Los Pueblos Blancos

At lunch in Pampaneira: laundry behind us with view of Sirra Nevadas in front

At the very end of the 15th century, the Christians conquered Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain. The treaty between the Christians and Moors stipulated that the Moors be allowed to practise their religion, their language and  their culture. When it became clear that the ruling Chrisitians had no intent in honoring this, the Moors, escaping religious persecution, fled to the hills south of the Sierra Nevada Mountains (called the Alpujarras) and established many white villages. We spent the 28th visiting three of these villages: Lanjaron, Orgiva, and Pampaneira. They were all wonderful and deserve much more time than we gave them. As one moves further east along the winding mountain road, the villages become smaller and less developed such that by walking amongst the tiny streets one begins to get a sense of what living in such a village at that time entailed.

The narrow paths would make for an incredible motorcycle scene. As we wound our way up the hill of Pampaniera, we were presented with glimpses of the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas. Also tucked away in corridors and alleyways were bars and stores. There are several more towns even higher and more remote and I look forward to coming back to visit them. Unlike the typcial pitched "Spanish" style roofs, the roofs were flat with round chimneys sticking out of them. The towns get their waters driectly from the mountains.

Salobrena - March 26th

Angie and I headed to Malaga the following morning to pick up Tracy and Sarah Bellavance at the airport. Tracy delivered both Anika and Vasco and shares our thirst for travel. The drive along the coast is amazing, with tiered orchards of olive, almond, orange and fig trees (I am surely skipping a few others) nestled into the hills and the towns of Almunecar, Nerja, and Torrox (among others) lining the coast. Malaga is a port town and also a gateway to the entire area (Costa del Sol and Costa Tropical). We plan to explore it later in our trip as it also has many significant remants of the time when the region was under Moorish Rule and some remnants from the Roman Period.

Upon returning home, we dropped off Tracy and Sarah to get situated and picked up Vasco and Sofia. Sofia is our nanny and we could not have found someone more ideal! She is from Rioja, speaks perfect English and is very eager to help all of us improve our Spanish. I know already, that in addition to nanny, she will serve as translator, negotiator, travel guide, culinary advisor and friend. She was waiting for us with her father in Salobrena when we arrived and they quickly met us at our home and her father Miguel brought us some great wines from Rioja.

We went to the Salobrena market and picked up fish, shrimp, lamb, vegetables, bread, olives....all super fresh and headed home for a shandy.

We headed back to Salobrena for sunset and to see the castle.

Lemons, Manchego and Jamon

View from our Balcony

At a sidewalk cafe in Motril

We awoke to birds and sun. Vasco quickly took to lying out on the balcony in his underwear (as only three years olds can!) and watching the banana tree grow.  We are even more delighted with the home we have rented. We lounged for quite a while before heading into Motril for lunch. We stopped at Al Campo on the way home. Al Campo is a supestore but it has a phenomenal food selection. I was overwhlemed with their selection of Manchego and Jamon!! Jamon is a salt cured ham of which their are many varieties.

Upon returning home, Anika and I made fresh lemonade from  the lemons we had collected from the lemon trees on the property and we got settled in. Late in the afternoon a shepherd led his flock of goats accross an old road beneath us. The home is part of development of primarily Moroccan and Spanish style homes that are perched above the Mediterranean.

We've Arrived

Our journey to Salobrena began Tuesday evening (March 22nd). Because we are picking up a new Volvo in Madrid, we were given complimentary passes to the SAS (Scandanavian Air Service) business class lounge in O'Hare Airport. The concern on the faces of the well-dressed scandanvaian customers was very apparaent as Vasco busted into the lounge and said "Mommy, I like this!" He was pretty good and both he and Anika slept the enitre flight to Copenhagen. The Copenhagen airport is very cool (how many airports have hardwood flooring!) with very awesome dining venues and enticing shopping.

From there, we headed to Madrid. The flight was quite scenic as were able to see both the Alps and the Pyranees. Upon arrival, we crammed all our baggage into a tiny Holiday Inn Express room. I picked up our new vehicle this morning (March 24th). Kelley Volvo arranged our purchase of a Volvo XC90 through their overseas delivery program. If you are in the market for a Volvo and want to take a trip, this program makes a ton of sense since you save consideably on the vehicle by taking delivery overseas, you don't need to rent a car, and the program includes shipment back to the states. Also Volvo throws in two roundtrip tickets. It was a very smooth process and we love our new car!

We had lunch with Gloria (and her daughter Maria, and grand daughter Greta who was Anika's age!), a dear friend that Angie was fortunate enough to meet over 11 years ago when she worked for L'Oreal. We stayed with her in May 2000 and like that time, she was an amazing host! We had an amazing multicourse Spanish lunch (almuerza) that included serano ham, paella, albondegas (meatballs) and lasagna. I took my first of many siestas while Angie caught up with Gloria and the kids played nicely.

We left Madrid to begin our drive down to Salobrena and arrived around 11pm. The home we have rented is incredible and the owner had a bottle of bubbly waiting for us. I will put many pictures up in the next posting. We were joined by our nanny, Sofia, and her father, who had driven her from his home in Marbella. He brought us three nice bottles from Rioja and I am working on one as I write. We will get settled in tonight and begin our true Spanish immersion tomorrow. Good night!

Prelude to our Journey

For the vast majority of the people reading this, we have already shared our exciting plans to do a family immersion in the south of Spain. Well over a year ago, I identified this time period (Spring 2011) as a unique window of time to do something like this that may not surface again for quite some time. As Anika and Vasco become busy with school and extracurriculars and Angie and I rework our respective career paths, our collective schedule will inevitably become much busier. Silly self-conscious justification aside, we are extremely blessed to have this opportunity and we aim to make the most it. A key aspect of making the most of it is sharing our trip with the wonderful and amazing people we are so fortunate to count as our family and friends.

Even if on the surface the only thing Vasco takes back from this trip is a rock collection, I believe travel of this nature will be good for him and that in ways neither he nor we can pinpoint this trip will be a source of growth for him. As for Anika, please quiz her on her Spanish (and perhaps her Flamenco dancing!!) upon our return as I plan to only speak Spanish to her going forward (we'll see how this pans out....). Quiz Angie and me too!

We will be staying in a home in a part of Spain called Costa Tropical. In May 2000, Angie and I were driving along the coast of Spain and saw this beautiful white-washed town perched upon a sizable hill overlooking the Mediterranean. We got off the highway to explore and because the narrow roads of the town wind their way up the hill, Angie had to take the wheel as she is much better with a manual car (no smirking!) and she did an amazing job of parking on a steep slope. We got out and began walking in this amazing little town and ended up touring the castle which sits at the very top. We mentioned to one another that it would be nice to come back to this spot some day and I think both of us thought that our return would not occur until well into our fifties.

The town is Salobrena and if you want to look at a map (next to hitting refresh on the ESPN.com looking at maps is my favorite lazy pasttime), Salobrena sits along the southern coast east of Malaga and due south of Granada. Within 5 minutes of our home is the beach and within an hour and a half we can be skiing or hiking in the original Sierra Nevadas. This area is part of a larger region called Andalucia (originally called al Andalus by the Moors) and the history of Andalucia is simply amazing. It is truly one of the first cultural melting pots of our wonderful world. Pagans, then Christians, then Moors and then Christians again have taken turns ruling this area and the region has gone in and out periods of religious tolerance. All the civilizations that have been here have left their mark on the language, the architecture and the culture. I will bore you with more history in future posts.

In this blog, we hope to share some recipes, restaurant reviews, wine reviews, pictures and hopefully many fun(ny) stories. Free sangria to those who got this far!