Trips through Spain - South Sierra Nevada

Bubion village

Up the valley above Bubion

Friday 5th May 2000

It rained a lot during the night & snowed down to 1800m. I drove off East from Bubion on the road to Pitres & beyond. Lots of views showing the varied types of farming, especially below Pitres. We turned up the long gorge to Trevelez, which is the highest village in Spain (same as Täsch in Switzerland!) but has no architectural concessions to the height and conforms to the Mediterranean norm. It looked vaguely poor. The business is ham curing & all the cafés in this area have hams hanging from the ceilings. We stopped for coffee - 300ptas for 2. Coming down the other side of the gorge, we found a huge remote hotel. Why? There is no skiing this side. Further East, the Alpujarras is gentler & we wound down to Cadiah, now on roads no longer described as 'picturesque' but were, all the same. Now going south, we climbed out of the Alpujarras on the road to Albunol. This was high for much of the way, although we soon saw the sea. The farming becomes more intense: olive orchards & vast areas of veg. unattractively grown under square miles of plastic. However, the road is much better. We went through Albunol & down to the coast, which was awful, the plastic sheeting continuing down to the beach. We had lunch (omelettes, as no fish on offer) in the Café Wuppertal II, although no German spoken, only Spanish. (Everywhere, they shout at you in Spanish if you don't understand). Back through narrow Albunol, there is a narrow, twisty road up & over to Orgiva, with magnificent views of the sea & Sierra Nevada for most of the way. I have decided the 'picturesque road' means 'difficult to drive'. Many wild flowers along the road.

I had noticed no pigs, despite the cured hams & Brian said (& I later asked the hotel to confirm) that the pigs are shipped in from Catalonia.