The Up’s And The Down’s Of Living In Spain – Part 2

From where we had parked the car, half way up a hill on the outskirts of ‘Setinel de las Bodegas’, it was difficult to turn around to simply follow the route out, back in the direction in which we had arrived, so we thought that there would be a place to either turn around further up, in the direction of where the official car park was signposted, or there would, at some point, be a road junction directing us back towards ‘Ronda’, but as it turned out we never did come across the official car park 🤷‍♂️ As we departed the outskirts of the town, just following the main road, we saw, in the distance, and a little further up the mountain, two other villages, or towns, it is at times hard to distinguish between what are villages or towns when you are some distance away, however, the one at the top of the hill certainly had two rather imposing buildings, one of which certainly bore the resemblance of being a Castle. I checked ‘Google Maps’ on my phone and identified the location of the one with the Castle as being the town of ‘Olvera’, so we made the split second decision to head there, we were not in a rush and who knows how long it would be before we came this way again, if ever 🤷‍♂️

Sometimes, when you are travelling on these mountain roads, you rarely see many other vehicles, or pass through any other villages, there is just miles and miles of road passing through rural land with Olive Groves or Fruit trees, the animals we see are mainly Goats, Sheep or Horses and along the hillsides the occasional clumps of Forest, the winding, well surfaced roads, cut through the mountains granite and limestone jagged peaks which all makes for interesting landscapes, occasionally we meet a herd of grazing goats along the roadside, they seem less interested in us as we do of them and they just continue to graze away. Suddenly, without any advance announcement, we came across a rather decorative ‘Glorietta’ (Roundabout) on the outskirts of a small hamlet. The town of Olvera was signposted off it, so at least we did not have to rely on guesswork as to which direction to take.

The small white-washed hamlet of ‘Torre Alháquime’

It looked like just another stereo-typical whitewashed village, looking at the stone monument that decorated the roundabout, it really did look to have the emptiness of a one-donkey hamlet, but it was well tended, the streets were immaculately clean, the houses all looked fairly modern structures, but the streets were deserted, we didn’t see any shops of any description, or the more usual Cafe/Bars, which I have to say, is actually very unusual, there are normally always a multitude of Cafe/Bars, even in the smallest Spanish village 🤔 But as quickly as we had entered the village we then found ourselves exiting the other side, we had passed no other vehicles and saw absolutely no sign of any life, animal or human, they were probably all sat around tables in a back street Cafe/Bar somewhere, warming themselves around a log fire and drinking copious amounts of Anti-Covid Vaccines, I was rather envious of them.

I had given my camera clicker finger a well deserved rest, there are only so many Olive groves you can photgraph and, after a while, even the rocky peaks begin to look much of a muchness. The large Religious type building, that suddenly appeared as we rounded a bend, caught me a bit off guard as it looked magnificent against the mountain background but I had missed the photo opportunity. In a cloud of dust, a screech of rubber on loose gravel, which was being thrown up from the tyres, Shazza brought our chariot to an emergency stop outside a Cafe/Bar located on the opposite side of the road to the religious looking building. Okay, I confess, I may have exaggerated that last bit a little bit, Shazza actually pulled in to the gravel car park in a more careful and refined manner, no bystanders, had their have been any, would have been sprayed with shards of gravel, however, it was actually a bit of a last minute sort of manoeuvre. We got out of the car and crossed the road on to a nice well surfaced open courtyard sort of area, signage on the door indicated that this was the ‘Sanctuary of Nuestra Senora de Los Remedios’ 🤷‍♂️ The front door was open and there was no admission charge although a sign instructed us that we must maintain silence, once inside the sanctuary, our curiosity was raised sufficiently so we ventured inside to take a peek, it was as quiet as the proverbial church mouse, if their were any occupants, perhaps an order of Nuns committed to a vow of silence, we didn’t see any and, for obvious reasons, neither did we hear anyone. On the lower floor area there was a central patio, full of well tended plants and flowers, with rooms leading off, a prayer room with an Altar, and a side room that contained orange flamed candles that were flickering away on a large table, but like a lot of religious places these days, these candles were not the real wax ones with real yellow flames but artificial, battery operated. We found a set of stairs that led to an upper level, we went up only to discover the doors, that gave access to the internal balcony, were closed, there were some pictures on the wall but to be honest there wasn’t really much else to see so we didn’t spend too long inside before returning to the car to continue our journey.

