More Andalucia

I loved Andalucia, well worth the visit. This time we stayed the week in Antequera and toured each day, avoiding moving hotels all the time. Incidentally, the roads were excellent and weirdly empty of traffic. I rather like being a package tourist nowadays, no responsibility for a whole week, delicious food, lovely views, good guides, though it can be exhausting imbibing all that info in the heat.
I was bowled over by the mosque at Cordova (above) and, of course, by the star of the whole trip, the Alhambra palace, see my blog below. It's impossible to photograph the scale of the Cordova mosque, so you will just have to go and see for yourself. Fortunately, during the Christian reconquest of Spain in the 13th century, they couldn't afford to pull the enormous building down so they just created a cathedral in the middle. Here's a good description.

On the last evening of the hols I had one photo left on my card and I saw these chaps in the hotel - actors, I thought vaguely. Can I please take their photo, I said to a young man in jeans who seemed to be in charge. OK, he said. 'The signora wants to take your picture.' They didn't look too cheerful but they posed politely. 'Who are those blokes in matador costumes,' I asked the Irish waiter as I passed the swimming pool. Oh, they're just off to the bullfight, he said, and when they come back they look pretty messy.

Blimey, the real thing. Of course, I loathe bull-fighting but it's a way of life in Spain obviously. Sorry if this upsets sensitive readers of this blog.

See the bull ring in Malaga above.

Bougainvillea

Windblown rock formations at El Torqual.

Hibiscus. To my delight, I also saw pomegranates flowering and the last purple blossoms of the jacaranda trees.