After hanging out in Venice for a day, we hopped on a plane and began our time in our final planned country of the trip – Spain. When we were originally making our travel arrangements, we intended to fly from Madrid back to Dallas, but were quickly informed that since the cheapest flight home went through England and Iceland already, we’d be able to layover for a few days in those cities at no additional cost for the flights. We, of course, accepted that deal, but knowing that Spain was our original intended final location, arriving in the country was bittersweet and strange. It was a signal that our trip around the world was actually coming to an end – we found ourselves caught off guard by just how quickly we neared the end.
Though Spain signaled finality, we arrived in the country with a little less than a month to spare before our homecoming. We used that time to tour around different cities in the country, hitting multiple wine festivals along the way. We lucked out with our timing of the trip and arrived in this country of vineyards right when harvesting was beginning to take place. As we are now very aware, harvest=celebration.
Our time in Spain began briefly in Seville, where we rented a car and drove to Cadiz. At $5-$7 a day, we found rental cars in Spain to be cheaper than anywhere else we traveled. It’s easy to take for granted the freedom that having a car can bring, but having taken so much public transportation during the course of our trip, we were delighted to now be able to afford a car for the rest of our time in Europe. We had this rental car a full week, which afforded us opportunities to take day trips to charming towns and beautiful beaches nearby.
In Cadiz, we stayed just outside the city with a friendly family of a mom, two kids, a dog, and a cat. Our room was unattached from the house, but the bathroom we used was in the main quarters. Anytime we ran inside to cook or shower without taking extra care to latch the screen door, we were sure to find an excited feline waiting by our bed when we returned. She was so pleased and proud of herself when she made it inside 😂. As a cat lover, I was equally pleased to see her. Kirk, well, the felines are growing on him 😂.
We used this house as our home base as we drove all over this southern part of Spain. Our time in this area (and in Spain in general) was filled with an abundance of “adult lunchables” and mandarin mimosas on the beach. Spain is known for its delicious processed meats and cheeses, as well as a sparkling wine called cava. We often found ourselves running by the grocery stores Aldi (a chain also found in the US) and Lidl, where we’d pick up a block of manchego ($2), iberico salami or chorizo ($1), crackers (59 cents), a large bottle of fresh squeezed mandarin juice ($1), cava ($1.99), and fresh fruit, totaling around $8. Cheap and delicious, this meal would last us two lunches on the beach.
Though we usually went for the cheap salami, the most famous meat in Spain is Iberico ham. It comes from pigs that are raised in forests whose diets are made up mostly of acorns. It’s seriously delicious meat, and though 100% iberico ham (the pigs whose diet was 100% acorns) is more expensive, you can find 50% iberico ham (pigs whose diet was half acorns) for the same prices as ham back home. If you make it to Spain, get the real deal at least once. It’s unbelieveably yummy – and while you’re at it, definitely get aged manchego cheese. It’s one of my new favorites.
At one of the turquoise sand beaches with our mimosas and “lunchable” lunch!
The green cup holding the mimosa traveled with us all the way from Chile! We got them to use for wine for our trip to Perrito Merino Glacier, and found cups to be something worth toting around the world with us!
🙂
One evening after going to the beach we headed over to Jerez for an evening Sherry sampling festival. We paid $2 for an entrance fee, which included the wine glass below, and then bought tickets to sample 6 Sherrys from the area. As it turns out, neither of us are huge fans of sherry, but it was certainly fun to try. Sweet to dry, light to dark, we got little samples of the whole spectrum.
We each got a wine glass as a part of the event. Somehow, these lasted our whole last month of traveling and now hang on the wine rack in our kitchen!
The place the Sherry Festival was held was beautiful!
Me, with one of our samplings of Sherry.
I did use one of our tickets to sample something that was delightfully not sherry. The Croft Twist pictured below is bubbly, fresh, not to sweet, and oh-so-tasty! I don’t usually love wine spritzers or premixed drinks, but this one is on point!
Croft Twist, I’m still hopeful to run into this back home!
A picture of the inside of the venue – look at that architecture! Also, though it’s difficult to tell, on the table to the left is a large pig leg on a stand. The men at that table were freshly slicing iberico ham from the leg and selling it alongside cheese platters. This is actually a pretty common sight, not only in restaurants and venues, but also in people’s homes. The pork is cheaper (and fresher) to buy still on the leg, so people buy stands, and slice their own ham at home.
Us 🙂
On another day, we set out looking for fresh, cheap seafood around the nearby beaches. Via trip advisor, we found a hole in the wall gem that puts out free beer and sodas while you wait for your food. As we walked up and ordered, other customers beside the window began pouring us up drinks and chatting away. This place was clearly loved by the locals.
At the window, waiting to order.
Free beer in hand, the whole restaurant in view!
After getting our food, we headed out to a different beach 🤗.
All the beaches are so beautiful!
