Day 144: Claire’s Birthday — Lunch and Beach at Marbella Club Hotel
I can’t believe my little sister is 39 years old!
We’re celebrating with a beach day in Marbella.
Travel agent friend Bobby Zur hooked us up with Francisco in guest relations at The Marbella Club — a ritzy hotel and resort on the beach midway between Marbella and Puerto Banus. Francisco drove us in a big golf cart from the lobby down past an absurdly pimped out kids club, past family villas to the beach.
We posted up on big white loungey beach chairs and ordered suuuper expensive rum punches while the kids played in the sand.
At 1pm we made our way over to a big round table for 11 at the MC Beach restaurant. It’s a beautiful spot, sun shining in light blue hues through the canvas roof, Mediterranean waves crashing about 20 feet from our table. It reminded me of some combo of Club 55 in St. Tropez and the restaurant we went to for Jason Forbes’s 40th on Sunset Beach in the Hamptons.
Francisco told us we had to try the grilled sardines. Once you got over eating a whole fish like a spare rib it was actually pretty good.
I had gazpacho, Margaret had rock fish soup and we we shared paella. We all enjoyed some Spanish Rose.
Key to this memorable lunch: the kids were so well behaved. They colored on their kids menus, and ate pizza, pasta, nuggets and made their way to the beach a few feet from our table in between lunch and dessert. They had ice cream for dessert (we ordered one scoop and they all got two each) and drank fresh foamy pineapple and apple juice in glass jars. Even Oscar was a little angel in a big boy chair!
Chris and Rachel beat us to the bill and generously covered the hefty tab for lunch and our beach cocktails. So generous!
After a long lunch we made our way back to our beach chairs, chilled / played / napped and then decided to head back to the villa around 5:30. All the kids slept in the car.
A much anticipated backyard dance party broke out after baths and showers. I was the DJ, taking requests, finding on Spotify and playing through this little JBL speaker.
Claire and Harlow kindly offered to hit the grocery store on the way home so we could have a meat / cheese apps followed by steak and sausage on the grill. It was a little chilly so we ate inside, the latest of all our late dinners. We sat down at almost 11 and finished around 1am. As they do in Spain!
A note on touring:
Today was our first and only day trip of the week here in Andalucia— and Marbella isn’t exactly a historical site. Is that bad? Should we be touring all of the Moorish towns and experiencing the beauty and history of this area? Maybe. But with 5 kids under 7 who just want to hangout and play in the pool and no adults craving a cathedral tour, we’ve decided to just chil. I’m good with it.
