Malaga and Sevilla - Monday 2nd

It's later still on Tuesday afternoon 3rd June and I'm on a roll.
I am a blogger possessed and will continue until the need to eat tapas and drink beer overcomes me.
It may occur soon.

.....back to the blog


Today (Tuesday 2nd) we have decided to go to Seville (locally known as Sevilla) by train.
It's a €60 round trip by RENFE train. We were advised to catch a train as the roads there are narrow and parking is difficult.
The Málaga-María Zambrano railway station is only 15 minutes walk so we jumped at the train option.
The trains here are easy to use and the stations are quite accommodating.

We arrived at Sevilla two comfortable hours later and armed with our Google maps and recently downloaded reviews of the city walked towards Las Setas.

This is the article that made me want to go there -
 1. Las Setas
Go to the top of Las Setas (the mushrooms), and then complain about it with locals. 
Officially known as the Metropol Parasol, the German-designed wood building-thingy near La Encarnación Square may look cool if you’re a foreigner, but that’s because you’re wrong. 
Make no mistake, to sevillanos the aptly-nicknamed Mushrooms are an eyesore. 
Skulk around the bottom taking arty-looking photos for your Instagram feed, and then head to the top and enjoy a beer while overlooking the city. 
If you’re looking for spectacular city views, this is one of the best things to do in Seville.

With a write up like that, how could you not want to go there?

We understood why reviewers had suggested not taking a car there.
Some of the footpaths make the one in Firenze look like motorways!
One of the footpaths was one, yes ONE, shoe wide.
We were discovering this as a bloody Prius taxi came up behind us in stealth (aka electric) mode.
The driver was very polite but these silent cars are dangerous!
Dangerous to the point of needing to be banned, I would suggest.

This is very very wide, in the old part old Sevilla

The structure is made of wood.

As remarkable as that is it has failed to impress the locals, who hate it.

We got to the wooden mushrooms and decided that instead of spending €3 on going to the top of one of the mushrooms we should spend it on food and drink. Which we did.
Andalusian oxtail stew, olives, not enough bread, too much beer and just enough sangria and chocolate and churros made up lunch.

Obviously the churros and chocolate were Tiz's. 

The beer belonged to her travelling companion

 Her travelling companion did not receive churros with his beverage 

and chose to use his index finger as a substitute. 

The "too much beer" was obviously an over indulgence of mine and it was the reason we didn't cover as much of Sevilla as we may have.
The fact that is was very hot didn't help either.

We went to the river to get some respite from the heat and thankfully, like all good European cities, they had a boat tour of the Guadalquiver River.
It took about an hour and we learnt everything we ever wanted to know about the Expo they had there in 1992.
We also learnt everything we didn't need to know about the 1992 Expo.
It gave me the impression that not much had happened before the Expo and very little has happened since.

The cool breeze off the water as we motor-boated along was welcome and made the commentary bearable.

The heat had really got to me and I was all for just heading back to the air-conditioned comfort of the train station, which we did.

We arrived with ~40 minutes to spare and thought we would treat ourselves to a slushie.
Tiz chose piña (pineapple) and I chose fresa (strawberry).
The slushies were delivered with a smile but I should have realised that all was not quite right.
Should slushies glow an iridescent hue of the fruit they are supposed to contain?
I think these things may have have had nuclear waste in them.
We were dry and thirsty enough to overlook a small amount of depleted uranium in our drinks as long as the thirst was quenched.
I took a sip and shuddered.
Tiz took a sip and froze.
These things defied any law of physics or cooking that states that there is only a certain amount of sugar that can be made soluble in a container of about 150ml.
My teeth ached looking at it.

Tiz was still frozen.
She gets "brain freeze", which I don't suffer from nor understand but accept.
She looked like she had complete body freeze.
I mean like Walt Disney body freeze.
No movement from our Tiz.
She eventually made a sound and said "Not only cannot I drink something this cold it's too sweet!"
This girl is the mistress of understatement, if nothing else.

