Holiday Fall 2007 Malaga Spain

We continued on from Milan to Malaga on the southern coast of Spain. I was excited to use some of the 20 or 30 Spanish words I had learned in High School and College. However the town we stayed in, Benalmadena Costa, was like Florida for the Brits. Lots of retired people moved their families here for the warmer weather, almost all the restaurants we went to were foreign owned, and you would be hard pressed to find a Native.
The resort we stayed at was an Interval International participant so we used a free week we had been awarded when we purchased our Aruba timeshare. It was very nice and the suite we had was comprised of 2 bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen, a large living/dining room area, and nice large terrace. The resort had an indoor and an outdoor pool and a kids wading pool. The weather was never really warm enough to try the outdoor pool, but we did use the wading pool a few times and the indoor pool received quite a bit of our attention. Alex was amazing in the pool...she was actually swimming on her own, with the aid of floaties. She has been enjoying swimming lessons once a week through school and seemed to have lost any fear she had had of the water - we had a great time swimming and playing in the pool.
The resort also had a small miniature golf course, a ping pong and Pool table and a large outdoor chess set. Alex was really enthralled with this concept of the outdoor chess set and played a few turns before losing interest in the actual game itself and decided it was more fun to just move the pieces around to where she thought they looked nice.

On one of the warmest days we had, perhaps upper 70's, we went to the beach right across from our resort. We all went in the water and can now say we have been in the Mediterranean Sea. Logan ate some sand and had fun playing with the sticks and bamboo that had washed up on shore. We made a sand castle and collected some shells and rocks...these remained at the beach when we left so that other boys & girls could enjoy them after we left.
We found several good restaurants near the resort...the best being a Chinese place and an English pub/restaurant which we ate at most days. The waitstaff and food were very good and made each meal a fun time. However, my goal was to have a really good Spanish Paella while we were here so on the last night we went down to the waterfront and were talked into the first restaurant we came across. Unfortunately after ordering and overhearing the other patrons, we found out it was yet another English owned spot with an English chef. Needless to say the Paella was not what I thought it should be.
There was also a very large park a block away that the neighborhood on a whole had put in a couple years back. It was very nice with chickens and rabbits running wild, a huge duck pond, and a large playground. We did not get to see the park in its entirety but Alex really enjoyed her time running around and climbing on the slide structures and that is really what it was all about.

In all, I really liked the area but think I would shoot for someplace a bit more Spanish next time we go...the hunt for the perfect Paella is now on! (More Pictures)