A report of our new wanderings

December 16th

This morning I woke to a Mediterranean dawn, red along the African horizon. Standing on the gravelly shore, west along the coast the big Rock of Gibraltar looms out of the sea. Eastwards the resort towns of Estepona and Marbella glisten like wedding cakes. We are parked up on a large sandy beach with a few other ‘wild’ campers (i.e., camping fee avoiders). This spot at San Diego is surprisingly undeveloped; a pocket in an otherwise thoroughly developed coastline. This is Costa del Sol. Today we will rest a bit, drifters that we currently are. Today we are Flotsam and Jetsam with our two dogs Piddle and Poo (aka Bess and Pwdin). It looks to be another beautiful December day in southern Spain.

December 18th

Yesterday afternoon we left the Costa del Sol and headed up into the Sierra Bermeja and parked up for the night in a little aire above a Pueblo Blanco town called Caseres. On the recommendation of another Brit with a camera we scrambled along the top of a ravine so as to see the curious and well populated vulture eyrie on the cliff opposite. Gareth was able to take some photos of them and of the vertical town as it started to glow in the early evening sun and I sat to catch my breath after the headiness of the drops on either side of us. We hadn’t dared let the dogs walk off the lead, and surprisingly, they seemed to recognise the dangers to us of pulling. We could have broken several limbs if they had towed us across those rocks.

Today we continue our journey towards Seville, a Christmas see-treat we are informed. I had suggested last night that this morning we first hike down into the ravine and up into Casares, the town. The suggestion was met with nil enthusiasm, understandably, I guess, from a man with a still-healing hip and another one plaguing him for a replacement. Looking at the place from our lofty viewpoint in the aire, realistically I would also struggle to get to the remains of the Moorish castle that has pride of position atop the cliff opposite, tempted as I am to poke about in the little streets and alley ways of this picturesque white town.

We arrived in Spain two weeks ago after a couple of long driving days through France to meet Owen in Biarritz. Gilet Jaune protesters had slowed us up at a number of large intersections but we got through, parked up at a very nice beach-front aire that Owen had found us and had a great evening with him, dining out on his expense account. I think he quite enjoyed being able to indulge his mum and show us where he conducts his sales meetings. And I was impressed. He had his work head on, for sure, and our being there was a bit of a distraction, but I now have a clearer picture in my mind of what that part of his working life is like.

The highlights of our trip to the south thereafter were Olite in Northern Spain, where we parked up first, and Medinaceli. Olite is an impressive walled town that was once the stronghold of the king of Navarre. The town boasts Roman remains too.

From there we drove doggedly across the generally rather uninteresting high plateaus until we came across Medinaceli, another walled town, high on a plateau of its own, and surviving, it seems on tourists stopping at the little artisan food shops, and again boasting a few Roman remains.

The entry to Andalucía was breath taking, with the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada ahead and olive plantations covering the land as far as the eye could see. Immediately the quality of the light caught my attention and I could almost feel my skin drinking in the vitamin D.

Arriving in Granada, I thought we might visit the Alhambra. However, we’d arrived in the middle of a Spanish public holiday and campsites were making the most of it price-wise, so we headed east instead. The Sierra Nevada gazed down on us as we traversed its northern slopes on another of Spain’s really good roads and next day, after a lay over in a shabby, neglected looking, but quiet little town, Abla, we drove into the Alpujarras on the Sierra’s southern slopes. The scenery is spectacular, the roads, even the winding and narrow, are well paved and make for smooth driving; apart from the swinging around all the hairpins, that is. The geography east-side is arid and used apparently as the location for many of those Spaghetti Westerns. I could easily imagine John Wayne and Clint Eastwood sitting horseback there and looking as rugged as that scenery.

It took us two days to get through the Alpujarras before we dropped down to the coast and holed up at a little seaside town, Castello Ferro. Being used to the golden sands of Gower we were a bit disappointed to find that the shoreline along the Costa del Sol is grey gravel, but the light is a real tonic and it’s easy to see why so many Brits, Germans and other Northern European folk settle in the south-facing white and red-tiled villas that scramble above one another on the hillsides. They are fed handsomely by local fishing and Mediterranean deliciousness (including cheap Spanish wine!) and have given the area a thoroughly cosmopolitan air.

December 20th

After a beautiful drive from Casares through the mountains we came to Ronda. Now Ronda......well! A large white town with a beautiful mountain backdrop, scrambling right up to the edge of a deep, deep gorge. The views from the balconies provided for tourists to absorb the awesomeness are knee-trembling. We gazed anyway, soaking it all in as a young harpist from the town’s conservatoire added to the blue-aired ambience of our visit. The town has its horror stories, though, like any other. Ernest Hemingway reported that in Franco’s day prisoners from the civil war were thrown into the gorge. What a horrific way to go!

After Ronda we arrived yesterday in Seville. It isn’t at all what I pictured, having been encouraged to visit by one of our BnB guests a couple of years ago. He had shown me a hill top town looking out over a vast plain. Seville centre (old Seville), however, is on the banks of the ambling Rio Guadalivir and perfectly flat to walk around. We took a walk around the old town yesterday and I have resolved to come back one day and stay in one of the hotels there. It is a labyrinth of picturesque alley-ways that are presumably in Summer cooler than being out in the open. Seville is reportedly one of the hottest places in Spain, and I do remember having a family from Seville staying with us at Bay View, escaping 50 degrees and lapping up the Welsh drizzle. 

The Alcazar and the cathedral (the biggest in the world apparently) are among sights worth seeing here, and we planned to do just that today. However, Sevillers don’t apparently sleep; certainly not in the area we were parked up in for the night, so our enthusiasm for another long walk and another stay over is rather dimmed. Gareth read a British Seviller’s account of how to fit in here: you breakfast at 11.00, lunch at 3.00 dine at 10.00, and go for drinks well before dinner. I don’t know where they fit in their work hours, unless it’s during those hours last night when we were trying to sleep. 

We were a bit disappointed not to have found in Seville the Christmas markets we were expecting. Nativity scenes, the more extravagant the better, are the main attraction it seems, and the big day for celebrations is around January 6th.

So today we left for Cadiz and I don’t have any photos of Seville. None of my photos do justice to what we’re seeing here in Spain, though. Gareth’s work is obviously far superior but his phone has given up the ghost and all of the apps he had for transferring files from his camera have been lost. My meagre offering of sub-standard shots is all you’ll get then, folks. Sorry.