Too sweet doesn't even begin to describe it.
It's a bit like saying that the Carolina Reaper chili pepper is a little spicy.

We bought a bottle of water and kept diluting it until it was drinkable.

The train trip the Malaga was an exercise in trying to take a good picture from a moving train.
Some successes, load of failures.

Wow this area has a load of olive trees! No wonder they make sop much oil!

We got back a couple of hours before dinner and a little before the supermarket nearby closed.
Beers.Tick. Water. Tick Crema De Arroz Con Leche. Nada. Much sadness.

We drank our fluids and started out to look for a place to eat.
I remembered an interesting looking place not far from our hotel and suggested we try it.
When we got there there didn't seem to be any tourists among the local so it seemed like the right choice.
It is called La Taberna del Pintxos, which is odd because the tasty morsels known as pintxos from the north are almost exclusively called tapas here in the south.
Beyond that I have little else to offer, by way of explanation, other than to say "It's a Spanish thang!"
Now, I could go on about the food but I will offer some pictures that will explain my thoughts far better than words.

Look up to see the choices of pintxos/tapas

Look to the left for the cost of each selection, based on the toothpick 

..... and here, without distractions 

 The other end of the bar

My gorgeous dining companion showing the difference between a glutton and a person with self control

.....Just in case you couldn't see the difference in the amount of toothpicks in the pic above

White chocolate mousse (above) and arroz con leche WITHOUT alcohol

 Wine of choice for the night was a Navara Gran Feudo rosado. Nice drop. 

 All that for ...... low bucks.

      

*** 

It's 20:00 on Tuesday night and although this entry, as the others, is incomplete I will post it.

I only have a little over an hour or so to get get ready for dinner so I will clock  for now. 

I hope you are all happy, warm and dry, and that your bellies are full.

Mañana

Malaga - Sunday 1st

It's now late afternoon Tuesday 3rd June and I am returning to write the entry for Sunday 1st.

It would be a lot easier if this place didn't have so much to do, see, eat, drink and ogle at.
Yes, I know, "....it's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it ... ", to quote Faith No More.

Today, due to sleeping in, was going to be a rest day. 
By "rest" we mean - No catching buses or trains or getting up at any particular hour.
We got up quite late, ~10:30, and walked across the road to the chocolate/coffee/bread/pastry shop as it began to drizzle. 
The place was half full so we easily got a table. People wandered by without too much care as the rain was light and certainly not heavy enough to ruin a Malagans Sunday morning.
A wedding party, or at least it looked like one, paced past in single file, trying to take advantage of the minuscule parapet to avoid messing up their beautiful hair.

One lady took the "save the hair" mentality to an extreme that had Tiz and I stitches laughing.
She had put a shopping bag over her hair. I guess she should be commended for ingenuity but I could only think of "paper bag" jokes.   

By the time the tears of laughter stopped steaming down our cheeks the rain had become worrisome.
I had planned on walking to the Museo Automovilístico de Málaga but it looked that may not happen.
A large café con leche (white coffee for you non-Spaniards) and a few small cakes later the skies opened up to reveal a blue cloudless sky.
The Accuweather app on Tiz phone didn't agree, but then again it claimed that every day in every place we stayed had a "Cloudy day" despite what kind of weather it was.
Do BoM do the weather reports for Accuweather?

It was on a 35 minute walk through what we know was a working mans portside suburb.
It's places like these that give a real sense of what a town is like.
We walked past two chicken shops selling "Pollo Asador" (roast chicken) almost next to each other.
One had a queue out onto the street at 10 people long. There other was empty.
We weren't the least bit hungry but we knew where we wouldn't go if we were later on.

Whoa! All of a sudden we were outside the museum. That was a very quick 35 minute walk.
The many buildings in this complex where all very high and clinically white.

There were too many to be all part of the car museum as they would have held many hundreds, if not thousands of cars.

                        
                    This only a small sample of the buildings that surrounded the visible museum

We walked around a couple of corners, such as this one .....

and found the entrance.

This place is known for treating cars as a fashion statement as much as a piece of history and engineering prowess, as is evident by the poster just inside the door.

