Almuñécar

Time for a break, a holiday, a rest.  Ahh, yes, off we go to Andulacia to the town of Almuñécar!  We took one of those special Pensionista "Imserso" deals; board and lodging at reduced prices.
We were late, as the drive down here took much longer than we thought.  We probably should not have taken the lovely lunch break with our friends Bob and Maz down in Mazarrón!  But we are glad we did.  We like catching up with old friends from back in the U.K who are also living here.
We continued our journey, first opting out of toll roads! BIG Mistake!!! The country road was very winding and slow; hard work.  We stopped and reset the Garmin, (I do not like her, she is worse than Tomtom). We found ourselves very near the motorway and rejoining was not a problem.  Even so it did become interesting along the coast where the weather was affecting the roads,  undermining and washing away the infrastructure.  At one place the road suffered from a landslide; there were loads of red mud being removed by heavy machinery.  Along the coast there was no shoulder to the road as it had dropped down into the sea and heavy shoring up was in progress.
It was dark by the time Garmin dumped us on a corner lying through her teeth that we had "reached our destination."  Er, where is the hotel?  We were told at a nearby in a restaurant, that it was further down the road around the corner..... ah, yes, which one.  We got past the first corner to find no hotels, so we doubled back.  Another person we questioned suggested we go a bit further, that the hotel was a new one, just round the bend.  And that is what we did,  "going round the bend" looking for it.  At last, persevering "round the bends", we finally spotted something that was well lit; It was our hotel, at last.  I wondered, as we arrived so late, would they still have a room.  Ah, yes, our room was on the third floor.  And so it was, that we got "A room with a view!"

This is what we found  upon opening the curtain in the morning!! 

 We asked for a change of rooms but as we had arrived so late we got the booby prize and all the other "Imserso" pensionistas got the sea view.  We needed to be well ahead in the queueing, these pensionistas are not slow at coming forward.  They know the ropes and we,...well we don't. I have to say the majority are happily sitting on their terraces in the sun, overlooking the sea while we count rocks.

Now for the pretty pictures:

The view from other people's balconies is very pretty indeed! 

Our hotel is sited on a lovely quiet secluded part of a beach.

 There is a bus that stops outside the hotel that will take you to the town, for just €1.  We actually took quite a long ride on the wrong bus, into the interior!!!  Who can complain, for that money we got to see more of Almuñécar.  We finally came full circle to the town centre. 

Almuñécar is a town of the modern and the ancient, with a brass band!

 We followed the band up the hill into the old town to the church and then had a wander back down the hill on the way to our original destination.

I love old windows, the older the better.  Plenty of those here.

An ancient Roman fountain and very pretty  narrow streets. 

We finally made it down to the shore near the fishing boats, and carried on down the promenade looking for a café near a bus stop so to keep a watchful eye out for the bus back to the hotel.

We found one and crashed my diet with thick hot Spanish chocolate and a local pastry to dunk in it!!!