Andalucid

Parallel Planet 1 - Almeria to Jaén (with a bit of Granada)

We're in Úbeda, city of stone lions with cruel faces and puppy paws.  We're at an evening concert in an  austere courtyard bordered by orange trees.  Concerto Iris is playing Olivier Messaien's Quartet For The End of Time.  The weather has changed from hot sunshine a few hours ago, to dark clouds driven by a spiteful wind. The slender orange trees writhe like doomed heroines.  More than once, the cellist has to put down his instrument and run for his music, and the pianist's page-turner has flung herself bodily across the top of the piano to hold the fluttering manuscript in place. Every few minutes a group of pinched-looking people get up and leave. At the end, the beautiful Russian violinist rests her head on the cellist's shoulder and cries.

Another night. Jaén city. We're perched at the bar in Taberna El Gorrión in Jaén city. We´ve just ordered our fourth glass of vino araña, drawn from the burnished barrels behind the bar.  Under our noses, a little tower of white chalk hieroglyphs is rising on the blackened wood bar top that runs almost the width of the big crowded room.  Behind the bar in a glass case is a 90-year old ham, affectionately nicknamed Tutanjamón. 

We've got in with a fast crowd: a college reunion of 40-something women with clever, mobile faces and an impish man in his sixties with a snow-white Dali moustache and beard.  Talk and laughter rise to a crescendo as sweet wine and topaz-yellow manchego cheese, the bar's signature tapa, are passed over our heads. (The cheese has been specially made for the taberna since 1906).  It's a memorable night at the start of a long journey.

Regular Andalucid readers will have grasped that what Fred and I love to do most is to travel, see new stuff, eat and drink.  So when Lonely Planet suddenly asked if we could cover Andalucia for their new Spain guide (Spain 7, out March 2009), we kind of thought we would.

But in case anyone feels stirrings of envy, there is an upside and a downside to this miracle.

Downside: seven hotels in ten days. Four tanks of ruinous petrol for the old Jeep, dozens of indifferent yet not inexpensive meals.  And the pressure of a tight deadline, and the anticipation of covering simmering Cordoba and Sevilla in July, when the sane and solvent residents are leaving in droves for their country cortijos.

But then I remember sitting in my refrigerated office-tomb near Washington DC, staring out of the barred window at the barred window opposite, dreaming of maybe getting a life, never dreaming how much life I'd actually get, here in Andalucia.

So look out for us this summer, tired but happy, in Huelva, Sevilla, Malaga, Gibraltar, Cordoba and Granada. We'll probably be heading for the nearest bodega, with expressions of stern duty and a battered copy of Lonely Planet Spain. 

 

Asilah II - A Grand Taxi Ride

Half an hour of walking on this sunny afternoon has taken us right through the concentric rings of wealth distribution in Asilah.  From the hundred heavenly blues of its chic Medina, out through the tourist and commercial town with its pavement cafés and leather shops, to this half-built, half-demolished street on the outskirts. 

Here the shop floor is just that, DVDs and household items laid out on sheets in the dust.  Across the road, drooping vegetables and herbs are piled high on flimsy trestles.  Set back in a dirt courtyard, a display of bathroom taps branches from a set of red wooden stools.  Not much window-shopping as we wait for our taxi to arrive.

Whose idea was it to visit the villages outside Asilah?  Nigel and Zoe's, I guess; they are the property-hunting friends who have kindly brought us with them to this Atlantic coastal town just south of Tangiers.  But a clever person uses your ideas to promote theirs, and Tessa's idea is that Zoe has no more business buying here than Dot from East Enders.  Showing Zoe a 'real' village may help her see this too. But like the canny estate agent she is, Tessa keeps a serene smile between her idea and the clients´.  And even the arrival of the taxi doesn't wipe it off.

The 'country taxi' is the zombie cousin of Morocco's typical 'grand taxis', usually a wallowy old Merc or Peugeot that swallows up to six passengers at a time. Country taxis are the older ones willing to bump along the unmade village tracks, having I suppose very little left to lose. 

Suspending disbelief, we all clamber in.  Nigel is in front with Choaki, Tessa's Moroccan business partner.  Silent, one eye slightly askew, Choaki is a reincarnated tomb guardian in a woolly cap, straight out of central casting.