Here are only a few samples of what we saw -

The history of the haute couture that went along with the cars, and their history, was fascinating.

Both Tiz and I loved it.

It had about 80 cars so it didn't take that long. 

It was now approaching "hora de comer" so we thought we'd walk back to the hotel along the beach and see which bar took our fancy for a bite to eat.

We ended up at a little bar with covered outside tables.

We had a plate of little prawns and olives, along with the obligatory bread, beer and wine.

Spaniards don't generally supply lemon with their seafood but they do give each plate a very generous sprinkling of rock salt.    

Every time we get served up a plate of seafood with a very visible layer of salt we laugh and think of Tiz's mum, Lidia. 

Lidia , is a cooks cook! Her cooking is second to none ...... apart from maybe my mum!

The one thing that Lidia has a a problem with is salt.

She doesn't use a lot in her cooking but you cannot put any dish down in front of her with her saying "Manca sale!" ("It lacks salt!") and giving the food a good shake of salt.

This happens with every dish that id in front of here AND before tasting it it.

She's a touch off 82 and very fit fir her age but we fear for her arteries.

We wonder if  she would have the same "Manca sale!" attitude here in Spain?!

We finished the prawns and olives but where still desiring. Desiring? Desiring what?

Crema De Arroz Con Leche !!!

I could see that my attempts at using Spanglish to explain the the purely Spanish speaking waiter were getting nowhere and off he went.

He returned with a handwritten list and muttered a few things including "alcohol".

As soon as I heard that word I said "Si! Si!"

Five minutes later he returned with two servings of flan flavoured ice cream cake with a large side of mock cream. It may, just maybe ...... at a stretch ...... perhaps,   have had a drop of alcohol in it.

D'oh! Will we ever get to taste Crema De Arroz Con Leche, oh cruel world?

We spent the rest of the afternoon doing not much in our room as the days ahead were going to require lots of energy, on the day, and therefore rest leading up to them.

That's all well and good but man, and woman, cannot live on rest .alone.

Ice cream is also required.

Yes, it was now 22:30, but by Spanish standards it was just the right time to head out to eat.

What we found, as we walked towards Calle Marqués de Larios, was that Malagans don't get out on Sunday night like they do every other night.

There were a few bars open but, at a stretch, only 10%.

Nonetheless, we were going to eat ice cream and ice cream we did.

We were lucky to find one of the larger chains open, just in the nick of time.

Bellies full of ice cream and close to midnight, it was time to go to bed.         

Malaga - Saturday 31st

The sun through the drawn curtains seemed so bright it made my head hurt, this morning.
It could not have been the beer and wine and sherry we drank last night.

We tried to shower the cobwebs from our eyes, and brains, and make it to breakfast before they closed, which we thought was 10:00am

When we got to the dining room it seemed like half the guests had partied a wee bit too much as well and we were in good company.

For all its faults, and let's face it, the Parador de Málaga Golf has way too many for a place that purports to be a 4 star hotel, it does put on a varied breakfast and the breakfast waiter are, as we say in Oz, "bang on the money" (which means very good)!

After my breakfast of bread and cake type stuff with delicious chocolate in it and a bucket load of coffee we packed our dusty belongings and caught a taxi to the new and more centrally located boutique (I love that word, but what the hell does it mean when used to describe a hotel?!).

I should mention at this point that Tiziana "I can't eat breakfast" has been eating breakfast every day, and very healthy ones at that. Muesli, yoghurt, fruit, juices ..... and coffee. I'm surprised and proud of her.

The Hotel Atarazanas is in a great spot and it's very boutiquey.
Sorry, my twisted sense of humor made me write that last adjective.
It's good, with fair size rooms, great bathroom, excellent weefy and a very short walk to 100+ bars and tapas eateries.

We unpacked the bags and thought we would catch with Roger and Stela one last time.
Roger had been "banging on" about a place called El Pimpi and how good it was.

After using various means of communication we found out that they were there so of we set.

