Final few days in Spain 2018

The weather cleared the morning we left Valencia. In downtown Valencia there are 2 train stations within a 10 minute walk of each other.  As we walked past Estacion Norte enroute to Joaquin Sorolla, I took the photo below.
      

Estacion Norte.

We took the high speed train back to Cordoba.  At 300 kmh and only 3 stops, it was fast trip.  Arriving in Cordoba, we unloaded our motorcycle gear from the bike, changed and rode to Olvera.  By the afternoon, the weather had clouded over and we rode through a few showers. It was not the most pleasant ride back to the house.

The insurance on the moto expired a couple of days after returning to Olvera.  I readied the moto for storage and put it back in the rented garage.  The weather forecast for the next forecast did not look promising and we began to wonder what we would do for the last week in Olvera.

Car rentals in Spain are quite reasonable so I started looking at the possibility of renting. There is no place in Olvera to rent a car but there is an abundance (you might say and overabundance) of car rental agencies in Malaga.  Earlier I had discovered a web site that seemed to have the best rental options and prices. (doyouspain.com)  Thanks to Black Friday, there were unbelievable deals.  We rented a new Fiat 500C for 6 days for 1.33 Euros.  That price is not a misprint!  I declined the collision insurance because I had coverage with my Visa card. The total charge for the rental on my Visa was $2.06.

Despite the forecast rain, we did get some nice sunny days for our last week in Spain. Even though the air temperature only reached 15 degrees or so, it was very comfortable in the sun.

 We used the car for day trips.  Our first trip was over to Zahara, a beautiful village that we can see from our patio.  We had a nice lunch and walked up to explore the old fortaleza.  The next 3 photos are of Zahara and surrounding area.

Where we rent the house in Olvera there are lots of family pets. Mostly cats and dogs but one of the neighbours has a goat. We have only heard it.  Below is a photo of the neighbours cat. As soon as he hears the door open, he is over in shot.  He waiting for his treat.

 We have stayed in Olvera for the last 3 years but we had never visited the old fort until this week. It is quite an impressive structure.  We opted for self guided tour. We were the only ones in the castle.
Below are a few photos from our tour.

Looking back toward the church through the battlements

A tricky staircase to the roof top.

This is a pretty standard view from the roof top patio of the house we rent, when it isn't raining.

We spent the last two nights in Malaga before catching an early morning flight to Paris.  We stayed in a nice airbnb apartment in downtown Malaga and spent our time exploring the city. 

Normally we don't like spending much time in larger cities but our minds have been changed by our time spent in Valencia and Malaga.  Both of these coastal cities are beautiful. Wide boulevard streets,  limited vehicle access to the centre of town, street cafes and restaurants galore, beautiful parks and walking and cycling paths through town and along the water front.

I didn't take a lot of photos in Malaga. Here are a few.

orange trees in small downtown park

looking west along the beach front toward the centre of Malaga

The last evening we spent in Malaga was the Christmas light up.  There centre core was filled with families.  This photo doesn't do justice to the spectacular lighting.

That's it for this trip!  

Do to flight connections and to take a break on the long trip home, we stopped over in Toronto 

for the night. Heading for Calgary, then Cranbrook this afternoon.

We were trying to take selfies photo on the beach in Malaga but somehow we took this little video.