A VERY WARM BUT CLOUDY " ALHAURIN EL GRANDE " ON THURSDAY;

THURSDAY 5^th/JUNE 2014.

A nice early morning getting our self’s ready after breakfast for our trip/adventure over to see Joyce ‘Baby’ over in ‘Ahhaurin el Grande’ at lunchtime; all the news and some pictures later – watch this space.

Well we have had a ‘Helluva’day with Joyce taking and in the sights and sounds of the town of ‘Alhaurin el Grande’ We set off at 11-00am and it took 1hr to get to the centre of the town, its 74kms but as you turn left in Marbella up the A 335, it’s then 14kms up and over the ‘Sierra de la Nieves’-  the old ‘Red Fiesta’(It thinks its a Ferrari) just about made it up the twists and turns of the spectacular drive; coming back it enjoyed it more as it’s all down hill!

The town is much larger then we expected and is busy all day with lots of traffic especially in the old part of the town with a narrow one-way system; it has many fine shops, bars and restaurants to suit all tastes which Joyce showed us as we drove round to get our sense of direction, she has livid in the town since 1990 so she knows all the best bars and restaurants including  more in the surrounding country side – as we soon found out!

The town is in a large valley and is known as ‘Bread Basket of the Region’ from back in early Roman times so there still lots of bakeries and mills to this day!

Our first port of call was to ‘Finca La Mota’ in the hills behind the town for a nice chilled bottle of Cava with some Dutch ‘Bols Cassis’  - the owners are Dutch! A little light Tapes of Smoked Salmon with Horseradish sauce and warm local bread went down a treat.

Next I was to ‘Venta el Bichito’ for our 6 euro,3 course ‘Menu Del Dia!’ I kid you not – both places knew Joyce very well and gave  us a warm welcome; to start with Brenda had a Chicken,Bread & Potato Broth, Joyce had the Mixed Salad and I had a ‘Small ‘ plate of the house Paella as you can see in the pictures above. To follow Brenda had deep –Fried Hake in Tempura Batter, Joyce had Baby fried Calamari, which were delicious and tender and I had fried Breast of Chicken, again!  - All with lots of frits and mine topped with a Campo fried Egg!! A nice chilled bottle of ‘Faustino VII Blanco’ instead of the usual ‘Tinto de Verano’ went down very well.

By now it was nearly six o’clock so we had a late afternoon cool drink by the side of a very busy roundabout in the center of the town as Joyce had an appointment at her Doctors; while we were waiting Brenda found the largest shoe shop in the town and so bought herself a new pair of White shoes!! Joyce came back and picked us up and we ended our day in ‘Alhaurin el Grande – on the way to our last port of call for the day we called into to see Joyce’s house in the center of the old part of town, it’s at the top of a very narrow street with no cars as you can see in the picture above, it has steep slopping steps down and is called “ Cueste Rhoda Huevos ” !! – Which translate roughly as “ Rolling Eggs down the Hill” !!???? It’s a very old and ancient pass-time the locals used to take part in as the raced the Eggs down the hill – honest!

From the outside Joyce’s house looks very narrow as you an see in the picture above; in fact its an ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ with two separate apartments/houses in the one block with roof terrace’s, very old and Joyce is still to this day working on it with the help of her friends in the town especially her dear friend Danny who we met and went with for our final drink or two to a bar at the far end of the town called “ The Frog & Toad ” – the only ‘English Bar’ in the town!?

A very big ‘Thank You’ to Joyce for one ‘Helluva’ day; lots of love to you “ Health, Wealth and Happiness ”as the saying goes – see you in October – she is flying back next Thursday and we wish her all the very best as she starts new life in Chester – fingers crossed!

PS; The pictures will give you a small idea of the town as we traveled round.

PPS; John ( Joyce's ex-husband) - hope you enjoyed reading the Blog and the pictures!!

Thoughts for the Day; See above.

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