Part One: Costa del Sol

Malaga. One day is pretty enough to visit the Alcazaba, a Moorish style fortress from the 11th century located right in the heart of the city, spend a few hours at the beach and take a walk in the city center. Make sure you plan your meals according to Spanish rules — most places are closed between 2PM and 6PM (or they only serve drinks). Also, I have no clue what they’re doing with the coffee, but it’s boiling hot.

Estepona was actually a very nice surprise. Initially, we chose it because it was halfway between Malaga and Gibraltar, but it’s an extremely enjoyable vacation spot, not crowded at all. There were very few people at the beach, so it kinda was the perfect relaxation spot.

Gibraltar. We wanted to take the cable car to reach the top of the rock, but didn’t make any reservations beforehand. There was a very long queue in front of the ticket office and the heat made the wait unbearable. We decided on the spot to take the alternative route with a van, as they’re parked in front of the ticket office, trying to convince tourists to ride with them, and it was the best choice. We got a seemingly private tour for the same price as the cable car (about £30 for two people).

Sandy Bay Beach, Gibraltar

The road from Gibraltar to Cordoba takes about 3 hours; we decided to take the route half an hour longer to have dinner in Seville. The city itself is vibrant, the food amazing, but it took ages to find a parking spot. Also, watch out for parking hustlers, they seem shady.

Cordoba. We got to the Ayre Hotel in Cordoba at around 1AM. We spent €100 for the two nights here and I think this was one of the most amazing hotels I’ve stayed at (coming in 2nd after this little piece of heaven in Railay Beach, Thailand). The fact that they had a cat in the yard helped. Breakfast was absolutely phenomenal (that first sip of a great coffee in the morning…) and the whole place was oozing a hacienda vibe.

We started visiting pinned places, but the heat was too much and seeing as I refused to even step out of the shadows of trees and buildings, we decided to just enjoy life without doing things just because they were on the to do list.

Tip: go see the Roman Bridge of Cordoba in the evening, it’s more spectacular.

Mountain miscalculation, Albacete and Valencia

Decided to leave Cordoba (and the cat) early and go to Valencia through Natural Park Sierras de Cazorla which ended up being a fail as we put the pin on the map wrongly. Google images showed some great trails in that natural park but I just assume they were far from our path. We did enjoy the scenery, though.

Somewhere in Spain.

After a lot of potato chips, pistachio and peanuts, we decided to stop in Albacete for a late lunch but arrived right in the middle of siesta. A coffee, a sigh and another bag of chips later, we went back to the car.

Valencia. Remember how we initially planned the trip around sleeping one night on the beach? As the fated night was approaching, I started dreading it. We then decided to sleep in the car and then get up to watch the sunrise. Neither of us wanted to be the one to bail, but I decided it’s better to say you want to quit than hold on to a teen fantasy of sleeping on the beach when clearly your back can’t even handle all types of mattresses. After I took the proverbial bull by the horns and voiced my concerns, I have never seen anyone making a hotel booking faster.

We spent two nights in Valencia, at a very cute, modern-rural style hotel 10 minutes outside of Valencia, Macia de Lacy, and because we liked the beach and decided to stay longer, we booked another night at an Ibis hotel afterwards.

Having breakfast on the beach while watching the sunrise is feasible and there aren’t so many people doing the same. It might be a cliche, but it’s still cute. We did sleep on the beach in Valencia, but at noon after we walked for about 4 hours.

Part Two: Basque Country

I was still wearing the bathing suit underneath from the last moments in Valencia when I changed from a skirt and T-shirt to long jeans and two sweaters in the parking lot of a gas station near Zaragoza. The truckers there didn’t seem to mind the view. The temp difference of almost 20 C made me feel like we were in a completely different realm. And I say realm because this is how Northern Spain seemed to me: almost magical.

We had a quick coffee in Zaragoza then made our way to Urkiola Natural Park. When we reached our B&B, it was pitch black, raining, a dense fog and no other car on the road. It felt surreal. We spent four nights at a lovely place, Burdi-kurutze. The hosts couldn’t be more helpful and accommodating, the place very clean and with great wi-fi connection. No reception ‘round those parts, though.

Near the B&B there were a lot of hike trails, but as it rained every morning, we only took a walk through the park to get to a viewpoint.

Viewpoint

We chose this place as it was near Bilbao and San Sebastian and we had plans to see those two (and fit in Biarritz, which we made happen).

San Sebastian definitely deserves a place of its own in this trip’s hall of fame. The entire city can be done by foot and it’s got a lot of different sceneries. Being so far up North, it rained, then 30 minutes later the sun was shining brightly.

Restaurants in the Biscay area serve pintxos which are about €3–4 each, depending on the place and complexity.

Bilbao is now famous for the Guggenheim Museum, but if you’re in the neighbourhood, check out Vizcaya Bridge, which is now part of the Unesco World Heritage.

Vizcaya Bridge

Biarritz, France, is one hour away by bus from San Sebastian. The fee is about €5 one way and it’s a great change of pace from driving so much. We didn’t get the tickets in advance, we just paid the driver directly. What caught my attention here were all the people in their 60s bodyboarding. Men and women, on a weather that couldn’t convince me to even take the jacket off. But hey, they had a wetsuit.

The trip from Urkiola to Barcelona was almost 600 kilometres. We stopped half way in Zaragoza, again, for lunch, but spending so much time in the car was excruciating. We ended up playing history trivia, jeopardy (yup, there’s an app for that) and listening to too much Weird Al Yankovic.

Part Three: Barcelona

Did you ever get the feeling that something just drags on and on even if it jumped the shark a while ago? Just like this blog post, Barcelona ended up being two days too long. We spent four nights here, it rained for two days and a couple of days in the evening we just went out for coffee near the hotel.

The prices are rather high, but didn’t feel higher than Valencia. We had breakfast at a very cute cafe near Badal metro station for about €5 (two coffees at around €2,50 and a small brioxe with jamon and a small pack of Oreos for another €5).

The highlight? We found a place at the top of Montjuic to do some plane watching.

All in all, it was great, especially the Northern parts. I feel like Barcelona was too much, but maybe rainy weather had a saying. 10/10 I would do again. Maybe with less driving, though. Or maybe next time I should drive, too. I did mention I don’t drive, right?

At the end, I leave you with a culinary trip in pics: