Spain - Part 1

View from the villa

Can't believe we've been here 6 days already - so glad we decided to make this a longer holiday, only just beginning to relax!

So we got here ok, Tom was impeccably behaved, especially as we had to get up at 3am to get the flight here.  He was so shattered by the time we got on the plane that he slept for the first hour, which was fab.  He was just beginning to get fidgety and bored when the plane descended so all in all, good timing.

We arrived in a soggy, rainy Spain????!!!!!  Never seen weather like it here before.  Torrential rain, and not all that warm, in fact the weather was better in Birmingham (how often can you say that?)  Anyhow, we picked up our luggage and car and found the nearest supermarket to get some groceries and lunch.  Then off to Frigiliana to meet Eddie in a pub who was going to show us where our villa was.  It all sounded a little dodgy, until we got here, down some very minor tracks - there was no way we would have found it on our own.

The villa was nice, and the view - well, we couldn't really say, it was still hammering it down with rain.  In fact it rained just until the sun went down, when finally it cleared and we saw some mountains - looks good.

Galloping in Nerja

On Tuesday, it dawned clear - hurray.  We got up too early though, the sun doesn't rise until 8.30 so we had breakfast in the dark, the cold and dark - no heaters in the villa - not a great start to a summer's holiday!  The sun finally got to us around 9.30 so we went outside to greet it and warm up.  The villa is in a stunning location, in the midst of mountains, and overlooking the sea (about 8km away).  We decided to go into Frigiliana (Frig for short) for a walk around and to get some more provisions (we were out of beer already).  First stop was the children's play area for Tom (from which he saw a green 'Petit Train' oh dear), we managed to drag him away and then went in search for the Spar that Matt had seen on Google Earth.  Google Earth was out of date, there isn't a Spar!  By now it was late, I found a little grocery store and managed to stock up on beer and bread.  We then found ourselves by Balcon de Frigiliana, which had been recommended to us by some friends, as it was getting on for 2pm we thought we might as well try it out.  Had a lovely meal.  Tom did really well too.  He had been miserable as anything this morning - whinging, whining etc, but he had a very disrupted day yesterday and hadn't eaten much.  As soon as we sat down at the table he demanded bread and ate 4 slices of it as well as most of the food we gave him to try out.  After that he was delightful: ran and skipped all the way back to the car which, to be fair, was some distance away.  Came home, Tom went to bed, the weather clouded over,  so we stayed in for the rest of the day, although managed some time to play around the pool - splashing balls into the pool is the best game in the world.

Wednesday it dawned clear again so we headed into Nerja.  Went to the Balcon de Europa at the heart of the old town and which looks over the sea.  Was a very pleasant town, we strolled around the old parts, got ourselves some snacks for lunch and then some very lovely ice cream.  It was beginning to cloud over, so we headed home, Tom went for a nap and we chilled out.  It was cloudy and dreary for the rest of the day unfortunately, once again we stayed in and made our own fun, mainly around balls and the pool.

'Enjoying' the hot springs

Thursday it rained, rained, rained and rained.  Not gentle rain, but full on heavy torrential stormy rain!  Not great, so we decided to go to the caves in Nerja.  We were expecting a couple of stalactites and stalagmites, but no, we got a huge huge cave full of thousands and thousands of stalactites and mites and columns and lots of other formations. Quite simply the best cave system I have ever seen.  There was too much to take in.  Tom was in a good mood and decided to count at the top of his voice every stair he climbed and descended and so gave everyone in the system an English counting lesson (it would have been ok, but quite often he would miss out a couple of numbers, so I'm not sure anyone could have learnt from him!)  When we came out, we were shocked to find clear blue sky and sunshine??!!  We found a nearby play park so Tom had a play whilst we wilted in our jeans and tops.  We decided that as it was so nice, we would grab some food from a supermarket and head back to the villa for lunch.  This we did, but then the clouds closed in on us and before we knew it we had torrential rain again.  This is how it pretty much stayed for the rest of the day.  We ended up playing hide and seek in the villa.  The villa is pretty small with very few hiding places but the game lasted for quite a while - mainly because Tom is really bad at it - not a problem though he really enjoyed it, even if he was bad.  His idea of hiding was to walk in the next room and when we called out 'ready or not' he would come and find us.  We have some way to go with that!

