We Should Probably Have Just Stayed At Home

We awoke on this particular morning, but looking out from the balcony windows the picture was not the best, thick grey leaden sky, which looked as if it could bring rain with it, and there was a very strong and blustery Easterly wind. We had selected this particular day to get up earlier than usual as we had found the motivation to finally go out on a day trip, although to be honest, after looking out of those windows we very nearly changed our minds. We had decided to drive across to the West into the Cadiz Province, to visit the hilltop town of ‘Vejer de La Frontera’, which is around 65 miles away and, although we had three route options, no matter which one we selected, it would take us around ninety-minutes to get there, dependent on whether we decided to stop somewhere en route for breakfast, which was always a possibility, and of course, very much dependent on the level of decibels emanating from Shazza’s stomach 😂

Whilst Shazza was getting herself ready, I looked at the ‘Works of Fiction’, whatever they showed in their forecast would determine whether we even made it outside of our own front door. Fortunately, whilst our side of the coast showed a gloomy outlook for the whole day, our particular destination showed a day of full sunshine with temperatures between 17-19 degrees(c) so, when Shazza asked me, “So are we going on our road trip today ?”, I felt confident enough to say “Yes” and then prayed that the ‘Works of Fiction’ for once would be true to their word 🫣 We agreed to take the Southern coastal road on the way there, then have a late breakfast when we reached our destination. We would decide later whether we returned through the ‘Parque Natural Los Alcornes’, either via the ‘Benalup’ or the ‘Medina-Sidonia’ routes, either of which are very scenic.

We left home at 09:15am, it looked dark and gloomy and still a bit chilly at only 14 degrees(c) and, as we followed the coast road South, down past La Linea, Algeciras and Gibraltar, the overcast sky made the sea look a dismal grey. Normally, when the sky is clear and blue, and the sea is its usual beautiful sparkling blue, we can look across the narrow Straight of Gibraltar to the coast of Morocco and see it very clearly, it is just a distance of 8.9 miles between mainland Europe and the African continent, however, on this particular day, whilst we got some glimpses of the different sized freighter’s and yacht’s passing to and fro between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the coastline of Morocco was shrouded in low cloud. Fortunately, as we began driving past the Southern range of the Andalusian mountains towards Tarifa, the grey clouds suddenly disappeared, as if by magic, the blue sky arrived and with it the warming morning sunshine, we watched as the temperature gauge showed a gradual increase of 4 degrees(c), the views opened up, we could now see the African coast much more clearly and a lot more traffic in the shipping lanes, it is actually amazing at how narrow this busy channel actually is, the colour of the sea also changed to the more familiar sparkling blue, we had now left the gloom behind, it was as if someone had opened the curtains into another brighter world. I still find it quite strange to think that, from our part of the Mediterranean coastline, across to the Atlantic coastline, which is only a distance of 50 miles, ‘as the crow flies’, that the weather and temperature conditions can vary so much 🤷‍♂️

As we rounded the corner by Tarifa and headed Northbound, still on the main coast road, we could see the miles and miles of beautiful white sand beaches stretching out before our eyes, sandwiched between the backdrop of lush green mainly pine forest, on one side, and the beautiful blue Atlantic Ocean on the other, it looked absolutely amazing. We commented to each other on how we are often reluctant to get into the car and drive this relatively short distance across to the opposite side of this Spanish coastline, but when we do, once we are here, we absolutely love it, in truth I think that this Western more rugged coastline is far more spectacular than our own and it is less densely populated 🤷‍♂️

We had driven past the whitewashed hilltop town of ‘Vejer de la Frontera’ on several previous road trips, the last being when we visited the ‘Faro de Trafalgar’ (Lighthouse), then the coastal town of ‘Barbate’ and finally finishing up at the white sandy beach and sand dune at ‘Bolonia’ where we had a very pleasant very late lunch at a sun-drenched beachfront ‘Chiringuita’. On that occasion we had said that we would return and stop to explore the town, but it had taken us many months to finally get around to now actually doing it, well it wasn’t as if it was going to go anywhere was it 🤷‍♂️

So before I get into our own account of our day visit, I guess for those of you that are history buffs you may be interested in a little bit of background information, and as you know already, Shazza and I are history heathens, so it will only be a ‘little bit’ of historical reference so, take it away Mr Wikipedia whilst I go and paint my toenails, or perhaps do something else a lot more interesting 🤭

When I had put the route options into ‘Google Maps’ the previous evening, I had selected the perfect ‘free’ public car park at the foot of the town, with easy access from the main road. However, the following morning upon setting off I hadn’t checked that Google had saved ‘my’ specific route, an error on my part and one that I would come to regret 🫣 Instead of taking the straightforward and simple access route, the ‘Twat Nav’ opted to direct us up, through the very narrow cobblestoned streets of this hilltop town, and I am not exaggeration when I say ‘narrow’, I am surprised that our car wing mirrors did not have white go faster stripes along both of them from the buildings that tried to squeeze the life from us 😲 Fortunately, Shazza had elected to do the driving 🤭 Although I have to confess that we ‘both’ suffered several ‘Brown Trouser Moments’, and there we were, thinking that we had left those days behind us !!

