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We’re pleased to discover the wonderful tradition of getting a complimentary plate of tapas when you order a glass of wine in some restaurants in Southern Spain. For example, you can order a copa de vino tinto (a glass of red wine), nibble on the ubiquitous brine and sherry soaked olives in the bowl placed before you and before you can say ‘yum’ the kindly server has brought you a plate with two fried, breaded, goat cheese and bacon stuffed mushrooms. For free. You pay as little as 1.8 Euro ($2.10 US) for another copa and like some kind of Spanish magic now there’s a plate of paella. Another place may serve a plate of linguine with garlic and pork belly, or fried anchovies, or calamari with a side of Spanish coleslaw. Some tapas are hot, some are cold, some are served on a toothpick and others an entire plate full. How delightful is Spain! 

Wine is available by the glass usually between 1.8 and 3 Euros. You can buy a bottle for as little as 8 Euros or spend 20 on a nice bottle of Spanish wine. 

Another tradition is the menu del dia (menu of the day) where you pick a starter, an entre, dessert and your bottle of wine of choice for around 10 Euros. Lunch is the big meal of the day in Spain, so its no surprise that everyone is taking a siesta mid-day after enjoying one of these amazing value meals.

For breakfast you can order a pile of churros to dip into thick hot chocolate for 3 Euros per person.

You can’t go wrong with a cold glass of sangria to toast the sunset. Salud!

Spain! We arrived sleep deprived after flying from Reno, NV to Denver, CO, on to Frankfurt Germany and finally Malaga Spain. Luckily for us we had an unusually empty flight on Lufthansa for the 9 hour leg so Ian and I (plus all the other ‘chosen ones’) had entire seats to stretch our legs out on. And really I ask you, what is first class? We were served meals, warm cloths to wipe our hands, complimentary wine and beer and got to lay down flat to sleep. Economy in Lufthansa makes all humans equal again.

Malaga enchanted us with it’s late night lifestyle, reminiscent of Italy. The restaurants are just opening at 7 PM and we stayed out eating plentiful tapas and drinking until 11. And left plenty of people still sitting there having another! Our big lesson today was Castilian  Spanish is not the same as Mexican Spanish. Fortunately the only odd thing we ended up ordering due to lack of translation was goat, which turned out to be pretty tasty!