In Alhama de Granada

Friday, hurray, clear blue sky and a weather forecast to say it will be nice for the rest of the day.  We decided to take a day trip and headed to Alhama de Granada where we were told we would find some hot springs.  The drive there was spectacular, up through the mountains, hairpin bends, amazing scenery.  Got to the hot springs with only one wrong turning which was pretty good.  There was a hotel at the Hot Springs, but they charged entrance and seemed to concentrate on therapies (not great with a 2  year old in tow).  However, down by the river there was an outlet for the spring so we headed there.  When we got there, there were 3 very large Finnish women and about 5 Arabic men, the men (bar 1) headed out almost immediately and after about 15 minutes the Finnish women left so it was just us and the Arabic man.  Tom really enjoyed himself, he spent most of it climbing onto a rock and jumping off it into our arms and the pool - great fun.  If the other man wasn't there he would have had a wonderful time splashing etc, but we had to reign him in - a spa is about relaxing not playing after all.  We must have spent a good hour there, before we dragged ourselves out, got changed and then headed back into the town for some lunch.  We have managed to adjust ourselves to Spanish time, so we get up around 9am, have lunch around 2pm, Tom naps around 3 to 5pm, we have dinner at 7pm and Tom's in bed for about 8 / 8.30pm.  This means that we have lunch at a typically Spanish time and not the English time of 12 which makes life easier for using restaurants etc.

Chocolate ice cream - the aftermath

We found a nice Plaza for lunch, Tom did well again enjoying calamari and chips and nearly all of my egg custard pudding.  We then went for a wander - really nice, ancient old town - proper Spanish set on the side of a gorge.  Had a really nice feel to it, before heading back.  Got back to sunshine - yahoo, so spent most of the afternoon playing around the pool - Tom decided that being naked was best and happily played all afternoon as such.  We have brought his potty with us and have been having nappy off time in the afternoon to see if we could train him.  We haven't had much success yet - he either holds it in or wees in situ (ie not on the potty).  On Wednesday he held it in all afternoon which meant that he woke me up at 2am on Thursday morning with a full nappy, I've not had to change his nappy at night time for over a year! We will keep trying though.  In the evening we had a bbq, during which we were joined by 2 cats - not to Tom's liking, so in the end we had to give up and eat inside.

Saturday, woke up to another clear and sunny day - big smiles all round.  After breakfast we decided to go into Frig to do some more exploring.  This time we went into the old part of the village - and what a pretty village it is too.  Ancient, narrow, clean, cobbled streets with whitewashed buildings either side - looks amazing with a deep blue sky above.  We had a good amble along, looking in shops and taking in the scene.  One small boy though was very keen to get to the square so he could have a ride on the green train - we couldn't deny him this twice, so on we got.  The driver was good enough to let Tom get in the cab for a photo and to ring the bell - but Tom did his shy thing and refused (not a problem, I got to ring the bell instead!)  We did a circuit of the new town in the train and then headed back into the old town for lunch.

Frigiliana Old Town

Found a tapas bar, sat down to find the owner was English and had a huge stack of toys for little ones to play with.  So Tom ended up with a huge bag of lego and very content he was too.  We had a selection of Tapas, all very nice, which Tom ate as well without too much encouragement and then headed back to the car and then the Villa.  In the afternoon, Tom had nappy off time as usual and today he used the potty not once, not twice, but three times and no accidents - wow!  We were so proud of him as he was of himself.  Just need to build on it now.  It was a lovely hot afternoon - yahoooo, Matt and I even managed to get ourselves into the pool - which was very brave as believe me it was FREEZING - the result of too many cold days.