Sunday, July 28, 2013

More Spanish fun!

My previous post covered the hotel, this one will cover the fun :)


Kind of.

I'm not going to lie, I didn't do a great deal on this holiday. I don't mind the odd weekend break full of trips and exploring. But for my main summer break? Nothing is going to stop me from reading lots of books, sunbathing, swimming, sunbathing, eating, drinking and sunbathing. And that's what I did on this break.

But we did make our own fun! There were about 17 of us in our party so there was lots of catching up, board games (don't judge us!), pool games etc. It was fun.

On the nights that the hotel didn't do dinner, we would visit the local villages. One, Competa, was celebrating their festival. The atmosphere was GREAT although, I was slightly scared of all the horses!



Canillas de Albaida








Fun times





The festival in Competa









Shite shirt night

One of our group treated all the men to Shite Shirts for Christmas - and they all had to bring them along to wear one evening. Luckily we stayed in for dinner that night!!








 Pool fun!




Competa again






Thank you Sue and Gordon, we'll see you next year!




Friday, July 26, 2013

Mis vacaciones en España - my holiday in Spain


I've spent the last week in a rather lovely hotel in Spain and I now feel like a whole new person! I had not had much time off between Christmas and mid July (wow that's a long time!) so I really needed these two weeks off. 

For once, the temperature wasn't such a shock when we arrived in Spain thanks to the great British summertime (no sarcasm!) - I had spent a good deal of time acclimatising to the heat in advance. Yes, I had been lazing around the garden. 


This first post will be about the hotel (Hotel Finca el Cerillo). Now, I love reading reviews about hotels because I love to get ideas of places to visit. But I don't want you to visit this hotel. I want you to stay away. It's horrible. I hated every sec.... nope, just can't do it. I want to discourage you from visiting purely so I can get a room next year, but it's too blinkin popular!

This hotel is absolutely fantastic. It is small (12 rooms) and feels like visiting friends. Not the 'visiting friends' where you just want to leave again and go home - it's really like an extension of your home. Most of this is down to Sue and Gordon who run the place, who have built the hotel from scratch with lots of love, and you can tell. 

The hotel is a restored old farmhouse in the hills, about an hour from Malaga. The journey is up through the hills on windy roads (the only bad thing, I felt a bit car sick!) but the views are stunning. Once you arrive you are welcomed with open arms by Sue, Gordon, Sybil the dog and the cats. It's so easy to dump your bags and get straight to the pool - with a quick stop at the honesty bar to get a drink! 

The view from the pool area is amazing and at the right time of year you can watch as canons are fired from the nearby town of Archez - and if there's a festival you get the midnight fireworks! 

They have a library to borrow books, so many different seating areas and a new tree house! And they've got wifi!

And the food... wow. They cook every other night (so you can still visit the local villages on the other nights) and Christine produces the most amazing food. It's a fixed menu but with notice they can cater for anything!

You can read other very glowing reviews on TripAdviser and check out their website...

So here's a few (a lot) photos for you to check out...

The hotel

 

 
  




 Food and drink


 The hotel has a GREAT hat supply



Dress from Zara




 CAN I GO BACK NOW PLEASE?!?!?