Hello fellow travelers! My husband and I are meeting up with freinds in Ronda, Spain in a couple weeks. We arrive in Malaga a few days before they do, so we have a couple days on our own. We get into Malaga (from LAX) at 7am and are thinking about heading to Tarifa (with a stop in Gibraltar along the way). Plan to go to Tangier the following day. (We will have a rental car). We are totally unfamiliar with Southern Spain / Morocco, and and have a few questions. How much time should we allow for Gibraltar? We want to see the Rock and the Strait... anything else a 'must see'? Any hotel recommendations for Tarifa? Would like something fairly nice and centrally located. From the research I've done, I appreciate that a weekend in June / July is pretty peak. And I'm booking late. :o We are hoping to arrange for a guide in Tangier. Any recommendations? (will check out Rick Steves recommendations). Also, how much time should we plan on spending in Tangier? Depending on the timing, when we return from Tangier, we will either spend another night in Tarifa, or hit the road and head to Ronda. Any suggestions and /or recommendations are appreciated!
Thanks!
Posted by
Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada
629 posts
THe way we did it: Gibraltar - parked in Spain and walk across the border and airstrip. We wandered around town, took the aerial tram up to the top(a must do), went back down and walked thru town and crossed back into Spain. Spent about 4 hours there (All on foot -no cabs or guides). Tarifa - Stayed at the La Mirada Hotel (RS recommended): nice rooms, good breakfast and great hosts, parking on the street. We stayed for 2 nights so that after a long day in Tangier we returned to Tarifa for a late dinner and back to our hotel room and luggage. We were very happy with that decision! Ronda - we spent a few hours there on the way from Granada to Tarifa (with the stop at Gibraltar). Nice town, original bullring and museum, wandered around, took some photos of bridge & gorge, enjoyed lunch and we were on our way.
Posted by
OP
LA
3 posts
Bob - Thanks so much for your suggestions! Appreciate the insight. Think we will definitely spend a second night in Tarifa so we don't have to deal with what to do with our luggage while we're in Tangier... Thanks again for sharing 'what you did'!
Stephanie
Posted by
Myrtle Beach, USA
12313 posts
We left Ronda early and arrived in Gibraltar about 9 (about 1 1/2 drive from Ronda). The cable car to the top was down because of wind, so we did a taxi tour (we initially hooked up with a British couple in line for the cable car, then found the operators were filling the vans with random people), and walked down the last part of the hill into town. We had lunch, did a little souvenir shopping, then headed to our car in Linea and drove to our hotel outside of Tarifa. We arrived mid-afternoon, settled in, then went to the beach and later drove into town for dinner. We stayed at Hotel la Tore (956-689-990) which is about five miles west of Tarifa and, we thought, a really good choice. I made it my first choice based on tripadvisor recommendations, then had the owner of the Irish Pub in Granada recommend it to us as well.