Tag Archives: Andalucía

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay: Marina del Este

Posted on by under Axarquía, Places
Mackerel Rock at Marina del Este

Mackerel Rock at Marina del Este

Just a few miles to the east of Maro and Nerja, situated between the towns of La Herradura and Almuñecar lies one of the few marinas along the southern coastline of Spain, Marina del Este.  

The Marina (also known as Puerto Deportivo Punta de la Mona) was developed in the 1980s around a large natural rock formation known as Peñón de las Caballas (Mackerel Rock) and features a small attractive harbour protected by the pine-clad promontory of the Punta de la Mona.  

Marina del Este on Google Earth

Google Earth view of the Marina

Located in a privileged setting where the peaks of the Sierra de Almijara finally slope into the sea, this area is known for the exceptional quality of its seabed, immersed within the Parque Natural de los Acantilados de Maro-Cerro Gordo (a Natural and Marine Reserve) which has been declared of important ecological value by UNESCO.  

The Reserve follows a narrow twelve kilometre coastal strip and extends into the Alboran Sea (covering 395 land and 1,415 sea hectares), spanning the provinces of Málaga and Granada.  

A ban on fishing within the Marine Reserve provides the perfect place for snorkelling and scuba-diving in the crystal-clear waters.

View across La Herradura Bay

View across La Herradura Bay

How to get to Marina del Este

Do yourself a favour and take the old N-340 coastal road from Nerja to the Marina (rather than the motorway) for the spectacular views across the horseshoe-shaped bay of La Herradura whilst passing the unique and dramatic coastline created by the steep cliffs (acantilados) along the way.  If you have time, you might consider calling in at one of the few sheltered coves between the soaring cliffs, where you will need to take a staircase or steep track down to the beach.

As you might expect, Marina del Este is not directly off the road and can be a bit tricky to find by car. To access it you need to turn off the N-340 just after Km 309 (signed for Pto. Deportivo Marina del Este) and bear right into the Punta de la Mona urbanisation.   Follow the road downhill until you see a sign ahead pointing left towards the Marina.  Turn left here past the 4* Hotel Best Alcazar and continue down the hill all the way to the bottom, where there is a free car park.

If all the free parking spots are taken, there is an official car park to the right of the entrance of the Marina, where it costs just €3.50 to park for 24 hours.

Entrance to Marina del Este

Entrance to Marina del Este

As you enter the Marina, turn to the right just past the barrier and follow the promenade towards Mackerel Rock, past all the beautiful boats.

I usually bring a loaf of bread with me to feed to the fishes here.  They are always so hungry and entertaining, as they climb over one another to get to the food!

Feeding frenzy at Marina del Este

Feeding frenzy

Once you’ve walked past Mackerel Rock there are some steps up onto the harbour wall, which is a great place for “watching the ships roll in, and then watch ’em roll away again”.

As you walk along the harbour wall you get an elevated view over the boats and spectacular views across to Almuñecar and, as you near the end of the wall, you will see the Blue Flag (currently for 2014/2015) flying near to the entrance of the harbour.

All kind of boats at the Marina
View across the Marina
Marina del Este, Spain
Mackerel Rock at Marina del Este
Sea entrance to the Marina
Looking across Marina del Este from the harbour wall

If you are interested in chartering a boat for a few days, this is the best place to look.  Or, maybe you just want to take a boat excursion for an hour or two around the Cerro Gordo Marine Reserve and to the hidden coves along the coastline, which can also be arranged.

There are several diving clubs based at Marina del Este and good snorkelling from the adjoining Playa de los Berengueles, near to the car park.

For boat owners, there are 227 berths within the marina (to a maximum length of 35 metres), and all the services you would expect, including a fuel berth, boat hoist (up to 6m), chandlers, mechanics, hardstanding etc.   More information from Marinas del Mediterráneo.

Imagine having lunch here
Looking towards the restaurants
Looking towards Almuñecar from the Marina
Boats moored near the restaurants

However, if like me, you just want to stroll around the harbour drooling over the beautiful boats, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere and the great views across to Almuñecar, then Marina del Este is a great place to while away a few hours, both during the daytime or in an evening.

There is an art gallery, shops and a great selection of bars and restaurants all with outdoor seating, where you can enjoy a cool drink, tapas or a meal.

Yes, I’m pretty sure that even Otis Redding would enjoy sitting on the dock of this particular bay! 

