ANDALUCÍA (PART TWO)

DAY 4: …and Found
28. OCTOBER 2008

It rained the night before and it already started to rain again in the morning when we woke up and packed our stuff to leave the hostel. We had a quick breakfast and decided to find a proper place somewhere along the road to have a decent breakfast and decide what to do next. We were still undecided about continuing the trip or cutting our trip short and return home as soon as possible.

From Marbella

We reached Marbella, a small town some 60 kilometers west of Malaga, where we could take the road to Sevilla or back up north. It is a pleasant, posh little town with a large British population, so we listened to English radio while cruising the streets to find a breakfast place. We settled on a nice local cafeteria, and still struggled where to go next. The weather was clearing up but it still suited my brooding mood. We were not smarter after the breakfast, so we took a short stroll to the beach to have a little more time to think. We passed some Dalí sculptures and stood on the windy beach for a while and finally we decided that if we got this far we might as well go on and not let the theft of our stuff ruin our mood.

This lead us further west along the coast, the plan basically being: drive west until we run out of dry land. And so we reached Gibraltar.

 

Gibraltar was second on my wish list ever since we moved to Spain, right after Tabernas, for obvious reasons: the history of this place is fascinating, reaches back to mythic ages and visually unique. Apart from being an eye candy and easy to photograph, Africa is only a measly 20 kilometers away.

I only read about the place, and realized that I haven’t really seen pictures of it, but it interested me since all the “romantic” World War II stories I read or movies I watched. I figured this is as close to the Casablanca feeling as one can get in Europe. Instead of Humphrey Bogart, we managed to get Sean Connery a guy named Harry as our guide. The tourist taxi service here consists of a fleet of white minivans, and local drivers who take you up the Rock, secure the entrance tickets to the caves and wait for you while you’re finished. Sean Harry proved to be very well informed on the history of the place, and not some sleazy driver who hardly speaks English and tries to rip you off.

From Gibraltar

(click on “TOVÁBB” to read the rest of the post)

He was readily explaining economy and culture as well, and we even had a small discussion about Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. It is well worth the 100 euro we had to pay for the four of us, saving ourselves from 3 hours of uphill climbing (as the cablecar was not working because of the strong winds), and since we didn’t do research about the sights and sounds of Gibraltar, we actually didn’t miss anything important.

Some fun facts, why you should visit the place:
- The Greeks considered the rock as the Pillars of Hercules, marking the end of the world, and consequently, the caves inside the rock as the entrance to the realm of Hades, also known as the underworld.
- There are about 200 monkeys in 6 families living wild on the Rock’s wildlife reserve, and while you shouldn’t try to eat near them, or for that matter, pull out anything that can be taken as food from your bag or pocket, you can take pictures of them from up close. It is not recommended to pet them though.
- The only entrance to the city is through the landing strip of the airport, which means it is closed until a 737 lands and taxies to the terminal.

Sean Harry dropped us off in the middle of the old city, wished us well and we were on our own to stroll across the city, back to the frontier and into Spain once again, where we left our car.

 

DAY 5: Ronda and Sevilla
29. OCTOBER 2008

We did find our lost mood in Gibraltar, the kids enjoyed it tremendously, and now we were ready to actually move on towards Sevilla, where we should have arrived 3 days ago… except, that by this time, “while we are here we might as well take a small detour” became our motto, and honestly, the detour to Ronda was only 15 kilometers extra. We heard about the place earlier, but we only knew we have to see it, but had no clue how the place actually looks like.

We drove back almost to Marbella, and took a sharp left turn towards north, towards the hills, on a bit shady B-road. It was dark by the time we got here, so we had no idea where we were, apart from the GPS telling us we are on the right road. It was dark, windy, full of sharp turns and lazy slopes, again, a joy to drive through it, staying sharp and keeping the momentum. It should have been exhausting after yet an other day of sightseeing, but the adrenaline kept me going and I was genuinely enjoying the drive through the night, under heavy clouds hanging low over the hilltops, a few drops of rain and the lights of small towns reflecting back from the bellies of the clouds.

