8. Casares and Gibraltar

From Jerez we headed east through the Sierra de Grazelema Natural Park to a rural setting just outside of the small village of Casares (located at red dot below).

We had lunch in very picturesque village of Grazelema - mid north in the Sierra de Grazelema park.

Grazelema from the top of the village

The drive down to Casares, through undulating rocky hills, was more scenic than the area west of the park where we had been.

Our new abode for six nights (again booked through Airbnb) was an old stable, renovated into a couple of cottages, located on an Appaloosa horse stud. But priority one on arrival (while the owner fixed the air con), was watching the rugby test - NZ All Blacks against the SA Springboks. Nice one ABs!

Things are very dry on the horse stud. See white cottage where we are staying in background

Since being here we have explored the local village, visited Gibraltar and done a three hour walk to remind our bodies that walking is on the agenda when we get to Britain.

Casares village - the skyline of the village illustrates the ancient and new buildings merged into each other;
this is a common occurrence in the villages we've visited

There's a very large kettle of Griffin Vultures living
in this valley. When we were out walking,
 they hovered overhead, waiting to see when
the sun might overwhelm us.

We drove down to visit Gibraltar, which included a tour through the WWII tunnels and earlier tunnels from the Great Siege in the 1780s. The Great Siege lasted three and a half years, while Britain held the Rock against Spanish - French offensives. It turns out the eighteenth century tunnels are better made and are surviving in better condition than the WWII tunnels.

Gibraltar 'The Rock' - looking north

Gibraltar with the coast of Africa on the horizon

A cute aspect of the restricted space on Gibraltar is that the road in from Spain runs across the airport runway. We parked in Spain, walked into Gibraltar and caught a bus into town.  Therefore we bus-ed across the runway.

The border between Spain and Gibraltar is a couple of hundred metres past the runway. On our way into Gibraltar, passports were waved vaguely towards border officials, as the tourist hordes streamed in. On our way back into Spain, there was not even any passport waving.

For the first time, the Spain blog is up to date. Tomorrow we head north to Cordoba.