 

Space Oddity: Searching the Night Sky for the International Space Station

Posted on by under Axarquía, Places, Slice of Life

International_Space_Station_after_undocking_of_STS-132Image credit: NASA/Crew of STS-132 (Public Domain)

One of the joys of a hot, summer evening for me is the opportunity to have a swim after the sun goes down, before hopping into bed.  I always make sure that there are no outside lights shining from the house and, because we live in the countryside where there is virtually no light pollution, on a clear night it’s a great place for star-gazing. 

The most awe-inspiring sight has to be the Milky Way, the luminescent band of light made up entirely of stars, clearly visible in the Andalucían night sky.

There are other cosmic masterpieces to be seen at certain times of the year when our planet Earth passes through bands of dust and debris that circle the Sun.  We see these as meteor showers, and a perfect example is the Perseids (a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle), which occurs around the 12th August each year.    Once again, I will be floating in the pool, watching these tiny fragments of space dust hurtling into our atmosphere at enormous speed, before burning up, to provide magnificent celestial fireworks.  

Much slower are our own Earth-launched satellites which drift lazily by.   There are so many satellites circling the planet these days, that you can usually spot one within a few minutes.  Their speed is deceptive though, because the satellites are very high, they actually have to maintain about 18,000 miles per hour to remain in orbit.

640px-STS-116_spacewalk_1Image credit: STS-116 spacewalk 1 by NASA (Public Domain)

But the object I’m always fascinated to see tracking overhead is the International Space Station – a man-made habitable satellite which serves as a microgravity research laboratory.

Flying at 27500 kilometres per hour (that’s an average speed of 7.65 kilometres per second), the ISS maintains its orbit at an altitude of between 330 km and 435 km.  With an approximate size of 110 x 70 x 20 metres, the International Space Station (ISS) reflects plenty of sunlight and is usually the second brightest object in the night sky (after the moon), so is easily visible with the naked eye.  

14797031062_180d1002fe_zImage credit: NASA Flickr CC

Just look at the amazing view from the ISS!

One of the six crew members aboard the International Space Station recorded the above amazing photograph of the entire Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) on July 26, 2014.  Part of France can be seen at the top of the image and the Strait of Gibraltar is visible at bottom, with a very small portion of Morocco visible near the lower right corner.

I’d LOVE to take photos through this window!

640px-STS130_cupola_view1Image credit: NASA STS130 cupola view (Public Domain)

How can you get a good view of the International Space Station as it passes overhead?

Well, the first thing you should do is try to get away from the light pollution of a town or city, on a clear night.  If there is cloud cover you are unlikely to see anything.

The ISS looks like an incredibly bright, fast-moving star which can easily be mistaken for an aircraft.  What distinguishes it from an aircraft is that it has no flashing lights.  The light we see from the ISS is reflected sunlight, meaning that the best time to observe the craft is in the evening, not long after sunset or in the early morning, before sunrise.  

The next thing you should know is that the ISS always passes overhead starting from a westerly part of the sky, but not always from the same point.  It can be low on the horizon for some passes and very high for others.

640px-STS-129_Zvezda_sunriseImage credit: NASA STS-129 Zvezda sunrise

When can you observe the International Space Station from where you are?

To see the current position of the International Space Station click HERE.  Once you click through to that page, not only can you see what the astronauts can see, you can also view the ground track of the next orbit of the ISS.

Next, you need to click HERE and at the top right of the upcoming page you will see a box that says “Your location” and underneath that the default location is shown as New York City.  

Type YOUR location in the box, hit SEARCH and you’ll get something like the image below.  (This is the image I found last night when I did the same thing – that’s why it shows Spain).

ISS visible pass over Spain

So now you can see a list of the next sighting opportunities for YOUR location (on the left of the page), with the green bars indicating the brightness of the ISS on its pass.  The list contains all visible passes of the ISS during the next ten days.  If you select a particular pass, you can get more information about it.

In the photo above, you can see that for my location in Cómpeta, Spain there was an ISS pass last night (Friday August 8th) at 9.44pm lasting 5 minutes and 29 seconds with 2 green bars for brightness.  My next best chance to view the ISS is next Saturday night (16th August) at 11.19pm.

Let me know if you’ve ever seen the ISS.  Do you watch for it regularly?  I know I do!

 

CBBH Photo Challenge: Bridges

Posted on by under CBBH Photo Challenge, Challenges

Roman Bridge in Cordoba, Spain

Today is the second anniversary for the CBBH Photo Challenge, beginning as it did on August 1st 2012.  Since then we’ve covered many subjects from Repetition and Reflection to Street Art and Simple Pleasures.  I’ve learned a lot about photography over the past two years and featured some wonderful blogs to link to.   But, in the true time-honoured fashion, all good things must come to an end, so this month’s CBBH Photography Challenge will be the final one.  