The car lurches away from the kerb, but Fred still has most of his body and his camera outside.  A shouted chorus of 'stop!' allows us just enough time to gather him in.  A moment later, we stop again for petrol, which the driver cannot buy until we have paid him the agreed €24.  We're not sure if we have bought the car or the ride.  Zoe muses on the strong possibility of a breakdown (the car's I think).  "Control yourself," Tessa tells her, "you're hysterical."  Sinking down in the seat between them, I bark my shin on the exposed plastic molding of the passenger seat.

As we turn off the asphalt road and head for the village, the car comes to a sighing halt. Sweat trickles down the driver's face, more eloquent than tears.  We all clamber out and start walking.  The ochre dirt track is knotted like a labourer's arm.  Chickens start in all directions as we approach. 

Several houses are set in bare earth yards, some painted, others mud raised out of mud, with corrugated metal roofs slipping over them like skewed tablecloths.  One yard is home to a family of goats and kids the size of springer spaniels.  From the pistachio-green-and-cream minaret, with its megaphones where church bells would be, you can surely see the sea.

Back to the taxi, now pointing downhill along the track.  The driver disappears under the car to remove the rock which is holding it in place.  I notice that Choaki is holding the brake pedal down until the driver can get in and take over.  When he does, we move off and start coasting down the track, too fast.  Can you get him to go slower - Choaki, Chalky, Chucky?  It doesn't matter what we think he's called, he answers to nothing. Zoe's tired voice breaks the silence:  "Nigel, take control."  Slow down, shouts Nigel, slapping the dash for emphasis.  The engine starts.

At the junction with the main road, Zoe says she wants to go back to Asilah.  The driver turns and heads in the opposite direction.  Zoe insists.  We all insist.  Tessa says a few words in Arabic.  The driver stops in the middle of the road and starts a long snaking reverse towards a deepish ditch.  A thick shiny line of oil marks our path - a rock must have holed the sump.

It's the last straw. We all get out.  Nigel walks up to the driver and demands his money back, his voice as tight as a fist. We start walking back to town, five kilometres distant.  Moments later, the driver passes us in the taxi, waving.  Moments after that, we pass the driver, who has now abandoned the taxi and is also walking back to town.  After half an hour, Nigel flags down a small 4x4. All four of us get in, literally on top of each other, and are driven back to the centre of Asilah.  The driver won't accept a single dirham, hand on heart, he was delighted to help.

We drop into wicker seats at the corner bar and order cold beers.  The story gets funnier with each retelling.  I keep seeing the driver, his dream of a day's pay trickling away, beads of sweat running into the frayed collar of his blue shirt.  He never looked at us once.

For more images of Asilah, click on Fred's Flickr site.  And if you want to see any of the photos here in more detail, click on the image to enlarge it.  There's another post about Asilah after this one - with some of the more charming things we discovered. 

Asilah I - Into the Blue

Last week we went with friends to Asilah, about 40 minutes south of Tangiers, on Morocco's Atlantic coast.  Here are a few images of the nice bits.  For more, just click on Fred's well-stocked Flickr site.  And to enlarge any of these shots, just click on the image.

Once part of the Portuguese empire, Asilah languished as a small fishing port until 1978, when two local people started an annual International Arts Festival that now attracts thousands of participants and visitors from all over the Muslim world. 

Adventurous homebuyers from Britain, France and Spain are also being drawn (or is it painted?) to Asilah's chic medina.

Turquoise, forget-me-not, bluebell, sky.  Sapphire, cerulean, lapis lazuli...and a hundred others.  Asilah's Medina homes revel in more blues than there are names for.

The hypnotic colours beckon you around each corner, down narrow alleyways and into tiny squares.

Through the Bab El Kasaba, one of the town's main gates, is the Centre Hassan II des Rencontres Internationales, the venue at the heart of the  Arts Festival held each August.  Last week, roses in every shade and scent of pink were blooming in this courtyard.

Enterprises a thousand centuries apart might well be neighbours in the Medina. This communal bread oven is not far from the shop of a young Moroccan designer, whose swirling cotton and linen skirts, tops and trousers are caught up with elaborate fastenings surely invented by a clever spider.