Our beach set up.
Coming back from the beach, the clouds had a pretty cool design 🙂
When we finished up our time in Cadiz, we hopped back in the car and headed over to Jimena de la Frontera. Along the way we stopped for a hike in El Estrecho Natural Park. It took a while to figure out how to get into the park, and I’m not sure that we ever made it to where we were actually trying to get 😂. Our GPS took us the wrong way a couple of times before we made it to the sign below.
“Military Zone, no trespassing”
Fearful, we stopped at the gate, watching as the occasional car passed through as though no sign were there at all. We certainly didn’t want to enter into a military zone in a foreign land. After sometime we asked some guys nearby who were taking pictures if they knew anything about it and they informed us that the area had been deemed a military zone under Franco, but when Franco’s power fell, the area became land for everyone – just, nothing had ever been taken down.
Cautiously we passed through the gate and entered into an intriguing land. Fences and barbed wire, run down buildings with cemented in doors, graffitied lookouts and beautiful views. This old run down base sat atop mountains overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar – Morocco, Africa clearly in view on the other side of the canal before us. Kirk told me prior to us visiting Spain that you could see this corner of Africa from Spain. I didn’t realize how true that was until it was right before me.
There were snails everywhere!
The first rundown building to which we came.
I loved all the colors in the peeling and graffitied paint!
The Strait of Gibraltar with Morocco on the other side
Exploring the land around the base. I thought the dried grasses with pops of bright flowers was so beautiful!
As we got back into the car to explore other areas of the park, we soon found ourselves in terrifying terrain. The steep mountain roads turned to dirt, and then to stone – large, chunky stone. Out budget rental bounced and shook, dropped and dipped. We slowly swerved around the constant “potholes” – places where the dirt road and stones had simply washed away – while honking at the “wildlife” (uh, cows) who had made the road their beds. We had clearly taken a road less traveled, and the fear of damaging the rental car paled in comparison to the fact that we had not passed any other cars in some time – meaning that if disaster did occur, no one would be there to help! We drove so slowly hoping to make it to a better road soon, but after driving incredibly slow for about an hour, we gave up and took the same chunky road back down.
Below are a few of our cattle friends we passed along the way.
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This one was my favorite cow – black and white next to the yellow flowers, even better in person 🙂
Though the road ran alongside this fence, rather than through it, this gate is still about the point that we turned around.
I mean, how desolate does this place look?
On our way back down we paused at another abandoned building to have a look around. With its many cemented in doors and windows, this was clearly a place someone didn’t want anyone going inside – it was also clearly a place of mystery that everyone who drove by wanted to explore.
Kirk walking past the previously moved barrier, into the deserted buildings.
Cemented in door
Looking through the barred window into the mysterious building
Same view into the building, but without the bars on the window in view. Check out the fancy tile work!
Bricked windows that apparently didn’t keep the true mystery seekers out.
We hopped back in the car and as we arrived back around where we began, we came to our mistake – noting a better looking road that others were taking down to the water. We followed it, thankful for a better road, and when we got to the edge of the cliff near the water, we got out for a bite to eat and a hike.
Kirk, surveying the area around our lunch spot (and Morocco, across the water!)
Me, sitting where we the lunch
Looking back at the start of the hike
Kirk, leading the way
At one point during Kirk’s lead, I watched as he took a step and a enormous, tiny creature scurried to get out of his way. Though this bug was at least three inches tall, I’d have never seen him had he not run – he blended in so well with the grasses!
Can you see him? It’s a brown praying mantis! (He was actually pretty terrifying!)
Gah, I loved all the colors that showed through amidst the dying bouquets around us!
After a while we came to another abandoned building, though this one was clearly from a different time period than those cemented in ones we’d just visited. Overlooking the sea, this building was half torn down, now revealing it’s inner “bones”, old red bricks, still stacked and sturdy as ever.
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Us in what would have been the front door of the house. How’d you like for the Straits of Gibraltar to be your everyday morning view?
Kirk, taking it all in
Me, in the same doorway
Just next to the house, there were snails everywhere!
After exploring around the house, we headed back to the car.
I led the way back 🙂
Nearly there! Our car was parked on the other side of the building ahead!
Once back at the car, we made our way to the final destination I’ll talk about in this blog, Jimena De La Frontera.
Jimena De La Frontera is what I now know as one of the many cities of white in the world. Though I grew up associating the sight of a a city made entirely of while buildings with pictures of Greece, I now know there are many cities similar to those photographs all over Europe. We happened to find this city in particular via Airbnb. Someone had advertised their rental as being in a city of white, and we decided that had to be a lovely place to stay. As it turns it – it was :).
