It was raining heavily. Five hours later, it was still raining heavily, but the scenery had changed - I had finished my bike ride from Glasgow to Edinburgh.
I was doing it with 4 of my workmates for charity, although waiting for the bus to Glasgow at 6am on a Sunday, I was feeling less inclined to be charitable. A huge delay in our bikes arriving into Glasgow also dampened already sodden spirits. However, with over 3000 people participating, it was hard not to be infected by the enthusiam. There were children and not-so-fit types as well as the usual lycronauts, so we didn't feel outclassed. It was an 88 km route, following roads and cycle paths and minimal hills (except for the killer up from Queensferry), with 4 yummy food stops along the way, which I took full advantage of. By the end, I was completely soaked, but thankfully not sore or even particularly tired. I'm even thinking I might do it again sometime (maybe without the ridiculously early start).

The Rain in Spain...

...falls mainly on the plain. Or something like that. At least, it didn't fall anywhere near Andalucia anyway, and we enjoyed 8 days of fine weather :-)

We got cheap(ish) flights direct from Edinburgh to Malaga return, so this dictated our itinerary to some extent - not that we cared about that, since Malaga is on the coast and we were keen on some beach (in)action. Here are some highlights from our trip.

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Shadecloth over

shopping streets

Our Hostels

View from the hostel -

more mortar than brick?

Picasso's Corner in Malaga was quite a nice place - medium sized, as far as hostels go, and located in the best part of town for travellers. It had a wee bar, free internet, and the rooms didn't have too many beds in them. For a couple of nights we had an English girl called Lindsey in our room. She's going to Bristol - why does everyone either seem to be from, or going to, Bristol these days? Anyway, Lindsey took this nice photo of Sylvia and I on our way down from the Castilla on top of the hill above Malaga central.

Our hostel was located next to Plaza Mercad, and when we were there they were celebrating 20 years of sister city-ship between Malaga and Passau in Germany. So there was a stage, sound system, outside bar selling German beer, and heaps of guys walking around in Lederhosen drinking lots of beer before they played their horns. There was also a high school jazz band called (I'm not making this up) "wet and easy". I suspect that something got lost in the translation.


In Granada we stayed at the Funky Hostel. It was lots of fun - small, with facilities in proportion, but it had a great rooftop terrace with a bar that everyone hung out in for the earlier part of the evening.


The Gypsies of Sacramonto

Sacramonto caves

Here is a picture of Sacramonto in Granada. It is a small suburb of cave dwellers - you want another room in your house? Dig one! This is where the Gypsies live. You can see them in the touristy areas of town handing out sprigs of rosemary (quite forcefully - they seem to have trouble accepting that you don't want their crappy rosemary). If you accept one, you will find yourself getting your palm read before you know it. And of course you're then expected to pay them, and believe me, whatever you give them won't be enough, in fact it will be insulting to them and they'll get quite agitated. It was quite amusing to watch silly tourists falling for this scam.


Sylvia and Mark Get High - Again

Refugios on Mulhacen

We headed up into the Sierra Nevada (only an hour from Granada) for a day trip up Spain's highest mountain, Mulhacen (3,480 m). The bus only ran once a day in each direction so it was quite a short day trip and we had to run some of it, but it was worth it to get away from cities for a day and get some bracing mountain air. It was 30 deg C during the day in Granada, but would have been only about 15 deg C up Mulhacen.


It was surprising how much the thinner air affected us, both of us found ourselves breathing noticeably harder than we would expect for the moderate level of exertion, and I got a bit of a headache. Probably a bit of dehydration too, as you can see in the photos it's an incrediby dry place at this time of year. There is a big ski resort that runs up here in the winter though.

The old stone refugios were cool too, most were in better condition than the ones in the picture.








The Alhambra


The Alhambra of Granada is a large palace/fortress dating from about the 10th century. It was originally a castle (alcazaba) overlooking the town, and was developed later as a palace complex for the Moorish rulers of Al-Aldalus once they shifted camp there. Parts have been chopped and changed around a bit, and after the Catholic monarchs Fernando and Isabella captured Granada in 1494 during the Reconquista, Carlos V decided to demolish a bit to build his imposing palace.

It's a pretty cool place - said to be the only remaining example of a mediaeval Islamic palace anywhere - and a lot of people queue for hours in the morning to get tickets. A lot more miss out. We're smarter than that so we booked our tickets beforehand. We still would have had to wait 1/2 hour to pick them up, but we'd just booked the queue when some official came over, grabbed us out of the queue and told us to follow her, took us to the front of the queue and in we went. I still don't know what happened there!


The Alhambra has a good mix of history, gardens, extensive water features, views and impressive (yet impressively plain) architecture and art. We seemed to be the only people in Granada who though it was good but not mind-blowing. We think we've maybe been spoiled by some of the cool places we've been and things we've seen!



Hanging Out

Bullring in Malaga

The best thing about our wee holiday is that we managed to strike a good balance between relaxing and doing the touristy stuff, by only visiting two cities we avoided spending all our time on buses.


We spent quite a bit of time on the beach in Malaga but also enjoyed just hanging out in the cities, poking our noses into little streets and plazas, and sitting with a beer or an icecream and watching the world go by. Our modest level of Spanish was generally enough to get by and it was good fun practicing what we'd learnt!


Hasta pronto, Espana

The Queen in green

We dived into some real Scottish culture on the first weekend of September by attending the Braemar Highland Games and ceilidh, staying with Mhairi's parents again. It was an absolutely party, with 11 people in the house. They had a bit of a sing along on the last night and sang Pokarekare Ana to us, which made me cry a bit! It was so wonderful to feel so welcome so far from home.

For those of you who don't know what ceilidh dancing is, it's a bit of an extreme sport, involving jumping around and flinging your arms at other people a lot, all in a highly organised manner (to reduce the injuries I suppose). The Braemar one also had the distinction of being held in the local Laird's ballroom. It's main highlight was the several thousand deer skulls & antlers attached to the ceiling. I was glad there wasn't an earthquake while we were in there.

As it was a traditional event, all the men wore kilts. Mark borrowed one off Mhairi's parents, as well as an ancient (and very large) sporran. We also had an intermission of 'stovies', which is a local dish of mashed potatoes and meat, always referred to in the plural for some reason. We managed to paticipate in about half the dances, but it was approaching 1 am before we were finally allowed to call it a night.

The next day was the big event: the games, attended by Her Majesty herself. Apparently since Balmoral Castle is so close, the locals like the queen, but further afield 'she wouldna be so welcome'. She wore green, and we all sang God Save the Queen, which all seemed a bit funny with her sitting right there.

The weather was marginal, but over the loudspeaker boomed "arrr, 'tis but a spitte o' drrizzle, nae ta be worryin' yerselves aboout" so we meekly folded our umbrellas away. The highland events were first class of course, with the caber, heavies, tug-o-war, hill race, highland dancing, pipe bands...

There will still plenty of kilts to be seen but we had it explained that since now it was daytime it was acceptable to wear a t-shirt with your kilt. On the left is Gavin (Mhairi's brother), Mark and Ian (Mhairi's Dad), exhibiting this fashion.

Mark enjoyed wearing his kilt so much he became quite angsty at the idea of having to return it on the Sunday morning (see photo right). Once we confiscated the umbrella he calmed down though, and we returned uneventfully to Edinburgh.