This traditional large corner house in the Medina felt like a semi-detached Sultan's palace, with several rooms set around its tiled inner courtyard.  The charming young woman who owns this enchanted place wants to sell it so that she can leave Asilah and marry her beloved...

Asilah is well worth visiting, a relatively short journey for a long weekend in a very different culture.  And you can read about one of our cultural excursions in the next post!

A Tale of Two Markets

We've been living in Spain for four and a half years, and I last visited Madrid eight years ago.  Somehow it's always been too hot, or too cold to go; we are too busy or too broke.  But recently time and temperatures, money and motive all happily coinciding, we decided to spend a weekend there. 

Motivation came from Fred having a few of his photos included in a showcase collection sponsored by the Junta de Andalucia. Cipriana Soto Toro, who sells Fred's photography at Galeria Toro in Granada, asked if we wanted to meet up with her there. It seemed like fun-with-a-purpose, so we said yes.

Meanwhile, friends David and Shujata Dry of Los Piedaos had just returned from Madrid.  They raved about the comfort, convenience and economy of leaving the car behind and taking the coach.  We checked out the Alsa site and were sold.  It was easy to book online and get e-tickets straight away.  And €28 for each return ticket was less than the price of one petrol fill-up.  The whole trip, from parking our car right outside the Granada bus terminal, to being dropped outside our hotel in very central Calle Arenal, took about six hours.  Six hours with loads of legroom.  Six hours to read, talk, look at the views.  And instead of arriving exhausted after an extended battle with Spanish motorways and non-existent parking, we were ready to go out and explore.

Saturday morning, we took the clean and efficient Metro to the Arco fair.  The queues were longer than at Disneyworld, but the fascinating mix of punters more entertaining than Mickey.  Ahead of us in the queue, a well-dressed couple handed their nice-looking teenage son his wallet.  On it in big yellow letters, the words 'Fuck You'.  (English logos and legends on Spanish outerwear is a whole other blog I must do soon).  Once in, there was plenty to gawp at as well as walk past.  We were particularly struck with 'Big Ping-Pong' by Li Song Song, sculpted in stainless steel. It certainly raised some important questions, chiefly, 'why'?' After six hours feeding our eyes and on our feet, we literally could not stand any more, and beat it back to our hotel.

Next morning, we set off for the famous Madrid Rastro, or street market.  I was anticipating a delightful stroll through long avenues of antiquey charm, keepsakes, old photos, vintage clothes.  What we got was the usual sad selection available in any Spanish town: belly dancing ensembles in dayglo colours trimmed with dull coins; a row of deerstalker hats on blind-faced dummies, lined up like traitors on Tower Bridge;  acrylic blankets printed with bikini-clad blondes beckoning you to Tahitian seascapes, all done in sludge browns and mustards. 

There was art for sale here too.  Lionesses stalking their prey, leopards draped across tree limbs against impossible sunsets, soft-focus Gardens of Eden set in a parallel world.  All viewed by a constant stream of people, shabby, tired, unshaven and unwashed in the cold grey light.  The most fun we had was playing 'Spot the Pickpocket'.

The best surprise of the day was Cerveceria Alemana, in Plaza Santa Ana  (Metro Sol/Sevilla).  With its wood panelling, plain furniture and worn floors, it can't have changed much since Hemingway was ordering his tapas there.  We got a seat right at the back, the better to see the whole noisy, happy, full house in action.  Even the light coming through the windows was sepia, tea-dipped. Afterwards, you only have to weave across the square to equally antique Cafe Suiza for coffee and cake.

  After we got back to Granada, we agreed that we hadn't seen anything like enough of Madrid.  We'll go back, to stroll through the Retiro Park and visit galleries. And when we do, we'll take the bus.

No-bar Blues

Have you ever been walking, walking down that old lonesome road?
Have you ever been walking, walking down that old lonesome road?
No place to go...no place to room and board...*

Well, we woke up this morning...looking forward to hearing blues legend John Mayall playing live at the Centro Cultural Medina Elvira in Atarfe, near Granada.  Fred had bought the tickets on an understandable wave of euphoria when I returned after two weeks in London.   

We were both up for an evening off; I'd done as much work and study as my heat-fudged brain would permit, while Fred had written his allotted number of script pages.  So we figured, little paseo around Atarfe...a fine fino or two...some tapas...then head down to the venue in an appropriately laid-back and moody fashion. 

