{"id":1362,"date":"2019-01-31T11:27:30","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T11:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2021-06-17T21:44:45","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T20:44:45","slug":"birthdays-in-malaga-and-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/?p=1362","title":{"rendered":"Birthdays in Malaga and Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Earlier on in the summer, we had secretly plotted with my sister-in-law Camilla to meet them on their arrival at Malaga airport to help my brother Neil celebrate his 50th<\/sup> birthday at the end of November!!  We rented an apartment in the same block as them, which was just a five minute walk from the city centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Happy Birthday Neil!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was a lovely weekend, lots of walking, sight seeing, drinking and eating, reminiscing and chatting. Malaga is a beautiful city with olde worlde cobbled narrow streets, a Jewish quarter full of Arabic and Moorish type bars and cafes, topped with an old fort and castle, and yet peppered with modern vibrant restaurants and a full music scene beside a modern marina. We had not been to Malaga before, just skirted around it, so another city ticked off our list! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Castle Walls<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Ampitheatre in Malaga<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Malaga Cathedral<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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View of the castle from the cathedral’s rooftop<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Looking down from the Cathedral rooftop to a square.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Neil and Camilla at the Marina<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Views of the City from the Castle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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To fly from Benicassim to Malaga was either an 8 hour (via Madrid) or 12 hour journey (via Paris!), so we drove down, stopping overnight at a golf complex on the way down after travelling along the coast road.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Snow on the Sierra Navada Mountains<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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On the way back, we took the route inland and drove above the Sierra Navada range of mountains, driving north of Grenada; we had sun on one side of the road, and glistening snow capped mountains on the other. We stopped overnight at a small village called Totana<\/strong>, our room was in a small hotel that was once an old monastery, the ornately decorated church is still in use (it is in the middle of the hotel buildings) and the gardens are still maintained as they would have been by the monks.  There was a walk above the monastery to a hilltop statue, the climb up was brisk as it was cold and windy that day but the views from the top were worth it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View of the old monastery\/ our Hotel from above<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Entrance to the Totana Hotel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The front of the Hotel, church in the middle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The old Organ in the church<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Inside the spooky church!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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One of the wall frescos.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Our night time view, our room was on the top floor.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Morning colours and view<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We also visited a small hilltop town nearby called Aledo<\/strong>, it has a beautiful church with foundations full of fossils which confirms that centuries ago, the area was underwater.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Town Info<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Fossil info<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Visit to Madrid for Arthur\u2019s 65<\/strong>th<\/strong><\/sup> Birthday<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A week later we flew to Madrid to join David\u2019s brother Arthur and our sister-in-law Tess for a few days in Madrid, another city we had yet to visit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aerial view of Valencia, on our way to Madrid.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our apartment block was right opposite the Royal Palace and its gardens, with amazing views over the fountains and ornamental structured shrubs. We watched the changing of the Guards whilst we were there, a fabulous hour long procession of smart horses, dressed military riders and other military paraphernalia. We saw the Christmas decorations in full glory, and again, explored what we thought was a large part of the city, until one evening a taxi driver took us on a very interesting detour along the city\u2019s ring road and we realised we had only seen a rather small area!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our posh entrance!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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View of the Royal Palace and Gardens from our apartment block.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Our apartment block was behind me to the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A new pal!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Royal Palace.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We were based right in the centre of the city and explored\nall the cultural places that tourists do as well as visiting lots of bars and\nrestaurants!  One day and evening was\npurely filled with eating and drinking, to help Arthur celebrate his 65th<\/sup>\nbirthday and his retirement from work.  I\u2019m\ncertain it\u2019s a night he doesn\u2019t remember!!! \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The birthday boy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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And his brother.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Tess and Arthur x<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One night we attended an intimate flamenco show, no more\nthan 30 people in the underground cellar, it was an exhilarating 1.5 hours of\nmusic, dance and foot stomping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Choosing lunch in the food market.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Madrid’s Cathedral was huge and very colourful. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Christmas decorations in the main square.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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So many crowds! <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We took a trip out to the hill top town of Toledo, where hand made swords are made, entrance gate to the town.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Other side of the entrance gate in Toledo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks later Arthur and Tess visited us at Benicassim, stayed overnight whilst we showed them the sights of the Torre along the seafront and a few local bars. 
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Top of the San Vincente Torre.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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David and Arthur contemplating dinner options.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Benicassim beach.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n


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\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier on in the summer, we had secretly plotted with my sister-in-law Camilla to meet them on their arrival at Malaga airport to help my brother Neil celebrate his 50th birthday at the end of November!!  We rented an apartment in the same block as them, which was just a five minute walk from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,125,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-spain","category-travel","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1363,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions\/1363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samsonandsuzi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}