TUE 27-JUN
 |
| Cadiz is a Port City with Many Park Areas |
We spent just a
single night in Arcos and headed out Tuesday morning, backtracking a bit south
and further west to the coastal town of Cadiz. This large city is mostly
notable as a deep water port on Spain’s southwest coast (and thus is a handy
stopover point when the weather in the Gibraltar Straits is nasty), but we
wanted to check it out. So we wandered around
a bit – very pretty parks – had a coffee and juice in one of the sidewalk plaza
cafes, and headed back north for Sevilla (aka Seville), another two hours of
driving.
There are a couple of
notable sights one will notice when driving the winding mountain roads of
southern Spain. The first is the number
of large wind farms consisting of dozens of large – over 90 meters tall (300
feet) – power-generating wind turbines; there is always a breeze here and Spain
has been one of the leaders in their deployment and use, currently ranked fifth in the world. Also noticeable are the large,
expansive fields of yellow sunflowers; the government long ago began
encouraging their growth here to produce sunflower seed oil to compete with the
more expensive olive oils that were in an oversupply state throughout the
Mediterranean countries. Spaniards are
adaptive.
 |
| Not Your Don Quixote Windmills...These Turbines Produce Prodigious Amounts of Electricity |
The drive to Sevilla
reminded us how lucky we were to have GPS and Google Maps available to us –
we’re not at all certain we would have found any of the places for which we
were searching without those aids. And when in the townships, if you can’t
navigate the numerous roundabouts here, you will find yourself in an
accidentally perpetual holding pattern.
As for the art or science of finding a place to park – we have not
figured out that part yet. When we
arrived in “old” Sevilla and supposedly within a few hundred meters of our
hotel, where once again many streets were the perfect width for an
undernourished horse, we had to give up.
We found a garage about a klick away and walked with our luggage in tow
to the hotel.
 |
| Our Room at Las Casas de la Juderia |
But it was worth it. Our hotel was a tourist destination all on
its own. The Hotel Las Casas de la Judería de Sevilla is comprised of 27
traditional houses and it has 134 different rooms which are linked through 40
patios, gardens and a labyrinth of small passageways. It’s best to bring
something to make a breadcrumb trail if you go wandering, as Chelle accidentally
discovered. She wrote the following that
night in an email to her mum:
We were unable to successfully order a
cheese platter from room service so I ventured out while Rick continued to work
on boat contracts/negotiations. I found my way out (yay). Walked
across the street to tapas bar, bought a bottle of wine and 2 tapas to
go. Then walked back to our hotel restaurant for a glass of ice for
Rick’s scotch. Tried an exit and staircase back to our room but got
lost. Backtracked to the restaurant, found the office again and the way
to our elevator, found our floor then lost again. Oh yeah, back outdoors
(thru a tiny windowed door), across a rooftop terrace to our room – found
it! It’s an absolute maze. We rec’d a map of the hotel which is as
hard to decipher as a city map! The room is really cool (big & funky,
loft-like) but Rick’s bound to walk into a rafter or 2 before we leave.
 |
| Another Cafe & More Tapas |
That last statement turned
out to be painfully prophetic, but we still loved the room. That evening we enjoyed
a leisurely stroll through some of these historic streets of the old town
section, and helped out the local economy by consuming more tapas and drinks to
wrap up another fine day.
WED 28-JUN
Chelle had booked one of
Sevilla’s walking tours that come highly recommended in Rick Steves’ guides, so
after a light breakfast of coffee and croissants we headed out at 1000 to meet
our guide, Alphonso, in a nearby town square.
The square was coincidentally the site of a protest by sanitation
workers (which would turn out to be slightly foreshadowing), reminding us that left-leaning
unions are an integral part of Spain’s current culture with an approximate 20%
density (about twice that of the U.S.). While peaceful, the demonstration was
very noisy, so we had to re-start our tour a block or so away.
For the next two hours,
however, we were thoroughly entertained as well as educated. Alphonso’s English was quite good, as was his
sense of humor, irony and history. Once
again we were treated to architectural and cultural reflections of Sevilla’s
checkered history, from Carthaginians and the Roman Empire in the early period;
then the Visigoths and Christians eras; followed by the Moorish Muslim conquest and ultimately the retaking of Spain by
Christian King Ferdinand III circa mid 1200’s.
Alphonso also made it a point to show us how to find some of the more
interesting areas of the city on our own after the tour.
 |
| Somewhere Underneath There's More to the Arches & Columns |
At various points along our tour
Alphonso also pointed out some recurring themes and symbols; for instance the
oddly short look of the columns and arches….which
are indeed at least a meter shorter than they were originally before sediment
over the centuries built up and the resilient people of Sevilla began building
on top of them.
An then there is the fairly prominent
repetition of an anagram that reads “NO8DO” appearing on sewer lids, facades,
service vehicles, the city’s coat of arms, and a number of other inauspicious
places. Our guide slyly observed that
American author Dan Brown would have all sorts of fun with it, and that a
number of attributions and legends exist.
 |
| The NO8DO Anagram Appears Frequently in Sevilla |
But the most popular is that it’s
basically a pun, combining two Spanish syllables (NO and DO) and a drawing in
between of the figure "8"; the figure represents a skein of yarn, or
in Spanish, a madeja. When read
aloud, "No madeja do" sounds like "No me ha dejado", which
means "It has not abandoned me".
And that apparently is in reference to the retaking of Sevilla by
Ferdinand III from the Muslim (Moors) in 1248.
