Shopping, Paella and a Little Thing Called Crema de Catalan

Spain Day 3

Wednesday was a much more relaxed day as far as “things we did” that day.

Over breakfast at Club Marbella (we went there every morning), we decided to sign up for a couple of day trips to a few of the other nearby cities.  The choices were Granada, Gibraltar, Tangiers, Seville, and Cordoba.  Of course, we wanted to go to all of them but, lacking time and money, we picked our top favorites and returned to our resort to see what was available.  After chatting with the concierge, we signed up for Granada on Friday with lunch and Gibraltar on Saturday.  We figured, since Sunday was to be our last day, we would spend that day at the beach.

That left the current day and the next, Thursday.  We still wanted to get back to El Centro to tour the castles and the catedral and the Picasso Museum, but, since the planning of the week took a long time to do, we decided that today we would do two things – seek out Plaza Mayor and, for dinner, find authentic paella and good wine.

Plaza Mayor, historically, was a sort of central meeting place for a large population of the city.  They would meet there after work, visit, catch up, tailgate (so to speak) before going their separate ways for entertainment or time with family.  To some extent, it still serves this purpose.  It’s only a few kilometers outside El Centro but serves more as a central shopping area than anything else.  Plaza Mayor is, essentially, two large outlet malls running parellel to each other with a massive parking lot in the middle.

Once we discovered this was what Plaza Mayor is now, we proceeded to get some of our souveneir and “I forgot this” and “Oh this is cute” shopping done.  We had lunch at a little tapas bar and then returned to the train station.

When we got back to the resort, Stephen headed down to the reception desk to ask where we could find a restaurant that served good paella and good red wine.  He was directed to La Mijas, a small area along the beach that has a variety of restaurants, shops and hotels.  It was there we found El Cortijillo, a small place owned by Alonso and his family.  It was there we met Beth and Paul, our new friends from Cambridge.

The food was incredible.  The wine was succulent (we ended up bringing a bottle back with us to the States).  The atmosphere was relaxed and enjoyable.  We sat out on the patio as, like every other day there, it was beautiful.  We ended up drinking a lot and talking until nearly closing time with Beth and Paul, who invited us to return on Saturday for Paul’s birthday.

The really interesting, fun thing about El Cortijillo is what came with the bill.  They have a large glass container shaped like a grape cluster with a little bronze spiggot at the bottom.  The whole thing comes probably up to my knee if it were sitting on the ground.  It is filled with a pale green liquid.  When they bring the bill, they also bring this container and half-sized shot glasses shaped like little glass beer mugs.  They proceed to fill up each glass (one for each member at the table) with the liquid and grin at you with a “salud” and leave.

A shot with your bill.  What a wonderful idea.

The liquid is called Crema de Catalan and it’s a tropical tasting alcoholic drink.  It goes down smooth and sweet with a little alcoholic after burn – but very slight.  I rather enjoyed it.

It was a wonderful night, probably one of my very favorites.

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