Europe 2021: Barcelona

Europe 2021:

Barcelona

After our quick excursion to Andorra, we drove back to Barcelona for a few days to end our trip. Branelle and I spent a week in Barcelona at the start of our honeymoon over a decade ago, but hadn't been back since. I think it's a great place to visit, with lots of interesting architecture - mostly by Gaudi - and plenty of good food and entertainment. 

I won't bore you with info on this one, just some parting pictures and to comment that we really enjoyed our rather immersive Spain and Portugal trip. They're great countries to visit and offer a lot of diverse activities and landscapes. The only downside on this trip were the mask requirements from time to time, but that shouldn't be an issue going forward.

Europe 2021: Andorra

Europe 2021:

Andorra

I was adamant that we make it to Andorra on this trip, even though it was quite out of the way, for one reason:  Andorra was the final check box on our European Microstate Bingo quest! We had previously visited Monaco, Malta, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, San Marino, and the Vatican. 

To make that happen, we flew from Malaga up the coast to Barcelona where we rented a car and drove the two or three hours to Andorra for an overnight stay. 

I could write an entire post on parking in Europe. If we thought our Volkswagen Caddy was big, we were in for some real fun parking our 7-Series BMW for the rest of the trip! It's hard to describe how small European hotel underground parking can be at times, and how odd. It's like they just find a void under the building and start drawing parking spaces facing every which way. We were fortunate in Andorra that a guy was helping us and realized quickly it was going to be a nightmare getting it into the bowels of the garage, so he angled us into a spot reserved for deliveries usually.

Back home, this 7-Series wouldn't even make the top 5 for largest vehicle at our house, but over here it might as well have been a semi!

Nel had to climb behind our car to get the bags out.

  

I didn't know what to expect from Andorra, but I really liked it! It was like a ski town deep in the mountains. It was clean and charming, and there were some interesting recreational things to do if we had been here at the right time of year.

One interesting and incredibly surprising thing about Andorra is that it seems to have an overabundance of specialty toy shops. I'm not sure why, but there were all kinds of shops dedicated to model trains, diecast cars, Legos, etc. It was awesome!

They also have one of those massive Caldea Spa places there, which Nel and I visited in the evening. It was interesting, but I'm not sure I'm the "spa with 100 people" type. 

Otherwise, we just spent a single night here and some of a couple of days. It's a charming place and I wouldn't mind going back some time. Mostly we ate and I worked late at night as was my usual for this trip.

Europe 2021: Malaga

Europe 2021:

Malaga

I get yelled at on occasion by the three people that read this blog for not finishing these travel series in a timely manner, so I'm going to glide through the last few stops on our Spain, etc. trip from last fall with mostly just pictures.

We spent nearly a week in Malaga near the tail end of our trip. We got a place on the beach and mostly hung out there or in the area near the condo. It was relaxing to just chill for the most part.

The condo was good. There was a restaurant connected to the building that was open very late, and we found that we actually enjoyed the beachside dining instead of venturing out every night (although we did that too).    

Side note - the beach we were on did turn out to be a nude beach. That's not uncommon in Europe at all, and it sounds like a fun time, but my limited experience has been that the folks you wouldn't mind being nude are never nude, and the ones you really would prefer not be, are.

As I mentioned, the Malibu Bar (I think that's what it was called) was a place we frequented due to it's proximity (literally down the stairs) and decent food. 

They had real-live condiments - on the table!

The Costa del Sol is famous for an abundance of great golf courses, and we found the time to play. 

I didn't get a lot of birdies, but some almost got me.

One evening we decided to charter a sailboat. We called around and ended up taking a really nice 50 foot boat out for an evening cruise. The sunset was awesome and the captain and mate kept us drinking and eating. The captain spoke no English, but the mate was entertaining and we had a great time.

After a week of recharging on the coast, we headed north on the final legs of our adventure.