We came to Andalusia end of the year 2022 and traveled mainly on its wonderful south coast east of Málaga. End of January 2023 we took a plane from Málaga home to Germany where we stayed till mid of March 2023.
We visited the areas around San Juan de los Terreros, south of Mojacár, La Isleta del Moro and San José on Andalusia's east coast. From the latter one we did a spectacular bicycling tour along the coast to the summit of 212 meters Vela Blanca where we could see Cabo de Gata in the west, which is the southeast corner of Spain. There the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea turns from south to west.
The village Cabo de Gata has an excellent overnight staying place directly on the beach. We took our bicycles and headed approximately 10 km to the cape Cabo de Gata with its lighthouse. Fortunately this pristine area is protected by the natural reserve Parque Natural de Cabo de Gata-Nijar (up to San José).
Busy Almeria is with approximately 200,000 inhabitants the largest city in Andalusia's southeast corner. We arrived in Almeria in the late afternoon of January 5th - the day before Epiphany (January 6th - the three Magi) which is the most important day of Christmas in Spain because the kids get their presents on epiphany (not on Christmas Eve like in Germany and many other countries). In addition Almeria is famous for processions on the night 5./6. January. The first one was under Almeria's impressive Alcazaba (Arabic castle) at dawn and the second one in the center at night. On both processions the crowd was huge with a lot of exited kids of all ages - true highlights of our time in Spain.
We spent few days in Almerimar where we found a nice campsite including electricity on its marina, and in its neighborhood villages Guardas Viejas and Balanegra both with superb parking lots directly on beaches where we could spent pleasant nights free of charge.
A very tight dirt road led us to the starting point of Via Ferrata Estrechuras de Guainos, a short climb in a narrow gorge. On the following day we hiked the valley up to the hermitage Ermita de la Sierra - an adventurous and strenuous trip of 7 hours on a sunny day. Sometimes we lost the track in the dense vegetation.
We were more than happy that we could return to the main road down the valley on a decent road with our bigger campers on the next morning.
Again we found nearly perfect parking places in the nice villages Melicena and Calahonda, both good for shorter hikes and exploration of beautiful beaches of Costa Tropicana which is the coast of Andalusia's province Granada.
We spent three days in the old town Salobreña with its stunning fortress. The weather was a little bit changeable with hefty winds - The usually calm Mediterranean Sea became the Atlantic Ocean with huge impressive waves.
In contradiction to the last visited villages and towns busy Nerja is much more impacted by tourism. It is close to Málaga and it's the easternmost city of famous, attractive and rich Costa del Sol of Spain. The advantage is that you find a lot of facilities in Nerja like interesting galleries or fancy restaurants.
Starting in Nerja we did two trips with our bicycles. The first one to Torrax along the coast - unfortunately a bigger part was on the much used national street N340. The second tour was to the marvelous white mountain village Frigiliana (320 meters sea-level) where we had an exhausting uphill drive in a river bed with a lot of scree and a rapid downhill race on paved roads.
We continued to Málaga via the pleasant beach villages Mezquitilla and Torre De Benagalbon. From the latter one we cycled to the viewpoint Mirador Rincón de la Victoria where we could see the eastern parts of Málaga.
Huge Málaga (more than 500,000 inhabitants) is the birthplace of Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973) one of the most famous artist on earth. A must to see is the museum Museo Pablo Picasso which is not an easy task because the spirit of many paintings show incredibly touching the pain, cruelty and absurdity of war, especially of the Spanish civil war between 1936 and 1939.
We had strolled two days in the center, beaches and port of wonderful Málaga including its two monumental fortresses Castillo de Gibralfaro and Alcazaba de Málaga before we flew back to Germany on January 27th 2023. We had stored our camper on the safe parking area El Llano (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) in Almayate Bajo for € 40.- per month (25 km east of Málaga).
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For a map of our itineraries, click here
To download our GPS coordinates file of Spain, click here
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