For around 30 bucks a night, we ended up renting what turned out to be one of the most charming places we stayed during our trip. Beautifully decorated, situated right in the middle of town, we stayed in a two story apartment the offered a view of the whole town from our bedroom window. Though we were only there for a few days, we soaked in the area by walking around town, exploring the cities ruins, and taking hikes on the trails nearby. Our pictures don’t do the beauty of this place justice.
View from our bedroom window
View from our balcony
Our balcony
Our living room with the balcony off it.
Exploring the town – the streets were so tiny! We didn’t move the car once we found a space!
More of the town.
One of our days in Jimena De La Frontera, we, of course, opted to go on a hike. All throughout these small cities in Europe you can find ruins from ancient and medieval times out in the middle of no where. We’d heard there were some nearby and went exploring along the trails.
The start of our hike, walking next to an old water system.
An enormous rock that had fallen and remained perfectly balanced on the waterway without crushing the side. We were pretty impressed.
Something I’d previously never seen that were in abundance in this area – cork trees. Cork is made from the bark. They take part of it and then let it grow back in before harvesting again.
After walking along for sometime we came to the end of a trail where we ran into the fellow below. We opted to turn around and go back the way we came, but when we stopped for lunch a little ways down the path, this guy came waltzing up begging us for food. With my little experience with horses, I was a little scared of him as he brought his face shockingly to close to mine and my sandwich, but Kirk stepped in and shooed him away until we could finish, giving him what we had left at the end of our meal – potato chips.
The initial standing up to him to get him away from our lunch.
The potato chip feeding – about which he was very excited.
Finding some nibbles as we walked away.
On the way back, we took the long version of trail, finding places we’d yet to have seen.
Kirk on the trail.
A cool old house.
River on the edge of the city.
As we walked back into town we crossed paths with a lovely blue eyed fellow that I was determined to get a picture of. At first he moved too much in his excitement to be photographed, but eventually I got a good one :).
He was more excited than he looked here – though the determination on my face is accurate, ha.
Those eyes!!
That evening we walked to the grocery store that ended up being a short ways down hill and a long ways back up. This whole city is on an incline!
Walking back up with our groceries in tote. How charming is this place?
The evening sunset from our balcony.
The next morning was our final day in the city and we used it to explore a small castle on a hill we’d been looking at from afar. As we walked up to reach the castle, we soon learned that there was neither a charge to get into the ruins nor any type of security set up. We wandered around freely by ourselves, running into only one other couple who came to explore as we were leaving. Though it made me a little nervous for the integrity of the building for it not to be guarded (I wouldn’t want someone to come mess it up or graffiti it!) it was super nice to be able to walk around as we wished! 
Entering into the castle grounds.
Ruins on the hillside next to the small castle. This guy sits way above the rest of the city.
View of the whole city from the castle grounds.
Kirk overlooking the backside of the castle grounds – all land. The main city sits entirely in front of the castle.
We walked a little ways down the backside of the castle grounds and found the rock formation seen below. Unfortunately, we clearly were not the first to have found it, as graffiti filled the inside.
The pretty side of the rock, Kirk investigating the graffitied inside.
Walking up to the castle.
Panorama of the castle overlooking the hills behind it.
The bridge to get over the old moat.
Castle outer wall and moat (view from the bridge)
Long ramp that curved around leading up to the main tower.
View of the city from the corner of the castle walls.
Parts of the castle that have been destroyed.
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Kirk going up the final ramp to the tower.
How cool is this old stone floor?
The highest view of the city we got 🙂
Based on it location and build, this was clearly a fortress for protection of the city. Below are look outs from which one could easily shoot arrows or a gun and still be covered by the wall. The spaces are wide on the inside of the castle, for head and arms to fit, and narrow towards outer side of wall, for only a weapon to fit.
Lookouts
Closer look at the wide and narrowing part of the lookouts.
View of the lookouts and castle from the top of the tower.
After touring the castle we gathered our bags and hopped in the car to head back to Seville to return the rental car. We spent a single night in the city before getting up early the next morning to catch a train to Barcelona -and that single evening did not disappoint. From trip advisor we found a very high reviewed, award winning restaurant with reasonable prices that was walking distance from out AirBNB. There, you could order tapas (small plates) for around $3 a plate. A few photos of favorites from our meal are below.
Part of the menu
From the menu – “Stewed tender, flavorsome pork cheeks.” My – absolutely would order again – if we ever returned. These were shockingly tender and well flavored. I’m pretty sure this was my first time having pork cheek.
“Roasted pork ribs glazed in rosemary honey” – also yummy.
“Artichokes with fried garlic and cod shavings” 🙂
And the final thing I got a picture of (though we tried many others) was this strange award winning “cigar”
“Brick pastry cigar – shaped with cuttlefish and algae” – um, it looked weird, but it was delicious.
We walked back to our airbnb, and found ourselves very thankful we’d gone ahead and returned the rental car, as below was the parking situation we returned to…
Apartment parking in the big city
Next blog, Barcelona!
The Yonderers 