Trips through Spain - Ronda - 5

Sunday 21st May 1995

Drive around day. First along what I cynically call a Euro-Union road (well surveyed and a good surface) to Algodonado and back to Olvera, which we had seen from the scarp yesterday in the distance. This is built on a hill as so many here are, with the castle and cathedral on top. Then, I went wrong and too far north as far as El Segundo, in the rolling plain of chalk hills with little soil and that ploughed, so the fields were white. We had to go over a mountain pass to get there, as there was no obvious way back but the Spanish Survey map we have is pretty awful and inaccurate.

Where? This was to be our base for visiting Seville & is on the estuary of the Guadalquivir, the river through Seville.

Monday 22nd May 1995

The trip out, by the mountain yellow road. We soon turned off the Euro-road and headed through cork oaks and pines towards Grazalema, which is tucked into a mountain, quite a big one by local standards of 1654 metres. Above Grazalema is a pass at 1103 metres and an enormous view westwards. I free-wheeled for eight miles down to Le Bosque at the foot and the trip became ‘interesting’. The road was being Euro-ed and they let us onto the partly graded surface. Consequently, there were clouds of dust to make us shut the windows and turn off the fan. It is unseasonably hot here now, which didn’t help. The road works, in various stages of completion, lasted until Arcos de la Frontiera. (A lot of places are ‘de la Frontiera’ and we don’t know why. I wondered if it was something to do with the Moors).

From Arcos, it was gently rolling farmland until Jerez, which was so badly road-signed (and the Spanish signing is generally good, even if no one obeys the speed limits) that I got lost and had to double back once we found ourselves heading towards Seville and pick up the correct road from the by-pass, which was on the ‘wrong’ side of town from Arcos. Then, it was only a quarter of an hour to San Lucar de Barrameda. Hit this link for stuff about San Lucar & Seville.

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