Over the past few days we had a bit of a restful time, done some walking and even a bit of sightseeing…

Yesterday (23 September), we went in search of the Casa de Piedra…

The Casa de Piedra is a hermitage of early Christian origin, estimated to have been built between the 6th and 7th centuries AD. Apparently, since it was created, it has been used for various purposes – such as a space for religious rites to a Mazarabic temple and grape press (for wine!) in the 18th/19th century… it is carved from a single rock of sandstone. Although i also read it was carved from limestone – so who knows – Pete Willsher, you will need to confirm!

We had a great walk around 5-6 miles in total – the best bit was again seeing all the vultures but this time, there was about 40 of them circling above us and they kept coming really low… Pete suspected that they had spotted some carrion on the ground but we could not work out where that was… one minute it felt like they were within touching distance & the next, all 40 disappeared! Probably over the next ridge but definitely out of sight! The photos do not do these any justice & I have so many of them now they all look the same – hey ho! I find them fascinating as they are much larger than anything we see at home where the biggest, with the exception of our forays to Scotland, are probably the Red Kite or maybe the Heron!

Today, 24 September we have been for a drive out to a place called Jimena de la Frontera (a lot of the villages have “de la Frontera” in their name around here as many were once fortresses that marked the dividing line between Moorish & Christian rule. “De La Frontera” means “of the frontier” – according to t’internet!

Anyway, there’s a big castle in Jimena and it looked like it would be a nice drive – going up our mountain in the opposite direction to Cortes this time… by road, it’s around 5 miles distance (and 350 metres higher!) to the top where we joined the main road which we had travelled down to get here on the 14th September… instead of turning left to Ronda, we turned right and passed through Gaucin, another place with another castle (see pics) which we will visit at some point, and with some spectacular views of the mountains… until rejoining the plains at the bottom and then on to Jimena itself (around a 45 min drive… well, would have been if we didn’t stop at every “Mirador” for photos!).

After parking up, we then climbed the massive hill up to the castle… only to find a parking area a mere 20m from the top (bugger) – but hey-ho, am sure the climb might have done us some good!

According to Wikipedia, the castle was built on the hill by the Moors around 750 AD and, is said to be built on Roman ruins and is made from locally sourced limestone… there’s a cemetery inside the castle grounds (apparently, the castle area was chosen as an obvious place for many cemeteries in villages as villagers believed bodies buried in the sun with a good strong wind was a great way to stave off anything that might affect the balance of their bodily “humors”!). Sadly, the cemetery also includes two mass graves for soldiers that died in the Spanish Civil War for which there is a memorial listing their 80 names…sad 😢 One good thing about the cemetery was that, randomly, there was a loo… and in reasonably good shape too from a cleanliness perspective!

Although we didn’t realise at the time, you can apparently see as far as Gibraltar from the Castle! Luckily, we did catch a glimpse of the rock on our way home and of course got a pic… and here it is… as you can see, the weather is very hazy at the moment but if you squint a bit and maybe stand on one leg…??

The whole area around Jimena de la Frontera is pretty fertile with lots of Oak forest and orchards etc. This is because the plains of this area (which comes under the municipality of Cadiz) is bordered on the south by the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea.

After our walk up the very big hill to the castle and a mooch around, we headed back down to the Plaza de la Constitucion for a spot of lunch and a cold coke in the shade of the bell tower, which is the only remaining feature of the 17th century Santa María la Coronada church – very nice – before driving back via a few Miradors! This gave us our first proper view of Gaucin – you can see the castle there in the pics below – pretty impressive!

All in all, a lovely day out – now ready for a relaxing evening, some good food (Spaghetti a la Pete) and a couple of drinks… Ooo, and maybe a bit of bake-off if the VPN is working! Hasta luego amigos xx