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daily travel log 3 - Frigiliana continued
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daily travel log 3 - Frigiliana continued |
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| Wed - Alhambra | Thurs - The White Villages of Axarquia | Friday - Gibraltar |
| Wednesday, March 19 - to Granada to see the Alhambra | pictures |
| Weather: 17C (63F). Cool, breezy, cloudy most of the day. As low as 14C in the mountains, according to our Nissan's climate control. | |||||
| Quite a nice day. We drove to Granada to see the Alhambra, the most
magnificent surviving representative of Moorish architecture. Actually,
it was apparently outstanding even for its time. When Ferdinand and Isabella
drove the Moors out of Granada, their last Spanish stronghold, they took
one look at this place and immediately moved in. Most people are awestruck
by it, and we were no exception. The intricacy of the textures on the walls
and ceilings has to be seen to be believed. The famous Moorish arches and
reflecting pools are equally beautiful. Every sightline and angle of view
produces a different perfectly composed picture. Some of the rooms are
designed to draw the eye upward and upward again, inducing a sensation
of awe. Other rooms, particularly the much-photographed Plaza de Leones,
are designed to convey a sense of serenity and grace. This was one activity
where we clearly benefitted from the off-season timing of our trip. During
high season it is often necessary to make reservations a day or two in
advance for admission to the main palace. We could have walked right in
if we hadn't arrived during the break between morning and afternoon admissions
(afternoon starts at 2:00pm). This gave us a half-hour or so to stroll
along the path around the ancient walls, a pleasant walk that we might
have missed otherwise. After two or three hours in the main palace Richard
(who was still convalescing) was exhausted, so we skipped the Generalife.
The drive was beautiful, although it took about twice as long as we expected (about 2 hours to go 100km). This must have been due to the slow trucks on the coastal road on the first half of the trip. Once we hit the 4-lane Autovia through the mountains there was nothing slowing us down except my own reluctance to drive more than 100 mph, even if it really was kilometers/hour, not miles. The road was in pristine condition, much of it so new they had barely finished painting the markings, and practically empty. The scenery was spectacular. I didn't actually see the reservoir in the picture below (since I was driving), but Richard insists that he did. This time we had the sense to bring some car-food along: creamy local cheese, crackers, a rich loaf of dried fruit that we found in the local market, and bottles of sweet Frigiliana mountain water. This sustained us until we got home, where we whipped up our usual supper of potatoes, chorizo and eggs. |
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| Highlights: It was all good - the scenic drive, the car food, the palace. |
| Thursday, March 20 - The White Villages of Axarquia | pictures |
| Weather: still cool, but sunny and breezy and dry, making for a lovely day. | |||||
| Another very good day - Richard's favorite I think. We just got in
the car and drove the back roads through the mountains to Lake Vinuela.
That Axarquia guidebook I had picked up earlier in the week came in very
handy - most of the towns we went through weren't even on the regular road
maps. The road was paved, but barely wide enough for two vehicles and at
times rather alarmingly close to the edge of the dropoff to the steep valleys
below. Actually, I enjoy that kind of driving - I live in Minnesota where
the biggest driving problem is staying awake. The only downside was that
I had to keep my eyes on the road, which made it hard to fully appreciate
the gorgeous scenery. We went up over a scenic ridge (stopping at a lookout
so I could enjoy the view) and down the other side, where we accidentally
got into Torrox, a larger town than I wanted to navigate. We extricated
ourselves from Torrox and went north to Competa, where we stopped for a
little lunch. Competa is about the same size as Frigiliana and has the
same sort of charm, but not quite as much of it. The historic church had
a big "No a la Guerra" banner draped down from the bellfry, one of the
few overt anti-war indications we saw in Andalucia. Amber and I had a delicious
gazpacho with fresh chopped scallions and peppers, and Richard had another
fish soup, which he pronounced not quite as good as the one he'd had in
Frigiliana. We stretched our legs, bought some stamps for a friend, and
continued on our way.