We left home around 5.30 pm in the fiery afternoon.  Headed past Granada centro for Atarfe, and drove through it a couple of times to be sure we hadn't somehow missed a picturesque ciudad antiguo or old town. We hadn't.  Parking the car opposite the handsome Centro Cultural, we headed down the shadeless street in search of victuals and fluids.

Heat beat up in waves from the shimmering pavements and glaring walls, and crept into every fold of our crumpled clothes.  I considered swooning. As we crept along, we saw the bleached skulls of other unfortunate pleasure-seekers strewn on the ground, reaching pathetically for refreshment...(sorry, haven't had much sleep lately, it's the heat you know).

Summoning up the last of my strength, I asked a passerby (who turned out to be the town nutter) where we might get a crust of bread and some brackish water.  He kept muttering, shrugging his shoulders and beckoning us to follow him...straight to a McDoner Kebab takeaway, where he melted away.    We stumbled in, but they weren't starting to do food for hours yet. It was the same wherever we went.  Tacky bars with the obligatory flat-screen TV, sound system and games machines, nary a strip of jamon in sight.

After continuing our sweaty pilgrimage a while longer, we staggered into another sad drink-sink, where we sat watching the flies dancing in the dust-motes, Fred only too grateful for his flaccid ham sandwich with the Incredible Unmelting Cheese Slice while I pushed a tired tortilla around my plate.

Never mind, we thought, we're suffering for our music, man.  Out again into the burnin' heat, we crawled back to the beaten-copper temple of culture where our hero waited.  Except he didn't.  "His plane has been delayed.  He won't be appearing until after 11.00 pm," said the elegant receptionist with a shrug.  "You will simply have to walk the streets and drink bad wine in sad bars until then." (She didn't say that but it would have been her next sentence). The logo on a fellow-sufferer's black teeshirt said it all:  "Where's the party?"

I don't know whose resolve failed first, but we were out the door and hugging the air-conditioning vents in the Jeep within moments, leaving Atarfe in a well-deserved cloud of dust. Fred has the last word:  "Atarfe sounds like a sneeze.  And like a sneeze, it's irritating, but soon over."

Sorry John.  Maybe next time you could touch down in El Centro!

*Lyrics taken from the French Vogue CD "Muddy Waters on Chess Vol. 2: 1951-1959". With acknowledgments to GeoCities.com/Bourbon Street 

A Weekend in Portugal

As temperatures climb steadily into the high 30ºs, one's thoughts naturally turn to long car journeys in blinding sunlight.  So when good friends Bob & Pauline threw a big party to celebrate their "100th" (he just turned 60 and they just celebrated their Ruby Wedding), imagine how we cheered as we cranked up the air-conditioning and set off on the day-long drive to their home outside Sao Bras de Alportel, near Faro. We'd arranged to meet my sister and her partner there for a relaxing weekend.

(For those who care, you take the A329 west from Granada.  Pick up the A92 between Loja and Archidona, then head for Osuna and Arahal.  Skirting Seville, pick up the E1/A49 and head to Bollullos, then on to Huelva and cross the border at Ayamonte).

We stopped for lunch at memorably-named Bollullos.  When we passed this way three years ago, we were surprised to find that the main street of the town was full of huge - what to call them? - eating barns or food halls, serving a huge range of delicious, affordable seafood and meat dishes in cheerful Spanish uproar. 

After skipping towns you either can't park in or don't want to, Bollullos is like a food oasis and these places are packed out at weekends.  Why?  Two local ladies told me: "Bollullos is an easy drive from Sevilla, and close enough to the coast to offer excellent fresh fish and seafood."  During the week, you can choose whichever high-roofed hall looks most appealing.  But make sure you sit in the big 'public bar' part of whichever place you choose.  We chose the rather starchy restaurant in one place, full of side partings on mobile phones, for a rather depressing parody of fine dining.  And it cost more.

Just before Ayamonte and the border, we detoured a little to check out Isla Cristina, which is rather like a giant Butlins camp.  We felt uncomfortably overdressed among the golden torsos, so made our way to Sao Bras and our basic but OK hotel in the centre.  As the sun set, I had to be prised off the air conditioning unit to go and explore the town.

A delightful feature of Portuguese towns is the café/bar/pastry shop on almost every corner.  The sweet and savoury pastries do taste as good as they look, and boy they look great.  The cafés are also pretty quiet during the day, quiet enough for me to spend three hours writing in my favourite cafe, ("La Villa") one morning.  Just me, coffee refills and the honey-walnut muffins - bliss!

Bob and Pauline's party was a blast, we met some fascinating people, and danced off pounds of pastry to a wonderful Brazilian band.  Over the weekend, we visited Faro (walk around the old town and lunch around the marina), and on a Sunday morning, the harbour front at Olhau is a great place for a drink and a gawp.  Best of all, I thought, was Tavira, a charming coastal town about 40 minutes from Sao Bras.

Avid readers must make the pilgrimage to a bookshop as delightful as it is unexpected.  A Lura Dos Livros was slightly harder to find than Narnia, but much more fun once you got there.  Owner Liz Beaupied has spent years building up a fascinating range of new and secondhand titles, some you'd never expect to see: I seized a copy of St. Thomas More's, 'A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation', to read by the blaze of a fire in some imaginary mullioned library one day.  This is just a joyful place to stock up on good, unusual books.

Final top tip - on the way back, hungry and hopeless of finding good food on the road, we turned off on a whim to the little village of La Puebla de Cazalla just off J-63 on the A92, between Arahal and Osuna. We followed signs to the Venta del Vino (well it had those two words in the name anyway)! And had some of the best cold creamy salmorejo (thick tomato/vegetable soup) and calamares a la plancha we have ever tasted, all for the staggering sum of €11! 

I'm off to London tomorrow for a couple of weeks.  While I'm away, look out for my article and Fred's photos on the teahouses of Granada, published on the Lonely Planet home page on Tuesday 3 July. The teterias offer delightful shelter from the noise and glare of a Granada city summer - find out where the best ones are!

Four Go Alfresco at Puente Palo

After weeks of moody weather, last Sunday dawned breezy, the sky vibrant blue.  We weren't working, no invites to lunch had been given or received, our Jeep was back on the road.  There was only one response to this spooky serendipity: we had to go on a picnic.

We quickly sought inspiration from one of our favourite food writers.  In her classic collection "Summer Food", Elizabeth David* daringly suggests skipping the foie gras and lobster in aspic in favour of robust peasant food like olives, anchovies, salami/chorizo and cheese, the kind of thing you can find in such abundance at our very own deli in town, Arca de Noe. 

Because we are essentially lazy, our picnic was humble.  Fred roasted chicken pieces with garlic, herbs and chunks of lemon.  We bought coleslaw and pasta salad (sorry Elizabeth), and mini-bottles of Cune Rioja.  There was a tub of cherries, and there may well have been some crisps and chocolate. 

The cool box packed, it was time to load the perfect picnic props into the back of the car.  "Come on guys, we're going on an adventure!" I said in my best happy-voice to Lola, our needy ex-abandoned spaniel/sheep cross.  (She has a big square butt and stick legs).  As all Lola's previous car journeys have ended in cold metal brandished by men in white coats, she immediately flung herself to the ground in a fine show of civil disobedience.  She was lifted into the Jeep, whimpering softly.  And our 12-year old Bearded Collie, Macduff, also had to be hand-winched from tarmac to tailgate, like Henry VIII in his later years. With the dogs staring out of the rear window in hopeless resignation, we were off for our fun day.

We took the left turn just out of Lanjarón towards Caballo Blanco, the riding/trekking centre I blogged about earlier this year.  We stayed on the track, climbing high above Lanjarón and Orgiva, passing signs to Cañar, driving for over an hour towards the picnic park at Puente Palo.  Thanks to the recent rain, the hillsides are bursting with wildflowers; golden broom and poppies, fat stalks of lavender and wild thyme. 

We parked in the meadow next to the picnic site, a good distance from the only other car there.  The dogs did some obligatory racing through the grass before flopping in individual areas of car shade.  We used the bonnet of the car as a picnic table.  There was no sound except birdsong, breeze whispering through grass, the rustle of the crisp packet...

A little later we drove on and found a parking spot near a grove of pines.  Fred took a nap, while I crowded into the back with Duffs and Lola.  For half an hour we were all at peace, just listening to the birdsong and watching sunlight sifted through pine branches.

