“Majestic slice mountains plunge to the sea; gorges deep into bloom” the land, and broom and acacia
Plaza Mayor’s multicoloured lamps lend romance to the square, with its clock face and marble façades.
The N-403 to Ávila is a dreamscape of umbrella pines, blossoming fruit trees and dry stone walls. I rhapsodise over Ávila’s soaring ramparts, my poor chauffeur steering around stray pedestrians, finally managing to squeeze our 6m-long ’van into a space on an impossible incline, but mere steps from the old town.
We cross the Plaza de Santa Teresa by the saint’s marble statue, before exploring the ramparts, enjoying an eagle-eye view of russet roofs, statues, belfries and castles, the Sierra de Ávila mountains in the distance. The audio guide describes gruesome
Spanish Inquisition executions and explains that the rampart cellars were slaughterhouses, which explains why statues of Iberian pigs lurk around every corner.
The view consumes me as I clamber up a rickety staircase, realising too late the steep drop to the courtyard. My co-explorer is busy studying the multicoloured rampart stones, blissfully unaware that I’ve frozen. The only way I can reach terra firma is with my back to the drop, side-stepping, crablike, down.
We arrive at Toledo’s El Greco campsite as the setting sun paints the town’s tufa stone orange. In the morning we walk just under a mile to the centre. Glowering skies threaten as we arrive at the stone bridge, with its towers and Moorish arches, crossing the vivid green River Tagus.
The Don Quixote riverside footpath winds through the gorge with herons hunching, cormorants airing their wings and goldfinches flitting. Aloe vera and mallow cling to the valley’s sides and Chinaberry trees line the river.
In town, Bar-Restaurante Santa Fe introduces us to the local speciality, carcamusa, a delicious pork stew.
We explore Toledo’s historic treasures: from the two-storey cloisters at the Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes to Santa María Synagogue’s white and gold interior; and El Greco’s handsome house museum. Apart from El Greco’s use of rich colour, I love the painter’s business sense as he built a roaring trade in altarpieces.
The A4 to Córdoba runs through windmill-dotted plains, by orchards and vineyards. Innocent of what is about to unfold, we drive into the Mercadona supermarket at Manzanares. On our exit, we find the barrier only allows entrance traffic.
Soon, a giggling delegation of schoolgirls explains in proficient English that we must exit through the underground car park. I tell them, in my ropey Spanglish, that we’re too high. And, pronto, the girls magic up a manager who opens the barrier. Our new best friends cheer and I manage, “Muchas
gracias,” amid frantic waving.
In Córdoba we stay in Sierra Morena’s natural park, at peaceful Camping Los Villares, 11km (seven miles) from the city. We wander through woods of holm oak, strawberry trees, eucalyptus, Aleppo and umbrella pine. Cistus, myrtle, lavender, rosemary and camomile are everywhere.
It’s only just over a mile to the bus, which will whisk us to Córdoba’s centre. Him-whobecomes-most-thoroughly-blamed decides to detour from the road, following a trail down the rugged mountainside. The warning signs are ominous: Coto de caza privado (private hunting ground). I envisage myself ducking bullets and climbing trees, escaping baying hounds until a walking sign soothes my frazzled nerves.
Lavender perfumes the air. The russet rock and pine canopy are beautiful. But when the track disappears, I slip and slide down the slope, snatching at the poor cistus before sprawling inelegantly at the bottom.
The walk from Córdoba’s train station takes us through parks of palm trees, fountains and white doves to the Jewish Quarter’s cobbled alleys, white houses and hidden gardens. We step through the pages of history at the Guadalquivir’s Roman bridge, the Alcazar and the sixteenth century Moorish house, once home to Europe’s first cotton-fed paper mill. But the Mosque-Cathedral robs us of speech, with a tall bell tower and orange tree-filled courtyard, and an interior that is huge and filled with repeated arches.
Andalusia’s Almuñécar is a favourite of ours. Our pitch in rustic Camping Tropical overlooks avocado and custard apple groves, the old white town on the hill, plus the Med beyond, and the hoopoe’s whoop fills the night.
We stroll along the palm-fringed promenade, by mosaic benches and the roundabout’s giant, ceramic octopus, before stopping at a white obelisk dedicated to Gloucestershire’s Laurie Lee, the memorial marking how he helped Almuñécar’s rebels resist Franco’s troops. Our favourite bar, Mesón El Corzo, serves a mango and anchovy salad, on the house, with our glass of wine.
