Mijas Spain

Well we are back in Albufiera after 3 days in Spain where we visited the amazing Alhambra in Granada and, in Cordoba, likely the largest mosque in Europe if not in the world. The mosque is so large that when the Christians drove the Moors from Granada (the last Muslim territory to fall as the Christians drove the Moors out of the Iberian peninsula and back to north Africa in 1492) the King ordered a cathedral to be built inside the mosque, and it was done. In a later post there will be some photos of the inside of this huge Mosque. If you saw the documentary, "When the Moors Ruled Europe" you will have seen the inside of this enormous structure.

But I am ahead of myself as we went to Cordoba on the last of 3 days of rain and cold (last year when we went to Spain about this time it was 30 degrees C; this time it rarely reached 9 C).

On the first day we rode the bus for almost 10 hours in total, going from Albufiera, Portugal, to the small town of Mijas on the Costa del Sol in Spain, near the well know town of Torremolinos. Mijas (pronounced something like "mee kash") is a small picturesque town, once a fishing village, of narrow winding streets and low white buildings/houses. Unlike Torremolinos and other towns of the Costa del Sol which have outgrown their small town aura that made them so attractive, Mijas has retained the character of a small fishing village no doubt to attract tourists like us. It is a lovely little town situated quite high on a hillside above the Mediterranean Sea coast (it seems quite far from the coast to be a fishing village, but that's what is is said to have been - no longer, of course). Streets are narrow and winding and, though it is densely populated with knick knack shops for the tourists, there are also beautiful gardens and spectacular views of the Mediterranean coast line and the sprawling urbanization along it.

I have included a few photos of Mijas.

From Mijas we drove north to Granada where we stayed for two nights. More about Granada in the next post.

R