It wasn't far from our new digs but we nearly walked past its very unassuming front door.
In we went and the place is like the Tardis.
There's the original part that looks like an old chapel which opens up to a huge courtyard out the back and they have what I called a 1st floor that look like a McEl Pimpi.
This McEl Pimpi is all shiney and new with plastic seating and it looks like a complete sellout to try and attract the new Malagan generation that might think it's cool.
In fact it looked like ..... Americanised shit. Sorry, but that's the truth.

The "old" El Pimpi is great.
Chaotic.
Full of everyone and anyone who is anyone in Malaga.
The outdoor area is situated in the shadows of a huge Roman amphitheater and it is just to sit there and eat excellent Spanish tucker and drink way to much.

We ate, we drank, we hugged and kissed and wished our Swiss/Brazilian friends farewell until th next time we meet, which hopefully won't be too far away.

On the walk back to our oh-so-chic-boutique-hotel we heard an Irish lady trying to catch a cab to El Pimpi.
Before I go any further I need to explain that I for one have enormous difficulty understanding the Irish accent and I imagine that a Spanish cab driver would have far more trouble than me.

Being the friendly travellers that we are we told this nice lady that if she went 5 meter ahead, turned left and walked another 30 meters she'd be there.
What we didn't tell here was that it was now Spanish lunchtime, ~16:00, and the locals were queuing up and looking at the damn tourists that were taking "their" tables at "their" El Pimpi.

We hope she got a table there 'cos I'm sure she will have enjoyed it.

That night we headed back into the old quarter and finally had a paella.
We know that it was not as good as Julios wife's paella nor as good as his mums but it was pretty good for us.
What made me laugh that night was yet another case of me trying to be helpful by using my best Spanglish and the waiter, after listening patiently and looking at me like I was slightly retarded, answering in very good English.
I love the Spaniards and I love their dry sense of humor even more.

***

I am writing this entry on Monday night and it's getting close to dinner time - 21:40 - so we're heading out for a feed and I'll resume writing after dinner.

*** 

  It's 23:10 and we've just got back from dinner. I'm in no state to be writing anything that might be read by intelligible humans, so I won't.
I will finish off by saying that  "La Taberna de Pintxos" is entirely responsible for yet another late entry.

More tomorrow.
Sleep well dear reader, as I know I will.

* SPECIAL NOTICE TO TOUR GROUP *

Hello    Hola    Bonjour    Hallo

fellow riders, pillions and tour staff of the recent tour of the Imperial Cities of Morocco.
I hope you find the time to read and enjoy my blog in the near future.
Please understand that it was not kept up to date as diligently as I would have liked.
Therefore, some of the entries may not be as accurate as they could be.
Please feel free to comment and correct the blog as you see fit.

Finally, thank you all for making this past week an adventure of a lifetime for Tiziana and I and for looking after us as much and as well as you did.
May all your riding be safe and that the rubber side stay down and the smile side stays up

Good bye and good luck, until we meet again!
               Adiós y buena suerte, hasta que nos encontremos de nuevo!
                           Au revoir et bonne chance, jusqu'à ce que nous nous reverrons!
                                      Auf Wiedersehen und viel Glück, bis wir uns wieder treffen!

Skhirat to Malaga - Friday 30th May

It's the last day of the ride and there has been a change of plan.
Originally we were going to see the mausoleum of Mohammed V but with the ferry leaving one hour earlier Julio decided we might not make it by the new departure time of 13:00, if we stopped to see the dead king.
The next ferry would have us in Tarifa, Spain, at 19:00 putting us back to base at ~21:00, which was not desirable.