As a result, I’m going to indulge myself with one of my favourite subjects – BRIDGES.

According to Wikipedia a bridge is “a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle.”  Of course there are many different designs, from the most natural – such as a log across a stream, through to the most complicated of modern bridge designs we currently see around the world.    Cantilever, arch or suspension and made of iron, brick or rope, there’s something about bridges I just can’t resist.  I love to look at them, be on them and take photos of them.

My first photograph this month (above) is of the Roman bridge spanning the Rio Guadalquivir in Córdoba.  To capture this shot, I walked over the bridge from the old part of the city, just as the light was fading.  The building you can see in the background is the Mezquita.

Cruising under Triana Bridge, Seville

Further along the Rio Guadalquivir as it flows towards the Atlantic Ocean is the capital of Andalucía, Sevilla (known to English-speakers as Seville).  This shot of Triana Bridge was taken from the river as I was enjoying an early evening cruise.  It’s a very pleasant way to spend part of an evening in Seville before making your way around the many tapas bars, for which the city is famous.

Bridge at Plaza España, Seville

My final photograph is of another bridge in Seville, but this time a much smaller one.  This ceramic tiled bridge spans the moat at Plaza España, a well-known local landmark and tourist attraction.  If you’ve got the desire and the muscle-power, you can hire a boat and row around the moat, though on the last occasion I was there, most visitors were laughing at a couple who hadn’t got the hang of rowing at all, and were entertaining the crowd by going round in circles just a few metres from where they rented the boat!  If you are visiting Seville, Plaza España features plaques for each province in Spain, all beautifully decorated in tiles and should be high on your list of places to see within the city.

So, will you join me one final time in this month’s CBBH Photo Challenge: Bridges?

Don’t forget that the CBBH Photo Challenge is a little different from some other challenges, in two ways. First, it’s only once a month – giving you lots of time to consider your entry before the end of the calendar month. Second, and most important, this is a BLOG HOP (after all, it is the CBBH – Conejo Blanco Blog Hop, conejo blanco means white rabbit in Spanish), so DON’T FORGET that in your post you need to add links to two blogs that you have visited and commented on during the past month.

That way, when we visit each other, we can HOP OVER to your links, connect with others and share a little blog love around!

Conejo Blanco BLOG HOP Photo Challenge

 

Coincidentally, my Featured Blog Links  for this month are both called Sue:

*** Living in Alberta, Canada and married to her best friend Dave for over thirty years, Sue Slaught hopes that her Travel Tales of Life will still entertain anyone who will listen when she is an old lady sitting in a nursing home.  Still many years away from that situation, Sue always has me spell-bound with her adventures around the world – whether it’s a tale of a ghost in the lobby of the Banff Springs Hotel, getting stuck in the rush hour of gondolas in Venice or being chased by dogs while cycling in Turkey.  

*** Sue Judd, on the other hand, has recently been re-defining who she is – transforming from scientist to very talented photographer and award-winning poet.  Sue’s Beauty in Decay series has truly made me look at flowers through new eyes.  I’m fortunate also that she seems to love peonies as much as I do!  But, how can you not fail to be moved by Sue’s poem Am I Still the Same?, written in response to her diagnosis with Multiple Sclerosis, expressing her view on how it affected her.

Please HOP over and say HELLO to both of these ladies, and tell them Marianne sent you!

So that´s the final CBBH Photo Challenge folks 🙂

Remember, all you have to do is post your entry by the end of the month, tag your entry ‘CBBH Photo Challenge’, link back to this blog and, most importantly, don´t forget to add links to any two blogs that you´ve commented on during the past month, so that we can all HOP OVER and have a look.

For more information on how the CBBH Photo Challenge works click here.

 

One Trip EVERY Month: Canillas de Aceituno

Posted on by under Axarquía, Challenges, Places

Canillas de Aceituno

My trip this month, is just the kind that I began this challenge for – to go somewhere I’ve been meaning to go, but have never got around to it!

The white, mountain village of Canillas de Aceituno lies, like several others, in the shadow of the largest mountain in the Axarquía region – La Maroma, a bare, pointless peak reaching to a height of  2065 metres.

I chose to take the back road to Canillas de Aceituno from Cómpeta, driving past Archez, Salares and Sedella along the way.  It’s a beautiful drive, with a natural landscape of hills, mountains and ravines and it was worth stopping a few times to take photographs of the open vistas towards a shimmering La Viñuela reservoir in the distance, or the towering Monte Maroma, nearby.  A quicker route would be up the A356 from Vélez-Málaga and then turn right towards the village, but I had the time to linger.

