As promised, here is part 3 of my series of posts about our vacation to Spain in August.
We first stayed 3 days in Barcelona:
part 1: Barcelona. Then we made our way down the east coast of Spain to Granada: part 2: Spanish East coast.
In Granada, we stayed in a beautiful vacation rental in the old district of Albayzín with fantastic view of the Alhambra.
I will talk more about Granada and the Alhambra in future posts, but now I want to describe the couple of day trips we made. Originally we had planned to make more trips to Seville, Cordoba, etc. but they were a little far for our taste. So we ended up making one trip to the coast and one trip to hike in the mountains.
Almuñécar
The trip to the coast south of Granada, lead us through some beautiful mountains to the coastal town of Almuñécar. Almuñécar is located on the Costa Tropical, and was founded around 800 BC as a Phoenician colony called Sexi (hehehe, sorry 5-year old coming through). On the south side close to downtown is a rock that serves as a view point to see the coast and skyline. We also spend some time on the beach enjoying a dip in the Mediterranean Sea to cool off.
Pampaneira & Bubión
Another day trip was to the little mountain city of Pampaneira. It is located in the Poqueira gorge and about 1060 metres above sea level. It is close to the two highest mountains in the Sierra Nevada Range: Mulhacén and Alcazaba.
After a little stroll through the cute town, we went on a hiking path that was supposed to lead up the sides of the gorge and through the two nearby cities of Bubión and Capileira.
Unfortunately, there were a few factors that made us cut our hike short. One was the weather. We had expected it to be cooler up this high above sea level, however it was not which made hiking pretty cumbersome. The other problems were related to the path. Much of it was overgrown with thorn bushes or marked very poorly. At some point we were not sure we were still on the correct path and decided to turn around.
It was still a fun hiking day, just not exactly what we expected.
Most of the other days we spend in Granada as well as one of them visiting the Alhambra. I will be talking about this in the next post.
If you have missed the previous posts, here they are:
Spain Trip - Part 1: Barcelona
Spain Trip - Part 2: Spanish East Coast
Labels: Andalusia, Coast, Europe, mountains, nature, Spain, travel, vacation