We hardly ever do this stuff, yet in the past we have spent much more to be much less happy. 

This leads me neatly to an Andalucid Appeal - for your ideas and stories.  Our friends Ben and Marina, who run the excellent language learning site Notes in Spanish, are compiling a book called 500 Things to Do in Spain (Before You Die).  Entries are coming in fast, but there's still a window of time and room for your life-enhancing Spanish experience.  If you have a minute, do click on the Comments link at the bottom of this post and share your ideas with us.  We'll pass them on to Ben and Marina and if selected, you'll get your name in print in this wide-circulation book.    

Meanwhile, we're already browsing through "Summer Cooking" for next week's ideas. Here we are: "A joint of cold roast beef, a joint of cold boiled beef, two ribs of lamb, one piece of collared calf's head...."

*Historical footnote:  One of my first writing jobs was to edit a book by Ms. David's nephew, architectural kitchen designer Johnny Grey.  We took him to Chez Gerard in Charlotte Street for steak frites.  At the end of the meal he lifted his dinner plate in both hands and licked it clean.

Montilla: The Other Sherry

How do you know summer has arrived?   
One day last week, Fred and I stopped for tapas outside lovely Art Nouveau Café Futbol in Granada. I downed some boquerones, raised my frosted glass of straw-gold fino and wiggled toenails painted hot pink (my toenails; Fred prefers a frosted or neutral shade).  Suddenly, it was official: the langorous Andalucian summer had arrived. Blue skies and barbecues, long fragrant evenings stretching into tomorrow, eating outdoors until the early hours...

Olives, cheese, jamon serrano, calamares, gazpacho - sherry and its lesser-known cousin Montilla are a perfect complement to the robust flavours of Andalucian tapas.  It's that modest Montilla I want to introduce to you today.

The Montilla-Moriles wine region is 16 kilometres south of Cordoba. As you drive through the Sierra de Montilla, a tapestry of vines reaches to the horizon, soaking up around 2,500 hours of sunshine a year, with temperatures often climbing to 45ºC.  Ultra sweet Pedro Ximenez grapes thrive here in the chalky, sandy soil and the heat ensures a naturally high sugar/alcohol content, so unlike sherry it doesn't need to be fortified.  As a result, say Montilla fans, you won't get a hangover (although I'm sure you could prove them wrong if you were really dedicated).

Both sherry and Montilla are aged using the criaderas y soleras system, in which older wines are carefully blended at various stages with younger wines, in a process unique to southern Spain.  However, sherry is made mainly from Palomino grapes.  Montilla is almost entirely the product of the Pedro Ximénez grape, with just ten percent coming from Moscatel, Baladí-Verdejo and Torrontés varieties. 

We visited the Alvear bodega in Montilla, one of the oldest in Spain, on a glass-bright day in the legendary cold winter of 2005, to see how soil, grape and sun are distilled into 'liquid Andalucia'.

Montilla's story begins each year with the grape harvest at the beginning of September.  Grapes destined to become light, white wines and finos are picked first; others are left a little longer to sweeten on the vine, then dried on straw mats in the sun for a week or so.  These raisins will eventually become the rich, dark dessert wines for which the Pedro Ximénez grape is justly famous.

After harvesting and drying, both types of grape travel to the lagares, or presses, yielding a fine grape juice or 'must' which is fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel vats. Fermentation continues in traditional tinajas, huge earthenware vats stored in cool dark rooms.

When fermentation is complete, some of the wine will be bottled without ageing and sold as vinos jovenes afrutados, young fruity wines that are mostly sold locally.  The following January, the remaining wine is classified for ageing as fino or oloroso, and begins its stately progress through the criadera y solera ageing system.  And while different Montillas might all grow up in the fragrant cathedral of the bodega, the resulting wines have distinctively different destinies.

Tomorrow, find out which wines will go on to greatness and why...

