The White Family Journey: The Mountains of Spain

Wes and I had the chance to get away together and spend some quiet moments in the mountains of Spain. We had friends from London come and watch the kids for 2 days. It was our Christmas gift to each other as well as my birthday gift!

Wes found this amazing old Roman villa close by in the mountains. It was only 40 minutes away, and right close to one of the mountains we wanted to hike. It was in the middle of an almond orchard and so quiet and peaceful.

Our room was breathtaking. We had a hot tub in the room itself and a real wood-burning fire place! I was in heaven. :) We arrived in the middle of the day, and there was no one else there. We just assumed we were early; but even as the day went on, we had the entire place to ourselves! (Not good for them, but perfect for us!)

Our first night there, they actually called us and asked us if we planned on eating at the restaurant... and if so, what time we would like to have dinner. We had noticed on the way up to our room that the restaurant was open from 9pm-10:30pm; but apparently, since we were the only ones in the place, we had the choice to eat earlier if we wanted. So, we did!

It's kind of hard to find a really good steak here; but they had steak on the menu, so we thought we'd try it. While we were waiting, they brought out an appetizer to try...on the house.

To be honest, I have no idea what it was. But it was good!! hehe... :)

Then our steak dinner came. Wow. I cannot even describe how delicious it was! It was smoked over almond wood, and it was divine!... tender, absolutely melted in my mouth! I ate every, single bite...and then I told Wes we had to go back again the next night and I was ordering the exact same thing! It was that good.

The next morning, we had the dining room to ourselves (once again) for breakfast, and then headed out for our day in the mountains.

We drove to Almedijar, a neighboring pueblo, found a parking spot, and began our adventure up the mountain.

We started out here, and followed these paths for about 45 minutes. Wes had gotten an app, and we had charted our route up the mountain to the rock face where we wanted to go. We just had a virtual map on Wes' phone. We didn't really know what the terrain was going to look like in real life; so as we walked these paths the first 45 minutes or so, we were both thinking, "This is more like a walk than a hike!"... but then the real hiking began. :)

Right about here, the path we had chosen forked off the pathway we were following and cut straight up the mountain. Our final destination was that rock face right above Wes' head. It was a beautiful hike up. I kept reminding Wes to stop and enjoy the view. It was so easy for both of us to get caught up in watching our footing and pushing ourselves to that mountain peak that we were missing the sites along the way!

A flower in the middle of January!

Wes was enjoying being able to play with his camera a little bit! He's usually carrying stuff for kids, so it was a nice little break to be able to bring his camera!

So I decided to take bad selfies while he was busy taking "real" pictures. haha...

The climb up was steep, and sometimes there was only room for my two feet on the path... as it dropped off to the trees below. There were times that I had to make Wes come back and hold my hand as I went up. I don't do well with heights. I get dizzy on bleachers... if that tells you anything. haha... SO at times, my head was spinning; but it was so worth it once we got to the top!!!!

Ok, you totally cannot tell by this picture, but we were going straight up the mountain. This was me snapping a pic behind me after a stretch where I felt particularly safe... so I could turn around and take the pic. haha...

We made it! It was kind of comical. We got warm as we were hiking, so we had taken off hats, coats, mittens, etc. But the longer we were up there, the colder we got. You'll see as the pics progress, we begin to bundle back up. haha...

You can't really see very well in any of the pictures we took, but the Mediterranean is just past those outer ridges. We could even see the port from up there!

This is looking straight down through the rocks on which I was standing. The truth is... I couldn't look myself. :) I just snapped the picture real quick. hehe... :)