The Hennings: Andalusian Trip through Spain 2011

Hi everyone,

Well this summer the big trip was to the south of Spain or the Andalusian area. What a great trip we had. We had really no idea what to expect of Spain and we found it to be beautiful and incredibly clean which was a nice change compared to our trip to Egypt. We saw some fantastic and very unique things on this trip from a church inside a mosque to the Gibraltar Monkeys (Barbary Macaque). I have set up the Blog by cities we visited and some other items such as the Andalusian Horse show and of course beer. The food was fantastic and oddly enough, we had the best Chinese food we have ever had in Marbella where we received gifts (earrings and hand fans) at the end of our meals. If you love fish then Spain is the place to go. Absolutely fantastic.

AIRPORTS

The Travel Group

Isn't Wolfgang lucky to travel with such a fabulous couple of women. Once in Turkey, a man commented on the fact that Wolfgang had two wives, without missing a beat he responded with "and I left the third wife at home". We have a great time together.

RONDA

Ronda was our first city to visit so of course it was very impressive but it was fabulous. I cannot say enough about how incredibly clean Spain is because it was and it was this way everywhere we went. Ronda has this gorge running through the middle of the town and the bridge that has been built across it is just as beautiful and impressive as the gorge itself. Ronda also has a beautiful old bullfighting arena and sadly is still used today. Bullfighting is a huge "sport" in Spain. Let's hope someday that will change. The arenas themselves area much smaller than I expected but very cool. I am sure most of you have seen the footage where the Bull jumped up into the stands and injured a lot of people, well I can now see how it happened. We would never be allowed to have this sport in the US because the liability would just be too much.

A beautiful mosaic of Ronda. I am sure it is very old but still pretty accurate.

GIBRALTAR

OK, now most of you know about the Rock of Gibraltar because we were raised with the Prudential Insurance commercials and they used "the Rock" as their emblem so actually going to the "the Rock" was exciting for that idiotic reason alone. There are some very unique things about Gibraltar such as to get to the rock, you have to drive across the actual runway of the airport; the rock actually belongs to England but they drive on the right side of the road; it is the southernmost point of Europe and is only 23 kilometers from Africa across the Straits of Gibraltar. It was an odd thing to see another continent from where we stood at the top of the rock. There is also a huge cave inside the rock and there are tunnels all over the rock made by the military from previous wars but they are still there. There is also a huge cannon at the top of the rock and I am sure knowing the British it is in perfect condition "just in case". All these things are interesting but the best part of Gibraltar are the free ranging monkeys. They are the only "wild" monkeys left in Europe but how wild they are is pretty borderline. They are also tailless monkeys not apes which I thought was interesting since I learned that all monkeys had tails. So here are the pics for "the Rock".

When you enter or exit Gibraltar you must cross two border crossing to do so. One when you leave Spain and one when you enter England. It's really insane because you walk from building to building and no one really looks at anything.

Driving across the airport.

Don't you wonder who came up with the idea to put the cannon on the top and who else thought it was a great idea. It had to be after a few pints!

You are not allowed to touch them but you can get pretty close. They warn you not to have any food anywhere on you because they can get really aggressive. We watched them in action.

OK, this is one of Ella's all time favorites. This guy here stole the ice cream he is eating. A man bought the ice cream and was eating inside the store when this guy here ran in and up on the man, grabbed the ice cream and ran back out. They said not to have food on you.

This is another thief after his heist. One lady walked out of the store with her ice cream.
She never had a chance

They have set up a concert hall inside the cave.
It probably is bone chilling by the end of the concert but the acoustics must be incredible.

CÀDIZ

What a beautiful town with lovely gardens. It is actually on a peninsula and is very popular in the summer with the people of Spain. They are famous of windsurfing. All of our hotels were very nice but this one was really lovely. We did have some hotel incidences but I tell you about those later.

Ella's favorite food, Shrimp! I think that she was a sea otter in one of her past lives.

These are actually mailboxes at the post office.

Is it the pope?
I mean he is German and it is a red carpet coming out of a giant Catholic church.
Spain is Catholic.
Their churches are very unique and different from city to city but they are all REALLY BIG!

