seem that it is my yearly routine. i was in spain/portugal for 2 weeks visiting places i know and discovering some new ones. all in march 2011.
15th – 4h flight from skavsta to malaga, accomodation in torremolinos;
16th – i took the local train from torremolinos to malaga, walked around the city, climbed on the hill with the fortress – Castillo de Gibralfaro, i’ve checked lively local market [where they still do sell raw meet and fish without plastic/hermetic packing… unthinkable! will surely de-legalized some day ;-]. stupidly i wanted to walk all the way back. distance was not the problem, but… there are no good walking routes so i ended hopping over highways near the airport. then i passed by guadalamar beach region – which was yet another unpleasant experience. last part of the walk to hostel in torremolinos – along the seaside – was fine.
17th – short driving to marbella and walking alone the beach/city
18th – driving from marbella to gibraltar. walk around the rock – this time we started from the mediterranean steps – route is fine but long-ish. some feeding of the monkeys, taking pictures of morocco and driving to the conil de la frontera.
19th – conil-cadiz. longer walk around the town and seaside, and finally el puerto de la santa maria where we had accommodation booked.
20th – longer route via suburbs of sevilla, huelva [which looked more interestingly on the map than inside] to tavira in portugal. from there we took short trip to cabanas de tavira, monta rota, . + some evening walk around tavira itself. near the seaside – great views with sandy beaches, seaside and swamps between land and open ocean.
21st – we drive via faro to lagos and take a hike around the cliffs
22nd – one day trip to sagres – more cliffs; we stay another night in lagos
23rd – we drive from lagos, via beja to bajadoz – back in spain
24th – bajadoz via merida [with roman aqueducts, theater] to cordoba
25th – cordoba
26th – cordoba to granada; obligatory hike to albacin [aka marihuana smoke polluted bohemian district ] and alhambra. no trip to sierra nevada this time.
27th – granada via callahonda to nerja. hike along the beach and city.
28th, 29th – malaga and a bit of torremolinos beaches, flying back.
during all the trip weather was fine – between 18 and 30C with great blue skies almost all of the time.
car was rented from hertz for unbelivable 110euro for 12 days. it was skoda fabia 1.2 – i was quite skeptical at first but it turned out to be pretty good ride, and used just ~5.4l/100km of gasoline ; accommodation – booked mostly via hostelbookers.com with prices between 11 and 25e/night/person.