The 6 mile drive up the steeply winding, sometimes breaking
away at the edges, road was well worth it. As we arrived we were greeted by our
guides, a Labrador and a scruffy Heinz 57. Exiting the
van, they led us up the path to the castle and continued to show us the proper
tourist route, having obviously done it with hundreds of previous visitors.
They stayed with us throughout the whole trip, up to the castle and around all
the narrow streets of the town, and only left us when we got back safely to the
van. After we departed the car park and slowly drove back down to the main road,
what should we meet coming up, but a coach led by its walking guide! The road
was barely wide enough for 2 cars to pass, never mind a coach and a campervan,
but we managed.
We travelled southeast, picked up the notorious A7 (no
resemblance at all to its namesake at home, the Carlisle to Edinburgh road) and
enjoyed the sea views along Costa del Sol, before making a left turn and
heading 6 miles inland to a place we visited in January last year, when it was
raining and shrouded in low cloud. Casares is your typical hilltop Spanish town
and features in most ‘Top 10 of Spain’ guides. I walked into the tourist
office, which is also the free aire, and the lady behind the desk did usual usual
tourist greeting. I didn’t come out with any of that “Hola, no hablo Espanyol”
stuff but said “You speak very good English don’t you”. She said “Have you been
here before”? I said “Yes, last year, you were playing David Bowie on the
radio”. I won’t bore you with the rest of the conversation, but we got free
wifi, hence the blog update, and she was very helpful as always. We had a great
walk around the town, very very steep, and the highlight being the
number of vultures above us. How enjoyable it has been in the sun with
beautiful views down to the coast, Gibraltar and also
inland.
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| I wasn't happy with Juan standing on the wall with a 40' drop but he's obviously done it many times before! |
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