On the approach to Canillas de Aceituno, I came across La Rahige, which is a wooded area with a ravine, pools and waterfalls.  As it was late July, the water was only a trickle, but I’m sure it rages through here during the winter months.

As I explored the shady ravine, I looked up and caught a glimpse of a mountain goat – the first I have ever seen.  He seemed to be watching my every move as he expertly perched on the edge of the cliff face.

Arab archway, Canillas de Aceituno

Records show that there has been a settlement on the site of Canillas de Aceituno since the Moorish occupation in the 8th century, when the main industry was the growing of mulberry trees for silk production. Indeed, there are still two Arabic arches preserved within the village, the first on Calle Agua (which is the prettier of the arches, pictured above) and another on the narrow Calle Calleja, a little higher in the village.  These arches once formed part of a wall that surrounded the settlement, and in which gates were closed at night for protection.

After parking the car, I headed towards the Town Hall in Plaza de la Constitución at the centre of the village, to the Tourist Information Office (open Monday to Friday 10am-2pm) to obtain a map.  Canillas de Aceituno is not a large village, but if you visit, it would probably be wise to ask the lady in the Tourist Office to mark the position of the 1000 year old Arab Cistern, as you would probably never find it without some directions.

House of Tithes. Canillas de Aceituno

As you leave the Town Hall, on the diagonally opposite corner you will see the white tower of La Casa de Diezmos (the House of Tithes).  Now a private residence, this is where the production of the mulberry tree leaves and the manufacture of silk were controlled and taxed.

Wandering around the village with it’s impossibly white walls reflecting the summer sun and flanked by flowerpots overflowing with blooms, I came across the plaque where the old castle used to stand, and the Church of Nuestra Señora de Rosario, constructed during the 16th century on the site of the old Arab mosque.

Canillas de Aceituno

From the square at the side of the Town Hall, a maze of narrow streets climbs steeply up the hillside to the Mirador Blas Infante, a scenic viewpoint which offers panoramic views across the terracotta roofs of the village towards La Viñuela reservoir.  There are many other white villages dotted on the hillsides in the distance.

Pathway to La Maroma, Canillas de Aceituno

If you are a hiker, it is from here that you can continue the 6 kilometre climb to the summit of La Maroma – but as it was a hot July afternoon, I decided to pass on that option.

Almonds, Canillas de Aceituno

In the upper part of the village, I stopped to chat with a Spanish couple who had almond shells spread out on their doorstep, ready to be cracked open to expose the nuts inside.  This is a laborious, time-consuming job which I know only too well, as we have 47 almond trees on our land (though this is not something we do as we have never developed the knack of being able to extract the whole nut from it’s tough exterior with ease).

It’s difficult to explain where the old Arab cistern is, but I’ll try.  Sadly there are no signs and the area is in a state of disrepair.  If you have the mark from the Tourist Office on your map, you will see that you should head for Calle Placeta and as you pass the parking area, there is a row of houses on your right side.  Walk past these houses and you will now be next to a patch of rough ground.  As you approach the next house on your right, you will see some very rough steps going down to the side of the house, and an opening in the side wall.  Here you can see into the 1000 year old cistern full of water, which is still used to irrigate the nearby terraces.

Morcilla, Canillas de Aceituno

Each year, on the last Sunday in April, the village of Canillas de Aceituno hosts the the fiesta of El Día de la Morcilla (the Day of the Black Pudding) when the speciality black-pudding stuffed with onion, and for which the village is famous, is celebrated and available for all to try.

If you don’t fancy the black pudding, I can certainly recommend Asador La Maroma for lunch, where not only are the food and surroundings very pleasant, but we were treated like old friends by Paco, the owner and his family.

OH and by the way, don’t forget your camera when you visit Canillas de Aceituno!

One Trip EVERY Month Logo

This post is my contribution to the One Trip EVERY Month Challenge. If you’d like to join me, here’s how:

  • Each month, visit somewhere and then write about your trip or describe it using photographs – whichever suits you best.
  • Don´t forget to title and tag your entry ’One Trip EVERY Month Challenge’, and link back to this page.
  • Display the Challenge logo on your post or in your sidebar.
  • HAVE FUN!  

Are you ready to join me by taking ONE TRIP EVERY MONTH? What are you waiting for? GO!

Black pudding Image credit: Town Hall of Canillas de Aceituno