OH Our holiday
TV The villages
OW Our walks
Walk Photos
Welcome to our Andalucia and White Villages page. We give detail of the villages we visited, and the walks we did on our holiday in March 2005.
You are at: Home > Andalucia
|
OH Our holiday TV The villages OW Our walks |
Walk Photos |
A few of the photos can be seen at better resolution (click all sizes icon) from our Flickr set
If you have any questions or suggestions to improve information given, please contact us via D and J.
This was a week's walking holiday organised by a company called Spanish Steps taken in March 2005. Spanish Steps is a walking company owned by Peter and Sue, that has been established for about 10 years. Peter and Sue are an English couple who have a base in the village of Competa, and run holidays from here as well as organising holidays in other parts of Andalucia. The cost of the holiday does not include flights but there is a pickup at set times from Malaga airport. We went as part of a group of 14 people from the Liverpool Ramblers , arranging our own flights with Easy Jet between Liverpool and Malaga.
The White Villages route takes you to a number of the famous Pueblos Blancas in the Malaga and Cadiz areas of the Andalucia region.
|
VTX Tolox VMJ Montejaque |
VGZ Grazalema VOV Other villages |
The first two nights were spent in the village of Tolox. Tolox is about an hour's drive from Malaga Airport and is situated in the Sierra de la Nieves national park. This is a mountainous area, the highest point being Torrecilla, which is a good walking area. The village was larger than we expected and it was very pleasant to stroll around the narrow streets.
We stayed in the Hostal Torrecilla. The hotel is close to the Balneario de Fuente Amarga, a health spa located on the outskirts of the village. We had a excellent tapas lunch and evening meal at the "El Toro" restaurant.
 |
 |
The second village we stayed in was Montejaque. Montejaque is situated at an altitude of 687m on the western side of the province of Malaga, close to the province of Cadiz. It is a smaller vilage than Tolox with a long main street and a pleasant main square. The village is close to the Cueva de la Pileta a famous loca cave system which is open to the public. We took one of the guided tours, to see its famous cave paintings.
We stayed in some lovely "casitas" set around a swimming pool for the three nights we were in Montejaque. The casitas were owned by the people who ran the Palacete de Maņara Hotel where we took a couple of our evening meals. We had another evening meal in a restaurant close to the Casitas.
 |
 |
We stayed in the village of Grazalema for the last two nights of the holiday. Grazalema is situated in the province of Cadiz. It is in an impressive setting with a backdrop of hills and mountains, and is used by a number of UK companies as a base for walking holidays, it is in the Sierra de Grazalema National Park.
We stayed at the Villa Turistica. We had great views for our balcony and the hotel had a lovely terrace where we had drinks after returning from the walks.
 |
 |
The other white villages we visited on our holiday were :
 |
 |
| Ronda. The most famous of the "white villages", but more of a town. It is well worth visiting and contains a number of historical buildings. It is famous for its impressive setting. | Benoajan. This village is the next door neighbour to Montejaque but is situated lower down in the valley. |
 |
 |
| Jimera de la Libar. This is one of the smaller white villages we visited and had a lovely main square. | Villaluenga del Rosario. The village is a short bus ride from Grazalema. |
 |
Benaocaz. A small village on the other side of the hill to Villaluenga. |
The walking was very pleasant easy to moderate with opportunity to see some areas of Spain not often visited by British tourists. Maps are not as good as for the UK, there are Spanish Milatary maps at 1:50000 scale available which are useful to show where you have been, but the detail is not good enough for easy navigation. The maps covering the area we visited are 14-44 Ubrique and 15-44 Ronda. Theses maps and the more detailed 1:25000 maps are available from the Map Shop. They provided an excellent service, and were delivered the morning after we ordered.
|
WTC Tolox
WRM Ronda to Montejaque WGV Guardiaro Valley |
WMV Montejaque to Villaluenga
WGB Grazalema to Benaocaz WET El Torreon (1648m) |
| 11/03/2005 - this was a circular walk from our hotel in Tolox. We walked through the town and headed west up the Horcajos valley, following a track to the Virgen de la Nieves. Unfortunately it started to rain, but it brightened up later. From the shrine we followed an overgrown path that climbed steeply up a hillside to gain a well defined track on the shoulder of the Cerro del Hijar Ridge, and then onto a col where we had a lunch break. We then climbed a small hill for the views. The dog that had followed us from a house in the valley was still with us. The track now started its descent from the ridge and we followed paths and tracks past the Balnearo to Tolox stopping off for a drink on the terrace of a local bar (where the dog made off) before returning to the hotel. | |
 |
 |
| Virgen de la Nieves shrine. | View from hill. |
| 12/03/2005 - After breakfast we left Tolox and travelled by coach to Ronda, where we spent a few hours hours enjoying this famous town before leaving for our walk. From the "Old town" in Ronda we descended to the plain below the escarpment where picked up a track on the north side of the Guadalevin valley which ascended to cross over a wooded ridge. From the ridge we crossed a plain before gradually ascending to a plateau on the El Puerto Ridge. We walked across the plateau which was used for grazing sheep and then descended a track with good views of Montejaque. At the bottom of the track we walked along the road into the village. | |
 |
 |
| Plateau. | Descending to Montejaque. |
| 14/03/2005 - After a day off, when we visited the caves, today's walk was down the Guardiaro Valley. From our casitas in Montejaque we followed paths and road to the village of Benaojan. Passing through the village we then went down the valley to meet the path by the River Guardiaro. The path followed the river on the east side of the valley, and took us to the railway station at Jimera. Most of the group stayed in the cafe but a few of us did an extension to the village of Jimera, before returning to the cafe. From the station we took the train back to Benaojan station, and walked back to the casitas in Montejaque. | |
 |
 |
| Tiled map of the area. Flickr | Along the valley. |
| 15/03/2005 - After three nights in Montejaque we left for Grazalema. The day started with a jeep lift to the start of the Libar Valley. We walked along a well defined track through this level valley passing the Refugio de Carreos and then followed a path across a flat plain before climbing over the Passeo de Carreos. The pass over the mountains took us to a large plain called the Sima Republicano. Having crossed the plain we followed a path over a wooded ridge to take us into our next White Village Villaluenga, where we caught the public bus from Villaluenga to Grazalema. | |
 |
 |
| Crossing the plain. | Crossing the plain. Flickr |
| 16/03/2005 - Today we had a pleasant walk from Grazalema to Benaocaz, past the "Goatherds Leap". We walked through Grazalema heading west on a path following a dry river bed to Puerto del Boyar. We then walked south through forest and meadows towards the rock formation known as the Goatherd's leap and continued through meadows before crossing an area of limestone pavement (karst) and a steep descent to the village of Benaocaz. From Benaocaz we caught the reliable public bus back to Grazalema. It was hot today, so we finished with a drink on the hotel terrace. | |
 |
|
| Following the dry river bed. | Goatherd's leap. Flickr |
| 17/03/2005 - This was the last day of the holiday, as we had an evening flight home Peter kindy arranged an extra walk which required permits. The walk was to El Torreon, the highest peak in the Cadiz region. The permit is used to regulate numbers of walkers. From the hotel we were driven in the Land Rover to a small car parking area west of Puerto del Boyar. The path was marked by a sign at the bottom and was well defined climbing up through woodland to start, before becaming more rocky with a short steep section before reaching the summit. We spent a while on the summit enjoying the views. The descent was by the same path. When we arrived back at the hotel we had time for drinks on the hotel terrace before the coach arrived to take us to Malage Airport for the flight home. | |
 |
 |
| Climbing | At the top. |
This page was last updated on 7th May 2008.