A week in Andalusia, Spain

We just came home after a wonderful week spent driving around nice places
in Andalusia, southern Spain. As a preparation we had only checked out some
travelling sites and only arrangements made where flight tickets and a rental
car. Almost forgot another prep – my wife spent the last two winters learning
Spanish!

First major sightseeing was the famous historic place Alhambra situated on
the outskirts of Granada. Fantastic palace and fortress complex with wall
and roof carvings and wonderful garden arrangements. Didn’t do it full justice
but after 3 hours in 35 degree C we called it a day and headed for some
cooler place for the night.

For some strange reasons, we almost missed one major place to see,
Sierra Nevada, an area covering a number of +3000m mountain peaks
just 150 km north from Malaga.
Fantastic sceneries but hard to find any open hotels/hostels – until we
barely got our car up to where the road ended and found Manuel,
the host of “Albergue Universitario“, (hope I got the spelling right).
Basic but fantastic views from the room towards a 3400m peak.
Price for two € 60 including breakfast and dinner! Only downside
was a slight headache with the hostel based at 2550m. The same
day we arrived we packed our rucksacks and headed for a 3000m
astrophysics lookout. A bit tough walk due to very windy conditions.

Plenty of snow left at 3000m above sea level

After Sierra Nevada we headed for Gibraltar. Fortunately my clever wife
stopped us from driving over the border, avoiding 2km queues, so we
ended up in a nice hotel with a wonderful view towards the Gibraltar
cliff. Next day we walked over the border and enjoyed a very british
outpost. Of course we took the cable car to the mountain and took
numerous pictures of the cute monkey colony.

A couple of inhabitants of the Gibraltar cliff monkey colony

A room with a view