We got out of Malaga airport as quickly as possible. I’m sure it’s a nice enough city, but it wasn’t at all what we were in southern Spain for. No beaches, no cliff-side golf, no lazy days by the pool soaking in the sun. Nope, we were there for road-tripping.

Within a few hours of our British Airways flight touching down I was at the wheel of a snazzy little Ford Focus cruising along the Southern coast of Spain, zooming past Marbella (as quickly as possible) and driving higher and higher up into the mountains and away from the coast. 7 days of driving across rolling hills, in to olive-growing country, in to farming country, through narrow cobbled village streets, in and out of the Sierra de Aracena Nature Reserve, trying to spot delicious little Iberico pigs grazing in the Mediterranean forest and always with an eye on the horizon to spot the next Toro de Negro (the black bull) icon.

We were only there are week – my husband, mother-in-law and I, but it felt like a lot longer. Not because of our extra passenger, but in the best possible way that a holiday makes you feel like you’ve been gone from home longer than you really have. We were on the road every day, either tripping around the local area to where we’d chosen to stay or driving to the next stop on our journey.

A surprising number of people said to me before we left, “be careful driving on the roads in Spain!” and I still have no idea why. The roads were absolutely brilliant and strangely quiet nearly everywhere we went. Driving (and parking) through small mountain villages is a bit of a nightmare but that’s the price you pay for visiting the beautiful, cobble-stoned Pueblos Blancos. Hey, if we wanted two-lane roads and parking buildings we would have stayed in Malaga, right?

The Route

A very rough outline of our overall route, excluding day-trips and detours

We took in the big Andalucian hubs of Seville, Cordoba and Granada but stayed in none of those places, choosing to spend our nights in smaller towns or villages. The only downside (if there was one) is that we saw very little of those three main cities we passed through, all of which I’m sure have a lot to offer for a weekend getaway.

I have zero regrets though, because the places we chose to stay were all unique and incredible in their own ways: an art hotel with the perk of free fish pedicures, a stunningly beautiful former convent with a restaurant worthy of a Michelin star, a serviced apartment with some of the best views of the entire holiday and a Moroccan-inspired room built into a cave with a traditional hammam next door. I’ll definitely be sharing more about these places in a separate post, I’d recommend all of them as awesome places to stay if you’re ever passing through these parts of Andalucia.

The love affair continues…

This was my second trip to Spain, the first was over 3 years ago and I had completely fallen in love with it then when we visited Barcelona and road-tripped around the North of the country. So, there were very high hopes that re-visiting Spain would live up to our last adventure.

It did. I fell in love with Spain all over again: the food, the language, the wine, the people, the countryside.

There are so many photos and so many stories from this trip so I think I’ll spare you The Longest Post Ever and share more about it bit by bit, starting with my favourite highlights very soon: tapas! stalactites! wolves! mosaics!

Let me know if there’s anything you really want to know about this trip & I’ll try to include it in an upcoming post.

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