Southern Spain Part 2

In the morning we drove through Granada to the Alhambra.  The Moors remained in control of Granada until late in the 15th Century and the Alhambra was the emirs palace and fortress.  It is one of Spains main tourist attractions and fairly expensive but I must say it was one of the top places I have seen on our trip.  The site has so many different aspects, archaeologically excavated foundations, intact defensive walls and towers, restored and preserved palaces, and grounds and gardens fit for rulers.  They have a maximum 8000 visitors into the Muslim palaces (the main feature) per day so in high season that is something to be wary of.  I tried to follow the rough guides recommendation on how to manage your visit to the Alhambra.  Your ticket allows you entrance to several discrete ticket only areas and you have a timed ticket for the palaces.  So it was first to the fortress area at the opposite end from the entrance, this is mainly foundations but you can go on the walls and towers that are still there and it provides excellent views over Granada.  From here it was time to queue for the palaces as my time was 11am.  The 3 palaces are amazing examples of Islamic art from the 14 and 15th centuries, there is plaster-work the like of which I've near seen before.  This plaster-work although it looks amazing was actually the Islamic rulers equivalent of hanging curtains or tapestries and was something that was intended to be replaced.  You can see this in the wear and tear in areas that visitors can touch/bump into even though you mustn't touch.  One eager Asian tourist was stopped from touching a column, the staff were taking it seriously which was good since it is a national treasure. Then I checked out one of the museums before heading across to the Gardenlife and Summer Palace.

We left Granada mid afternoon and drove south to the coast and a town called Salobrena.  It was another picturesque white washed village atop a hill with a 16th century castle.  We found an area for the night where roughly 20 other motorhomes were parked up.  The most common number plates seemed to be French, German and GB.  We felt we were in a safe spot with so many motorhomers about so we went for a late afternoon walk through the town.  It was extremely hilly but we were rewarded with beautiful views of farmland (the area is known for growing sugarcane), the village and some seaside resorts.  That night we slept soundly and it was remarkably warm overnight.  It also rained lightly, the first time since Barcelona and we are enjoying the better weather now we have reached the south.

The next day we continued west to a town called Almunecar.  It was a happening town with seaside resorts, bazaar shops and some interesting monuments.  There has been Roman settlement here and there is an excarvated fish salting plant and the remains of an aqueduct in town.  There is also a Roman built Castle (later improved on by the Moors in the middle ages) and a pleasant botanic gardens.

That afternoon we continued west along the motorway past Malaga, stopping in Fuengirola for the night.  In the morning we each had a walk along the beachfront promenade to the castle and watched a digger clearing out sand, opening the rivermouth and drains to the sea.  We drove through Marbella and stopped at a resort complex which had excavated Roman villa remains and a watchtower.

Through some help of the guidebook we decided that we would head inland.  The first town we stopped in was Casares.  We parked at a viewpoint and got amazing shots of the whitewashed houses, church and castle.

We continued on to Gaucin.  It was equally attractive and we decided that we would take turns to look at the castle there.  Again the villages roads are extremely narrow and we rather foolishly (Dale: no, bravely) decided to drive up to the castle, passing two bemused Police officers on the way.  We parked just short of the castle and both took in the views. To leave the village we had a tight bend to negotiate, which went fine.  What was more difficult was the narrow roads with parked cars.  At one point Dale stopped to let a woman and pram pass, as he thought he would otherwise clean her up with the wing mirror.  I ended up getting out and running ahead to check we were not going to hit any cars, which I felt much better about doing compared to staying in the van, where I had less visibility.  We, as well as the cars and pedestrians made it out unscathed.

The next day was our final day in Spain and consisted of doing our last preparations for Morocco.  We made our way to a free water and dump point in the morning, where we had showers and filled up with water.  We did make a stop in La Linea for lunch, not far from the border crossing with Gibraltar.  We had already decided that we wouldn't cross over to Gibraltar as we didn't want to inflict another unnecessary border crossing on ourselves and we didn't felt safe leaving the van unattended (La Linea is a particularly bad spot for car crime).  We found the La Linea area very busy and not overly pleasant.  Our next job was to fill the LPG tank which took us up to a station near Los Barrios (only bottles are available in Morocco and we will use a combination of these and the tank).  We then arrived in Algeciras where we would take the ferry from the following morning.  We went to a car parking area which had two supermarkets, McDonalds, a hardware store and more.  It is a popular spot for motorhomes to stop, as they can fill their cupboards and buy ferry tickets before they sail.  We spent the afternoon buying our ferry tickets and extra food and nervously and excitedly anticipating our crossing in the morning.