ANDALUSIAN HORSE SHOW

I am not sure how many of you are familiar with the Andalusian horses. My dad and I watched a show on them every year on the Wonderful World of Disney so I was very excited to see it live. A great memory of my dad was with me the whole time. Anyway, it was fabulous. The entire show is done to some of the most beautiful music and everything is so precise you just keep thinking Wow, this is fantastic. Wolfgang and Ella had no idea about the Andalusian horses but they loved it just as much as I did.

Storks are everywhere in Spain. They are winter stop on the way to Africa (remember the Strait is only 23 kilometers wide so it is flyable by a stork) but many of them have decided to just stay and live in Spain. They don't fly any farther either way.

JEREZ

Here we are in Jerez. This was the worst lunch we had along the trip but in a great location. The only thing we really did here was visit a Sherry Distillery. It was very interesting and we bought one bottle of Sherry for Wolfgang but Ella and I were just not impressed by the stuff.

While we were in Spain it was at the peak of the Student protests over no jobs. In Spain, the unemployment rate for Students with college degrees is over 40% and normal unemployment is 20% which is astronomical. Of course, there are always those that just like to protest but hey wasn't that part of the 60's?

Many famous people have visited the Tio Pepe distillery and signed some casks.

Oh look who has been asked to sign too!

This is Tio Pepe, the symbol of this distillery.

This is for the mice in the distillery. They have actual pictures of mice drinking the Sherry.

What we bought for Wolfgang.

DRIVING AROUND

OK so we did a one week bus tour around Spain and then one week at the beach in Marbella. These are few pictures of the countryside. Another interesting thing we learned along the way is that Spain produces more olive oil than any other country including Italy. In fact much of Italy's olive oil is made from Spanish Olives.

Ham

There's Africa

The Osbourne Bull, same as the Tio Pepe, symbols from distilleries of Spain.

This car is the same age as Wolfgang

SEVILLE

We traveled to see Seville but did not see any barbers. What we did see were the buildings from the 1929 Americas Fair. Many of the countries in South and Central America build this wonderful buildings representing their countries and they were fabulous to see and still in great shape. Of course, the most elaborate was the building from Spain. In addition we went to the third largest Cathedral in the world where Christopher Columbus is buried. Well, he's not really buried but he is entombed here. The only Cathedrals largest than this one are the Vatican and St. Paul's in London. It was very impressive. Wolfgang also went up to the top of the tower and took some pictures of Seville from there.

Our Hotel. It was hot enough in Seville that we went swimming when we got to this hotel. This location was our first "problem" hotel. We were there for two nights and each time Ella left her room her Cardkey would no longer work so she had to go down to the desk and get it reset. They thought it was something in her purse but she said no. Later we found out that it wasn't something in the purse but the purse itself (magnet on the clasp) that was causing the key to erase. Wolfgang then became the official key holder for the rest of the trip. Hey, she has People.

Had to get some birds in here somewhere or it wouldn't be our Blog!

The next few pictures are of the building from Spain for the 1929 Fair.

Starting the Cathedral. Beautiful windows.

This is the tomb of Christopher Columbus. It is huge. Not as big as Napoleon's but very impressive. We have always learned that he was Italian but the Spanish are claiming him.

CORDOBA

OK, so for me this was one of the most interesting towns we visited. Never mind the leather thing, they have the most unique Cathedral I have ever seen. When you visit Europe, you visit millions of Cathedrals (my friend's daughter Shawn once stated that she couldn't look at one more Cathedral and I understand) but this one was incredible. When they built this one, they build it in the same place where a mosque was standing but instead of tearing down the Mosque, they built a Cathedral right in the middle of the mosque. Strange but true so when you enter, you think, cool mosque but then all of the sudden you are in the middle of this church. It is really wild but fabulous.

Inside the bell tower is a complete minaret.
They decided not to tear it down but to build around it.

Can you find the face?