The owner of the Yamaha motorbike and bicycle shop is nonplussed as I point to a bike, and, misled by my phone, ask, “May I ³
try the shoes?” He’s relieved when I resort to mime. Despite ‘Kelly Girl’ emblazoned in pink on it, the bike is perfect, so discounts and free hats abound before I cycle off.
From the rocky crag overlooking San Cristóbal Beach, we survey the incisorshaped islets, gannets dive-bombing the sea, and the bronze statue of Abd al-Rahman I, who landed here and founded Córdoba. The Sierra Nevada’s jagged peaks provide a backdrop to the labyrinthine old town clustering beneath the castle, once home to Phoenicians, Romans and Arabs.
The Roman era comes to life on the northern outskirts of town with the perfectly preserved aqueduct surrounded by wildflowers and in the botanical park, with its fish salting factory’s ancient vats among the tropical trees.
The coast-hugging A7 east soon becomes battle-scarred, covered in plastic greenhouses. But at the Cabo de Gata Natural Park, the plastic citadels fall away. Majestic mountains plunge to the sea; gorges slice deep into the land, and broom and acacia bloom.
Following Alfaix’s ancient trail through orange and lemon groves, wild flowers riot at my feet. Sparrows compete with the buzzing bees and a tortoise shuffles across the path.
A thermal spa since Roman times, Murcia’s Baños de Fortuna is an oasis in a lunar landscape. Towering palms and eucalyptus trees surround the elegant pastel nineteenth century buildings. Lounging in the campsite’s thermal pool, a buzzard circles overhead. My technical one informs me the water comes out of the ground at 58 degrees Celcius and is cooled to 36 degrees.
At 10pm locals flood to the Café Teatro, the floor show beating Strictly any day. Cool dudes worthy of Levi jeans’ adverts tango with their grannies – it seems to me being a Spanish granny has a lot to recommend it.
It’s not worth cooking at La Fuente, with its €11 (£10.22) menu.
A German group decide to have whiskeydoused cake for dessert. Smiling, the waitress plonks down a whole bottle of whiskey. Much jollity ensues as those cakes swim in the amber nectar.
The AP7 takes us to La Vall de Laguar’s mountainous Campell village whose campsite looks out on mountain terraces, dry stone walls and the distant sea. The historic wash house is a place to sit and dream – lemons shining through its arches and water burbling.
We follow the trail from the campsite to the old leper colony, San Francisco de Borja, at Fontilles, taking us through juniperscented pine forests and lemon, orange, carob and olive terraces.
We smile at the quirky sign, ‘No Hunting of Drag Queen Minotaurs’ with its illustration of a minotaur in lipstick, high heels and painted nails.
The leper colony’s two-mile wall ranges along the mountain’s ridge. Through a ³
rusted iron door, we weave down the pine-clad valley, past the farm, cottages, church, theatre, and bar to the colony’s heart and its faded, elegant buildings. At its centre, the statue of the founder looks down on a kneeling leper. It’s haunting as mist descends, a chainsaw moans and a young tree surgeon hangs in mid-air.
The A23 takes us by rolling hills towards the once Moorish stronghold of Albarracín, where the local road winds through a dramatic castle-topped gorge.
Albarracín is romantic, with its fortified walls and stout red clay houses clinging to a ravine, all topped by the cathedral’s majolica cupola.
The cat’s house is the best, though. Alley cats appear at every window, preening, grooming, sleeping on windowsills, the roof and the garden path.
It’s a paradise for walkers, too, as a cornucopia of routes radiate from town. Who can resist a footpath that traces a river and promises kingfishers, otters, and even possibly woodpeckers?
Starting to think about the return trip, Janet and Tony, our campsite neighbours, show us the Somport Tunnel route to France. North on the A23, we pass through Rioja wine country and the striped rocks and wheeling vultures of the Sierra de Alcubierre. Huesca to Jaca takes us past the snow-topped Pyrenees, an eagle flying so close I can see her curved beak.
Canfranc Station lies just before the border tunnel. A grand 1928 Beaux-Arts station, it’s the stuff of adventure stories, known as the ‘Casablanca of the Pyrenees’ by escapees from the Nazis in World War II.
Our travels have given us a kaleidoscope of rich memories: from coast to coast, through historic towns, deserted plains, mysterious mountains, along rich rivers and verdant valleys.