A wonderful few days in and around Sotogrande, Spain

We are lucky to have great friends Ana and Simon and daughter Sara who invited us to stay at their place for a couple of days. As we had come down from Paris and through the Pyrenees this would be our first seaside of the trip and serious ‘feet up’ relax of the trip, so we were doubly grateful. Not only that, but being on the south coast of Spain means Sotogrande offers views of the rock of Gibraltar (which I’d never seen before) and across the strait to north Africa.

The first beach of the trip

Ana and Simon’s apartment is a stone’s throw from the Playa de Cala Sardina. The kids had a great time here playing the sea, digging holes and generally doing what kids do at beaches. The freedom to run about was great for them. One of the best things about it was the il Sono beach club with shady loungers for €7.50 and a wonderfully relaxed bar / restaurant. This lived up to the beaches’ name with sardines done on skewers over a fire within an old boat hull. Turns out Rafe loves a sardine.

Pools plural

Mr and Mrs O’s apartment has an excellent pool right on the doorstep which was brilliant, especially when returning after a hard day’s relaxing elsewhere! But we also went to the nearby SO Sotogrande (a Sofitel) which has a really great kids pool and a lovely lunch too. The lunch was really memorable with some great big fat local sausages, tuna steak and other sharing plates. And it was surprisingly reasonable on the wallet too. Despite the hotel apparently being full it never felt at all crowded especially around the top pool which is designated for kids. They also had pool toys so there was all manner of inevitable trying to shoot mummy with the water gun.

Polo!

Well we didn’t expect this. It seems the local polo grounds are quite the draw around Sotogrande and our visit coincided with the premier tournament of the year. None of us really knows the rules of polo (this despite Jim buying Helen a surprise birthday gift of a polo taster session a few years ago – isn’t Helen lucky!) except that it’s the only sport in the world you can’t play left-handed (I’m not sure this actually true). Despite not really knowing what was happening, we had a great time with a few drinks and saw lots of goals scored.

Golf

Jim and Simon colluded, with barely a word needing to be spoken between them, to score an early morning 18 holes at Almenara. Up as dawn broke, we made good progress (and for me a surprisingly respectable score) and were in the 19th hole before the main heat of the day hit. A really interesting and well kept course with relatively few others on it – what a great morning it was.

Breakfast at the marina

It is the only way to breakfast! And it was fabulous too at KE Sotogrande. There was an array of serious yachts in the marina to ogle at / dream about while feasting on great eggs, bacon, juices etc. A great way to top off a memorable few days thanks to Ana, Simon and Sara.