GRANADA

Granada is famous for the Alhambra. The Alhambra is palace that was created in the Moorish style, we would probably say middle eastern style, for the last Emirs of Spain. It is set on top of a hill overlooking Granada and is very beautiful. I would say that the craftsmanship of the rooms inside are really what set this location apart from many other sites we have visited. Really an enjoyable day. We also visited a Flamingo Show in the evening. We sat right up front and had our free Sangria to drink.

This is actually our first stop across from the Alhambra so what you are seeing here is not part of the Palace.

So here is a way to stop someone from cheating you for the weight of when you buy something. Only 5 people had been caught cheating and these are the items used to beat the cheaters. Interesting concept. I believe Singapore still uses this system.

A beautiful view of The Alhambra

Just a building along the way. Again, notice how clean everything is along the way.

Wolfgang really is a lucky guy, right?

Of course, so are we.

So the rule is that all backpacks and purses must be kept in front of you while you are on the tour. Maybe Wolfgang has a little too much in his pack. I think the camera is the best touch.

This is a view from the Alhambra back to the location where we took a picture of the Alhambra in the distance.

Yes, it is a Didgeridoo but this guy was great.

OK, so remember the students are protesting high unemployment. I loved this sign. It says "Yes we Camp!"

All day at the Alhambra, a little shopping and a lot of walking. It was time for a beer. Here we are in front of our hotel in Granada. An interesting event happened here. First, Ella's room just stunk of smoke so she got her room changed. Then, she once again had the problem with the Keycard (how we finally realized it was the purse) so she went back down to get it reset. During this time a group of Japanese tourists arrived at the hotel and received their rooms. I went to Ella's room to give her something and found a Japanese man and woman coming out of Ella's room and Ella was not there. They had assigned Ella's room to the Japanese couple. What did our tour guide say when we told her "it happens". Personally, I have never had a stranger walk into my room but then again, this was my first trip to Spain.

OK, the guitar player was a fantastic player but he was so stoned that he would just stare off into space. Once the singer next to him had to tap him to get him to start playing. We were on the floor, we were laughing so hard. The dancer below was the best in the show.

ALFARNATEJO AND THE OLIVE OIL FACTORY

One the best surprises of this trip was our visit to an olive oil factory and our lunch following. When we heard that we would be visiting an olive oil factory, I told Wolfgang that we didn't need any oil. It is heavy and we had limited weight for our flight home. So we just cruised along until it was time to taste the fresh pressed oil. OH MY GOD! We bought a liter and Ella bought enough for all the friends in LA. Who cared about the weight, this stuff was fantastic. That Extra Virgin thing, I get it now.

After our visit to the Oil location we were then split up into groups of 8-9 people and taken into homes in this lovely little town where we were served lunch. It was wonderful and they were real homes. We were extra lucky (at least I think so) because when I went into the back garden, what did I find but a darling puppy.

This was our hostess. I must say, it was a great day and a real surprise.

Malaga was our beginning and end to our tour. It is located on the Costa Del Sol. From this hotel, we could see the Rock of Gibraltar and Africa. Also located in Malaga is the the birth home and museum of Pablo Picasso. We of course had to visit and view some of his works. It was very interesting and I believe that Ella and Wolfgang appreciated his talents a little more than before.

The day we were to leave Malaga and head to our second week of fun in Marbella, there was this huge bike ride for one and all that went past our hotel. There were literally thousands of riders of young and old, in group and some in costumes.

This was a stag party, really. The guy with his hand in the air was getting married the next week and this is how his friends celebrated.

BEER, ETC.

OK, so as always, here are a few pictures of our beer and wine assortments along the way.

THE SECOND WEEK IN MARBELLA

After getting on and off the bus for a week, we really enjoyed doing nothing in Marbella and I mean we did nothing. We walked around the old town looking for food and drink. We walked up and down the beach boardwalk looking for food and drink and we sat in our hotel and ordered food and drink. In addition to this hobby, we layed around the pool and did crossword and word search puzzles for about 10 hours a day. It was heavenly!

The fish we had in this town was incredible and the best Chinese restaurant. We were also there for their one week festival so we got to see a fabulous fireworks show and then later in the week, we visited the fair itself. We enjoyed it all.