We had difficulty finding the hotel carpark, even with our navigation system, because to get to it we eventually found out that we had to go down a 'No Entry' road! The sign was misleading because the no entry sign had a small notice that indicated that it only applied about 80 meters further on.

From there we had a curtesy ride to the hotel in a very small car, Trudy bumped her head whilst getting in. We soon learnt why such a small car was needed, as the route into the castle was through very tight arches and very narrow cobblestoned passages.

Our hotel was in the middle of this amazing castle (it is the biggest in Europe) and there are streets of little shops within the castle walls. Sadly we had no time to explore, I tried to find out what the roads would be like the next day, but without success.


Valentine Meal

It was soon time to go for our special meal which was at Chez Christine, next door to our hotel, and it was certainly very special, we had a wonderful evening. We were greeted with a glass of Champagne and Trudy was presented with a red rose. Then the only choice we had was to have the meal with wine, or without, and we decided to have the wine. But we didn't know what we had agreed to!

We were presented with five courses and each one was delicious, but with each course they brought us a different glass of wine (that were so good) we enjoyed them all. We agreed that we had never had a meal like this before, it was wonderful.

Thank goodness the next morning after a good night we had an excellent breakfast and neither of us had any headache! Because I dreaded being stuck again on the motorway, I chose to set the navigation to avoid the motorways, and we set off on what turned out to be the most incredible drive across the Pyrenees mountain, we were nearly in Andorra at one time, the views and rock formations were breath-taking, the roads were narrow, lots of zigzag lanes and hair pin bends, it was spectacular and we eventually crossed the border into Spain.

We then altered the navigation back to include motorways and were so glad to find the road was clear so, we were able to carry on with our usual route, we called our Villalonga hotel and confirmed we would come and we had a nice stop-over. Lucky for us, the fourth day on our usual route went well, we had a useful place, where we always stop for a snack, past Murcia and we know it’s a place where the police often go, and we thought we would find out from them how the motorway would be nearer Malaga, there were four policemen there when we arrived, but they were not able to give us any information, which we struggled to find out, as not one of them spoke English.

The only thing that spoilt our arrival, was as soon as we got our luggage into our apartment, I had diarrhoea and was sick at the same time! We must have caught a bug as Trudy suffered too the next day. We soon recovered, but both of us have to have regular check-ups; Trudy for Cancer and I for Leukaemia, thank goodness Trudy has the all clear, and they found that I have a very mild form, which does not need any treatment, but has to be monitored.

Otherwise, we had a nice time in Marbella and enjoyed a visit by Martina (a cousin of Trudy from Bad Ragaz) and Reto who stayed a couple of nights with us, so that we could show them around, as they had never been before. They then carried on staying near Cadiz for about a week, and we started our drive back to Switzerland a few days after they left us.