Our Spanish Hibernation 3:0

Feels like coming home! So good to be landing at Malaga airport on New Year’s Day, hoping that any type of warmer weather will deal with the lingering coughs and colds we picked up over Christmas. Actually, my congestion made the descent quite uncomfortable, so was glad to be off the plane, ears popping, as we headed to the new EU entry/exit system.

For Paul, with his lovely Euro passport, it was straight to the EU eGates. For me, photo taking, fingerprinting and a screed of questions about accommodation and whether I had and could prove I had enough money for the stay. Our ninety day visit did not cause a problem on this occasion and the screen directed me to a different set of eGates. I swished through these and a nice Spanish border control man stamped my passport. Oddly, very few people seemed to be using the eGates, with the queue for the staffed control booths trailing wildly back.

Being a public holiday, most of the shops were closed. We were pretty confident one of the bazaars would be open. These cavernous places, economically lit, are stacked high with household goods – buckets, shower curtains, storage boxes, all manner of ironmongery for DIY, towels, duvets etc, etc. Usually there is a food section with non-perishables. Happily we found one open close to our apartment, so we were able to get in the basics – long life milk, bottled water and red wine!

This time we are staying in El Palo, so a ten minute bus ride into the city. More on the location and our lovely apartment in future blogs. We settled in by late afternoon, so went for our first explore. We found a panadería open and bought bread, whilst a little later a tiny supermarket yielded us some butter. The following day’s breakfast sorted!

El Palo is a coastal neighbourhood. From our terrace we have a glimpse of the sea across rooftops and a five minute walk takes you down to the beach. I think my cold is already starting to clear.