Spanish Trip - Wednesday

Wednesday October 31st 2007

Cortijo el Castano, Nr Orgiva, Andalucia, Spain

Our big day out and one that we were approaching with some trepidation. After we have done the first three weeks in our Moorish Farmhouse next spring, we then do a further three weeks at the Hacienda across the other side of Andalucia. On the middle Saturday we have to move from the one property to the next, leaving after everyone else has left the first and arriving hopefully before anyone at the second. We figured the drive couldn't be more that four hours, but that we should test it. We would also try and draw a plan of the second property and take lots more photos. And hopefully we would also have time to see a little of the immediate area.

So we set off around 10:00 travelling up towards Granada on the dual carriageway and then east on a road that ultimately leads towards Cadiz on the western coast of Spain. Our main surprise on the journey was the beautiful landscape that we were in throughout. For most of the journey we passed through vast fields of olives with large mountains on all sides. This is nothing like the Spain that people are used to and could be a very interesting aspect of the holiday for people coming to stay with us.

The journey ended up taking just over three hours and was 265 km. But it was actually a really nice drive and I don't think we'll be bothered too much by it next year. When we got to the right general area we decided to try and find the property straight away although we weren't due to meet Angel, the owner, for several more hours at 5:00. When we got to it we were rather surprised to meet a number of local Spanish people who appeared to be living in an attached farm bulding and were working round the back of the property. They spoke no English and phoned Angel to discuss the strange English people that had turned up. Angel does speak some English and despite the phone line being really bad I was able to agree with him that we could see the property straightaway as the poeple there had keys. That suited us much better than seeing him later on.

The property is very different from our Moorish farmhouse and is a genuine hacienda basically all on its own on a hillside. It is arrange around three sides of a central courtyard and has a number of terraces around it, together with a pool and sun terrace that has views out across the open countryside for miles and miles

So where we can have some help from Nigel and Zoe at the first property, for this one we are very much on our own. The property was also closed up for the winter and so we weren't seeing it at its best. But nonetheless, it was very possible to get a reasonable idea of how we might organise things. However, though we had about 30 minutes to go round, it turned out that we missed lots of stuff we should have looked at - mainly on how the main kitchen is organised. But nothing that would be likely to cause us a major problem for next year.

And we did get some pretty good extra photos, some of which are shown below with others on the gallery pages of the Well Being Website.

The main entrance to the Hacienda

The main lounge / dining room of the south wing

Linda making her way from the main lounge of the south wing to the second, smaller lounge in that wing.


One of the bedrooms in the north wing

The inner courtyard looking towards the entrance to the south wing

One of the main undercover terraces - this one is attached to the south wing


The view from the pool terrace towards the "white village" of Villamartin in the distance - the pool hadn't been used for several weeks before our visit and will not be this colour when we next stay!

View back to the hacienda - mid picture half way up the hill - from the road below

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So the property has some really big rooms, plenty of space to sit outside, eight large bedrooms (only two of which share a bathroom) and some great views from the pool across miles of open countryside.

But much of the attraction of this property relates to its location on the edge of the Grazelema National Park and we now had time to explore this over the course of the afternoon. First stop was Villamartin for food and drink in the main square of the old part of town. We were remindered of a little version of San Francisco with all the roads going up and down steep hills. We found a tourist information office where we could collect our usually armfuls of leaflets for local sites and the girl inside was also able to give us a large map of the village and tell us where the nearest large supermarket was. So more extensive research on the contents of local supermarkets and the produce we can buy nearby.

One of the streets on Villamartin that reminder us of a tiny version of San Francisco

Then we set off into the National Park itself for a drive to Grazelema via several other Pueblos Blancos. Again this region is so unlike what you would normally expect of Spain with lush forests despite it being very late summer here. And all the villages we passed through were exceptionally beautiful.

We had time to stop in Grazelema itself for a walk round, collecting more guidebooks and leaflets on the way and examining several more cake shops. Then it was back towards the route home. This took us from Grazelema to the village of Zahara de la Sierra on a winding road that continually revealed some fantastic views. We also saw some of the local eagles circling round one of the major cliff faces we passed. Yes, this could certainly be an interesting area to explore further.

A typical bar in the centre of Grazelema

We were on the way back about 6:00 - our first experience of a really long drive in a European country at night. Our rental car has a daily display of info such as how long you have been driving that day, how far you've gone and what your average speed was, etc. By the time we got back to the villa we had been in the car for nearly 9 hours today and had travelled 625 km, with less than 3 hours outside the car in all that time.

As we walked towards the villa I saw a shooting star, the second I have seen in the past three weeks (after over ten years without seeing one). I take this to be another good omen, especially after what had been a pretty tough day (though very useful)