Devall Travels

What you don't want to hear at an airport. Even worse when the Monarch airlines automated message arrives with the loud ringing of the phone before 0800. Checking the app for Gatwick Airport shows the flight delayed from 1625 to 1840! At least. I called Monarch and was rewarded for my 10p a minute 0871 number with information to arrive as ticketed. So we arrived at 1408!!! The security checks are still in place. Laptops out of their cases, shoes and belts off... Beep! Claire's hip sets off the alarms. Beep! Something on me sets off the alarm. Maybe the rivets on my jeans? The waist button? Can't be my money or phone or watch as they are in the tray along with everything else? We both endure the frisking. They even dig out a magic wand for Claire. Then we are let loose into the shopping mall that Gatwick South. Like IKEA you follow the road through all the shops before being vomited (you want to after 60 different perfume counters) counters) into the normal part of the term...

Last minute checks made...  main case packed.   The idea was to take just hand luggage and then we saw the size of  the two small cases that would fit in the overhead lockers.  Not really big enough for a week so we decided to pay Monarch the best part of an arm and a leg to take a hold bag!  Gulp.   So it's packed.  We have also decided that the DSLR's will stay at home as they take up too much room and this holiday is about R&R. Still, we can still take the compacts.   Today, the last brick in the wall was the travel insurance I had forgotten all about.   I have a folder with all the stuff we need in it, just a matter of taking out as we need it. Every year we go to Gatwick I try to book the same parking but every year it seems to be impossible to find it.  Fingers crossed.   The flight is 1625 which makes for a late arrival in Malaga. Fingers crossed again that getting to the apartment is not a problem.  

Two weeks to go and everything in place. Parking arranged and resort sorted.

Okay, don't laugh at once.  Yes. We are going to Torremolinos for our wedding anniversary week away. It's cheap and the resort we are going to is in a quieter part and gets good reviews. Like Benidorm on the Costa Blanca, Torre was one of the first resorts developed for mass tourism and has attracted millions of Britons and other northern European tourists looking for sun when it is dark and dank in the north. With holidays there is always an element of snobbishness.  Yes, we'd love to fly to Bali or other exotic places, but it's not currently within our budget.  Over the years we have been going to the Costa del Sol we have been to Torre once for a few hours when we had time to kill before the flight home.  Let's see how this all works. We are looking at it positively. The resort is within walking distance of the La Colina train station on the Cercanias C1 line and only four stops from the airport.  Choosing this place me...

This Flickr album contains about 103 of the pix taken on the trip. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauldevall/sets/72157625772506567/ Favourite beer Cerna Hora......

We were up early to escape the ashtray that was and is the Etap Düren West. The idea was to stop at the first services on the motorway and have coffee and maybe a croissant. We happily sailed past the one at Aachen Ost as there was another signed at 14kms. Sadly we turned on to another autobahn and missed it. Finally 75 minutes later and after crossing the Netherlands we arrived in Belgium, and after a false stop at a weekday only services (one with no petrol) we arrived at one where we could sit outside in the sun with the wasps and eat!! As usual the monument to moronic driving and poor planning that is also known as Antwerp arrived in front of us. Solid traffic and lane swapping all make for tense driving. I was glad of another calming stop before we got stuck again in a huge tailback. No reason to be seen and no information available, but traffic as far as the horizon. My detour via the cobbles of Gent and the N9 might not have saved time but is was certainly more scenic although p...

The YHA at Creglingen was relatively cheap for an en-suite twin room. Breakfast was the usual German youth hostel fare; rolls, cheese, ham and salami plus cereal and coffee. The coffee was some of the best all trip and I gorged three cups. The plan was to spend all day to meander to the Etap at Düren. And we did. The first part was along a bit more of the Romantische Strasse and then across the 'green' routes on the Michelin map towards the Rhein. First stop was Rüdesheim am Rhein. We have been here before, but on a river boat trip not by road. We had lunch. Here I learned that rindwurst is beef. Once again we had sausage and for the first time (and last!) chips. A walk round the tourist heart wasn't complete without another Käthe Wohlfahrt visit. In Rothenburg our beer was served in lidless steins and it kept it cooler longer, so I was on the lookout for one. In the end it was the afore mentioned shop that had them, and more surprisingly they were cheaper than any I had se...