The Road from Santiago

  Today we will follow the road less travelled. It is less travelled as a zippy motorway is its constant companion.  It goes up and down, and round and round a bit before going up and down again.  It has trees and scrub and occasional work men.  It does not leave us much to but think about Andalusia. Spain sort exists, for many Brits, as Andalucía, and then, only the soggy fringe.  It is the second largest community in Spain, after the austere northern-central block of Castile Y Leon, being over 87,000 very squared kilometres, has more people living in it [8.6 million] although, to be fair, that is a product of its seize, and has the third largest GDP.   Andalusia makes up 17.3% of Spain.  It shares, with Catalonia, the joy of bordering two other counties, in this case Gibraltar and Portugal.  While the previously noted Cabo de Gata gets a mere 150mm of rain a yea r, just inland of Cadiz, you get above 2000mm. Andalucía has nine cities above ...

  We have walked thousands of kilometres. We have seen many places - some of them twice when wrong turns have been taken. Few have had such a splendid entrance for such a small settlement.  A cutting, framing the way in with importuned walls.  You get a perky little chapel, all neat and whitewashed.  Then you have a gate, with not one but three entrances - none of which are useful as they are on a roundabout - but all frame a pleasing piece of geography beyond them.  According to Google it is most used from 6pm to 10pm, much more than the morning. It is least used in 3pm.  Brigitte loved it, well, the town, and virtually ascribed the following [in German] on the Puertas de Lorca ‘An astonishing amount of culture in a town of 7000 inhabitants.’   Velez-Rubio has a history, they all do, Iberians, Romans and the like - but wiki seems to skip everything between 30,000BC [arrowheads and axes] and go straight to the fall of the Moorish realms - when the...

  We are heading towards the blessed land of Velez-Rubio.  It will appear at the end of this day, bathed in the sun of August 2025. We will gaze through the carved way the road is now directed. Onwards we go. The Rogelio Sanchez poultry farm is marked on our maps.  No one has reviewed it. If any of you fancy it, maybe you could nip down and give it some stars? We are passing the Antigua casa de Peomes Camineros.  This Road Workers house looks a bit worse for wear.  ArtOasis went there three months ago; gave five stars and said nothing. When you’ve looked at the chickens, maybe you could look in here as well. Just before we turn into the town we will pass a reviewed cemetery.  Two years ago Carl gave five stars and and wrote in Spanish  ‘Historic cemetery. The views of the area from the top are spectacular!’  Four years ago Demmy was more geographical than mortuary in their views - which were in Russian. ‘Andalusia greets you with beautiful landsca...

  General Franco has a lot to answer for. I was thinking of leaving it at that but in this case it is the fact under his loving care Spanish tourism got going. The image projected to the world wasn’t grim  Castilian Catholicism but a combination of joyous Andalucian gypsy flamenco dancers who, when not bull fighting, were eating Valencian paella. I mention this because we are crossing into Andalucía today and sod all else is happening on the road. The point of abroad is somewhere to project our fantasies and pander to our need for ‘other.’  Spain - across the Pyrenes, nearer to Africa than Aldershot.  A land of the ever sleeping; corrupt officials and hopeless plumbing - but full of romantic brigands, some of home will lose their shirts so much as look at a certain sort of novel cover; who will rally round to give Napoleon a kicking from their hilltop retreat. Anyhow, we are going to head on into the Almerian part of Andalucia and embrace the difference.  The pr...