Exploring the frontiers

I've always been a bit puzzled by the many towns down here that have de la Frontera as part of their name, because it means border or frontier, but the nearest border, with Portugal, is hundreds of kilometres away. I only learned this month that the frontier it refers to dates back several centuries, to when the Spanish were winning their territory back from the Moors, the North Africans who had occupied Spain for seven hundred years. I visited four of them this week: Castellar de la Frontera, Jimena de la Frontera, Conil de la Frontera and Chiclana de la Frontera. Two are inland and still have their fortresses on the hilltop, while the other two are nearer to the coast and have reinvented themselves as seaside resorts.

The "official" reason for my trip was that I was going to deliver some things to Gibraltar. Our Finnish friends, who coordinate YWAM's ministry to refugees in the Mediterranean region, recently moved from Alhaurín to be based in Gibraltar. With the retreat centre closing, they were keen to have some bedding, towels and kitchen stuff, but they're in Finland at the moment, and so I said I'd drive along to Gibraltar and drop off a box of goodies for them. And I decided to take advantage of the trip to take a couple of days' break and live my own adventure by exploring some places I hadn't yet seen in Spain's two southern provinces of Málaga and Cádiz.

The first destination on my list was the little town of Castellar de la Frontera. I had spotted it in a list of "Spain's prettiest villages to visit," and as it's only about fifteen or twenty miles from Gibraltar, it seemed a good place to start. As you can see in the photos above, the old part of Castellar is a tiny little village of white houses, all contained within the fortified walls of the old Moorish fortress. It is very possibly the most quaint and authentic-feeling old village that I've visited since moving to Spain a decade ago.  The streets were so narrow, there was no question that the village had been built before the invention of cars and carriages. Less than a metre wide in places, and with many dead ends, there would be room for a horse to pass, but not much else. It was so quiet and peaceful, walking around the charming streets; none of the tourist hubbub that you find in some of the better-known pueblos blancos (the white villages of Andalucía.)

Another thing I liked about the Castillo of Castellar was the way that interesting views were formed within the frame of the archways of the old fortifications. Here, for example, is a view looking in to the white houses inside the ramparts, a view looking out and westwards to the huge Guadarranque reservoir, and a view looking out and southwards towards the Rock of Gibraltar, where I was going to be spending the night. (You can click on these three photos to make them larger and easier to see.)

Just six miles away, even the new town of Castellar - Castellar el Nuevo - was very charming, with its white houses, its fountains, its woodland parks and gardens. Perhaps the only not-so-pretty element was the strange, rather bare tower of the church... but its charm was redeemed when I saw that storks had been allowed to nest undisturbed on top of the tower. That was a real treat to see.

The other tower, here on the right hand side, is the old Almoraima convent, presumably built when Spain became Catholic again instead of Muslim, and now converted into a luxury hotel. (Again, you'll need to click on the picture if you want to see the storks' nest more clearly.) Castellar was definitely worth the visit, and I was glad I'd made the little side trip.
Read on in the post below for an account of Wednesday's second frontier town, Jimena de la Frontera.