At the end of a storm there’s a golden sky
Pity the poor tourists who arrived in Ireland last weekend, just ahead of Ophelia. While no-one chooses to holiday in this country for the weather, they certainly don’t expect the kind of conditions that battered the place last Monday.
Whether we like it or not, good weather makes a difference to a holiday. For some people, indeed, it’s the only reason for the holiday in the first place.
It’s funny, though, how bad weather experiences can be so indelibly engraved on the memory.
I always cite Sicily (in early September!) as one of my wash-out holidays. Torrential rain for days on end and my husband and I stuck in a villa, high up on a mountainside above Cefalu, and fearful that we were going to be victims of a landslide. The gorgeous pool was a no-swim zone for the week, and the big table on the outdoor dining terrace never saw so much as a wine glass set down on it.
We spent our time reading inside, in a cramped room that wasn’t intended for non-stop indoor living. And every morning we’d draw back the bedroom curtains more in hope than expectation. A blue sky became an impossible dream. A dry sky was as much as we came to hope for.
Sicily apart, however, this week’s storm conditions dredged up from my memory bank another place, somewhere that I haven’t thought about for a very long time. Montejaque.
And once that lovely little Andalucian ‘pueblo blanco’ sprang to mind, all the memories came flooding back.
Including the night of the storm, of course. That was the summer’s night we dined in what was then the town’s only hotel, listening anxiously as the wind roared around outside and we thought that any minute the roof was about to lift off. It was 1997 or 1998 and our second visit to Montejaque, a place we came to love and somewhere we spent many holidays back then.
For my son, around eight or nine at the time, the night of the storm was one of the highlights of that particular holiday. I can still remember his excitement as we left the hotel that night to walk (climb, actually!) back up to the top of the town to the little house that we were renting for a week or so. It was a freak storm, of course, and, having blown itself out overnight, we all awoke the next morning to the blue Andalucian skies that we had come to expect that July.
So, memory jogged by the storm this week, I couldn’t resist having a look online to see how Montejaque is faring these days.
I’m glad to say that it looks as inviting as ever.
The hotel we ate in that night, located right on the little square in the town, has, I think, had a name change. It’s now called Hotel Montejaque but I don’t recall that being its name in the late 1990s.
There are still plenty of local houses available for rent, which was always our accommodation of choice, and there seem to be far more restaurants nowadays.
Montejaque was a spot that we discovered by accident.
It’s in the mountains, about 15 kilometres or so from the lovely town of Ronda which, in itself, is about 70 kilometres from the coast at Estepona. (Malaga’s a bit further.)
We used it as a base to explore this stunning part of Spain, driving in to Ronda on occasion, for a tapas lunch perhaps, or to visit the bullring. On a long day out, we’d visit Jerez de la Frontera, famous for its sherry and its flamenco.
One day I remember my son and I walked from Montejaque to the next village – Benaojan – about three kilometres away. In the blistering midday sun.
The husband, muttering about ‘mad dogs and Irishwomen’, counted himself out of that particular adventure but drove to collect us at our destination. A welcome drink, I recall, was had by all in Benaojan’s Molino del Santo hotel. (Still going strong, I see.)
Funny how Ireland’s ferocious storm triggered, for me, such happy memories. And left me pondering a return visit to lovely little Montejaque. ÷Listen in on Thursdays as Ros talks travel with Ivan Yates on The Hard Shoulder, Newstalk 106108fm, 4pm-7pm.
ros.dee@dmgmedia.ie