The quite ornate internal courtyard affair

As we neared the outskirts of the town we got a much better view of the Castle, perched right on top of the town and next to it, an equally impressive large structure, there were no obvious signs of what it was, a Church or Cathedral perhaps ? What we did know is that unless we found somewhere to park close to Castle, we would be having another steep walk 😲 Our ‘Google Maps’, which is usually quite good at identifying car parks, didn’t reflect any close to the castle, although there were several in the main town at the foot of the steep hill. Fortunately, once again, as we kept the view of the Castle in our sights, which wasn’t exactly difficult to do, we drove towards it and we found some more roadside parking bays, the majority were occupied but someone must have known that we were coming and had left us a space. There were a few more cars about on the town roads, and we saw several people walking along the pavements, not what you would consider crowds of people, not by a long shot, but at least it didn’t now feel as though we were the last surviving humans on the planet.

I had checked on ‘Google’ to confirm that the Castle was actually open to the public, I didn’t want to climb all the way up to it to then discover we couldn’t have a look around. The big structure we had seen next to it was the ‘Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación’ (Church of Our Lady of the Incarnation) and both the Castle and the Church stood almost side by side, separated only by a large open courtyard and Mirador, which provided a fantastic rooftop view over the city and the surrounding countryside.

We had walked from the car towards the town but, from ground level it wasn’t immediately obvious which direction we should head in to get to the Castle, so I stopped a couple of ladies who were passing, and in my bestest Spanish I asked “Cual es el Camino al Castillo ?”, (Which way to walk to the Castle ?) it was a good job that I had stopped them to ask as it turned out that we had been heading in the wrong direction. It was not so much a long walk, but my goodness it was bloody steep and we had to stop on a couple of occasions to admire the wonderful views, which was fortunate, as it also gave Shazza an opportunity to catch her breath, and being the loving and considerate husband that I am, I of course could not leave her standing alone in a strange town 😂

In addition to the Castle and the Church, there was also a Museum in a separate more modern building, this also housed the Tourist Information Office with of course the mandatory ‘Tourist Tat’ shop, this is where we would pay the Admission Fee to cover a visit to all three attractions and all for the princely sum of €2 each. Apart from the Coffee and Toast, and a couple of small beers, in ‘Sentinel’ (€9), this was turning out to be quite an economic day trip so far 😁

We started our tour in the Castle, through a small but pretty archway and then came the steps, and more steps, and even more steps, and the one’s that took us right up to the top ‘turret’ were via a very narrow spiral staircase, and we needed to take care when we were coming down them, our calf muscles were feeling the strain again so we took plenty of opportunities to stop and admire the views along the way 🤭

Now I have to be honest and say that this is not the best Castle that I have ever visited, in fact, and you don’t hear me say too many good things about the UK these days, but at least they do have some wonderful Castles and Stately Homes, in some of them they even reproduce what the rooms would have looked like in their day with lots of furnishings, Portraits of all the owner’s through the ages, Heraldic flags, pieces of Armour and Weaponry on display, but that of course usually comes at quite a cost with the Admission prices in the UK, and of course they charge for car parking, so my advice would be to invest in Annual subscriptions to organisations such as the ‘National Trust’ or ‘English Heritage’, you will generally recoup the annual subscription after just your first visit to one of the attractions 👍 However, this one I have to say rated ‘pretty good’ on my scale of enjoyment, as it was not just a heap of rubble, like some can be, and it did have different rooms to wander in and out of, with several viewing turrets, so the effort to actually come here was worthwhile.