After our tour concluded we had yet
another leisurely lunch at yet another sidewalk café, accompanied by what
Alphonso recommended as the best “local” beer, Cruzcampo. (Which, by the way,
is actually Heineken’s premier brand in Spain.)
He also taught us that the locals drink it in small portions – not out
of any sense of restraint, but because they prefer their brews very cold….so
they end up eventually ordering several.
 |
| It's Easy to Find Several Centuries of Different Architectures in a Single Complex in Sevilla |
That led Rick right into a quality
siesta time back at the room. And of
course Chelle went walking and shopping.
THU 29-JUN
Our goal the following day
was to complete the drive and a visit to Ronda, another of the “White Hill
Towns” in the Andalusia region. Graced
with another late checkout time (Rick was really digging on the “Spanish time”
sensibilities) we meandered to the front desk to check out and, since we had
managed to park our rental vehicle quite a distance away, hire a taxi vs.
hauling our four bags across a chunk of the city. That led to this exchange:
Rick: Englais, par favor…we need a
taxi.
Front desk: Lo
siento, senor…no taxis today….on strike, just today…from 9 until 3 o’clock.
Rick: A labor strike….just here….only
today?
Front desk: Si
Rick: Pardone….you’re
just pushing my buttons…right?
 |
| Notice the Shade Coverings in Sevilla....It Gets Hot Here in the Summers |
Surprisingly all three of
the friendly hotel staff at the front desk seemed to comprehend that very American
idiomatic phrase as they all laughed and shrugged apologetically. We chuckled with them, grabbed our bags and
walked to the parking garage.
Driving the approach to Ronda was very
similar to what we had experienced getting up to Arcos….twisting and steadily
ascending two lane roads, terminating in another quaint mountain-top town
perched on some interesting cliffs. Our
selected hotel here was a bit different in that it was more of a modern Spanish
resort, plus it actually had its own parking lot with space available. But its views were nonetheless yet another
treat.
 |
| Another Hotel with Stunning Views in Ronda |
While Ronda doesn’t have all the
character of Arcos it still retains a lot of old world charm, with plenty of
shops, cafes, restaurants, churches, convents and basilicas. It seems to draw more tourist traffic than
does Arcos, and part of that might be due to the newer resorts that cater to
that, along with its famous and picturesque gorge.
The El Tajo Gorge is a gigantic gash in
the ground, about 120 meters deep (nearly 400 feet) and formed by eons of natural
erosion. The current bridge spanning
that river and gorge, connecting the “old” and “new” settlements of Ronda, was
started in 1759 and took 34 years to build. The one previous to that had fallen
down after only six years, so presumably they learned a lot in that process.
 |
| The El Tajo Gorge and the Bridge That Spans the "New" and "Old" Town Sections |
Ronda is also home to the oldest bull
ring stadium in Spain, the Plaza del Toros, built in the 18th
century (started in 1761 and completed in 1783) and still in use today. While
bullfighting has historical roots that date back to ancient Greece and Rome,
its popularity as a competitive blood sport really only goes back to the 1700’s
when Spanish Royalty popularized it via theatrically costumed displays that
drew both commoner and privileged attention as entertainment and aspirational
value.
It’s also easy to find social events
here in Ronda that feature the famous Flamenco dance. We didn’t have to look far or hard, as our
hotel had musicians and a dancer performing in their open air courtyard when we
returned from our touring for the day.
FRI 30-JUN
 |
| Some Flamenco Dancer Action at Our Ronda Hotel |
We slept in, enjoyed a
leisurely breakfast in the hotel restaurant (a quality buffet of local dishes),
then jumped back into the rental car for the drive back to Malaga. (Dropping
the car in Malaga was not our preference in the beginning, but leaving it in a
different location was amazingly pricey; and dropping in Lisbon, our original
preference, would have been well over a thousand Euros. Rick tried to explain that we did not want to
buy the damned thing, we just wanted to borrow it for a few days…but to no
avail.)
While only 102 km away, it
took nearly two hours for the drive to Malaga as the roads were largely two
lane and winding through the picturesque foothills. Passing slower autos on
some of the blind switch-backs seemed to be a daredevil sport to those Spaniards
with the higher end vehicles. We dropped the rental car back at the airport,
grabbed a taxi there for the short ride to our hotel, the Barcelo Malaga. It was a comfortable modern place and
immediately adjacent to the Zambrano rail station, where we planned to catch a
train to Madrid the following afternoon.
 |
| Malaga Doesn't Have the Charm But it Has the Shopping |
Malaga isn’t normally a
recommended stop in southern Spain except as a transportation hub, as that’s
about the only consistent thing going for it.
But if you need to catch a flight or train to just about anywhere else
in western Europe, it will serve that purpose well enough. Chelle was certain,
however, that Malaga had more to offer, so off she went hunting the big city
streets for something more redeeming than a few overcrowded beaches, and some planes
and trains….while Rick enjoyed another siesta before tending to more
administrative business that still beckoned from back home.
 |
| Whole Grouper Prepared at the Table....It Was Quite Good |
Ultimately she did find a
city center area that was clean, inviting and quite vibrant – large crowds of
locals and tourists meandering walkways both wide and narrow – the wide ones
mostly had modern retail storefronts, the narrow ones were lined with the
(equally new and modern) tapas cafes and restaurants. It was a better place to spend the evening
than the hotel. While lacking the old
time charm that we so enjoyed in Sevilla, Arcos and Ronda, the service was
still excellent and so was the food. We
split a bottle of wine and a whole grouper (e.g., it still had the head and
tail); but our waiter was meticulous about preparing it at our table for easy
consumption. And in true Spanish style
we didn’t complete our meal until around 2230 (10.30pm).