This flexible schedule made me think.
Julio, from the outset, made it clear that although we had an itinerary it could, and probably would, be changed depending on many factors, e.g. delays, bad roads, common consensus, special wants/needs etc. etc.
Although to some it may seem like it made for a poorly structured or unorganised tour it made it more enjoyable, and in some cases a good laugh.
One example that gave everyone a chuckle was the planned visit to the waterfall, near the kasbah, known as Cascades D'Ouzoud.
Julios original suggestion was that we meet at the normal, but cruel, hour of 08:30.
We then ride to the waterfalls and get back to the kasbah and be ready to leave by 09:30.
Our brain got ticking very quickly and questions like -
"How high are the waterfalls?"
"Can we sleep in for another hour and miss the trip to the waterfall?"
- were asked.
Julio tried to upsell the waterfall but he was dealing with some seriously tired, sleep deprived bikers that had seen Niagara Falls and were less than impressed.
The falls at Ouzoud weren't going to be enough to get some of us to relinquish an hours sleep to watch water "...going over a high gutter!"
Julio made fun of our disinterest and feigned being hurt by it but in all seriousness it showed up two important things -
 1. How difficult it can be to please everyone in a group as large and diverse as ours.
   and
 2. How important it is to be flexible and how accommodating Julio was at being so.
Some went to the falls, some stayed and slept. Everyone ended up happy that day.

Now, back to the events of the last days' ride.

We met in the carpark of L'Amphitrite at the normal, but cruel, hour of 08:30.
There we were, a bedraggled bunch of bikers on our dusty BMW's amongst mainly clean, upmarket cars in the carpark of a holiday palace. A nice contrast.
The one thing that bothered me was how close we were to that Ferrari Italia 458. I was sh!t scared the damn thing would spontaneously combust and burn us all to a cinder!
We got out of there before it did.

We wanted to reach the port in Tangier by midday at the latest, as that would give us an hour to get 5 minutes of paperwork done. This is how you need to plan in Morocco.
This may seem strange to some but the Moroccan port authorities, as we discovered on our way in, can take bureaucracy, officialdom and just plain being difficult to a whole new level.
One hour might just be enough to deal with such a worse case scenario.

Getting through Rabat was done by sticking close, like a ball (or as Julio pronounced it - "bol", and this in no way is making fun of his accent as he speaks multiple languages far better than I speak English).
Once we were on the northern side of Rabat it was time to make the bikes "work", which they did flawlessly.
We got to the port in good time and the officials there made the paperwork process far less painful than a week ago.
Tiz and I high fived each other at the fact that we had "done Morocco"! No incidents to speak of. No damage to the bike. We were very pleased.
We were on the ferry with our bikes strapped down by 12:10. The ferry ended up leaving at 13:40.
That's life!
We occupied the back end of the top deck and sprawled out our riding gear in preparation for a little rest while the ferry took us to Tarifa an hour later.
I slept. Other chatted. Dolphins swimming next to ferry entertained the passengers.

The exit from the port of Tarifa, in Spain, took a little while as three of the girls were "mucked about" by port officials and ended up going through customs along with many pedestrian passengers.

Whilst we waited for the three girls Julio, Roger and I talked about stuff.
Sh!t mainly, as guys are want to do when they are standing around bikes waiting for their chicas.
I digress.
As we stood there, across the road from our bikes, a couple pulled up on an older BMW Adventure. They had parked next to our bikes and were circling our bikes looking at them.

Eventually they walked towards us and the youngish (mid 30's) rider asked if any of us spoke English.
Quick as a flash Rogers says, pointing at me, "This bloke speaks Aussie but you might not understand him."
Me thinks "A###hole!", in the most affectionate way a man can for another, and then start to crack up and start laughing and I gave up trying to make sense or help.

The young Scotsman was going to follow the route that we had taken without any planning or bookings.
Just him and his girls on his bike doing a lap of Morocco, impromptu.
He was embarking on a far bigger adventure than we had.
Julio gave him some tips on how to get onto the ferry and through Moroccan customs, which the guy was completely unaware of.
It made me realise how fortunate we were to have chosen Hispania Tours to complete this trip.

"Good luck, Jock (and girlfriend)!"  I hope they have as good a time as we with as few hassles, but I think you'll wish you had rung Eva beforehand!

