Hola – Holiday Happiness is a Lift……Weekly Wrap From Spain

Just back from Spain, Cala de Mijas – located on the coast between Marbella and Malaga. We stayed in a Miami style villa which had nearly everything you’d need for an accessible and stylish holiday. Read on and I’ll tell you a tale of Alice in Wonderland, Cross Dressing & Andalusian experiments with liquid nitrogen……….

Cala de Mijas is right on the beach and everything is close by so there was no need for a car/taxi when venturing out, which we did every evening. However, if you do need a wheelchair accessible taxi, they do exist and we got ours through Simply Shuttles for the airport transfers (€70 each way).

This was one of the best villas we’ve stayed at and we will definitely return, especially as it was on the beach where a sea breeze kept us cool. You can see from this link that although it’s expensive (€4950+, 5 double bedrooms and a guest house) it is wheelchair accessible. For once the term is correct, I could access everywhere through the installation of an interior glass lift. That doesn’t mean my companions didn’t try to get me up some stairs one night after too much wine. Very funny to see a young man trapped on a step under my foot plates….but I digress…Back to the villa and its facilities.

The disabled room was on the lowest level and the only issue I had was the low toilet but after a while I got used to it. The bathroom was a wet room but there was not a lot of room to manoeuvre, but again it was manageable. The real plus was the automatic adjustable bed and the provision of a mobility scooter and an extra wheelchair, if needed. However, the ramp to the pool was steep and I needed a push to get to the top where the pool was located and there was no automatic chair to get into the pool. I did however manage a ‘dip’ with the help of a rubber ring with handles which everyone got hold of and gently lifted me in and out of the water. I’m not leaving home again without one……..

As I said, Cala de Mijas is small but there are two places of note to visit, a restaurant called El Olivo and Legends both are easy to find in amongst the back streets of the town. El Olivo restaurant is open air and serves modern european food along with better wines than you find in the supermarkets (tel: 952 58 75 00, La Butiplaya, C/ Butiplaya 5, La Cala de Mijas); the portions were big which pleased the young men in our party. Legends is an intimate (tiny) bar/cabaret club where we saw Guapatini a drag artist that relentlessly picked on my nephew and his friend. There was an innuendo frenzy but he/she was hilarious with a great voice. A great time was had by all, even my nephew! Here’s a video of his act but I’ve no idea who he’s with!?

Finally we did venture into Marbella and had a fantastic meal at Restaurante Dani Garcia,  a 2 Michelin Star chef  of “Andalusian tradition, from where he projects,…a playful sensibility and state of the art  techniques”.

Apparently he was the first to develop the culinary use of liquid nitrogen at -196ºC (-303ºF) and for a time he was the only European chef, apart from Blumenthal and Adrià, to use nitrogen in this way. His restaurant had themes from Alice in Wonderland, there were teapots serving after dinner delicacies and the disabled toilet even had birdsong to keep you calm – I guess? Best disabled toilet I’ve ever been to and the food wasn’t bad either, I recommend the “Once Upon a Time… Menu” which are small teaspoons of treats such as ‘Sharpening the Pencil’ which had shavings of truffle with foie gras (I think), delicious. This is definitely a 3 BBS Tick restaurant (even though the access involves a tortuous route of lifts, ramps and a few stairs, but it’s worth it).

What an adventure but I’m back in England now just waiting to go to the ‘Social Innovation Tournament’ in Budapest. Will report back when I return as there are varying stories on its accessibility…….Until then enjoy the sun.