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Crikey, it’s been a while since we’ve been in touch hasn’t it?! Fear not; we’ve not been abducted by Aliens, or gone into business selling dodgy Spanish timeshares. We’re simply sitting back, enjoying ourselves, and being incredibly lazy!
So, what have we been up to in the last 4 weeks? Not a great deal is the honest answer. We’ve spent a lot of time on different beaches, visited a lot of castles (well they are so Moorish), and drunk a lot of fine wine (ahem!). We’ve also covered a lot of ground (from Granada in Andalucia to Barcelona) but we’ll only cover half of it in this post.
When we left you we were heading for Granada, which is a beautiful city with an impressive history. The Moors arrived in Spain from North Africa in 710AD and conquered nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula. Granada was the centre of Moorish Spain and the last place to be reconquered by the Christians in 1492.
The main reason for visiting Granada is the Alhambra. Not to be confused with the famous Bradford theatre (it’s unlikely Cannon and Ball will be appearing in Panto here anytime soon) the Alhambra is one of the most stunning monuments in all of Spain. The buildings and gardens here date from a number of different periods in history. You can see a beautiful Moorish palace, the earlier Moorish castle, and the later 16th century palace of King Carlos V. The gardens are amazing and cover a large area. We spent half a day wandering around the many sights, but you really do need at least a full day to really appreciate it all.
Just south of Granada is Spain’s highest mountain range – the Sierra Nevada. We drove up to the ski resort here for just one night but it’s quite a dingy place out of season, although it’s still very cold. We had the heating on for the first time in months! Recently we’ve been enjoying temperatures of 30 degrees during the day and 27 degrees at night, so it was quite a shock to the system to drive for an hour and have icicles hanging off the van!
On the south side of the Sierra Nevada are the great valleys of the Alpujarra region. This was a great area to spend a few days, and to get some proper walking done. The area is dotted with whitewashed little picturesque villages which are high up in the mountains and serve some rather tasty local dishes!
Capileira hangs on the steep edge of a gorge and marks the end of ‘Europe’s highest road’ – the seasonal road across the heart of the Sierra Nevada. The wild camping spot we found near here was perhaps the best so far, with spectacular views up to the snow capped mountains and down into the deep valleys below.
David had his first proper haircut in 5 years in Orjiva, a larger town further down the hillside. Jorge managed to do a decent job whilst giving a full account of his life so far! He also talked about the rather large ‘new age’ population (ie crusty old hippies!) that the area has attracted. You don’t have to go far in Orjiva to notice clapped out vans, dogs on string, or people who look like they last saw a shower sometime in 1987 rummaging through rubbish bins!
Another curious sight in many of the towns and villages we’ve visited is the outdoor gym. Presumably these have been installed by the local council in an effort to get the local residents to do more exercise. But we’ve barely seen anyone trying out the colourfully painted gym equipment. Perhaps people have more sense than to work out in full view of their neighbours using bright yellow equipment that’s positioned right next to a main road?!
We spent our last peaceful night in the Alpujarra by a reservoir, but were rudely awoken the next morning by the council’s grass-cutting team! We moved on fairly quickly – a team of burley men with strimmers and safety cones is a little intimidating. We’d just set off when el Cannon and Ball came careering around the corner in front of us on the wrong side of the road in a little diddy-van! We managed the perfect British emergency stop, but unfortunately Cannon and Ball didn’t appear to have any brakes at all and bounced off our front bumper! Everyone was fine, although a little shaken. The diddy-van came off worst, but the owners didn’t seem to mind and were surprised that we even wanted their insurance details!
We hit the coast again at the Costa del Almeria and began the journey up Spain’s eastern coast. There are some great little cove beaches along this stretch – far away from the development of the more popular costas. The weather was great so we spent quite a while on the beach, throwing the occasional stick so the dog could cool off in the sea!
We stumbled across a campsite here that was more ‘Little Britain’ than Spain. Many of the people were staying long term, and the site seemed to have been developed to ensure they never had to leave the grounds and interact with Spanish people! The little shop stocked everything from Oxo to the Daily Express, the hairdresser parked her ladies outside in the sun while their hair cooked, and there were posters everywhere advertising ‘Line Dancing with Keith’ and the entertainment for the following Saturday night. Our disappointment at not being around for that was helped by hearing the ‘turn’ rehearsing that afternoon by murdering a few Whitney Houston classics! We did however indulge in that evening’s ‘Curry Night’ – it was pretty good!
As we moved along the coast towards the Costa Blanca it was great to still find nice little villages and quiet beaches. At La Marina we were able to camp close to a great beach so we ended up going back a few times - it did have a British butcher called Mr Lamb!( isn’t he in Happy Families!?). We did seem to find ourselves stumbling across nudist beaches though! It’s quite odd walking along a family beach and coming to a man at the water’s edge with his hands on his hips, wearing nothing but a smile!
That’s all for now, but we’ll be in touch again soon!
