Summer In Spain - Day 7

Stop 19 - Casares, Malaga: We started our day off driving to the beautiful white village of Casares. Coming around the mountain and seeing the village set on the hill was one of the most breathtaking views we saw in our time in Spain. And when we got into the village, it was even more beautiful than we expected. Of all the white cities we saw, this was by far the most charming. Everything about this village was perfect! The streets were immaculate, the people were friendly, and it was small enough to make you feel as though everyone in the town knew each other by name. It was EXACTLY what you would picture one of these white villages to be like. We parked at the bottom of the village and wound through the narrow streets up to the main square where we enjoyed a quiet lunch outside under a shaded patio. This was another one of my favorite moments of the trip. After lunch, we cooled the kids off with some popsicles and strolled through more of the village on our way back to the car.

Stop 20 - Rock of Gibraltar: After Casares, we headed down to Gibraltar to drive to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar. On our way to the top, we stopped at the "monkey den" to visit with the infamous havoc-wreaking Barbary macaques. The kids were SO excited to be able to walk right up to a monkey - especially since there were several small baby monkeys among the group. After visiting with the monkeys we headed to the top of the rock where we were able to see Africa in the distance. On our way back down the mountain, we stopped to see another group of monkeys. When I was leaning down, one of the monkeys stole my water bottle. When I tried to get it back, two of the monkeys lunged at me and grabbed my arm. Although I was laughing, the kids got totally freaked out and began crying. We decided it would be best to say goodbye to the monkeys. Needless to say, we never got our water bottle back...

Stop 21 - Costa Del Sol Beaches: On our way to Ronda, we made a stop at the Costa Del Sol beaches. We made it to the beach between 5 and 6pm so the sun was lower and the beach wasn't quite as busy. As the kids began to play in the water, we quickly noticed that the beach had tons of small hermit crabs near the shore. We ended up spending the rest of our time collecting them in our buckets. I'm pretty sure the kids thought it was one of the funnest things they did on the trip. Time after time we continue to discover that the best parts of our trips are the unplanned, unexpected things we stumble upon.