Happy place

Back in the land of free tapas! Unvisited since 24 June 2020; the longest gap for many years. We were up at 7 a.m. to catch a high-speed train to Madrid, then Málaga. We had a long wait in Atocha, last visited pre-covid; to my disappointment they have cordoned off the tropical garden, so now everyone has to crowd along the edges, instead of spreading out among the plants.

Anyway, in Málaga, the very nice chap in the car hire place kindly upgraded us from a crappy little Fiat to a giant tank-like automatic Peugeot at no extra cost. S bravely elected to drive, and had to do a bit of practice in the car park before attempting the incredibly narrow exit tunnel. I tremblingly did the navigation through town until we reached the happily familiar autopista.

We haven't been in Almuñecar in September before ... it is heaving with tourists. By a stroke of luck and knowledge of the town, we managed to find a suitably sized parking space only about a kilometre from our hotel.

Once we'd recovered from the drive, it was off to old stamping grounds for drinks and tapas. La Bodeguita, temple of fried fish, has re-opened after about two years! La Rosa Negra, temple of fine tapas, has become below average in quality if not in price. Interesting to see the very different demographic; winter is retired northern Europeans dressed for hiking, whereas summer is young to middle aged Spaniards dressed to kill and heading for the beach discos.

We're only here for a week -- making the most of it to meet friends and hunt for places to rent. Yes I know, it's a blipday! I carefully calculated to be able to blip from here :) Thanks to everyone who still follows my ramblings, and to the gang at Blip Central for keeping the site up and running. After 3,000 blips I can't imagine life without it.