As Stu had some extra holiday to take we decided to go away in the February half term – something we hadn’t done before. Tom & Izzy only had one week off school and we wanted to go somewhere warm. We looked at Dubai but it was really expensive and then thought about Spain as the temperature should be late teens in February. After a quick trip advisor search we realised there was so much to do near Marbella – so that is where we went!

We flew out of Heathrow on the Sunday afternoon, arrived at Malaga Airport early evening, did a quick supermarket shop on the way to our AirBnb and checked in just after 8pm! We had a beautiful three bedroom ground floor apartment next to the beach just on the outskirts of Marbella. I imagine the complex is really busy in summer but it was very quiet in February and it was not overly expensive!

^{Our AirBnb for the next five nights}

Ronda

The following morning we got up quite early to do the one hour drive to Ronda. Ronda had come up on all our trip-advisor searches as an amazing day trip to do from Marbella. It is a historic city perched on a cliff-top and is one of the oldest towns in Spain. The drive from Marbella was beautiful as we travelled through the mountains.

We parked up in an underground carpark and made our way to the observation deck which gave us views of the gorge and all the mountains.

^{Views from the observation deck.}

As we looked into the gorge there were lots of cats sitting on the cliffs – I don’t know whether they were stray cats or had homes.

We then headed to the Plaza de Toros – an 18th century bull fighting ring and museum. The museum was fascinating and had lots of exhibits showing the outfits that were worn. We were also able to walk around the arena and seating areas. We had visited Spain a few years ago and felt where we were was very touristy – however, we really enjoyed Ronda. The architecture was amazing and we felt we were ‘seeing’ Spain.

^{Inside the bull-ring}

We then returned to the car and drove down into the gorge. There was a short walking trail that we were able to follow to take photos of Ronda.

^{Views of Ronda from the gorge}

It was a bit too early to head home so we decided to stop off in Marbella on the way back. We walked along the sea front and found a small pier where we watched the waves.

I then realised there was a lighthouse nearby so we wandered down the promenade to have a look. To be honest we were all a bit disappointed as it wasn’t really what we expected – more of a tower in a built up area!

We headed home as Tom had GCSE revision to do and the following day we were planning to visit Gibraltar.