The Costa del Sol and onward.....

Time has certainly slipped away from us.  We must be - we ARE, in fact - having fun!

When we left you last time, we’d moved on from our Holy Week adventures to Spain’s Costa del Sol where we would be until late May.  Last time we posted a photo of the incredible view from the apartment we rented, so we won’t repeat that (though it’s almost worth it).  A good bit of our time was spent getting reacquainted with old friends and their families and catching up on all their news.  Amazing that there are now a number of grandchildren where there were just babies and school age kids when we used to visit.  For example, here are the delicious grandchildren of our friends Virginia and Pedro, Aitana and Adrian.

Since we sold the place we owned in 2001, the Costa del Sol has expanded and modernized, but now is showing some signs of the difficult economic conditions felt everywhere, with more vacant stores, restaurants and apartments than usual.  Even so, it is a fun place to visit and we thoroughly enjoyed our time there.

We contented ourselves with checking out the places we’d known before and seeing how they’ve changed.  One highlight, though, was a day when we ventured into the mountains near Marbella to a small, old town called Istan for which we’d seen signs but never visited.  It is really built into the mountain, with very narrow streets and buildings just sitting on the rock outcroppings.  It was quite a sight!

Entering the town is accomplished by driving from floor 0 to the 8th floor of the parking garage and exiting into the town square - this picture was taken from the top floor of the garage.

We left Spain and headed for England, to the county of Lancashire and a great cottage (owned by a terrific couple) we rented on a farm with millions of cows and billions of sheep and not another dwelling in sight.  Rolling green, green, green hills, very narrow roadways, delightful inns and pubs.  One reason for being there was to check out Susan’s father’s family – Francis was born in St. Anne’s on Sea (now joined with Lytham) in 1910 and was brought to the US in 1916 – that’s a story for another time….  We found his baptism record in the local church and then, in the Preston library, found census pages that revealed many connections, dates and names – not the least of which is Barnaby Hull (Susan’t great, granddaddy) from Goosnargh, not too far inland from St. Anne’s. (the photo is of David (not Barnaby) on the one evening at the farm when the weather cooperated for an alfresco dinner).  We also made a stop at the house her Dad was born in and were given a quick tour by a renter.... it was all really neat.

 

Another highlight was a stop at the Leeds and Liverpool Canal (there are over 2000 miles of canals in Britain that have been restored (mostly by people a little at a time).  After seeing a documentary on British canals we stopped and talked with a couple who have brought up their kids living on a canal boat – mostly parked in the town we visited near Foulridge – and with a couple of guys who gave us a tour of their boat which is much like a motor home but mostly these boats are only six feet wide, and 40 feet or so long.

We reluctantly left our farm and drove to London, stopping at Stratford-Upon-Avon for a great lunch.  We spent the night at Heathrow and left on a 6 am flight to Tel Aviv the next morning and that adventure will be the topic of our next posting (we are so far behind....).  On a rainy day from Scotland we send you all many hugs and good wishes.