We went up another ridge, steeper than the last one, veered back and forth along the top for a while (this was the most difficult driving) and then down the other side. This side of the ridge is really spectacular. There's a large nature preserve with the confusing name of Sierras de Tejeda, Almijara y Alhama, which maybe refers to the 3 ridges I drove over? There are just 2 towns in the deep valley by the entrance to the park: little Sedella and tiny Salares. I think it would be fun to stay there if I come back to this part of Spain. Definitely off the beaten track. Somewhere in here we encountered a herd of goats (with goatherd and 3 or 4 dogs) which completely engulfed our car. We got out and took pictures like the tourists we are, finding it all perfectly charming. A local truck driver, however, found it considerably less charming and eventually started blasting his horn. This sent the goats scampering down the side of the mountain, and the truck went on his way. As the road climbs back up over the next ridge it take you right through the village of Canillas de Aceituno. This is a dismaying experience, since the road gets smaller and smaller as it wends its way through what is probably a very ancient town, then disappears completely into an alley too small to drive into. Eventually we figured out that the road veers to the left at this point, and the Do Not Enter sign doesn't really mean what it looks like. But I needed a break at this point, so we stopped for lunch. We ate in a nice big restaurant above a bar which appeared to be full of local people. For once, we had actually managed to stop for lunch at the time that Spaniards consider to be lunchtime: about 3 pm. There was a big TV hanging in the corner tuned to a Spanish version of CNN. It was obvious from the graphic footage that the war in Iraq had started, but it was all in Spanish so we couldn't get a lot of information from it. Nobody but us was paying the slightest attention to the TV. 5 or 10 km out of Canillas de Aceituno we hit the Autovia heading north out of Velez-Malaga, another new-looking 4-lane with very little traffic. We could see Lake Vinuela from the highway, but it took us a while to find our way to it - not much signage. When we finally got there, we could see why. It's very lovely from a distance, but a bit desolate up close. It's apparently been created quite recently by damming up a river, and it looks a bit forlorn, like a recently abandoned mining pit that has filled up with water but hasn't really developed it's lakeside ecosystem yet. People are frantically buying up lakeshore property, and I'm sure it will look quite different in 10 years. We managed to find a little road that took us close enough so we could wade through the weeds and wildflowers to the water's edge. Yay! Mission accomplished. We took the freeway home - down to the coast on C335, and good old C340 back to Nerja. The trip that had taken all day by the back roads turned out to be about 25 minutes on the highway. |
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| Lessons Learned: Sometimes the simplest days are the best. |
| Friday, March 21 - Gibraltar | pictures |
| Weather: the usual - mostly cloudy and cool (about 17C) | |||||
| Since we had already missed out on some of our planned Spanish day
trips, we thought about cutting out Gibraltar, but Amber wanted to see
the monkeys, so we went. It turned out to be delightful - I only regret
that we didn't get started sooner so we could have spent longer there.
As usual, it took way longer than expected to drive 100km, despite being
4-lane highway most of the way. The drive was frustrating - massive congestion
around Malaga and other places where the highway suddenly turned into the
main streets of ugly seaside towns. However, coming around the shoulder
of a hill to our first view of The Rock was breathtaking. The day got to
be a lot more fun from that point on.
We arrived in La Linea at about 2:30pm. The road to Gibraltar is not well-marked, so we spent at an hour or more wandering around in La Linea. Had lunch at an Indian restaurant, which turned out to be quite good. The chutneys served with the papadum appetizers were particularly scrumptious. Finally found our way to The Rock, where we followed the advice in most of our travel books - parked and walked through customs. It turned out to be trivially easy to find on-street metered parking just a block or so from "the frontier," as they refer to it. Then we walked across the airport runway, looking both way for planes landing, and took a city bus through the town of Gibraltar to the cable car head. The bus trip was short and enjoyable. People were waving out the windows at friends in the street, and our bus driver was greeting people by name (even hugging them) as they got on. Gibraltar is a bigger town than I expected it to be, but I guess it must be pretty small after all. We missed the cable car stop and had to walk a little, but we were able to cut through a lovely multi-level formal garden of some kind, which was a treat. We were pleased to discover that they did accept Euros in Gibraltar - changing money would've been a pain. It was about 10Euros apiece for the cable car to the top. We finally got there at about 3:30, leaving us just over 2 hours for sightseeing. This was about the right time for the top of the rock, but I would've liked to tour the caves and the Moorish Castle. The cable car stops at a restaurant (closed for renovations) and a multi-level concrete viewing platform. The platform was surprisingly shabby, but who cares with a view like that! Wow! We spent quite a long time just staring at the view and admiring the expertise of the seagulls as they banked and wheeled in the very considerable wind. They were nesting everywhere in the scrubby little trees, so there was a lot of taking off and landing going on. It's amazing how long we were entertained by this. Then we started down the asphalt path along the top and encountered the Barbary Apes. The Barbary Apes are technically monkeys, even more technically macaques, originally from North Africa. They have been living wild on the rock since time immemorial, but in the past hundred years they have had a little help. Somehow, the British developed the idea that they would keep control of Gibraltar only as long as the apes still lived there. So