Author: Sarah Bringhurst Familia

No, the title is not a fancy Spanish term for something else. We literally ended up calling this particular (low) part in our vacation “the puke drive.” Sunday morning we did not wake up in the best of spirits. There are moments like these on every vacation, I suppose; moments in which things just don’t go well. In our case, the moment managed to last all day.

It started out with morning coffee. Tony and I are accustomed to going to coffee on weekend mornings in Amsterdam. In fact, our favourite dates tend to be these coffee mornings, where we can just relax, connect, and enjoy one another’s company.… Read more

The next day was forecasted to be the hottest of our vacation, so we determined to spend it at the beach. However, I couldn’t resist also planning in some sightseeing. We decided to drive down the coast to Málaga, one of Andalucía’s major cities, and a well-known beach resort. When I read that the Alcazaba (Moorish fort) there was the only parallel to the Krak des Chevaliers in Syria, I knew we had to visit it.

We parked in an underground parking lot near the Alcazaba and managed to walk all the way round it and up and down several staircases before finally finding the entrance, which rises just behind a tumbledown Roman theatre.… Read more

Back when we were first planning our Christmas trip to Spain, Tony and I had differing ideas about what the best sort of vacation would be. I advocated taking the entire three weeks the children would be off school (plus weekends on either end) and planning a grand extravaganza road trip through the entire Iberian Peninsula. Tony’s ideal vacation is more soaking up the sun on the beach for a week. So we compromised. Rather than booking a new hotel in a new city every day or two and spending the entire trip on the road, we found a darling little house in the Lecrín valley, between Granada (home of the Alhambra, my top must-see in Spain) and the coast.… Read more

Between the terrible internet and so many exciting things to do, I didn’t manage to post the rest of our trip to Spain, but I’ve been writing posts as we went along, so I’ll post the rest of our vacation over the next week or so.

The morning after our day at the Prado, we got up bright and early and had the iconic Spanish breakfast: hot chocolate and churros. It’s as decadent as it sounds, and the Spanish chocolate is thick and creamy enough that it’s perfect for dipping. Surprisingly, nobody ended up with an upset stomach.

After breakfast we retrieved our rented car from the underground dungeon where it had spent our entire time in Madrid, and headed south into the province of La Mancha.… Read more