Our walk westward completed, it is now time to head up the beach in the opposite direction. I will post the map I created for Part one of this two-part series again, so you don’t have to go back to reference it. If you didn’t read Part 1, it might be a good idea to go back and at least read the introduction to get yourself oriented.
Go East Young… errr… Old Man!
At this point in our stay, we have now wandered back-and-forth across the waterfront both ways, and I would have to say that from the central point “Red Star” (non-official, just designated by me) that the walk eastward is much more benign and relaxed than walking westward because it is usually not as busy with people… except on Sundays.
It is also a much shorter walk than heading west. That is, if you are only walking as far as the big Carrefour grocery store as we are prone to do. 🙂 In truth, I now know that you can make the walk eastward many kilometres long if you really feel like doing that.
1. This interesting critter/sculpture is entitled “Perro 1” (Dog 1). If you were to go back and watch the video clip, you wouldn’t see this guy sitting there, but he sits just to the right of where I was filming.
2. As we head east, we approach a number of apartment buildings that sit right on top of the Paseo on the beach side of Avenida de España.
3. The first thing we need to accomplish is to get through a gauntlet of restaurant patios. Nothing wrong with that.
4. And there are several of them, and they are busy most of the time. And yes, we have stopped there a few times for food and refreshments.
5. In fact, one of those times was to have lunch with Glenn and Corrine, readers of my blog, who took note that we were staying nearby and suggested we get together. I am always happy to meet readers and have a chat about wintering on the Costa del Sol or retirement in general.
6. Once we get past the buildings and restaurants, the route is free and clear. The red arrow is pointing to our general destination, the white building.
7. As we walked this route one day, I swung around, took this picture, and ended up with a lovely image of both Gibraltar and the Atlas Mountains of Africa across the Strait of Gibraltar. Because the east section bends around, you tend to get better views of the coastline to the west from out there.
8. Usually, there is not too much going on along this section of the beach as you walk east…
9. … Other than there are a number of Chiringuitos (beach bars) set up along the way. In February, some of them are closed for vacation, like this one.
10. And some of the closed ones open up on weekends, it appears. 🙂
11. As we get closer toward our destination, the roadway begins to head uphill while the Paseo continues flat as it runs along the Mediterranean. In the median between the two are these lovely plantings.
12. This restaurant (Malva Beach by Besaya) is open all the time, and we will definitely be coming here for lunch or beverages one day.
13. Estepona bills itself as the “Garden City of the Costa del Sol”. The title is fitting.
14. Sorry, but I never get tired of looking at these interesting plantings. 🙂
15. At this spot, we are approaching what until recently had always been our end point. Previously, we have always turned and walked up that ramp towards a major shopping destination. But we were always curious about the building because there was clearly at least one major restaurant down on the ground level facing the beach, and it always appeared to be very busy.
16. So, up the ramp we go. At the top, there is this lovely viewpoint with seating where you sit and admire the spectacular view. You can see the whole coastline in front of Estepona and past that all the way around to Gibraltar. I now understand why the restaurant at the white building was always busy… What a view.
17. This is where we usually end up, the Carrefour Hypermarket… more about that later when I write about shopping in Estepona.
To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before
With due apologies to Gene Roddenberry and everybody else involved in the making of Star Trek. I simply could not resist. 🙂
Last week, we decided to explore the Paseo past the point where we normally head up the ramp. You will notice in the following photos that the weather appears to be very different. It was a cloudy and cooler day. It is true that it is mostly sunny here, but you do occasionally get an overcast day. The high only got to 17°C. When there is no sun beating on you, and the temperature is slightly cooler than normal, you may need an outer layer.
18. As you can see in this picture… I hope… The stone boardwalk ends at the far side of the white building, and a wooden boardwalk begins. That is what we wanted to explore on this day.
19. Up on the boardwalk looking back, we see now that there are in fact, five small restaurants on the face of this building. We originally thought it was a hotel, but it appears to be an apartment or condominium building.
20. Up the boardwalk we go. You walk through a bit of a treed area for a short distance.
21. I would have to say that this is a well-used path because just about every time I took a picture, there was someone walking or riding in front of us.
22. When we came to this level bridge-like structure, I felt I had the general idea of what the boardwalk was all about and decided just to stop and admire the scenery. The Love-goddess, on the other hand, decided she would follow the bikers and see what was going on around the corner.
23. I later discovered that this wooden boardwalk is the beginning of a very long trail that you can walk or bike on for many kilometres east along the waterfront towards Marbella. It is called the “Senda Litoral” (Costal Path) … shown here in a screenshot from Tripadvisor. You can read about it here on the official Estepona tourism site.
The official master plan for the whole Costa del Sol envisions a walkway/bicycle trail that goes from one end of the Costa to the other… 200+ km.
24. This is the Love-goddess’ shot of what you see when you get around the corner… and so it begins.
25. While I was waiting for the Love-goddess to return I was staring over the railing down to the beach area. It was very similar to what you see in the previous photo. Precious little beach and very gravelly. There were a few footprints down there, so someone had walked around without using the boardwalk.
This made me wonder if, when the tide is fully in, did water splash up against the break-wall underneath my feet? So out came my tide app. As you can see, we were about halfway to the return of high tide. I will have to return one day at full tide to see how close it gets to the wall.
26. Turning around and walking back the way we came. There are lots of wonderful places to stop and admire the view of Estepona and Gibraltar. Even on this overcast day the view is outstanding, so it must be amazing on a bright, sunny day.
27. Photo op! For the record, the Love-goddess tends to overdress. She wasn’t risking being chilled in any way on this overcast day, so she had on a fleece and an outer shell. I had a fleece on over my T-shirt and was very comfortable to the point of being too warm.
28. Our exploration complete my eyes alighted on the patios at the little restaurants… And they beckoned to me. 🙂
29. Heaven! Even on a cloudy day! For the record, the beer cost €2.00 and the glass of wine cost €3.00. €5.00 is the equivalent of $7.50 in Canadian dollars. And even on this cloudy day, the Love-goddess took off her jacket when we sat down for drinks because she was plenty warm. Even a bad day on the Costa del Sol ain’t a bad day.
