Running Up That Hill

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The blog has been mostly rant-free so far this trip...time to fix that.  We are in a country where you can buy a bottle of wine in supermarket for a little over a euro.  Three euros will buy something pretty decent.  The other night our Italian restaurant had nothing on the wine list for less than €20 and yesterday we passed a very ordinary bar which proudly announced that house wine was a mere €14!  The story with beer is similar....you can buy a litre in a supermarket for less then €1.5 but a large beer in a bar is usually €5 or more.  This is in marked contrast to our experience in arse-end-of-nowhere Spain last autumn; clearly there is a hefty 'tourist tax' on the Med coast.  

Today we took the rental car so we could start a ride from along the coast.  Somehow, we achieved this without touching the cars either side of us, a manoeuvre involving much shunting a few millimetres forward then back with a dash of swearing for good measure.  We drove about 20 miles west, parked the car in a retail park and head for another loop via white villages.  It varied between hilly and stupidly hilly!  The following sentence is one I had hoped never to have to write...There was a hill I had to walk up.  I had already done some bits of 20% with only mild whimpering but this was substantially worse...certainly 25% and maybe more.  I imagined that my first walk up a hill would be crushingly humiliating but, actually, I couldn't give a crap.

We ended up with a little less than 40 miles and a little more than 4000 feet on the clock and we were royally buggered.  Well, Nick and I were and Plum just grinned.

On our way home we shopped as tonight Chef Steve is knocking up a spag boll for the troops and when we got back to Nerja we lucked into a huuuuge parking space, a full 2 inches bigger than the car.  Tomorrow we are contemplating a day off.

Comments

  1. Anonymous16 March 2026 at 19:48

    That’s my boy, you keep smiling Neil!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous17 March 2026 at 01:05

    No shame in hiking your bike when the hill is ridiculously steep!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous17 March 2026 at 02:56

    4000 VF in March is awesome!😎

    ReplyDelete

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