After the Castle we went across to the Museum and ‘Tourist Tat’ shop, but only because that was where the ‘Public Conveniences’ were located 🙄 We were all ‘Churched’ out for one day, so we gave that a miss and decided it was time to go back down the hill. “Do you want to go and have a wander around the town now ?” I asked Shazza, “Not really” she replied. Neither of us are actually much in the way of shoppers, unless of course we specifically want to buy something, or the town is noted for having a certain sort of must see charm, Olvera didn’t, it was just really a normal working town, although it would have probably have had some nice ‘Plaza’s’ with Cafe’s and Eateries. “Are you hungry yet ?”, Shazza asked me, “Not really, I am still full after that humongous Tostado this morning” I replied, “Me too” she said. Which was surprising because we had done a fair bit of walking, and up and down a lot of steps and hills so we must have been burning a lot of calories. Now whilst I can go most of the day without food, I always know when Shazza needs sustenance, she goes quiet and moody and then tells me in no uncertain way that she needs to eat. I remember the signs very well from our Motor-homing days, especially when we were on long drives. We were actually all walked out now, it was well into Siesta time here so most of the shops would have been closed anyway, although the Cafe/Bars would have been open, so we agreed that we would make our way back down to the car and down the mountain and, if we did start to feel any hunger pangs, we could always stop somewhere on our way home.

We would take the same route back, via the small hamlet of ‘Torre Alháquime’, and the towns of ‘Setenil de las Bodegas’ and ‘Ronda’ and, although the landscapes would be the same, but because we were doing the drive in the opposite direction, with the sun now in a different position to when we drove up, the views would be slightly different, so my clicker finger was primed once again.

The road back towards ‘Setenil’ was as quiet as it had been when we were driving in the opposite direction, other people must travel along these roads we said to each other, other tourists like us, out exploring the area, even the locals who live here in the small villages or driving between the towns, the folk who live in the ‘Fincas’, even van or truck delivery driver’s, did they use a different route that our Sat Nav didn’t know about ? In the UK, roads like these would be at least busy with tractors and trailers, but nothing, absolutely nothing, it was quite tranquil but I have to say that it did feel a little strange too.

We drove down the main road and through ‘Sentinel’, at least here there was evidence of plenty of traffic and civilisation. You know when sometimes you are told that some things in life are all about ‘timing’, well the perfect example of our good timing was as we passed back through the main town area, two tourist coaches had quite literally just dropped off their cargo of ‘turistas’, there must have been close to a hundred people and they were all making their way into the narrow ‘Tourist Tat’ street, in the direction of the under cliff retail units. Now of course the retailer’s would be very appreciative of this sudden influx of trade, we however were glad that we had made our visit much earlier that morning. It wasn’t long and we were back on the main switchback roads that would take us around Ronda, down the mountain and back towards home.

We had both finally started to feel hungry as we neared the final part of our journey, so our discussions naturally turned to what we fancied to eat. We would be back in our own town area by 4:30pm, so we could have driven to our usual village car park and walked the short distance into the Marina, there would be plenty of choice of eateries in there. As it was, great minds think alike, now there is not much that we miss about the UK but we both really fancied Fish & Chips, Curry Sauce and a slice of bread and butter, to make a ‘chip butty’ of course, as you do. We knew that there was a very good English managed Fish & Chip restaurant at the bottom of our hill, near our favourite Indian restaurant, but we hadn’t used it now for well over a year, but when we had, it had always been very good. So that was it we had decided on what, and where, we would eat. That was until I checked the opening times and discovered that it didn’t actually open until 5:30pm, did we really want to have to go home first and then have to go back out again 🤔 You know what it is like after being out all day, you come back tired and just want to take off your shoes, sit down and relax with a nice hot cuppa, and once settled we knew that getting motivated to go back out again would be a real struggle. So we considered our options, however, our taste buds had already been stimulated, and salivating at the prospect of the taste of hot freshly cooked Battered Cod, with proper Chips, lashings of Salt ‘n’ Vinegar and a chip butty, we could even already visualise it on a plate in front of us.

Well I can tell you, it was a struggle, but that is exactly what we did, we went home, took of our trainers, sat on the balcony with our piping hot mugs of tea and waited for the hour to pass, then we went down the hill to the Fish & Chip restaurant, sat down, ordered and enjoyed every mouthful, it tasted so damn good, the perfect ending to what had been a very enjoyable day trip up in our local mountains.

We both agreed that, if these sort of days were an example of the sort of ‘The Up’s And Down’s Of Living In Spain’ that we will have to put up with over the next few year’s, then I think that we just might be able to cope with this lifestyle 😉 The only question though, “Where should we go next ?’

Until my next ramble,

Hasta Luego mi Amigos