The European Outback

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Andalucía, España

02/12/2022

On 2 December my brother and I embarked on a journey to visit a friend of ours in Andalucía, Spain. We took an early morning flight from Vienna to Málaga. Fortunately I had a window seat and was able to take in the morning sun and absolutely fascinating landscape of southern Spain from above.

Sunrise over the Mediterranean Sea
Numerous windmills in the countryside of Andalucía
Flying into Málaga airport (AGP)

Episodes from Málaga

After touching down we had to wait a while for the car rental shuttle to pick us up, but from then on out everything went smoothly and we took a blue VW Troc to the hotel in downtown Málaga.

Cruising into Málaga

As our dad, who was also joining the trip, would only arrive in the late evening, my brother and I had the day to explore the city. Neither of us had been there before but before doing any exploring we had breakfast at Tost. Of course, I went with a typical pan con tomate.

Starting into the day with breakfast in Spain

Having eaten well, we started walking the city.

Walking the streets of Málaga
Parque de Málaga
Palmeral de Las Sorpresas, the harbour boulevard

After spending all day exploring and having tried different local foods and drinks, we were quite hungry. We walked past Restaurante La Deriva and liked the atmosphere of the old brick building a lot, so we decided to have dinner there .

We subsequently picked up our dad from the airport and got some rest to be ready for the day ahead.

Into the backcountry

The next morning we packed our things and got in the car for a 2.5h drive.

We arrived at our friend Pepe’s place at noon and after exploring his garage full of Land Rovers we had lunch together.

We had a great time talking and enjoying the time together, so after lunch we stayed for drinks and by the time were finished it was dark and already time for dinner. In the end, we had spent over 10 hours there and enjoyed every minute.

As it had become quite late, it was time for us to go to our hotel Cueva el Guindas. It is uniquely built as a cave into the sedimentary rock from the time when the entirety of Andalucía used to be ocean floor.

I also took a picture of the outside the next morning, allowing you to better imagine the situation.

There was a restaurant in the adjacent building run by saharan-french chef Amar who used to do ice and sugar figure competitions and cook-offs. Quite the track record he had. In any case, we ordered breakfast and he made a very delicious selection of fresh eggs, sausage, bread and mushrooms.

We stopped at Pepe’s place again to say goodbye and then made our way back to Málaga airport to catch our evening flight home.

Adiós!

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