We were up as usual, drinking earl grey tea on our balcony.
After breakfast we has to pay our bill as reception was open only from 09:00-20:00 and we were not sure that we would be back in time on Monday evening and we would be having an early start on Tuesday morning. We booked dinner for 9pm in case we were late back.
For some reason my WhatsApp details of Doreen had disappeared, so we managed to find a phone number for her and called to say that we would shortly be on our way.
We had put her address details into mrs. Garmin, so off we set in the general direction of Coin. There was quite a lot of slow moving traffic and fast moving overtakers on the road but we made good progress and arrived in the area of Coin on schedule. Howvere, there some misinterpretation of mrs. Garmin’s instructions and we managed to miss two turnings on roundabouts and refused to go down what looked like a sort track, but eventually arrived in the correct part of Alhaurín and could see the little chequered flag on the map display.
We recognised Doreen’s apartment block, but there was a no entry sign on the road and mrs. Garmin told us to turn right. Reaching the bottom of calle charlot, there was another no entry sign, so we went around the block and ignored the protestations of the sat nav, which clearly had the one-way streets the wrong way around. Reaching Doreen’s flat she said she had been watching us driving around in circles!
She has a beautiful apartment with amazing views down the valley in a westerly direction, fine for the sunsets.
After coffee and lots of reminiscences and photos of children and grandchildren, we set off towards Mijas, which is a very attractive Pueblo Blanco, a 30-minute drive along a twisting mountain road. Doreen directed us much better than mrs Garmin and we arrived at the multi-storey car park, where parking is just €1,00 per day!
We walked around the scenic walkways with stunning views down to the coast and back up to the white village, and eventually arrived at what looked like a small pavement restaurant, but which turned our to have a most attractive “secret garden” at the rear, complete with a argentinian BBQ.
We enjoyed a typical Spanish “lunch”, starting at 2:30 and finishing at 5pm, before a further stroll around the town and back to the car park, where we duly paid our €1, before heading back to Alhaurin el Grande, with faultless navigation.
A cup of tea and chat and it was time to head back with detailed instructions from Doreen how to find the road to Ronda.
Sunglasses were essential on the drive back in a westerly direction and, true to predictions, we arrived in the Ronda area at about 8:40, only to be stopped by an escort vehicle and shepherded to the side of the road to allow a combined harvester to pass by.
We reached Molino at 8:50 to find its car park full, and squeezed into the only available space on the lower car park. We reached our table at 8:55, discovering that there was a silver wedding celebration in progress, hence the full car park.
A fairly, light supper of gazpacho followed by risotto (A) and pasta(P) washed down with a glass of wine and it was soon time to go to our room and do the basic packing for an early departure on Tuesday.