Eventually we found our way to the car park and very fortunately, found the last remaining parking bay available, if we hadn’t I think we would have decided to drive elsewhere rather than go through those narrow cobbled streets again looking for an alternative parking location 🙄 It was a steep walk up the hill from the car park, but it was sunny and warm, with a pleasant but strong breeze blowing, although we had to stop and ‘Admire the views’ a couple of times 😮‍💨😮‍💨 In these sort of old hilltop towns there is no real town centre, it is spread out along many narrow cobbled streets, which is actually what usually makes them so interesting and so, once we had found our way to the Tourist Information Office, where they would give us a street map and highlight the ‘Tourist Attractions’ and their locations, we could then navigate ourselves around with ease but, before that, breakfast was calling and a bit of a treat for us, as it has been very many months now since either of us have partaken of ‘Cafe con Tostado’s’ 😋😋

It was whilst we were enjoying our late breakfast that I came across my second error 🫣 Now normally, you would find the tourist office located within the town itself but, as I checked my phone map whilst munching on my toast and jam, I discovered that this was not the case in this particular town, no, the Tourist Office was actually located near the ‘free’ public car park back down at the bottom of the hill 😲 We were certainly not going to walk back down the hill, and then walk all the way back up again, ‘sod that for a game of soldiers !’ We would do without the tourist map and make do with Google Maps on our phone, although, as we were to discover, Google Maps and very narrow cobbled streets with buildings towering above us, made it difficult to obtain a signal, well actually nigh on possible if the truth were to be known so, this was rapidly becoming one of those not so good adventure days 🙄

As we departed the Cafe/Bar, on this occasion having not been subject to a daylight mugging when paying the bill, we saw a sign for the ‘Castillo’ (Castle), perfect as this was probably the main attraction and the one I was most looking forward to seeing and wandering around. There were several access points to the castle walls, but they were gated and all padlocked shut 🤷‍♂️ We kept following signs up and down cobbled streets, and I do mean ‘up’ and ‘down’ but after ten minutes or so we came to the Castle tourist entry gate, where another couple were already stood outside the closed and heavy looking wooden door, as we approached they outstretched their arms and then said, “The sign says that it is closed on Friday’s”, I couldn’t believe it, “What !! surely a major town tourist attraction would not be closed on a Friday of all days” I said out aloud, in total disbelief and a whole load of disappointment, The other couple agreed, they too shrugged their shoulders in disappointment before walking off.

We didn’t really have much of a clue what we were going to do from there, so we agreed to just do our normal mini-adventure explorer thing, which was to wander aimlessly up and down the maze of narrow cobbled streets in the hope that eventually we may find something else to stop and look at. We eventually ended up outside the main ‘Divino Salvador’ church, Shazza likes churches, but we arrived just as they were unloading a coffin from a hearse and the associated family group were filing inside for the funeral service, I looked at Shazza, she looked back at me, “Probably not the best time to go in and have a wander around taking photo’s” she suggested, “Let’s go and find the “Plaza España and grab an Anti-COVID Vaccine instead”, I said. “Great idea, do you know how to get there ?” She replied, with a bemused smile on her face. I shrugged my shoulders and we both burst out laughing, no words needed speaking, we were both thinking the same thing by this point, ‘We should probably have just stayed at home’.

We continued to just wander the streets like a pair of ‘waifs and strays’, trying to look interested at the ‘Moorish’ architecture, the stone arches and the old town walls, including the ‘Jewish Quarter’, the truth was that we were both rapidly becoming quite bored and just trying hard to find an excuse not to rush back to the car. We did come across an old stone building with an open door, the sign outside indicated that it was a museum, “Shall we take a look” Shazza said, “Got nowhere else to be right now” I said, probably a little sarcastically. The woman at the entrance desk was very pleasant and welcoming, €2.50 each she said and then told us that it was ‘free’ if we were pensioners, Shazza quickly pointed out that I was 🤭 but that she would have to pay, the lady never asked for proof of my decrepit status and I whispered to Shazza that she could have got in for ‘free’ herself had she not been so bloody honest. It took us all of ten-minutes to walk around, and that was walking slowly, it was just a lot of old manual agricultural equipment, some clothing from yester-year and some vintage storage containers, there are museums similar to this in almost every old town, displaying much the same items, although some museums are larger and more interesting, but this was certainly not one of them. As we exited I turned to Shazza and suggested, “For an additional €2.50 we could have both been sipping on a nice ‘Copa de Vino Tinto’ 🍷 which would certainly have been a much better investment of our money, much more interesting and better use of our time, so overall a much more pleasurable experience”, strangely enough she didn’t disagree or tell me to stop moaning and said, “Come on then, I’m about done here too”.

