been a long time and i have so much to tell... i kept up to date with our holiday news as we went along, but had no internet.... i will cut it down a little, if i can, you know me, to tell the time i would end up building a clock first....
put in a few photos each day too for a little while, and add where we stayed onto my links section in case any of you would like to go and stay there. above is Cuevas Jimenez, see link to the left of here...
fantastic place... and after the 200 photos you will feel like you know it well too!
hope you all had a fantastic christmas and new year...
ok... copy and paste for a bit now from my diary on our holiday in northern granada province....
December 26, 2007
Ok, not on line here it seems...
so our trip so far folks... didn't seem to take too long to get here, we left just after 8am and arrived here about 1pm i think, and we stopped for two Pippa breaks... and we had coffee!
It was raining very very badly when we left and until we were well on our way to Granada, but then that was it!
The weather since we have arrived has been a mix of sun and cloud, one morning with a hard frost on our car, the first we have ever seen here since living in Spain! I know in the campo they get more frosts, but where we are... never that cold.
The moon was full the other night and i got some excellent photos in the early morning, that was Christmas eve i think... i am glad i have got to do some writing now or i really would get mixed up!
This cave house is amazing. Its not damp at all, as so many people might think a cave house would be, the three huge bedrooms are quite warm, in fact our bedroom is definitely warmer than ours it back home. Franco became very good with lighting the wonderful log fire that kept us warm in the evenings... Pippa loved the three dogs of house... and sort of got used to the horses, either that or she was just not taking any notice of them!
Now what have we been up to? And when? The first day was what...? Monday was Christmas eve, we arrived here Saturday afternoon, went out for a walk with Pippa!
Sunday we went to the town of Castril, quite a small place, the local spar shop was open and we got a few bits although we had brought up almost a weeks shopping anyway. We found the local walk and where it started etc, we walked though up to the top of the small hill, mountain, that overlooks the church and the views all around the town and over towards where we are staying on the other side of the valley.
Monday, last shopping day before Christmas day... we went to the town of Baza, now this is a biggish town i had pasted through on my way up to see friends in cumbre del sol on the coach, it was crowded and busy, we parked after about two hours, no not quite seemed like it, not a car park in sight and only on road, pay as you park, so we found a spot and left the car to itself!
Pippa in hand and around the town we walked, not a cafe or bar with outside tables... seemed strange, back home if its not raining there are the tables and chairs welcoming you to sit and wait a while with a coffee etc! It was cooler, probably around 9 or 10 degrees but in the sun was nice, and later when we had found the car again (?) we found a lidl and went to get some more groceries the sun by then was really warm, must have been about 20 there!
Fuente Vera where Cuevas Jimenez is... is a small pueblo, has a church, very small and most of the buildings in the centre including the church seem to be very pre fabricated, it looks like it has grown up around the farms here which are so much older, lots of the outbuildings, those not in the caves, are made of rock, built much like the walls up in yorkshire england, stone upon stone, ten twenty feet high and then either roofless or asbestos, like a lot of the houses here.
One morning coming through on our way out a great pig was tethered to an outbuilding by one trotter ... i think his fate that christmas morning was evident.
Now back to diary...
Monday afternoon after some lunch we went for a walk... understatement of the year i think.
We left the house with boots and walking sticks at the ready we went off road and down into the valley overlooked by the house here.
It was fairly down hill and almost vertical at times, without the boots and sticks... who knows!
So we made it past olive groves and up rough ploughed mud... the soil here is so strange it seems to be made up of sand stone like the mountains here... like chalk or lime stone.
We past men with nets strewn to collect the black olives, and cave houses with empty eyes and creepy insides...
all the way to the bottom of the valley to a fantastic deserted farm house over looking a river and trees for paper. Pippa and i drank from the stream and then it was back... up hill all the way, more cave houses and rough stone and ground, climbing up hill felt safer than the trip down, but again, in places almost vertical and realized afterwards Franco had the help of Pippa to pull him up! Those sticks came in so valuable to prop you up as you come up hill!and were also the reason for aching arms as well as legs the next day!
We came out near an olive building, and then it was back on the road through Isadora and back into Fuente vera where we are now...
three hours walk... but felt like longer and probably not as far in miles either as it felt, we got so hot our faces were blood red!
ok enough today i think....
TTFN
Marian
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