|
British Mensa Travel Special Interest Group |
|
Home Copyright
© |
Spanish
Sojourn After Christmas, when the Spring still seems a long way off, I find myself longing for warm sunshine and start looking at holiday brochures. Both my husband and I are retired, and so a winter sunshine break is both desirable and possible. This year we flew to Seville and then were driven south for a couple of hours or so, to a splendid recently-opened hotel at a small place called Playa Ballena, where a dead whale had once been found on the nearby beach. As we took the lift up to our room a guest, who had been there some time, told us that he had done a lot of travelling, but this was the best hotel he had found in the world! It certainly was a wonderful hotel, but Playa Ballena was a very small place on a quiet stretch of Spanish coastline, though Marbella and the Bay of Cadiz were not far away. Most of the other buildings consisted of apartments which we were told belonged to people from Madrid, and in fact many owners appeared at the weekend to occupy their second home. We had glorious weather, and borrowed the bikes from the hotel to explore the empty coast. However, this was a holiday with several included trips (and more extra optional ones), so we did manage to see some very interesting places. Jerez de la Frontera was one of them. We discovered that many places in the region had ‘de la Frontera’ in their name because the actual frontier in that area of Spain had moved several times as a result of Moorish incursions. ‘Sherry’ was the nearest the English could get to pronouncing the Spanish name Jerez! Needless to say we were given a tour of a winery (Tio Pepe) with wine-tasting included, but what we remember chiefly is the small tourist attraction there. In one room full of barrels we were asked to stand still and keep very quiet “because of the livestock”. We froze, and looked ahead along the walkway where stood a wineglass with a miniature ladder reaching to the top. After a pause some small mice ventured out from the barrels to pick up crumbs which were lying there and then a bolder larger mouse made its way to the ladder, and, after checking carefully that the coast was clear, climbed up and delicately sipped the sherry. Apparently a workman who used to have his sandwiches there found the mice liked crumbs and sherry, so he devised this unusual show. Another memorable day was the one we had in Gibraltar. The town itself was quite English (though bilingual), but the trip up to the top of the rock was fascinating. None of us had expected to find caves up there with stalagmites and stalactites. The largest of the caves contained a concert hall. “I wonder what kind of music they play there,” said one of our group. “It must be rock music,” said my husband! Every time we returned to our hotel we passed near an enormous American airbase, and when we visited the nearby town of Rota we were shown another American base on one side of the bay. However, only a short distance away there were traditional, white hilltop villages with a timeless, peaceful atmosphere. We only had a week's holiday, but many of the English tourists were staying much longer in this fascinating area - maybe we'll join them again sometime. First published in VISA issue 56A (June 2004) |