Now I may be sounding a bit disparaging of the place, but other’s will come here and will time it right, on day’s when the majority of the attractions are actually open, or in the height of the Summer where there would certainly be a different ambience about the place, but on this particular day at this particular time of the season, it just lacks any sort of wow factor, even though it was sunny and warm. Not all whitewashed hilltop villages are going to be the same, some are extremely beautiful and have a nice natural ambience about them, and some are just normal everyday towns where people go about their usual day to day business, where tourism is a side attraction rather than the main event. Shazza and I have now visited so many so, perhaps our expectations are becoming a little more demanding now 🤷‍♂️ To be fair, it wasn’t as if this town wasn’t scenic and, perhaps had we have visited on another day, when the things we like to see and do, were open, then we may have come away with a completely different opinion so, to give you a flavour of the place, below are a selection of photographs so that you can decide for yourselves whether to put it on your visit ‘To Do’ list because, as I have said in these rambles, many times, ‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison’.

We eventually stumbled upon the ‘Plaza Espana’, in most places this would be the central hub, where all the Cafe/Bars and Restaurants would have their pavement tables and seating areas spread out. Some Plaza’s are large and they can be square or circular, this one was pretty small, and circular, in fact it was a roundabout and, although their were a fair few Cafe/Bars and eateries, today many of them were not open, so Friday does not seem to be a good day to visit, well not during the Winter period at least 🤷‍♂️ If you enjoy browsing through lots of ‘Tourist Tat’ shops and paying ‘Tourist Tat’ prices, then you will not be disappointed as there were quite a lot open to keep you occupied, yes even on a Friday 😉

We had intended to stay here and have a nice lunch, the Spanish tend to eat between 2-4pm, and as we had partaken of a late breakfast that would have fitted in quite well with our stomach clocks, perhaps we would also have seen a lot more life and had some people watching opportunities if we had waited a little longer, but to be honest, we had done as much as we could, or wanted, to do here, we were bored and we were ready to leave. We decided to head back towards home and, if we saw a nice village, or even a roadside establishment, that looked a decent place to eat, and by decent I mean a place that had a bit of ambience about it, but if not, we would eat somewhere nearer to home 🤷‍♂️

Probably the most enjoyable part of the day trip was the drive back through the Natural Park, the roads were pretty decent, twisting and turning, ascents and descents, but very little traffic, unlike the coastal route. There was lush greenery everywhere, fields, forests, mountain vistas, blue sky and sunshine, horses, sheep, cows and goats, several pairs of Storks stood high up on their nests, we even saw a Griffin Vulture at very close quarters, flying low across a field, on the hunt for an unaware rabbit or other small animal basking in the sun, or a chicken that had strayed too far from the farm buildings, they have even been known to take small new born lambs. We both agreed that we would have been better off packing a picnic and then pulling over and stopping to eat in this beautiful countryside, in the fresh warm air, if only we still had the ‘Little Fokker’ eh 😉

In the end we didn’t stop for lunch, we continued to drive and decided that we would have lunch at our local Indian Restaurant just a couple of minutes drive from home. As we got back across to our side of the coast and from what the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast, we expected to arrive back into gloomy grey leaden overcast and clouded sky, but to our surprise we were met with blue sky and sunshine and very warm 18 degree(c) temperatures, so we enjoyed our lunch and eventually got back to our sanctuary by late afternoon.

As I reflected on our latest day trip outside of the confines of our more usual local area, although for us it probably was not the most enjoyable day out that we have ever had but, looking on the more positive aspects, we had done a lot of varied walking, not on mainly flat terrain like our usual daily walks, so a good muscular and cardiovascular workout, which I am sure we will appreciate, once our calf muscles relax again 🤭 It had also been one of those towns to visit on our ‘To Do’ list, so at least we can now cross another one off the list, the car had been given a good run out, rather than just its usual short hops and finally, once again it makes us appreciate everything that we already have in our own immediate local area, although, that does also make us question, and not for the first time, why should we ever feel the need to go anywhere else 🤷‍♂️ Although I am certain that we still will, for sometimes ‘A change is as good as a rest’ 😉

Until my next ramble………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena