically they just dry walled up some caves and live in them today. We stopped for a Coke at a bar that was half cave. I even took a picture in the bathroom of the cave wall and ceiling. Very cool. My husband said we had a day visiting people that used to live in caves and some that still do.

Back in Ronda we toured the bull ring had a relaxing dinner. Our plan was to dry out a bit from all the Sangria, sherry, wine, cerveza, etc. But at dinner, as in several places, instead of bringing water to the table they bring sherry. So I gave mine to my husband. And then after we paid the bill, they brought over two bottles of liquor and two glasses to have on the house. There are a lot of things on the house in Spanish restaurants. So we had to try them. One was anise and one orange. So much for drying out.

Day 8, Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Ronda - Esteponia - Benahavis
I had us booked into a room for one night at this highly recommended inn in Benahavis. I thought it would be a cute little town and the restaurant was supposed to be divine. So we head there via Esteponia to see the sea. The town was cute, but the whole area is very, very touristy. It was a bit jarring coming from people living in caves to never ending golf courses. We even golf, but the Costa del Sol just wasn't really our thing. We did have a very nice fish lunch in Esteponia however.

Then we headed off to Benahavis. We drive into town and I see the cute homes going up the mountainside like I was expecting, but wait! They are all brand new condos! Yes, we wandered into "British Florida" as my husband called it. The town was cute, but very touristy, so I was a bit disappointed in that. But our hotel, the Amanhavis, was everything I was hoping it would be. It was super nice and completely adorable. And dinner was out of this world. They had menus with our name on them welcoming us, and my husband paid extra for the best foi gras that has ever been made. The people running it and working there were super great and it really felt like something you would do here for a very special occasion. Highly recommend it.

Day 9, Thursday, April 5, 2007
Benahavis - Granada
After not being too enchanted with the Costa del Sol, we high tailed it to Granada. And since apparently the speed limit is as fast as you can make your car go, we definitely high tailed it. We stayed in the Alhambra Palace. Basically it was the last place available. It was a nice old hotel, but the room was pretty dated and really hot for some reason, even though it was cold outside. And I thought that it was necessary to stay near the Alhambra, but I think what you really want to do is stay down in the old town so you can look up at the Alhambra. We ended up taking a cab up the hill every time we went back to the hotel. It was a really big freakin' hill.

The town itself is not as nice as Seville, but we still really enjoyed it. There are a lot more tacky tourist shops (are they universal in style or what?) and lots of gypsy women trying to give me weird plants. Anyway, we went to the Parador there for lunch which was lovely and walked all around the outside of the Alhambra and down into town. For dinner that night we went to Meson el Trillo in the old quarter. Fabulous meal served by a really nice lady. She even walked us back to the taxi stand because we never would have found it on our own.

Day 10, Friday, April 6, 2007
Granada
We took an English guided tour of the Alhambra and it was really good. It was nice not to have an audio guide in your ear for once! The Alhambra is beautiful and really great to see and hear the history. Then we walked down to town again and found a great lunch spot. It was called Restaurant Sevilla, and they brought us our own giant paella in a pan that she scooped onto plates for us. It was so good. We went back to the hotel for a nice siesta while it rained. That night we went to a place for dinner and we were originally put in a room all by ourselves! We thought we were in the tourist section. But finally some other people started coming in. It was weird for awhile. After dinner we checked out Granada's Semana Santa processions. We walked all over again and did get to see an entire procession from start to finish. It was the most colorful we'd seen and I believe it told the story of carrying Christ's body through the streets. (I'm basing this on the fact that they were carrying a statue of Christ with them through the streets. My Easter knowledge is sketchy. I really needed "Easter for Dummies&quot Anyway, it was very cool and then we had yet another sherry before heading back up the giant hill to our hotel. By taxi of course.

Day 11, Saturday, April 7, 2007
Granada - Madrid
We decided to get up and out because we were going to get our tickets for the bullfight in Jaen that day. So off we go. We stopped in some town to get a pastry. Turns out the pastry shop had been operating since the 1800's. Gotta love Europe. We pull into Jaen and find the bull ring. It is not as charming as others we have seen and there is no sign whatsoever of a bullfight that day. But I was adament that there was because it said so online and I had seen posters in town advertising the bullfight, April 07. We even tried to ask a local and he said that yes there was a bullfight. But now I'm pretty sure he was saying that yes indeed that was the bull ring we were standing in front of. Finally my intelligent husband realized that April 07 meant the year, not the day, and the giant number 15 that I had failed to see meant that we were over a week early. Since we had a very early flight from Madrid we decided to just push on and have dinner in town and see a few sites.

We get to our hotel by the airport and end up taking subway back down into town. It is a wonderful subway system and is very very clean and very very easy to navigate. It should be a model for all other subways. We walk all around town and see some cool things. Then we have dinner at a recommended place where we both fell in love with campo real olives. I will be tracking them down and buying them by the truck load. We had the best sangria we'd had there as well. (Yes, still with the sangria. My husband got on board with it when he found out is just wasn't a tourist drink.) We were very glad that we got to see at least a small slice of Madrid.

Day 12, Sunday, April 8, 2007
Madrid - Paris - Detroit
We woke up at 4:30 to catch our plane. We realized that we wouldn't have even gone to bed yet at home. Yikes it was going to be a long day! The lady at the front desk gave us directions and terminal information which all turned out to be wrong. There is a reason they are assigned the 4:30 am shift. Get directions before you go to bed! But we finally found the right place and had no troubles. I did forget about my liter bottle of water in my bag. It was in a Nalgene bottle I wanted to keep. Well they wouldn't let me dump it anywhere, not even the plant (which might have been plastic), so I realized I had to drink it all if I wanted to keep my bottle. So there I stood in security downing a giant bottle of water. The security guy clapped when I was done. At least I was hydrated for the whole trip.

We kept asking folks how we were going to make our connection in Paris because we again only had an hour and they kept looking at us like we were crazy to worry about it. This time in Paris they had a special bus that took us right from the plane to our gate. We had to go through 2 seconds of passport control and a tiny security line and our plane was right there. We were actually the first ones on it! And our luggage even made it home too.



So all in all, an amazing trip. The people and scenery and food were all super. They don't speak much English anywhere, but are very nice about helping you out. I love Spain!

Oh, and we got home on Easter Sunday, and thankfully dad was cooking hamburgers. An Easter ham would just have been too much after the pounds of Spanish ham we ate!

sounds like a great trip.
lovely report. thanks for sharing.

And thanks all for the planning help!

And if anyone knows where I can get a truckload of campo real olives, I would appreciate it.

Nice report Kellie. Sounds like a good trip.

So glad you enjoyed your stay. Small a Mercedes A? You should get in my Daewoo Matiz mini-mini van, that takes me along those narrow town streets and minimal parking spaces!
The Molino del Santo (in Benaojan) is a place I've been having lunch and recommend as well. I tried to spend the night but it was full (of foreign tourists!!!!), even the bridal suite (or whatever it is called).
In Ronda Parador I suppose you changed Standard double for a superior Double room, as they dont charge extra for the view. There are standard rooms with a view, but were probably occupied.
The Benahavis zone has spoilt and overcrowded in the very last years, it is a pity, but in exchange you can find very high quality lodgins, as the one you mention.
There is speed limit in our roads/highways, you've been lucky not to be fined, they're placing very many radars.
In Granada you hitted another of my usual places, the Sevilla, though I eat at the bar space, some raciones /a little bigger than tapas).
Thanks for your kind comments.

hi, kellie,

glad you had such a great trip. I'll definitely be referring to it if we ever get to Seville and Ronda.

No use to you now, of course, but there is a very good BUS service between the alhambra and the town!!! you catch it down the hill from just outside the alhambra, and back up from the stop just to the left of where the end of the road up to the alhambra enters the main square. [we only used it to get up the hill, of course!]

regards, ann

We were lucky then to never encounter a police officer! My husband had such a good time driving his little heart out. I thought the Mercedes was very roomy. Our luggage fit entirely in the trunk. I wish they sold them in the US.

We saw the bus in Granada, but by that point in our trip I think we were just weary of trying to find out how to do things. So once we found the taxi stand, that was it for us. Everytime we drove up the hill we thought it was the best 5 euros spent!

Your report reminds me of a trip DH and I took to Spain many years ago, BC (before children). Thanks for the memories!

There were actually a lot of parts to our trip that our kids would have liked, but then I remembered that no, they wouldn't like it because they would be jetlagged, hungry, and grumpy!

Kelliebellie,
Thanks so much for sharing your experience in southern Spain. I will be traveling there with my wife this upcoming May. Some of the info. you give will be very helpful.

One question though: Do you recall approx. how long is the car trip from Madrid to Granada, and from Granada to Sevilla?

Madrid to Granada would probably be around 4 to 5 hours I would think. We did Madrid to Jaen in around 3 hours, but dh was flying. It is very easy driving until you hit Andalusia. Then it gets a little mountainy, but still very nice 4 lane road.

Seville to Granada would be about 3 or 4 hours maybe. We went Seville, Benahavis, Granada. We took the toll road from Benahavis instead of the coastal road and it moved much faster. Take the road that leads to Jaen, but then head off toward Granada.

I will try to add some more restaurant names when I find them. Have fun!

Love your breezy style! Especially "Easter for Dummies". Thanks for the tips as well.

ttt

Kelliebellie; If you find out where to get the Campo Real olives I'd love to buy some also. Nice report. Thanks

Thanks! Sadly, I'm still looking for the olives. Next time I'm at Zingerman's in Ann Arbor I'll look for them, or request them if they don't have them.

Topping for Roadwarrior.