Hi to everyone.

We left China at the end of May and flew back to the UK where we stayed for just 6 days before flying out to Murcia in Spain for my nephews wedding followed by a 2 week drive around Spain. We flew from Leeds/Bradford airport so drove down there and our first problem was when Jun realized she had left her camera, IPad and make up bag at home. The second was when we arrived at Murcia and after standing in a queue for 55minutes to pick up our paid for hire car they wouldn't let us have it as we didn't have the right credit card to leave a deposit even though it was the one I had booked the car with ( never book a car through Rentalcars.com). There were no buses and taxis wanted over 60 euros to take us to our first place at the marina in La Manga where we were staying on a yacht. Eventually managed to hire a car from another rental company but had to pay a lot more and we arrived at the marina at 10pm to meet the owner who had been waiting nearly 3 hours to show us around.

The next morning we had to find my sisters and families who were staying at a villa outside of La Manga to find out all the details of the wedding as it was being held on the beach, we all had to dress in white or beige and the reception was at the sunset club on the beach but the evening one was in the gardens of the La Manga club next to the golf club. we decided the best thing was to drive over to their villa the next morning leave the car there and go on the coaches provided. We then left them and spent the day driving around La Manga which is a very long strip of land jutting out in to the mediterean looking at old windmills and lighthouses  and calling in to a shop to buy an additional adapter to find it was owned and run by a Chinese couple so had a good conversation with them and they invited us to visit them. 

We both liked our time on the yacht it was comfortable and had everything we needed and it was nice to sit on the deck on an evening and watch the sun go down, the next day we were up early and set off for the wedding and it was a fabulous day the beach wedding was lovely and there was free drinks and buffet at the sunset beach club both Andrew my nephew and his best man Taffy gave brilliant speeches. After 3 hours we all got on the buses to go to the evening reception and again it was fantastic there was all kinds of games for everyone to play, there was a singer and some of the guests also got up and sang including Dave my brother in law playing a guitar. Andrew and Lauren also did an amazing gymnastic dance together, we left after 9pm as we had to drive back and be up early the next morning to go back to the La Manga club for brunch and then set off for our second destination of Granada about 320km away as we were due to meet our next host at 6pm in the centre by the Cathedral, but as we were advised not to use our car in the old quarter we left it close to the main bus station and took the bus in arriving at 2 minutes to 6 and met Mel who took us to the apartment which was on the ground floor of a very old Moorish house beautifully furnished and colours with a great roof top garden right in the old quarters and a 30 minute walk to the Alhambra. Mel asked us if we already had tickets as they sell out 2 months in advance which of course we hadn't he advised getting up there at 7am as they always kept 200 tickets back we arrived there at 7am and there was already 20 in front of us, we had to wait till 8:30 till they opened but what a fabulous place once we got in there was so much to see from Forts,Palaces,Bathhouses,Gardens and amazing water features. The Nasrid Palace was magnificent it is so popular you get the time printed on your ticket for admission,  the only thing that spoiled the day was seeing an unfortunate man taking a selfie of himself and he stepped back to far and fell in to one of the ornamental pools I felt so sorry for him.

The next day we spent walking around Granada a man approached me and asked if I spoke English I said yes then he asked if I could give him some money as he was unemployed, I said " and I'm a pensioner" he looked at me and laughed and said "Oh OK". Later we took a bus up to St Nicholas as it's one of the best viewpoints of the Alhambra at sunset in the square there were people playing instruments and singing and some local girls started dancing it was a great atmosphere, we then walked all the way back. The next day we visited a Jewish house that is now a museum that tells the life of the Serephin Jews of Spain, then we walked up to the old Arabic area and visited the house where St John of  God lived and died, an amazing place really deceiving from the outside it looked fairly small but it was huge inside it was all Moorish architecture. In the evening we walked up to the Albayzin Quarter with old whitewashed houses and tiny cobbled streets and visited a church and a mosque.

The next day we set off in the morning to drive to Cordoba a very lovely drive over the mountains which took 3 hours stopping off at a village to eat and Jun buying a huge amount of fruit from a roadside market for less than £5. We arrived in Cordoba and used the sat-nav to find the place and it took us through streets that got narrower and narrower eventually the wing mirrors were nearly touching the walls then we couldn't go any further and I had to reverse out ( that was fun). after finding the place we went out and visited the famous Mezquita Mosque which is now a Catholic Cathedral an amazing place, after we visited the old Jewish Quarter then just wandered around letting ourselves get lost in the old alleyways for the rest of the day and again the following morning before setting off to drive to Seville.

It was a difficult job finding the place we were staying at in Seville lots of one way streets eventually found it using the sat-nav, we got settled in then went walking for 3 hours in temperatures of 37, but what an amazing city there was so much to see beautiful architecture and the Plaza of Espana was really something. On the night we visited a club Jun had been to before where there was Flamenco dancing on. The next morning we walked to the Cathedral and then visited the Alcazal Royal Palace a very beautiful place, after which we visited the bullring but didn't go in and then the Naval museum  then we bought tickets to see professional Flamenco dancers do a show in a 15th century house, we were both very impressed with the show I have never seen anyone move their feet so fast. On the last day in Seville I spent the morning wandering around taking photographs while Jun did some shopping, then we set off to drive in to the countryside to stay at a Moorish town called Olvera a stunning town clinging to the sides of hills with whitewashed houses and a church and fort at the very top, the street were very narrow and they had introduced a complicated one way system that had us baffled for the first day. We took a walk around to find shops after we had settled in to a lovely little house and unbelievably we found another shop run by Chinese who were very surprised when we started to greet them in Chinese. later we walked up the very steep streets to the church to watch a stunning sunset. The next day we drove to the start of the Via Verdo nature trail 11km of gravel paths that used to be a railway line to see the largest group of Griffon vultures in Spain that was a sight then we walked back and it was very hot.

 The next day we drove to the famous town of Ronda very old and lots of historical things to see especially the bridges over the ravines with the highest the Puerte Nuevo being infamous during the civil war for prisoners being thrown off, we then drove out and went to the bottom of the ravine and had a lovely picnic. On our last full day at Olvera we drove to the very beautiful town of Zahara what a spectacular place perched high up a hillside with fantastic views overlooking a lake then we drove further in to the mountains to find a famous gorge waterfall, we set off walking but it was just too hot over 38 so we went back and we found a dead goat which I moved  to an open area hoping the vultures would come down but no luck.

We left Olvera the next morning for a 2 hour drive to Guadix were we were staying in a cave house we had arranged to meet the owner a German lady at the train station at 6pm so we spent the afternoon visiting an area of cave dwellings and they were superb to see with one lady inviting us in to look around her home. We met Tesjar and followed her to her home and she showed us around the cave house then we went for a long hike over the top of the houses taking her dog with us as she had to go back to work. It was very different staying in a cave house and we both did not sleep to well but it certainly was an experience. The next day we set off for the coast but firstly visited a 5000 year old site on the cliff tops overlooking a huge ravine and on the opposite side you could see cave houses in the sides of the cliff. It was a long drive to the coast over 3 hours to the town of Carthanage a very old seaport we walked along the seafront and then after eating we took a boat ride around the harbour lots of cargo ships in, but also it's a Spanish Navy port so lots of warships and even a submarine in the dry dock. After this we set off to drive back to Murcia airport for our flight back to the UK arriving home at midnight.