Granada, Home-Hosted Lunch – Malaga – Torremolinos

After breakfast, we drove for awhile and then joined a local family for a visit, where we were served lunch.

Our hostess spoke a little English, and when we arrived, she made fresh gazpacho for us, cutting up fresh tomatoes, garlic, onion, and cucumber to which she added salt, olive oil, and water.

We sat down with our gazpacho and she served cheeses, chips, and meat for an appetizer. This was followed by a fresh salad, a bowl of lentil soup, and the main course, which was a delicious pork dish and something that resembled ratatouille. It was all very tasty. She served wine with the meal and for dessert we had cakes, cookies, and homemade flan.

Her husband is a trucker and they have two boys 14 and 12. She runs a beauty salon from her home as well as hosting travelers who travel with Grand Circle. Her mom has hosted travelers from Grand Circle for 30 years!!!! Her mom is no longer able to host travelers, so her daughter has taken it over. She hosts about every 8 days during the travel season.

There are about 700 people in their little village and everyone knows everyone. COVID was tough, but thankfully, only two people perished from the disease. Her mom was quite ill with it and was hospitalized for a month in ICU. When she was released from the hospital, her mom stayed with her, and her boys left to stay with their cousins so they wouldn’t get sick.

The kids walk to a local school on the elementary level and are bused for the older grades.

It was a lovely afternoon and as the afternoon drew to a close, we thanked her for her wonderful hospitality and said how nice it was to meet her and to be able to find out about her life in Spain.

That is a wonderful feature of Grand Circle and OAT tours. You meet with a local family to share a meal, learn about each other, and then come away with a deeper understanding of the local culture. It is a special segments of their tours and one we always look forward to.

Prior to meeting our host, our guide Juanjo gave us a lesson on olive trees. We already knew all about olive trees, since when we were in Israel and Morocco, we learned how the olives are grown, harvested, and made into olive oil, but it was a warm and sunny day, so standing outside amid the olive trees was a welcome change from the cooler weather that we had in Granada.

After our lunch, we toured the quaint town of Malaga, where Picasso hailed from as well as Antonio Banderas, and our guide was born here as well. Antonio apparently still lives in Malaga with his new girlfriend. Our guide grew up with Antonio’s brother who was his same age and they went to the same church. Antonio is older, but our guide was often with him when they were kids.

Malaga was founded about 770 BC by the Phoenicians. We drove through the city and took in the quaint neighborhoods, some occupied by very wealthy residents, and we drove to the port of Malaga, an international seaport and one of the oldest continuously-operated ports in Spain.

After touring Malaga, were drove to Torremolinos and checked into our hotel which is right by the Mediterranean Sea. Our room is on the top floor and overlooks the water.

We walked all around the promenade along the beach with our guide and he told us the best places to eat, to shop, and to do laundry if we needed to. It is a warm and sunny afternoon and it was so wonderful to be breathing in the sea air.

A few of us went to dinner at a paella restaurant and enjoyed seafood paella with clams, shrimp, lagostino, some kind of fish, and we think mussels. It was very tasty.

The waiter brought us bread and butter, and we ordered glasses of wine to go with our dinner. Interestingly, when the bill came…The wine was 3 euros – very inexpensive. However, they charged us five euros for 2 water bottles, five euros for the bread, AND 5 euros for the butter. Whaaaaa???? Too funny. All in all, the meal was very inexpensive…40 euros for Allan and me including the tip.

It was a beautiful sunset and after a leisurely dinner we walked back to our hotel and sat on our balcony and enjoyed a glass of wine before going to sleep.

Tomorrow is a full day tour to Gibraltar.