By now it was Spanish lunchtime, ~15:30, so we stopped just outside the port at a little seafood restaurant.
As usual my eyes led the charge whilst my stomach struggled behind.
Bread, olive oil and the best marinated olives were quickly served up.
I chose grilled octopus for starters and I am still confused at how they manage to cook octopus that size (~40mm in diameter) and still keep it tender.

I remember watching the Greek fishermen down at the rocks in Sorrento (Victoria, Australia) pulling squid and octopus out of the water and immediately belting the catch against the rocks until it looked like they had smacked seven religions out of the poor fish! That must be the trick to tender cephalopods.
Tiz had a tomato salad for starter, 'cos she's sensible.
We shared a pot of arroz de mar (seafood risotto, but don't say that to a Spaniard) which was enough for six people. Tiz ate her portion. I ate three and we left two behind. As nice as it was, there is a limit to even my gluttony.

The pillions were treated to a small botle of creme de arroz con leche with three shot glasses.
I absolutely love arroz con leche and adding alcohol to it can only elevates it to new heights.
I had a tiny sip and it was indeed as good as I imagined.

Lunch over, back on the bikes for the last last ride.
We travelled a mixture of highways and freeways along the coast.
We were tired and I was brutally aware that so many accidents happen as riders, and drivers, relax as the end nears.
This made me more acutely aware but what I hadn't thought of, or realised, was that my hands were going numb.
Along one of the stretches of road we would come across roundabouts.
Here, you give way to the left.
As I approached one roundabout a van had signalled quite late that he was about to turn left.
As I went to pull the brake lever I realised my hand had frozen! I applied the foot brake but only managed to slow down rather than stop. The less that impressed van driver tooted his horn and stopped for us, fortunately.
He was probably thinking "I actually signalled for once and this dirtbag biker didn't even give way! Tonto estúpido!"
We made it to the shop at 19:30. Cold beers, and drinks, awaited. I remember drinking three (only 250ml) very quickly.
Lots of smiling and back slapping ensued.
Tiz and I had done 1973kms in six days of riding in a seven day period.
As Paul pointed out "It has less to do with the kms you do and more to do with the amount of time on the bike."
We had spent 5-6 hours riding each day with a non-riding day in the middle of the trip.
It was a lot, for us.

The odometer tells the story!

We parked the bikes gave ourselves two hours to scrub up and get the stench of motorbikes out of our skin. We would meet in the hotel lobby and catch taxis into the city.

When arrived at the start of the Calle Marqués de Larios, a main pedestrian walkway which has hundreds of eateries, bars, shop, ice cream vendors etc. etc., we were met by Johannes, the company owner , and Julio.

Julio, with great pride took us to a bar that the Spanish visit for a small of wine, which is almost a sherry, before they commence their meal. The bar is called La Casa Del Antigua Guardia. It's the oldest bar in Malaga and has been there for over 130 years.

This is the entrance to Casa De La Antigua Guardia,

 but the pic was taken the next day

These are the barrels that hold the variety of sherry. 

All are sweet. Some less sweet. Some more sweet.

Not really my thing, but then again I'm neither Malagan nor a connoisseur of fine sherry.

Julio's pride in the place was enough for me to enjoy being there.  

We next visited another bar, called La Campana, for tapas and drink.
This place was very busy, as are any of the better bars, and the tapas were very tasty.

Chicken on skewers with a basket of little grissini and bread, 

washed down with great Spanish wine and beer

Yummo!

When we finished there we ended up at another bar ..... whose name has slipped my mind.
It was very good and the wine and beer flowed freely. That I do remember.
I also remember saying, at 01:30am, "Goodnight, we're going back to the hotel to get some sleep.
Some from the group followed. Other die-hards stayed.

The whole "group thing" was now over.
Most of the people in the group we will remember fondly, forever.
Many we will keep in touch with, as best we can, for a very long time.
Some have become friends that, although not as often as we would like, we will see and laugh with again.

Finally, this blog, and in particular Moroccan leg, has a lot of video yet to be inserted.
I will edit the videos and upload some of it into this blog after we have returned home.
I can assure there will some interesting stuff to see so I urge you to return for a look in a few weeks.