We slept in Ronda and set out to discover the town in the crispy chill of the late autumn morning, under a clear blue sky. It has a certain charm if you don’t know what’s gonna happen after the next corner, especially if you don’t worry about it, and let it take you wherever it goes (a strange experience for me especially, after all the control and obligations and responsibility we left behind in Madrid). Nowhere is it more true than in Ronda, where the view was simply mind-blowing.

From Ronda

The town sits on a rock plateau, cut in half by a river, running between 80 meters tall walls in a canyon, and most of the town is actually surrounded by steep, vertical rock walls. The old town is practically untouched because of this, and apparently it was a cultural centre in moorish times. The view all around already warrants at least a day’s stay, but we only had the morning. It was good enough for a big walk around the old city, before moving on. The irony for us is that the name of this gorgeous town in Hungarian actually means “ugly”.

By the afternoon we arrived to Sevilla, which was by far the largest city we’ve been to since we left Madrid. After the series of small, historical towns we visited, this bustling city was almost too much. A lot of constructions (as usual), roadworks, building the metro… and the sights are scattered around, so to get from one place to the other, you are constantly reminded of modern times, which is a bit unsettling.

We were tired and cranky by this time, so we didn’t have much patience for the city other than noting that there are a lot of bicycles, a proper river and a lot of young people, giving the place an aura of a university city. But the gardens of the royal palace were an island of tranquility amidst the buzz. It was nice to just stroll around and since this palace is architecturally quite similar to Alhambra, I “re-shot” some pictures that I lost with the laptop. It helped us relax a little but we still decided to move on and spend the night in Cordoba.

From Sevilla

DAY 6: Córdoba
30. OCTOBER 2008

We had luck with the weather so far, rain usually avoided us, or it hit when we were on the road, or sleeping anyway. This time however there were more clouds and more wind, but it was still pleasant enough for sightseeing. We wanted to have breakfast at a nice place, so we went for the old city directly, and it was quite the treat. The old town starts suddenly, the only warning an old gate, but beyond that it was medieval straight away.

After quite a long stroll we finally found a cozy place, and this being the last day we went for the full treatment: hot breakfast with churros and proper café con leche. By this time we were tired and eager enough not to save every penny. We had to prepare for the mosque, after all.

And it was quite the sight, just as epic as Alhambra was on the first day, a worthy finale to our journey. The inside of the mosque is just awe-inspiring, the arches upon arches creating a sence of space that you can’t be prepared for, while even on a cloudy day, it was still light enough inside. It is overwhelming in all the right way: it doesn’t put the fear of God into you, it is “just” a place for worship for those, who believe.

There is simply not an angle inside from where it is not photogenic. It made me quite trigger happy, snapping away pictures by the dozens. While christian churches have a tendency to loom over you in dark, brooding tones, with paintings of suffering, and little light, here you could just walk around for hours. (Although the same is true of the ginormous gothic cathedral in Cologne, Germany, which is cool for different reasons.)

From Cordoba

After finally getting out of the mosque, we leasurely made our way back to the car, walking the streets of the old jewish quarter, taking in the sights of the narrow streets, flowerpots and arched patios by the dozen, while I tried to explain the kids about the three big religions and the very bloody history of it all.

Finally though we had to start moving, it was early afternoon, so we settled into the car for the 400 km ride back to Madrid.

1850 kilometers, 10 cities in 6 days

EPILOGUE

In retrospect I have to say this trip was worth every penny, every minute and every mile of it, even though we suffered some losses and setbacks and we were not quite prepared on the places we visited. Despite all the superficial sightseeings and all the other interesting places we might have missed only by a few blocks or by being a bit ignorant it was still a glimpse into a very unique period in history, when arabs ruled the south of Spain, culture and science was flourishing and such great monuments were built as the Alhambra, or Cordoba, and everything in-between. And after learning about these places we can still go back later and discover in-depth, what we missed this time.

Thank you for your attention, I hope you enjoyed this “short” diary of our great journey.