Did a week in Marbella, Spain in March. SFO-LHR-AGP and return. The USD had climbed to $1.26 for €1 while we were there which was a nice break. Had $1.32 for £1 while in London which was my all-time best exchange rate for the UK.
Photos
Stayed at Marriott's Marbella Beach Resort which is a typical Marriott timeshare property. Nice place, a little bit east of Marbella. Marbella itself is two areas. The old town, which was quite nice and features some tight winding streets away from the water and a more typical seafront a bit closer in. Puerto Banus is a little west of the old town and has a lot of very nice yachts, even out of season, along with some fairly expensive restaurants, shops, and clubs geared to tourists.
We found ourselves busy enough on this trip with Marbella and a couple days wandering up the beach that we didn't try any of the day trips that are available. People recommended a trip up the hills to Ronda or down to Estepona. Gibraltar didn't seem to get too many positive reviews. Seville and Granada seemed a bit too far for a day trip, but they definitely exist on my list of future places to visit.
Restaurants of note:
La taberna del Pinxto, Marbella location. Great tapas. Cold tapas you get for yourself from under the glass at the bar while waiters walk around with trays of hot tapas from the kitchen that you can pick from. Decent wine for €13 a bottle that they had as a special. Good mix of meat and seafood on both the hot an cold side. The meat (pork, chicken, beef) with orange spicy sauce was excellent as was most of the pork. Was under €25 per head including drinks and we stuffed ourselves both times we visited.
El Tanguito, Calle Buitrago 2, Old Town. Very good Argentine steak restaurant and bar. The flank steak was essentially a nice strip for €12. The provolone completo and a salad with radicchio were great starters. They found it a bit odd that we wanted to eat at the bar, but there was a soccer match going on and nobody was in the upstairs restaurant. They handled it well. For starters, they gave us a little bit of a house special veggie mix that was like a ratatouille of eggplant. Pretty good with their bread.
Zafferano, Calle Gloria 11, Old Town. Higher-end Italian. Was €75 per head including a bottle of Spanish white and one of Italian red. Good salads to start and an interesting, if a tad hard to eat "lasagna in a basket" thing that was very nice, light meat lasagna folded up like a greek philo pastry.
Gorky, Calle Pablo Casals 8, near the water. Pretty good tapas, but the real reason to come here is the hand-sliced jamon iberico de bellota, the ham from little black-footed pigs that live off acorns until they're cured for a while then served to you. Best pork on earth. The rolls and toasts were tasty and filling for very reasonable prices.
Cerveceria <something I can't remember>, corner of Pablo Casal and Maldonado. Nice to sit outside and have a Mahou, which isn't the greatest beer, but is ok in the sun. This place had the best brown bread along with a nice place of sliced manchego and some gambas pil-pil (sizzling shrimp in garlic olive oil).
