Our little corner of paradise

The final chapter of our Spanish adventure. It's all been pretty fantastico!   

Villa Paraiso was the name of our casa, named for the bird of paradise flowers in the garden, and it provided us with a wonderful home base for our Spanish sojourn.

Only 4 minutes from the sea and sand stretching out across Malaga bay......

and 5 minutes from the main routes to Malaga and beyond for our explorations.  Rincon is very much a Spanish working town with the warmth of southern Spain shown not just in the glorious climate but by its people, who are known for their outgoing, fiesta spirit. They really made us feel welcome in the community.

So I thought I should show you round some of the corners of Rincon de la Victoria, our Spanish home town.

We were very sorry to leave after almost 3 glorious months of adventures, stumbling over the Spanish lingo, welcoming visitors, making friends, discovering new sights and foods and experiences, yes we would definitely do it again, but where. ........??

As one of my friends remarked on this blog " you can feel the sunshine between the lines" . That feels about right to me.

Thank you Rincon

Hello Topsham!

Martin'''s love affair ............

with Spanish food & drink.

It was always going to be one of the highlights of our Spanish saga for Martin and we have had great fun testing out as many of the tapas bars and restaurants as possible, and trying to decide on our favourites.  And there are loads to choose from even though their opening hours can be a bit random.

The fresh fish here on the coast has to be savoured, from the sardine espetos to the sopa de marisco.  Chorizo and anchoas also feature heavily in Martin's diet.  For me the gorgeous verduras and an abundance of things like fresh avocado and mango at the local market, about £1 for half a dozen, are a treat.

The first thing we had to do was adapt to their meal times, no one eats dinner before 9.00 and we often see people stiill coming in to eat at 11.00.   We have also learned that it is not the done thing to eat paella for dinner, only for lunch.

Martin is self-appointed squeezer of fresh oranges for breakfast juice, electric squeezer thoughtfully provided.  We have also had to tackle the traditional Spanish style coffee maker.

A G & T here comes in a glass the size of a goldfish bowl with measures to match, well in fact they don't measure at all!  Martin has practised many variations of asking for a pint, few of which actually work so he has settled for a cana grande which definitely results in a draft beer but of varying size. Tinto verano is my favoured tipple of choice,  local wine with lemonade added to make my obligatory bubbles.

Sharing a selection of tasty tapas has got to be the winner although we inevitably order too much (Rob & Lesley).  An ensalada mixta bursting with tuna, avo, eggs etc. is a good start along with things like skewers of chicken, peppers stuffed with cod, calamares, crispy prawn pancakes and of course, tortilla. 

I can't write a food chapter without mentioning jamon.   Iberico or Serrano it's  the prized delicacy of the region and a leg may well be finding it's way into our luggage. Alongside some manchego cheese, cans of olive oil and possibly one or two bottles!

Unsurprisingly, after so much enjoyable indulgence we will also be carrying home our 'tapas tyres' around our middles      .......   so austerity measures in force when we get home  😕

Sherry triangle

So in between visitors we have actually managed to do some exploring further afield in Andalucia.   Cadiz was always on our list and what they call the 'sherry triangle' which is Jerez, Sanlucar and Puerto Santa Maria.  When we discovered the annual flamenco festival in Jerez was happening in February off we went in search of sherry, foot stamping, finger clicking and who knows what else.

Cadiz is quite unique.  Surrounded on three sides by water you can now approach by a stunning new bridge to reach a maze of cobbled streets opening into plazas and parks at every turn.  Our hotel was in a perfect location, overlooking the Cathedral, but a bit too cold to try that pool!

From there the town of Jerez was slightly disappointing.  The old quarter was much smaller and not so attractive and although we had expected to hear live guitar music spilling out from every bar and café we had to look hard to find the famous spirit of flamenco, which Jerez claims as its own.

However, we decided we might as well 'do' the whole tourist experience on offer.  We went to see the white Andalusian dancing  horses spectacular, which was very nicely done with cleverly choreographed routines to classical Spanish music.  Then we did the sherry tour with a diminutive but rather fierce guide who talked passionately about the history and production of 'dulce,  fino,  amontillado' ......  and even let us taste some.

Then it was off to dinner and a flamenco show .  I confess I was bracing myself for the dancing to be tourist rubbish and was more than pleasantly surprised by a really high quality performance with male & female dancers, singers and guitarist, and even underfloor amplification so you could hear every beat of their feet.