So many good Sundays
I don't think I can go back in the past years and count as many great Sundays as we've been having in the past 6 months or so. Like, it's a difference of night and day. We seem to live for the Sundays while once upon a time they were mostly used as a day to reload (especially my sweet boyfriend who works so many hours) and binging series was a common activity on Sundays.
Too much to share sometimes
As I take pictures of everything that I see when it inspires me in a way or things that bring back happy memories later, I capture it all and this means I have a shitload of content waiting to be shared, endlessly. I bet that I can go back the folders from 3 years ago and still find stuff I have not shared due to forgetting or having other things which I was more passionate about.
Let's go back to Palm Sunday this year
A Sunday when we should have known there was no flea market in Almuñécar but as the website said there was, we drove that way that morning. We first headed to Nerja, where there's a trunk sale every Sunday and often the good deals are to be found there, it's smaller but the chances of scoring something good are also higher.
The signs were there, after all, it was Palm Sunday
The week before, the lady we were speaking with there said she thought there wasn't a market in Almunecar that week and the next week. Therefore, this time I checked online if that Sunday was marked as "no market" day, instead it was marked as "no free spots available". We kind of rushed the Nerja market as we drove there in the rain, and underway I checked the forecast to find out that Nerja had the best weather for the first hours and then it would clear up at Almunecar later. Our best move was to go there first.
Funny moment of realisation
We were still happy not to be looking at that rain from our apartment as in our area there's definitely less to do when we want to be out. So we did a quick round in Nerja and then headed back to Almuñécar. Upon arrival, something weird was going on. It was packed with people and I didn't see the market right away.
For a moment, I thought we entered from the wrong side or something, not for a moment I thought there wasn't a market that day, haha. The funniest thing was that I said "oh there's a HUGE parking lot there, we never parked there, how did we not see it all these weeks?". My boyfriend didn't realise it either and made the round to enter that parking.. When we passed the Lidl to cross the street I said "OMG, the market is on the parking lot normally, how did we miss this haha". We laughed out loud and wondered what all the fuzz was about.
Palm Sunday
Spain is religious so my best guess was there was going to be a procession somewhere and we decided to park in the garage to then just follow the crowd and see what they were waiting for. Weirdly enough they seemed to be waiting for something yet to come but when nothing happened, we went into some cute streets and arrived at a tiny square which was the cutest and most adorable square I've seen there.
We waited, nothing happened
Spain is often horrible in announcing things online and I could not find any info quickly enough so I decided to enter a cute jewellery store that was about to close but told me she'd stay open for 10 more minutes. How kind! I looked around, sadly I didn't find anything I wanted to buy but I asked the lady what was happening and she told me the procession had already passed this part of the route. All those others were also waiting for nothing.
Happy vibes
Upon wandering through the centre in Almuñécar, which we hadn't seen before until this Palm Sunday as we were following the crowds to find these hidden cute streets and boutiques everywhere, we both felt nostalgic for Granada. Although our time there was not perfect, we both still have fond memories about many things in that area and this was the first time that some afternoon of wandering in unknown streets brought those feelings back up.
The cute square, more about that in another post
We love finding these cute little boutiques in hidden streets and landing on those cute squares where you find an amazing park or these streets where it's suddenly filled with locals eating paella or other tapas. It was busy, very busy and hard to sit anywhere.
We got lucky entering a bar
As I needed to go to the toilet badly because I drank so much water in the car, I was happy to enter a bar who had 1 free table and even though we ordered just 1 beer and water, three tapas were placed on our table not long after. We were wondering why and if it was a mistake, then I realised we were now in Granada and that free tapas is a thing there, in our area it's more an exception than rule.
Nothing special you'd think, some bread (which was delicious btw) with ham and cheese (the good kind) some oil and I think oregano.. A water and beer, total costs: €4.70!
We felt good vibes
For the first time we were on the Costa Tropical with quite some wind and rain, not the best moment to pick for a day trip usually. And yet this was one of the most memorable Sundays we had because we landed right in the middle of a festivity we didn't know before driving there (otherwise we might have not gone at all) and yet we learned so much about this cute centre of Almuñécar with hidden streets filled with restaurants and bars of all sorts.
Fish & Chips it is!
We tried sitting at a few more but every table was reserved so we ended up eating fish and chips, which were surprisingly good!
We are so used to restaurants and bars serving fries soaked with oil rather than crispy that it was a pleasant surprise to find a very nice table with comfy chairs, the wind blowing through my hair, enjoying the fish and chips while people watching. I can truly say this Palm Sunday a few weeks ago was an eye opener for the future. This type of area is where we want to live closer to, rather than our "Mar de plastico" region where we ended up.
Road trip alert
Thankfully we have a car, so until it's time, we will just have to have lots of road trips to the other coasts! I seriously wanted to share everything from that day within this post but there was too much going on, too many thoughts to share and lots of memories made for us as a family.
I have divided some things into future content so you will be reading more about my experiences on the wonderful Costa Tropical, even when it's raining!
Thanks for stopping by..
All pictures above are mine..