 

Cabo de Gata: Plastic and Pottery Route

Ever since Fred took his grandson to a rock concert in Las Negras three years ago, he's wanted to go back to what The Independent calls 'the Spanish Mediterranean's last truly wild shore.'  So last Friday found us heading west towards Almeria and Cabo de Gata on the N340/E15. Beyond Castell de Ferro, the landscape is increasingly under the spell of plastic invernaderos,the giant greenhouses where exotic fruit and flowers are grown year-round for export to northern Europe.  64,000 acres of shimmering polythene stretch beneath the Sierra de Gador to Almeria and beyond.  Other things that flourish under this fertile canopy: bounteous €-harvests (for a few); exploited Moroccan labourers and the shanty towns that house them, gambling, race riots...

The plastic subsides gradually as you enter the Parque Natural de Cabo de Gata/Nijar, and the surrounding hills go from green to scrubby to plain unshaven.  Once your eye and mind adjust to the emptiness, there's an austere beauty about the semi-desert drive, yet it's a relief to detour up the A100 to the small white town of Nijar.  The town is famous for its rag textiles and rugs, called jarapas (you'll also see them in our Alpujarran towns), and even more for its rustic glazed pottery, carrying on a Moorish tradition.

We bought dark blue dinner plates with daffodil yellow trim, and breakfast bowls, plates and mugs with charmingly clumsy dark blue motifs squiggled on off-white glaze.  Less than €100 for all of this.  Nevertheless, Fred herded me out before I could do any more damage, and we had lunch at La Glorieta, in the pretty plaza near the church. There's a nostalgic old-fashioned ambience in this old part of Nijar, and I vote it the best place to stop, shop and eat en route to the area's coastal resorts.

Of these, El Cabo de Gata is probably best known.  At this time of year, on a cool windy morning, Fred and I have the long beach all to ourselves to hunt for pebbles and shells.

At nearby Las Salinas, they been extracting salt since the Phoenicians pioneered the process.  The parish church stares out across the water like a weatherbeaten fisherman, marooned on an island of muddy grass. It is the most unadorned church I have ever seen in Spain. 

This whole area is one of Spain's most important wetlands for migrant birds, most striking of all the flamingoes who stop over from Africa in spring and summer.

At Los Escullos, we walk over volcanic rocks that look like petrified pancakes, some sections shaded a pale pistachio green, others soft lilac.  You can break sections of the lacy rock as easily as chalk.

Our eventual destination is not popular San José, but its cute little sister a little way up the coast, Agua Amarga.  And that's the subject of my next post.... 

 

Cabo de Gata II: Resorts

Say you are going to Cabo de Gata and most people will advise you to stay in San José.  But an article in The Independent last year inspired us to venture about an hour further along the coast, to tiny Agua Amarga. (Come off the A7-E15 to N341 at Venta del Pobre, then take the ALP712 into the village).

If Torremolinos is Blackpool, then Agua Amarga is Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast.   The village itself is predominantly holiday apartments and some handsome adobe villas behind glossy-leaved hedges, but all on a modest scale, the kind of place families come back to year after year.  There are two little shops, selling more varieties of flip-flop than I have ever seen, and Hawaiian-print surf and swim gear in sizes I never say 'Aloha' to any more.

Our hotel, the French-owned Hotel Family, is set back from the southern end of the small beach.  It's been run by the same family for three generations.  Set in well-kept grounds with lots of mature exotic trees, the hotel reflects this continuity in its slightly old-fashioned decor, the discreet welcome of hosts Michele and Rene, the rooms furnished with local craft textiles and pottery.  It's like staying with a kindly maiden aunt.

Alastair Sawday includes Hotel Family in his Guide of special places to stay in Spain.  Breakfast in the sunny dining room includes fresh fruit salad, fluffy omelettes and sweet sponge cake.  Dinner was a little overpriced at €21, but well-intentioned.  We would definitely go back when it's a little warmer! 

At the other end of the beach, La Playa's broad terrace was a great place to huddle over coffee supplied by friendly staff.  At dinner, the restaurant menu was full of surprises, including an unusual carpaccio: translucent green strips of marinated courgette on a bed of salad, pine nuts and raisins in balsamic and wine sauce.  

As for San José, it was probably our fault for being there this chilly April weekend, but it had all the charm of a British sunbather in January.  Lots of jolly pizzerias and seafood places were still shut, and the few shopkeepers selling vaguely ethnic sequinned loincloths or whatever had an end of August jaded look to them.  I'm sure it's much more fun frying there in high season and we must try it sometime. 

What's your favourite summer beach resort?  Share with a comment - I'd love to hear from you!