Lizzy and I have once again been on our travels. This time we have been to the region of Andalucia in Soutern Spain.

Go! airlines have just started discount flights from Bristol, therefore we chose a location they fly to for this years hoilday. Flying from our local airport to Malaga could not have been easier.

Click here to look at pictures only or a slide show.

Malaga and the road out.

Malaga was a real suprise, we imagined it to be high rise blocks and fish and chips. It turned out to be very pretty, clean and friendly and not over run by tourists. We collected our hire car from the airport and drove to Malaga town to find our hotel (we'd pre-booked to avoid trudging around trying to find a bed).

The time we were in Andalucia was the hottest May/June for 50 years -it was very hot!

El Chorro
What a gorge?!

This gorge was just stunning, the colours of the water and the rocks around really were this green.We had read that the gorge would be stunning, but we were shocked at just how nice it was. Mostly we could not get over the amount of people that were NOT there, it was deserted. The gorge is 4km long and in places as deep as 400m and as little as 10m wide. If you look very carefully at this picture here you can just see a path that is slung off the side of the cliff, this path is in such bad repair that it is advised you do not use it!

We stopped and took some photo's, it was our first proper day out and about, it was bloody hot so we couldn't wait to get back in the lovely cool air conditioned car. We carried on from the gorge, climed up the steep winding road and then came to this wonderfully coloured lake, this scan is pretty accurate in showing the colour of the water. It was so hot we thought about swimming, but once again there was not a sole in site - for all we knew this lake could be lethal to swim in, so we gave it a miss.

Ronda

For our first night we aimed for Ronda, small market town built on both sides of a 100m deep gorge, each side being linked to the other by a very impressive bridge. We camped at a lovely site just outside the town, with the last site this was the only one with a swimming pool that had water in: apparently, although it was the hottest june in 40 years, the holiday season had not started properly yet, this would explain the complete lack of people wherever we went. Although the camp site was 2km from the town the walk through the country side was lovely. Ronda apparently gets very busy with day trippers from the coast, but as we did not venture in to the town until evening, we missed them all. We had some lovely food in a small bar - the patatas bravas were lovely!

Tarrifa

Following the nights stay in Ronda we were off again in the morning. We aimed to get to the coast thinking we'd find a camp site on the costa del sol. Following a long and winding drive accross the Serrania de Torrecilla mountains through many of the famous white villages. We finally ended up on the costa del sol at Estepona. We turned right and started to look for a camp site we fancied, we ran outof costa del sol and ended up passing Gibralta and leaving the Med, ending up at Tarrifa on the Costa de la Luz.

OK, so the Costa del Sol wasn't THAT bad it just wasn't THAT good either. Tarrifa wasn't particually nice either, but the camp site, about 6km out was amazing, it was on the beach, it was, once again very quite and WOW the beach was fantastic. The beach is famous for its winds that blow straight in from, well, the sea. The beach is populated by wind and kite surfers blasting along the coast.

Lizzy and I decided, foolishly, to walk along the beach in to arrifa for some food. The walk was a killer, it took forever. Tarrifa was dull, apart from being the furthest south town in Spain, being able to see Africa and being the entrance to the Med, it had nothing to offer, not even a decent place to eat - that we could find. We eventually left the town and walked back to the camp site, stopping at a restaurant on the road out for some very nice Tortilla and chilled red wine.

Arcos de la frontera

Lovely camp site, lovely white town - could have done without leaving my wallet in the car though?!

Jerez de la Frontera

Sherry and Brandy heaven, pizza restaurant drought!

Cadiz

Run down, nice sea front, great camera obscura

Mazacon

Nice beach, dirty water, nice but not quite all there.

Sevilla (2 nights)

Fantastic city, camp site nice but to close to the Airport.

Cordoba (2 nights)

Lovely camp site, lovely city - water in the pool.

Malaga (again)

Great time once again.

Another page under construction, at the moment I do not have muuch time to update this site, as the nights draw in and Wednesday evening sailing stops I should finish off this and the prague page - well I hope to anyway!