The Balcony of Europe

This weekend, I decided to take a "week off" from big traveling trips. And by that, I meant I just went on a low-key day trip. But for being so low-key, it sure was beautiful.
On Saturday I went to Nerja with a couple of girls, Allison, Britt and Julia.

Nerja is a beautiful town with gorgeous beaches, a really cool "old-town" walking section, and what they call the Balcony of Europe.  It also has caves on the outskirts of town, but none of us wore good shoes for the 45 minute walk out to the caves.

We walk around the town, following signs for El Balcón de Europa and we get to this one really cool outlook over a small beach and the ocean.  It's beautiful- however, it does not seem impressive enough to stand up to the hype of El Balcón.

Even though we're a little underwhelmed due to our expectations, we take in the gorgeous view...that is until we read the sign. This isn't the Balcón de Europa, it's just the overlook to a nice beach.  We keep walking through the old part of town with cool walking streets and every once in a while we would see a small outlook overlooking another beach and another wonderful view of the ocean. Finally we get to this bigger plaza filled with tons of people, cute restaurants, 5 ice cream places and El Balcón de Europa. It really was this balcony that stood over where the balcony of the old castle of Nerja used to be.  Pictures really can't do it justice. Everywhere you looked it was another beautiful picture, either of the coastline to the left or to the right, or the sea that went on for miles and miles. 

The water was also such a beautiful color of blue.

After we admire the balcony of europe, we grab some tapas and leisurely eat taking in the atmosphere of this cute little plaza. We're amazed at how little Spanish we hear. It seems like everyone here is a tourist. There's German, French, English...pretty much everything except Spanish.  After eating, we head back to the bus station going through the old part of town, stopping in to shop in a few really quaint stores along the way.

I will definitely be back to Nerja. It's only about a half-hour bus ride away. Next time I'll bring the shoes to check out those caves.  Sometimes you don't need to do huge weekend trips to experience Spain and Europe. I have it all practically right in my backyard.