Alhambra rambler

March 17, 2012

WHEN it comes to culture, David’s not exactly a vulture. More like a canary, I’d say. A day in a city, rather than out in the countryside with his binoculars, is not something he’d choose.

But having been persuaded to stop off for a couple of nights in Granada, even he was pretty impressed by the Alhambra, and strolled round happily taking dozens of photos of architectural details. I, as expected, was blown away by the whole thing.

We fuelled up for a long day’s foot-slogging on proper English bacon from Morrison’s in Gibraltar, scrambled eggs and fried potatoes with HP sauce.

Our route across the city involved catching two buses. Confusion arose about where to change from one to the other, leading to a longish unplanned walk and a certain amount of stress on my part because we had pre-booked entrance tickets to the Nasrid Palaces. But we made it with time to spare.

One of many remarkable things about the whole afternoon was the absence of those ‘Don’t touch’ signs and ‘Keep off’ barriers that greet visitors to English Heritage properties, such as Stonehenge, back home.  Everyone – and it was very busy – wandered about at will. Only areas undergoing restoration were cordoned off. Goodness knows how the ancient floor tiles will survive many more years of trampling tourist hordes. David, having spent his working life considering these issues, could write a book about the balancing act between public access and conservation, but I've only got space to say I don't believe in being too purist about these things.


We splashed out 11 euros on a detailed guidebook and I don’t propose to repeat its contents here, but to let a few photos do the talking.  Despite the crowds, this was a place of great calm and delicate beauty, with its mirror pools, streams and fountains, and its cool, ordered, shady gardens.  

We lingered over the tremendous views from the watchtower of the Alcazaba, over the city, the Cathedral, and the snowy Sierra Nevada, with snatches of music floating up from the streets below.

But it was doggy dinner time, and we had to get back. Poor old Glen had been snoozing patiently all this time in the Hymer, parked under some trees on our surprisingly quiet and pleasant city centre campsite. He’ll have more fun at our next stop, on the coast near Valencia. We’re off early tomorrow.

The road to Ronda: Can it get better than this?

 March 15, 2012 

A DAY driving through tightly winding mountain roads with stupendous views around every corner, in a landscape dotted with pueblos blancos – little white villages, usually perched on a peak around a ruined Moorish castle – and culminating in a visit to Ronda, one of the most spectacularly located towns in Spain. It was all staggeringly beautiful.

We left Tarifa with its strong winds, where the fishing boats were busy spreading their nets to catch the poor old tuna coming in from the Atlantic, and a tall ship was setting sail into the Med, and bade a fond farewell to Café con Leche, the brown and white mongrel – I’d call him freewheeling rather than a stray - who did a daily round of the site looking for food and the occasional gesture of affection. When last seen, he was stationed immovably outside the motorhome of a German-owned Jack Russell bitch on heat.

Heading north to Ronda de la Frontera we passed through a landscape of orange groves – many seemingly blighted by the cold winter, because half the trees were brown and dead-looking - and green farming country, very popular with cyclists. We stopped to photograph a horse tied up outside a bar at midday – and I couldn’t help wondering what state his owner would be in by the time he rode home - and then followed the A405 up towards Gaucin.

Here was a vantage point where you could look back at least 20 miles to the coast, and see Gibraltar and the mountains of North Africa. You could also, if you were David, spot a Sardinian warbler and three griffon vultures.

On past the most picturesque village of all to my mind, Algatocin, and we were up to 1,000 metres above sea level, with a short-toed eagle hanging in the wind, hunting for snakes on the valley floor below. The rock faces were getting barer now, with fewer trees, just rocky scrubland.

Then Ronda – still way up high, but set in a kind of basin amid the mountains that reminded me of the rim of a volcano, and then perched astride a dramatic ravine. What an awe-inspiring location.  The guidebook tells me its position is so impregnable that it was one of the last Moorish bastions, falling to the Christians in 1485.

There I paid 4 Euros to wander around the totally over-the-top Santa Maria la Mayor church, built on the remains of a mosque, and retaining a mixture of Moorish, Renaissance and Gothic styles. Parts were rebuilt after an earthquake and others after a fire, and the result is an incredibly glitzy mish-mash of styles, with altars all over the place and a life-size waxwork-style modern statue of the Madonna and chums, complete with tears, which I absolutely loved.

We walked along to the bridge joining the old and new towns, sharing the nervousness of fellow tourists peering down into the chasm beneath, where red-billed chough were roosting on the rock-face.

On to the bullring, considered to be “the spiritual home of bullfighting”, where I had my photograph taken although I felt uncomfortable about the whole concept.

A 2k walk uphill back to the van, where we’d left Glen dozing comfortably on his chair in the cool, and I was happy to slump while David concoted a tapas-style dinner including some very nice, newly invented, salt and pepper mushrooms with garlic and cheese – must write down that recipe.

On the Rock

March 14, 2012 

TODAY we lunched on leftovers and a cold soup called salmorejo in the shadow of the mosque at Europa Point, the southern tip of Gibraltar, with the Moslem call to prayer booming all around us in the half-empty car park.

It was a recording, rather than a live performance, and not a very good recording at that. It felt rather weird to be sitting there in the van, looking out towards Morocco across the multitude of commercial vessels anchored off this tiny remnant of empire, to the soundtrack of Allahu Akbar.

We didn’t get to the top of the Rock because a taxi driver quoted £60 for the return trip, including dog-sitting while we looked around, and there was nothing else we could have done with Glen. So that’s on the next-time list, along with the battleground bus tour.

We did, however, get to Morrison’s – yes, that good old British supermarket – to stock up on cheap diesel, a new smoke alarm and some samosas and onion bhajis to go with the beef curry David’s making tonight.