when the population showed signs of declining around WWII, Churchill had new stock imported from North Africa. The apes now have their own support staff, which names them, counts them, and provides them with crates of fruit to supplement their diet. The tourists provide them with other, less healthy, diet supplements and with endless entertainment. As far as we could see, the monkeys find the tourists at least as amusing as the tourists find the monkeys. They cavort on the tour buses (the only vehicles allowed up there), leap in the windows to beg for food (or steal it, if you don't watch out), and schmooze with the drivers. They also leap on tourists, balancing on their heads and shoulders. One apparently friendly adolescent that had been walking along with us for a while suddenly leaped on Amber's back and tried to steal her backpack, which was fortunately firmly attached to her shoulders. They are not just looking for food - they frequently grab tourists' cameras and throw them over the cliff. Presumably they get a kick out of seeing people jump up and down and gibber incoherently. I managed to hold onto my camera and took lots of pictures, but lost them all in the Barcelona train station when my bag was stolen. However, the collection of other people's pictures that I managed to amass from the Internet covers Gibraltar pretty darn well. The only thing missing is the neat little Moorish watchtower we found at the top of a crumbling set of stone steps, and the huge monkey that blocked our path on the way back down while he finished his lunch. Richard got him to move by growling at him. On the drive home we realized that we could detour around the Main Street experiences by driving on the AutoPistas (toll road) that bypassed the towns. The tolls were pretty exorbitant (2-3 Euros per town), but well worth it. It was still congested around Malaga, though. I was pretty fried by the time we got home. I had yet to learn the most important lesson of the trip: let Amber drive! We had dinner in Las Chinas, which Steve had recommended to us as the best restaurant in town. It was very good, and not all that expensive. Then we went home and packed - it was our last night in the villa. We hated to leave. |
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| Meals: Breakfast at home, Lunch: Indian food in La Linea, Dinner: Las Chinas in Frigiliana | |||||
| Highlights: First view of the rock, the bus trip and gardens in Gibraltar, the cable car, the view, the monkeys | |||||
| Lessons Learned: Start early. It always takes longer than you think to get anywhere. And you don't have to eat Spanish food all the time, just 'cause you're in Spain. |
| Saturday, March 22 - Up the Coast to Valencia | pictures |
| Weather: Partly sunny in the morning, gray with occasional showers in afternoon & evening. | ||||||
| This was planned to be primarily a travel day, and that's exactly what
it was. We made a few stops along the way that turned out to be more fun
than expected, but it was still a long day. We fixed one last great omelette
for breakfast, and checked out of our villa at about 10:30 am. We had reservations
at a cute little country inn in the town of Alfauir, about 50 km south
of the city of Valencia, and figured it would take us most of the day to
get there. We took the inland route, which took us past Granada again.
It looked like about the same distance as the coastal route, but maybe
more freeway. The drive east along the coast was both as pretty and as
slow as ever, and the drive north to Granada was just as pretty as it was
the first time. We skirted around Granada, then stopped for lunch in the
small town of Guadix. The drive in to town was nerve-frazzling, because
we had just happened to arrive on market day, and the streets were jammed.
However, we arrived just as the vendors were tearing down (probably around
2pm, which is when "afternoon" seems to start in Spain), and were able
to find a parking place right by the main square when a vendor van pulled
out of it. It was nice to visit a town that really isn't a tourist destination
for a change. We had a couple of bocadillos for lunch, and Richard tried
a Corumbela beer - one of the few Spanish beers we had seen on our trip.
Then we walked up the hill to look at the old cathedral (locked) and the
ancient streets and buildings surrounding it. A couple of little kids peeked
out of an alley at us, and the bravest one called out (in English) "Hello
what's your name?" - then they all giggled and ran away.
I think it was in Guadix that I finally remembered that when we rented the car they never actually SAID that drivers had to be over 21 or 25 or whatever Avis normally thinks is the magic number. Anyway, sometime that day I handed over the keys to Amber, and my trip got a whole lot better. She may be only 20, but she's turned out to be the best driver in the family - unflappable and tireless. The only reason Guadix is even mentioned in tour books is for the large number of cave houses. This part of the landscape is high plain or desert, with odd little buttes sticking up all over the landscape. These little hills are apparently made of soft limestone or sandstone, and people have been digging into them to make homes for thousands of years. Modern cave-homes are finished off like regular houses inside, with typical Andalusian white-washed walls and tile floors, and tv antennae sticking out the top next to the strange conical chimneys. We passed a ton of them as we drove east from Guadix.
-- checkout of villa about 10:30 am. Fixed one last great omelet
before we left.
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| Meals: Last breakfast in the villa - a glorious omelette. Lunch in Guadix and Peniscola, dinner in Favala. | ||||||
| Lodging: Little hostal in Favala, a tiny town north of Gandia | ||||||
| Highlights: Guadix | ||||||
| Lessons Learned: If it doesn't really matter what town you stay in, you're better off not making reservations. |
| Sunday, March 23 - On to Catalonia | pictures |
| Weather: cool and cloudy with occasional showers | ||||||
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| Meals: xxx | ||||||
| Lodging: Hostal Ducal in Montblanc | ||||||
| Highlights: Montblanc | ||||||
| Lessons Learned: xxx |
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Site Last Updated April
5, 2003
By Sharon
Kahn
