I've started a new activity, writing Ronda restaurant reviews for Andy, the chap has a relatively new website for Ronda tourists and expats living in the Serrania de Ronda. My first review is now on the Ronda Today website|blog at the following page:
http://www.rondatoday.com/808/bar-maestro-calle-espinel-la-bola
More will follow with time; please do have a read.
The hotel has been busy during the weekends of late with a full house again last night; we had a family from Malaga come up for a birthday party last night. It turns out that they have a restaurant in Malaga city and invited Ivan and I to go there to check it out at some point.
We are closing from this afternoon for a couple of nights to go to Madrid to meet our new nephew born last month. Next weekend is the 3rd Annual Juzcar Wild Mushroom Seminar, of course the hotel is fully booked for that already and has been for several weeks. The big question is: will there be any mushrooms?
With the weather we have been having here in the Serrania, and you will note that I have mentioned the weather on several occasions here and in my Tweet account, it has continued to be warm and dry during the day. The temps at night are about where they should be for this time of year having cooled off about two weeks ago. One can smell wood fires going in the late afternoon, early evenings now. But during the day, the temps are still comfortable and there has been no rain to speak of so there are few if any mushrooms growing in the countryside. That will leave many disappointed in the week to come. In fact, we had a booking for a couple to come and stay this weekend for the mushroom package we have on offer and they postponed their stay due to the lack of rain.
We will be closed for Christmas this year. I put a deadline date on for Christmas bookings if any were to be taken and that date was today. We have not received more than one query and so we will be closed for Christmas for the period 15 - 28 December. The hotel is almost fully booked for New Year's Eve, we have two rooms to go and hopefully we will get two more couples to come along and stay for the event.
I had an American friend from Hong Kong come and stay last weekend for the first time since we have been here. Michael lives in San Francisco now and is quite the traveller. In fact he organizes holidays, one of which I would like to go on with him as they always sound so fabulous and fun. He was here in Malaga to take a cruise from Malaga to Miami, a re-positioning cruise, something I previously knew nothing about. These repositioning cruises mean the ship is going to its next home port for the season; as it has to go anyway and it is not a regular cruise, there is a fantastic discount offered for the cruise. I hope to take this cruise next year actually as it is 12 days and very inexpensive; Michael got a great room for USD1,300 which includes room and all food with most beverages... sounds like quite the deal to me! The ship has 14 restaurants on board as well as a spa and many other activities. He said you have to go with your own group but it is lots of fun... sounds like a great idea to me.
