“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
― Charles Dickens

On Christmas day we started by finishing off our exploration of Granada. Since so much was closed we ended up mostly walking around, going up to the Mirador San Nicolas to look at the city and then walking around the neighborhood and exploring. It was a lovely way to start the holiday.

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The day was sunny, and the neighborhood was beautiful. We wandered into a not as good area full of cave dwellings, but otherwise it was quite the sight.

After we were finished, we headed back to checkout of the hotel, and we made our way towards Ronda.

We stopped for lunch in a town called Antequera. There were some old dolmens there, but unfortunately all of them were closed for the holidays. Danny did have some fun climbing around in these fun pots outside of the sites however. He always manages to find something fun to do. That’s my brother, always making people smile.

So my family settled for finding food. Luckily, McDonalds are still open on Christmas, even in Europe. Or at least this one was. So we filled up on a fast food picnic in a park and then went and walked around some of the city walls, admiring the views and the sights.

After a while we went on our way, and before long we had arrived in Ronda where we stayed at Hotel Polo, a fun little place right near the old town.

So we had the same problem of course. Things that were normally open were closed. And my brother had also already been to Ronda, so he wasn’t eager to repeat the same things anyways.

So we went ahead and settled for exploring around the famous bridge in the town. It’s an absolute marvel to behold, a ginormous structure stretching between a large canyon. I’d heard my brother tell me about it before, but even with descriptions I couldn’t imagine how amazing it would be to see it in person.

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I’m slightly scared of heights, so I admit walking around the little curving paths below the bridge was a little scary. However, I was very glad I’d done it in the end. For the more adventurous I’ve heard there’s a very narrow walkway in the canyons nearby, but even if it had been open I’m not sure I would have dared to attempt it.

After finishing our explorations it was time to try to find dinner. Being a holiday, we weren’t sure what we’d find. And sure enough walking through town proved to be fruitless after a while. All of the recommended places we’d heard of were closed. So we headed back towards our hotel hoping to spot something.

There was another hotel with an attached restaurant nearby that happened to be open. Feeling hungry and a bit desperate, our family just settled for it. However, we found that the food was altogether quite decent and not overpriced. I had the duck and then had truffles for a dessert. It felt nice to celebrate the holidays together, even if it wasn’t quite what we were used to for Christmas. We had a toast of wine and headed back to our hotel for the evening.