We brought sachets of pre-cooked rice with us, along with Ainsley Harriott’s ready-spiced couscous, and with only a tiny worktop, three gas rings and a small Cobb barbecue to prepare food on, they’ve been invaluable. The Myrfield Masterchef has excelled himself throughout the trip, and concocted some memorable meals, although I have to say the washer-up also deserves honourable mention.

Anyway, I loved the holiday atmosphere on Gibraltar, the apparently happy mix of nationalities, the narrow streets of tall old houses with their wrought-iron balconies, the mopeds everywhere, the brief return to Englishness and red pillar boxes, and the proper chips we shared in Casemates Square.

The massive, snaking, queue of traffic to get out was an unwelcome reminder of the other side of British life. It felt like trying to get away from a pop festival.

A bull on the beach

March 13, 2012

A FREE-RANGE bull with his harem grazing on the path down to the beach is a bit of an off-putter in the dog-walking department, so it’s down to ‘Brave Dave’ to take Glen for his ball game and a swim while I plead the need to use the wireless network.

If I told you we’d spent the whole day happily sitting in a supermarket car park and then in a sandy patch of windswept waste ground alongside the main road you could be forgiven for thinking we’d lost the plot.

But we were sidetracked from our original goal – a trip to Gibraltar – by the arrival of literally hundreds of short-toed eagles, battling their way along on the fierce, gusting wind, across the water from Morocco on migration.  And those were the best viewpoints we could find.

There were several booted eagles and Egyptian vultures, too, literally just over our heads, so we had fantastic close-ups and even I could work out which one was which.

Every mountaintop around here is covered in wind turbines and I can’t imagine how the exhausted birds avoid getting chopped up as they head inland. We parked the Hymer almost underneath the flailing, whining blades at what must once have been a lovely, peaceful lookout point over the coast, and it was quite unnerving. All I could think about was what if one of them broke off!

We’ve absolutely loved Tarifa, and have found a spot where we can ‘free camp’ if we come again. But now we’re halfway through our eight weeks, and planning our route northward, which I hope will include Granada, as I'm longing to visit the Alhambra. There’s so much more we’d like to see, and for our next trip we’ll try not to squeeze in so many places. That way we’ll have days to spare at the ones we like best.

15k from Africa

March 11, 2012 (second instalment)

I’M sitting with a glass of Rioja in the darkness, looking out of the windscreen over the strait where Europe faces Africa, watching the firefly lights of Tarifa and Tangier twinkling at each other across the water. Outside, David, is cooking spicy sausages on the barbecue but it’s a bit of a mission in the strong wind.

We’re at the Rio Jara campsite, the most southerly in Europe according to the blurb, and today has been a million per cent better than yesterday.

Javer de la Frontera lived up to its promise. The drive there took us through an unexpectedly lush valley – a welcome change after so much parched earth  - featuring well-fed and well cared-for cattle, zig-zag patchwork trees on the mountain slopes, and a major wind farm with at least 200 turbines going full tilt.

Most shops were closed because it was Sunday. That was good because there weren’t too many people wandering the steep, narrow streets with their whitewashed Moorish buildings, and I didn’t want to go shopping anyway (no, really, I just needed to switch off, for a variety of reasons). Picturesque, peaceful … perfect.

Seeking a shady spot for lunch where the dog would be comfortable, we found a restaurant offering a 7.95 Euro menu del dia and plonked down gratefully. At this time of year, it’s very hot in the sun but as we discovered, can be shiveringly cool in the shade, and plenty of Spaniards are still wearing winter coats while I’m in sleeveless T-shirts.

I was surprised when my calamari and David’s chicken and chips came with a fried egg, but it was all jolly nice. And zooming about overhead as we ate, putting on courtship displays, were seven lesser kestrels, which made David very happy.

At a table next to us, an English couple looked on fondly as their son, who must have been about six, demanded, and was given, a plate of chips – nothing else – for his lunch.

Further on towards Tarifa, and as the road hugged the shore, we rounded a corner and there were dozens of brightly-coloured kite surfers all over the place, with the odd windsurfer whizzing past for good measure.

On the road into town we sat in the Lidl car park and looked out through palm trees over the coast to Morocco, and couldn’t believe how clearly we could see it.

Back at our (expensive) site, time for a game of ball with Glen on the enormous expanse of beach before sunset. I really did try to keep him out of the water, because a dry dog is easier to live with in a camper van. But never mind …

Learning the hard way

March 11, 2012

AFTER an abortive attempt to visit Cadiz we are at a wooded campsite near Jever de la Frontera, a pretty, whitewashed hilltop town we’ve been told we will love. Let’s hope it lives up to expectations because the last 36 hours have been a bit of a let-down.

Looming alongside us among the trees there are several gigantic motorhomes – American-style RVs - with pull-out extensions on the sides and satellite dishes the size of my living room. They’re all owned by Brits. Manoeuvring them onto the tightly packed pitches must be a nightmare. It’s too crowded here for us so we’ll be moving on again.

What went wrong with Cadiz? The journey was fine. We watched weekending Spaniards out having fun riding their horses or quad bikes, or carriage-driving, on tracks alongside the motorway without seeming in the least bothered by the traffic thundering past. There was even a man working a smallholding with a one-horse plough. We whizzed through a vast plain of paddy fields, and the view over the city as we crossed the bridge was fantastic.

Bumping along cobbled streets, following the curve of the shore through the old town, there was a tantalising glimpse of the cathedral. But that was all I got. We couldn’t find an aire, or anywhere to park. The place was teeming with people. And once again, the streets were getting narrower and narrower …

Hot and crotchety we pulled over eventually on a patch of ground alongside the motorway, the only place we found where we would actually have been allowed to stay, and decided it was all too difficult.  Lesson learned – steer clear of towns at weekends.