It's already two weeks since the leadership development course finished but, for a variety of reasons, I didn't manage to get a break after the end of the school. Unexpected things cropped up that meant the past two weeks turned out to be busier than I had planned. So a friend and I made a radical plan to get away for a "real break" and to have an overnight stay in one of southern Spain's "pueblos blancos" - those picturesque white villages that are scattered across the mountains in this part of the country. We chose Vejer de la Frontera as our destination, deciding to drive there by an inland, over-the-mountains route and return home by the coastal route.
My little car had just passed its annual ITV inspection (like the British MOT) at the beginning of the week and, small as it is, we felt confident it could cope with the 500 kilometres we would cover. From my home in Alhaurín de la Torre, we began by heading north (the grey route on the map) until, for the first time since living here, I crossed the boundary from Málaga province into the neighbouring Cádiz province. Our first stop was in the quaint little town of Olvera, in the heart of the olive growing region. We enjoyed a picnic lunch on the little square between its old church and Moorish castle.
Then we kept driving westwards, past olive groves and fields of sunflowers, until we came to Arcos de la Frontera, another pueblo blanco perched high on a sandstone cliff. There we also explored the old part of town, with its castle, churches and narrow winding streets, before taking refuge from the sweltering heat by going into a tapas bar to have an afternoon snack and a refreshing glass of ice-cold, home-made lemonade. Our thirst quenched, our journey took us southward again, towards our overnight destination: Vejer de la Frontera.
The uphill drive to the mountain top setting of the old town of Vejer was the steepest part of the trip and my little car (which only has a 1.1 litre engine) went very slowly for that last couple of kilometres. Soon we arrived, though, and found the "hostal" (cheap hotel) where we would spend the night. After a welcome shower, we were ready for action again and headed out to visit the old, historic part of Vejer. It's a walled town, still with the watchtowers and ramparts that formed the fortifications of these old settlements during the centuries that Spain was occupied by the Moors. The landscape is also dotted with windmills - some of them the enormous modern kind that produce electricity for southern Spain, and some of them the really old wood and plaster kind that made for great photos as the sun was beginning to set. (This sunset photo was taken by my friend, Lisa, of a windmill that was just fifty metres from our hostal.)
We wandered around the old town, with its narrow cobbled streets, picturesque plazas and rundown old castle. We climbed on the ramparts, looked out from the towers and took photos of quaint corners and archways. We chatted with the locals, watched children in a flamenco dancing class in the castle, and then (as Spanish dinner time finally came around) we decided to eat fresh, locally caught fish in a little restaurant. Lisa had tuna steaks and I had swordfish, and both were delicious. In fact, my piece of swordfish was so large that I couldn't eat it all, so I took half of it home with me and today I ate the leftovers as we enjoyed our picnic lunch at a roadside stop that had such a amazing view of nearby Morocco that you almost felt you could reach out and touch it.
This morning, after a cup of coffee in Vejer, we started our homeward journey along the coastal route. (That's the blue route on the map at the top of this post.) First we drove downhill to the seaside town of Barbate, where the Atlantic Ocean was a deep shade of blue, and I had to dip my feet in it to check the temperature. Onwards to Tarifa, the main ferry port for ships to North Africa, and the southernmost point of Spain, the part where the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean sea meet. We had planned to eat lunch there, but couldn't find parking, so we simply drove around the town a bit, past the port and the old fortifications, before heading further east to our roadside stop with the stunning view of Morocco.
From there, we started driving northeast again, past the rock of Gibraltar, and all the way up the coastline of the Costa del Sol, until we were finally back in Alhaurín again - which seemed the best place to stop for a delicious ice cream. We had driven 500 kilometres and walked another 10 kilometres on foot, but we had thoroughly enjoyed our short break visiting some "white towns" of southern Spain.
