Andalucia continues to
surprise us, as we head off towards the coast near Cádiz via some of the ‘must
see,’ if clichéd, white towns of this part of Spain. We decided to see whether
we could make up our own white town route to minimise the cliché effect, but we
hadn’t even left the outskirts of Córdoba before we ran into one – almost
literally as we stopped at a set of lights to let a group of immaculately
turned out Andalus caballeros set the pace for the road out of town. The
combination of impressively groomed horses, classic Andalus attire and the
almost haughty one-handed riding style could have been straight out of a
tourist board brochure. And that seems to be the thing about this province –
lots of what might otherwise be just laid on for the tourists, does seem to be
lived by many of the locals – perhaps I need to recalibrate my cynicism filter!
The first stop on our
home-made itinerary was a hilltop town called Olvera, where we camped up at Camping Pueblo Blanco
for the night. Although the pitches may have been in need of a bit of
maintenance, they were huge, and afforded 360 degree views of the surrounding
countryside.
The predominantly arable
landscape (with a small amount of livestock) is dotted with ranges of big hills
– and is not at all like the parched and dusty scrubland, which is our abiding
memory of our times further south around Tarifa over 20 years ago. The large
estates of the small number of wealthy landowners here are well maintained and
lend an unexpected air of opulence to what is Spain’s poorest region (the
workers of course, may have a different view….).
The visit to Olvera yielded
some interesting insights. It’s on yet another via verde (cycle/hiking track)
that was once a train route for the transportation of goods and materials across the sierra. For keen
cyclists/hikers these routes offer some amazing sights through bits of the
countryside that would otherwise be pretty inaccessible. The town also has a
well maintained aire for campervans at €7 a night with electricity. It’s a very
steep walk back into the town from there, so we parked (a lot!) closer. 2016 was some sort of anniversary year
for Olvera and virtually every building had been painted in the customary
super-bright white – making it very hard not to take photos every few metres!
Even the one building we did find that was slightly dilapidated had a
picturesque backdrop of the old (originally) Moorish castle on top of the hill.
The town itself is crowned
by the castle and an imposing church, visible from miles around and linked to a
series of watchtowers across the hills.
The castle has been
renovated in the predominant style here – you can walk around it and see what it
used to look like in Christian re-conquest times, with quite a lot of modern building
‘in the style of’ the period. As I’m no historian or archaeologist, I love
this, as it takes no imagination at all to grasp what it would have been like
at the time. Plus, it lends itself nicely to some proper tourist pics!
One of the best views of the
church is from the top of the castle, where the immaculately presented frontage
(visible from the town square and most of the rest of the town) gives onto a
slightly tired but still impressively large building. Olvera may not be at the
top of the ‘official’ white town route, but it has a charm and authenticity
that make it a great place to stop and soak up the vibe – and at affordable
prices too – our ‘tinto verano’, orange juice and plate of olives cost all of
€2! But if you are taken by this little gem, don’t leave it too long – on our
way out of town we spotted an English estate agents…
By way of contrast, Arcos de
la Frontera, often described as ‘Ronda’s poorer relative’ was clearly more on
the tourist route. We parked in the massive coach and car park outside the town
(next to some canny French campervans that had spotted a working fresh water
tap!) and walked in. Although it was quiet compared to say Córdoba or Granada,
and the brolly-led coach parties were not in evidence; the bars, shops and
restaurants were geared to that level and almost every lane we walked along had
waiters trying to encourage us to stop.
Arcos is, none-the-less, a
very pretty and photogenic hill top white town albeit with a slightly grander
and more gothic feel to Olvera, and some views just had to be photographed.
However, we did choose not
to photograph the half dozen sad looking owls and raptors that were available
for a photo call at one of the miradors, where instead, Mrs B was snapped with
her anti-fainting brolly.
So, was Arcos worth it? It’s
a bigger town than Olvera and although poorer than Ronda, it’s on a much
grander scale than Olvera, as can be seen by the size of some the town houses.
It is of course horses for
courses though and I’m glad that we managed to squeeze two white towns into our
drive to the coast for what will be one of the highlights of the trip for me:
an homage to one of our favourite types of sherry – Manzanilla and Sanlúcar
near Cádiz!
S.
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