Took the morning easy with a nice breakfast before driving over to Estepona, where Tash had arranged bike hire. We managed to find somewhere free to park and then walked down to the rental place. No issues at all getting the bikes sorted — just simple street bikes, exactly what we wanted — and then off we went.
The plan was straightforward: cycle along the seafront promenade and just enjoy the scenery. It was busy enough with pedestrians and other cyclists, so there was a fair bit of dodging and weaving going on, but it was all good fun. We couldn’t stay directly on the beachfront the whole time as parts of the route diverted inland onto normal roads and streets, but that actually made it more interesting because we got to see a bit more of the town itself.
I’ve been genuinely impressed with everything around here. The houses, apartments, cleanliness and overall feel of the place have all been far classier than I expected. I can completely understand now why Jack likes it here so much.
We cycled past some incredible-looking hotels and beach clubs and eventually reached areas we’d already visited earlier in the week. In the end, we’d cycled pretty much non-stop for a couple of hours and covered around 19 miles before deciding we’d earned a rest. We got close to the Old Town, which had been our original target, but found a really decent restaurant beforehand and agreed we’d done enough for the day. Locked the bikes up and settled in for some well-earned food and drinks.
After lunch, we slowly made our way back. The bike hire place shut at 6.00pm so we had plenty of time and took things at a much more relaxed pace. We even stopped on the beach for half an hour to chill out. Naturally, Jack immediately gravitated towards the public gym equipment whilst Tash and I relaxed. Soon enough, another few people joined in, and it started turning into some sort of unofficial competition, so we decided it was probably time to move on!
Things then got slightly chaotic when we took a wrong turn during one of the inland sections and somehow ended up trying to navigate across a very narrow flyover. It was technically possible to cycle across it, but definitely not ideal, and Tash was less than impressed with my navigation skills. Jack and I found the whole thing hilarious — Tash very much did not.
Then, with only about half an hour of the ride remaining, Tash suddenly realised one of her Converse trainers had fallen out of the bike basket somewhere along the route. Jack immediately volunteered to go back and search for it whilst we waited. About fifteen minutes later we spotted him cycling back towards us triumphantly holding the missing trainer in the air. Apparently he’d missed it on the way out but spotted it tucked into a bush whilst returning empty-handed. That definitely improved Tash’s mood!
We made it back without any further dramas, returned the bikes and then rewarded ourselves with ice creams from the shop next door before sitting by the beach soaking up the last of the afternoon sun. I grabbed a couple of tins of lager from the supermarket for later as we’d run out of wine back at the apartment.
Once home, we got showered and sorted, and I spent a bit of time relaxing on the balcony listening to music whilst sharing the beers with Tash. Very nice indeed.
For the evening, we headed back to Puerto Banús and specifically to a restaurant on the harbour front called Picasso’s. Tash and Jack both absolutely love it there and insisted it was where we had to eat. Apparently, you can’t book and just have to queue, which didn’t particularly appeal to me, but thankfully, we arrived early enough that the wait was only around ten minutes.
Parking, however, was another story entirely. Jack squeezed the car into a ridiculously tight parallel parking space using a technique that made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I eventually got out of the car because my comments clearly weren’t helping his concentration, but to be fair to him, he nailed it in the end.
Inside the restaurant the atmosphere was brilliant. Near us was a group of older blokes who looked like they’d come straight from the golf course and were absolutely hammered. Nearby there was also a large Austrian group who kept making speeches and singing towards a hen party that had arrived. The whole place felt slightly surreal but in a really entertaining way.
The food itself was excellent, although the portions were absurdly big. I had chicken steak in breadcrumbs which came with what turned out to be an enormous portion of tomato spaghetti rather than chips. There was absolutely no chance I could finish it all, which felt wasteful because it was genuinely very good. Tash and I shared another lovely bottle of wine and even Jack joined in with a glass again.
We stayed there quite a while just enjoying the atmosphere, but there was definitely no room for dessert. By the time we left we were all ridiculously full and surprisingly tired as well. It was actually quite refreshing that none of us felt the need to carry on somewhere else afterwards.
Back at the apartment we did some tidying and packing ready for travelling home tomorrow and then headed off to bed.
End of Day Summary:
A really active but relaxed day. The bike ride along the coast was probably one of the highlights of the holiday and Puerto Banús delivered another fun evening without things turning into a late one. Felt very content by the end of it all — tired, full and properly enjoying the last part of the trip.
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