The Andalucian Countryside in Spain

For October break (the kids had a week off from school for "half term"), we went to southern Spain.  We flew into Malaga, in Andalucia, and stayed in the countryside in Almogia.  This was my first time in Spain, and I was excited to visit since I had learned Spanish in school (although now that I have been focusing on German for the last year, it was a challenge to get used to the Spanish again!).  Dave speaks good Spanish from his mission, so he was able to adjust pretty quickly.  We learned some new words, however, in Castellano!

We visited the beautiful town of Antequera - a small city with a beautiful Moorish fortress on the hill called the Alcazabar, and of course a bullring downtown.  We ate lunch in the restaurant of the bullring, then had our picture taken in the ring!

We went to Granada to see the famous Alhambra castle.  It was first a Moorish, then a Christian palace, and you can see the amazing architecture of both.

Granada has an interesting history, as it was the last Moorish stronghold to fall to the Catholic kings. Moors from North Africa invaded and inhabited Granada from AD 711. Throughout the 13th and 14th centuries, Christian armies worked their way through southern Spain, driving out the Moors.

Granada managed to resist until 1479, when the dynastic marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille proved just too powerful for the Moorish rulers. Ferdinand and Isabella marched on the ckty in 1491 and with the help o an enormout army, held it under siege for seven months. In 1492, the same year that Columbus sailed for the Americas, Boabdil, the last Moorish king, handed over the keys to his beloved city.

After seeing the Alhambra, we drove into the city of Granada - literally right through the city in our minivan! We didn't intend to drive right through the center, but without a GPS (there were none available from the rental car company) we had a bit of an adventure! I must say that the cars are quite a bit more "dinged up" in Spain than they are in Switzerland (but Dave made it through Granada without any new scratches on ours). We saw the gypsy caves in the Sacromonte district of Granada, which was really interesting.

We went to the beach in Torremolinos, near Malaga, and had a great time. We ate paella and other traditional Spanish food for lunch, then spent the afternoon in the water.

We stopped at a Lobo (wolf) Park and had a guided tour.  We even got to hear the wolf packs howl before we left!

It was fun to see the countryside of Andalucia, and the "white towns" were really striking and beautiful. But, my favorite part of the trip was our next stop - Sevilla.