Jerez de la Frontera / Gibraltar

For some reason we decided to go on vacation 10 days before we were moving to a new home...but I'll get to that on another occasion. After dropping off the cat at the in-laws we drove back to Munich the night before our flight to Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. Moving the packed boxes to get to our bedroom and carrying the suitcases around temporarily placed furniture added to the activities required to prepare for the adventure coming in the morning. We had already packed our alarm clock so I had to trust my mobile phone would wake me and the family at 3AM, which it did, however I woke up every hour from 11PM until 3AM checking the time, I didn't want to miss our plane. We got to the airport and parked in our prearranged parking spot, and made it no problem to our 6:30AM flight. Lea, as always, added to the positive ambiance to the start of our journey. Landing at the Jerez de la Frontera airport we walked from the plane about 300 yards to the terminal, where we were greeted by a RIU travel representative. A short time later we were on a small bus going towards our hotel (Riu Chiclana) . The first impression of the hotel was not totally positive. Wife and I decided that perhaps we have been on too many vacations and our expectations were a little too high. Check in was fast and furious. We had to wait for a few hours in our travel clothes until our room was ready and our bags were delivered. We walked around and had some food and drinks.
The daily routine was pretty standard:

  • Wake up around 9:30 AM
  • Go eat breakfast
  • Go back to the room and get ready to swim and sun
  • Go to the beach (Atlantic Ocean) or stay at the pool (this was our most difficult decision of the day). Lea loved to be buried in sand, she would wiggle her toes, removing the sand, then I would tickle them and cover them up again, then we would do it again. Lea did play with some of the other children there, which was nice, but at the same time, I never took my eye off of her.
  • Have a snack around 2:00 - 3:30 French fries, ice cream and wine
  • Do some arts and crafts with Lea, play at the Play Ground or keep swimming and sunning
  • Go back to the room at around 6:00PM
  • Check my email and eBay auction I was selling some items we didn't want to take with us to the new house and needed to respond to questions It cost 1 euro for 12 minutes....ouch
  • Go eat at 7:00PM We'd get there early to get an outside table overlooking the Ocean and pool Lea got ice cream with sprinklees and Lemonade every evening
  • Go to the Badingoo Kid Disco. Lea loves watching this (she didn't dance this year, maybe next time), however when the Monster came out she ran as fast as she could to give him a hug...
  • Watch the evening Shows
  • Back to the room at 10:30 - 11:00 PM to sleep....

WWe took a trip to Gibraltar which was about 1.5 hours away. We rented a car and, using my GPS for the first time navigated successfully to the Rock. As you read on the internet, the traffic getting into and leaving Gibraltar is pretty heavy, so avoid the peak times, but we drove in anyway, it took about 2 hours combined. We went up on the cable car to the top of the rock. It was a very windy day and the car was swinging back and forth. Personally, I can say that the ride up is a little scary. Once we reached the top I realized we had survived and took in the view. The views are very nice. It was fun to see the monkeys running around, Lea loved seeing them very much too. A short walk from the main station is a den of about 15+ monkeys. There were some baby monkeys which were very cute one of them held Lea's hand. The ride down was as exciting as the ride up....We concluded our trip with a stop at the Europa Point where we could see Morocco (Northern Africa) about 14 miles away and did some duty free shopping in the city center. Both times we got lucky and found a good parking spot....We bought Lea a toy monkey with a pink vest which she carried with her to that evenings’ Kid Disco. After 7 days it was time to go home. Our plane did not leave until 7:40PM and we were not being picked up until 5:30PM so I asked if we could stay in the room a little past 12:00PM (check out time), they said NO!! This never happened to me before, but we made the best of it. We ate, swam and had fun as if it was our first day. Five minutes before our pickup time we went to the front of the hotel and were picked up. Since our bags were sitting in front of the hotel for a little over 5 hours, they were way in the back. I had to crawl over many to get to them. When I grabbed the last bag I knocked over about 15 other bags, they were stacked and fell like dominoes. People looked in my direction, but I pretended to be ignorant to the fact of what I just did. We were driven to the airport and landed safely and arriving home about 4 hours later. The very next day we began the final preparations to execute our move to our new home. It was a good time, I liked the additional time I got to spend with my wife and daughter the most and then the day trip to Gibraltar. I am looking forward to selecting the location of our next summer vacation. What a life.....