2 July from the sea to the mountains of Grazalema

We needed to be up and gone by 9 am as we had parked the car in a blue Zone which was OK to park in on a Sunday and up until 9am on weekdays.

By searching on the web, we found somewhere to stay in Grazalema so we had a change to the itinerary again and decided to go straight to Grazalema and stay there as it was in the mountains, otherwise it meant we would have had to have driven from Ronda for any of the walks anyway.

Not far to go to reach Grazalema either but it took quite a while as the road was very twisty turny through the mountains and very narrow in parts.

Magnificent views of the sea and the mountains as we rose quite sharply.

Grazalema itself is a pretty town, nestled into the hillside, with its houses with whitewashed walls and red roofs.

After acquiring a map of the walks in the Parque Natural de Grazalema from the tourist office and a bite to eat from a little café in the square, we set off. We discovered that there weren’t really any walks directly from Grazalema anyway so we still had to drive a small distance to the start of the walk that we had chosen to do. It left from a town called El Bosque and followed the river to a place called Benamahoma. It was a pretty walk as we had to cross the river over little bridges several times, as it tumbled over small waterfalls.

At the start of the walk, there was a trout farm, with a notice along the walk explaining that there were trout in the river, which was beautifully clear and cool. Strangely enough there was no trout on the menu of the restaurant where we had dinner. They must export it all.

We didn’t walk all the way into Benamahoma, as we still had to walk back the way we came to get back to our car.

When we got back to our hotel, the Hospederia Casa De Las Piedres, the restaurant was already open. The restaurant claimed it served gourmet Spanish dishes so we indulged. I was very thirsty too so had a carafe of Sangria again. The waiter, who turned out to be the chef too, brought us a dictionary so that we could decipher what the dishes were. They were delicious. Bill had lamb sweetbreads with mushrooms and I had rabbit. We had seen a rabbit in the middle of the road and avoided hitting it but maybe one of the cars after us hit it and that was what I ate for dinner!!!!