Tripping 2: Spain, Andalucia

Finally some 2 months after actually making this trip, is time to share something about it here.

So on some evening last September I decided that I was in need of some vacation from this demanding and laborious effort.
-www.skyscanner.fi: a pretty practical cheap flight site. Baden-Baden airport is here in the region, about 40km away, reachable by the public traffic ticket we received from the city as a gift. Another options are Frankfurt am Main and Stuttgart airports which are in totally different league considering size. Germanwings flies from Stuttgart and Ryanair from Baden-Baden. There are probably other cheap fliers also of which I just haven't found out. I bought tickets from Baden-Baden to Malaga and back for 48€... but.

Flight took of on Sunday morning something past 8 a.m.. Last bus connection from Baden-Baden train station to airport was on Saturday evening 11'ish p.m. And earliest on Sunday too late. Last train connection to Baden-Baden direction arrived in Sinzheim Nord (a stop closer to the Airport) at around 1 a.m..

Starting point: Map shows that Airport indeed is some 8 kilometers into that direction, no road signs anywhere, nor road lights if somebody was expecting them. It was rather interesting experience to walk trough the farm side in darkness. Some 8 car's passed me during that ~1,5 h walk which would have given opportunities to hitchhike. I had only a back bag and was therefore perfectly fine with some walking, to stay warm and so.

Nest problem was so small size of the airport that it actually stays closed until some 5 a.m.. So after I arrived to the completely abandoned looking shabby airport, I had to improvise some shelter against coldness or stay up next couple of hours. There luckily is one hotel opposite of the terminal building which has open wind locker. It was rather small but the electrical doors anyway closed behind me and there I managed to try to sleep a little bit. I even found some polish guy who had shared same idea of overnight trip, only difference in that he had taken the last bus on Saturday. No employee of the hotel bothered us during the whole stay.

As the terminal opened, some half an hour sleep there on bench and another 1 hour in plane made miracles and I was in perfect condition to continue my morning adventure. Ryanair offered cozy 3-bench-row in a plane that felt very new. And then some people dare to complain about the company! :o

I had made all the hostel reservations in advance trough www.hostelbookers.com: First night in Malaga, 2 following nights in Granada, and again one night in Malaga. All I had to do was to figure out how to change cities but that wasn't much of a problem anyway. I had on 2 occasions actually difficulties to find the hostels because I had written addresses incompletely or wrong. Note: it's useful to actually use navigator beforehand to know where the place approximately should be.

Malaga is a lovely holiday resort with a nice medieval castle on very nice location atop a hill in the middle of the city, rose gardens, some Roman ruins and beach line boulevard. It's also houses Picasso museum and museum of music with one of the biggest collection of instruments in Europe, but I didn't have time to check those out. I spend most of my day walking in and about the castle and sitting at one cafe I actually got stuck into a conversation with one Korean guy. Nice new acquaintance. 

After one night in freezing hostel I went as a first thing on morning to buy a hoodie. I had woken up numerous times during night just because temperature sunk close to 0 degrees and blankets were summer style thin. With a new shirt I went to bus station to buy ticket to Granada, for some 14€.

Bus trip to Granada took some 2 hours trough a beautiful mountain landscape. My hostel, which I had to search again in one internet cafe was somewhat hidden in old Arab-quarters of historical center of the city. The old center is location for pretty impressive cathedral definitely worth visiting because of magnificent decorations and play of sun light, and the infamous castle Alhambra. Alhambra definitely is big and on such a site that it's easy to imagine having been quite a task to conquer.  

Infinite cobblestones @ Arab quarters

First task was to find the hostel, after walking some 5 kilometers from bus station, to drop my back bag and find some food. The Makuto Backpackers hostel proved to be very cozy hippie place with a tree-house and really relaxed people as volunteers, workers and customers. Facilities were good including leisure room, good shower, grill and fireplace, kitchen..  They gave free tour in the neighborhood to the couple major outlook spots (definitely worth a visit) and to see gypsy caves. These things were also marked in a map but the quarters are pretty tricky to navigate because lots of staircases and alleys and for the reason that roads are not build straight at all (also making it quite unique place to be). At the end of the tour we went for some beer and tapas in one of the numerous tapas places of the city. It's rather cost-efficient way to dine. 

Luckily enough one of these new friend showed to share same interests with me and we ended up spending big part of these Granada days together visiting Alhambra, walking around the old city-center (where I tried my first time chocolate con churros! Pure madness. Cup full of thick chocolate, like melt chocolate bar, accompanied with kind of donuts resembling bars of deep fried dough dripping of fat and loaded with sugar, sweet death), eating and drinking tea. 

Granada as seen from Alhambra

Alhambra, Sierra Nevadas snowy tops at background

Sierra Nevada, the mountain region south and south-east from Granada, got it's first snow coating some week before my stay in Granada took place. It was really stunning and intriguing view, and I really weighted the idea about going there to snowboard for one day, which would have been possible by taking a bus and renting gear on site, but I didn't find compelling information about rental prizes and was short on time anyway. Instead I left Granada early after spending 2 nights there by taking bus to Nerja, a small tourist oriented city at coast, rather directly to south. 

The bus trip in itself was again pretty beautiful

Nerja was stimulating experience consisting of totally empty and quiet beaches, stormy weather and fascinating mountain background. I did just walk around there for couple of hours before taking bus back to Malaga, but there was some kite surfing activity going on. 

A beach in Nerja

I was back to Malaga at early evening and was just chilling. I was still a bit confused after having met so great nice new people and having left them behind also almost in the same instant. New, valuable experience. I went out to eat with the Korean guy I had met before and sleep tight after this short but intense adventure. I will definitely go back into Spain again to travel properly, in backpacker style. 

Colourful canal garden in Nerja