Thomsons + Spain = lots of pizza

At least in Alex and Dano's case. Dad, not so much. 

First stop on the trip was Malaga, where they flew in and we met. We had kind of a rocky start to the trip, with some weird meat place where a bunch of people tried to sell us tacky jewelry and the like, but it turned out alright. Perhaps with the help of a hotel with a slide. Being in Malaga again was very strange. This was where I spent my first few terrifying days and to return there felt very deja-vu-esc. 

Malaga has a beach... Unfortunately it was too cold to swim, but I remedied that on my Barcelona trip 2 weeks later.

Next stop, after a twisty, terrifying road-trip through the mountains, was Ronda, to show my family one of my favorite views in the world. Turns out Dad booked the hotel immediately on the cliff, so that view was delivered straight to the hotel room. Contrary to his belief that we didn't appreciate it, I could not have been more thrilled. Below, our hotel and the cliff.

And the view!

More pictures from Ronda, possibly my second favorite city in Spain (behind Granada, of course).

Dano interrupting one of my pictures... I like it better with him in it.

 And Mom and her cactuses. We'd be standing in front of an incredible view, and all she would say was, "Look! There's a cactus!"

 

 The fam on a rock couch.

 They light up the bridge at night, something I never saw the first time around.

The next day we left for Sevilla, stopping along the way at Grazalema, a tiny little town tucked away at the end of an even more twisty, narrow road (which caused Mom a lot of stress).

In Grazalema, we went on a brief hike through very North Shore-esc terrain, where apparently there was livestock roaming freely.

 And Alex found a giant pine-cone, which I believe, made it all the way back to the US, unless customs confiscated it.

 The actual town was cute and very very tiny.

 Below, canaries for Mom.

On the drive out, we encountered some of that roaming-freely livestock. A cow...

 And some goats...

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to capture a picture of the "black baby lambs" that mom loved so much. 

Passing a beautiful lake, we paused for a quick photo session/bask in the beauty moment.

I'll stop there, as I am blogged out for the moment/for life, and pick up next time with the Sevilla part of the trip (despite many distractions, we did eventually make it there).