Our Spanish Hibernation 3:0

The way of life in El Palo is the antithesis of living in the centre of Malaga. It is only a twenty minute bus ride into centro (a snip at 50 cents) but you kind of feel like you’re going up to the Big Smoke. Centro is vibrant, multicultural, architecturally stunning and packed with great restaurants, bars and cafes. It is also extremely busy and increasingly jammed with tourists.

This week, I didn’t go into town until Friday. The gym is ten minutes from the apartment, there are four supermarkets within walking distance (one over the road) and a few minutes stroll brings you to the seafront. I had a lovely wander along the beach one day and enjoyed a coffee looking out to sea. Furthermore, our apartment has a terrace with the sea winking at you in the distance. It’s a great place to read, Duolingo or blog!

Aside from the supermercados, the folk of El Palo are spoilt for choice with fruterías and panaderías. That said, there’s only one bakery we’ve seen that often has a queue outside. It’s worth getting in line, the bread is superb.

We had great fun in the local market, muddling through with our Spanglish and Spirish!! Most of the fruit and veg stalls have stunning displays out front where you can pick out what appeals most. Some of it is behind the counter though, almost like contraband, so we found ourselves asking for cebollas rojo (red onions) and carrots. Not sure what the chico serving us thought when we asked how big his zanahorias were!

On the deli counter, we were happy to find Cabrales cheese. On one of our first trips to Malaga together we tried this Spanish blue cheese, but have struggled to find it on sale anywhere. It is eye-wateringly strong, but delicious. We also bought some strong Manchego – much sharper than the ones in the supermarket.

There seems to be very few tourists in El Palo, which suits us. It can be tricky sometimes with the language, but we seem to be coping ok so far. We had a problem with the locks this week and a couple of the lights. The guy that came in to look at the lights identified that the switch was broken. He had zero English, but we sent him away with a very handy expression to use instead of “es roto”!!! He seemed to like it.