12 October - Castano del Robledo

Another great change and one we are so pleased to have made. We left a hot and sticky Cordoba yesterday morning after a very unpleasant night. About 23.00, we had just gone to bed, I started being sick. John said that if it was any consolation he didn't feel too well either. So we took it it turns at throwing up for a while, and didn't get a lot of sleep. The internal room, with the only window looking out onto the central courtyard was very hot, stuffy and claustrophobic, so not a good experience.
On the way here we stopped off at the Medina Azahara. It was a good stop, well worth the delay in our onward journey,especially as we were still feeling a bit jaded. The area covered by the ruins is massive and a very small part of it has been excavated, some reconstruction has also taken place. We arrived at the reception area to the site, where you have to leave your car, early and were a bit perturbed by the lack of information, I asked somebody working in the gardens for confirmation of the entrance. It only seemed to lead to what looked like an underground car-park, no information on the large metal door closing it off. Other people arrived, including a couple of tour buses so we moved in and took our place near the head of the queue. A few minutes after 10 the big door was wheeled open to reveal a state of the art information centre, underground. Having got our tickets we decided to skip the museum and orientation information for the time being and get the shuttle bus to the actual site first. It was a good decision, for about the first half an hour we had the place entirely to ourselves. We went back and looked at the museum on our return to the reception area. It was well laid out with clear factual information and lots of state-of-the-art video materials.
Back on the road we made good time and reached Castano del Robledo just before 4, although even with the 'fabulous' SatNav we had problems finding the Posada, we did several circuits in the village, all on narrow cobbled streets. We knocked on the large wooden a door a couple of times, but no answer. The whole village was deserted, everywhere shut up, so as we had arrived an hour earlier than we had said, and concerned that we were in siesta time, we hung around until we heard noise within. A very nice woman, Sasha, sat us down at a table on a patio at the back of the house overlooking a garden and made us a cup of tea. Her husband, Craig, soon arrived and we learnt that he is a tour guide for Explore, we are familiar with them as they also do walking tours in Greece, although we weren't sure whether it was Explore or Exodus who did the walks and climbs around Karystos. He gave us lots of helpful information about walking in the area, and other interesting things to see and do. I also explained how I 'knew' Jan, without ever having actually met her, but felt I knew so much about the area from her blogs and photos of her travels on horseback.
While we were getting settled into our room it started to rain, quite hard, we had to pull the windows together to stop the rain splashing inside. It didn't last very long and soon the sun was out again. We took a walk around the village, finally sitting down outside a cafe in the main Plaza, for the last of the sun. John had a beer but I still felt rather fragile and could only manage a Coke. We agreed that neither of us really felt like anything to eat, we had just snacked on a few of the digestive biscuits we brought from England. So we went back to the Posada and after a few hands of Crib, went to bed.
We both had an excellent nights sleep in a good firm bed with comfortable pillows and a proper window with a good flow of clean fresh air. We had wondered if we would be kept awake or woken up by the church bell, which seems to have a time keeping system even more obscure than some we have encountered in French villages. We think it rings the hour at about five-to, maybe again at five-past, or it could be three or eight minutes past, and on the half hour it can be twenty-five past or as late as twenty five or even twenty-to. I heard nothing. I was woken this morning by a choir singing some rousing songs, we thought from the street. We learnt yesterday evening that today is a national holiday, (actually I'm not sure if it is national or Andalucian, the regional area of Andalucia is very important). I was also aware of hearing an owl in the night. It was a very overcast morning so it really wasn't light until almost 9. Craig provided us with a very good breakfast, the lovely juicy fresh tomato sprinkled with oil and basil (I think it was basil-my cold is hindering my taste-buds), was a real treat.
The Posada is quite fine, I don't know how much work they have done on it, but it is lovely old house, I think over 3 floors, with guest rooms on the top floor. Our room is very nice, a sloping roof but light and airy, and a view of old tiled roofs and trees beyond. There seems to be four bedrooms up here with a central sitting area, well provided with all manner of games and a very good supply of English language books, not sure about the copy of Hello magazine though! The house is nicely and comfortably furnished with some lovely old pieces of furniture. At the moment we are the only people staying here, I expect they can be full when Craig has a walking group. The village is carved into the hillside, a tangle of cobbled streets, and quaint old houses, there seem to be 2 Plazas, a lower one where we have left our car and a higher one with several bars and cafes round it. We have learnt from Craig that it is almost entirely dependant on the production of ham, for which the area is famous, and there does not appear to be any other accommodation or tourists.
We did quite a long walk today, about 12 kms., taking a track from the village, climbing up through forests of chestnut, oak and cork trees. The chestnut harvest looks as if it will be good in a few weeks time, they are not quite ready yet. The cork trees are amazing, their trunks have been stripped, in some cases at least three times, on the most recent occasions the orange dye with which they had been painted, presumably a chemical of some sort, giving them a startling appearance. We dropped down into the village of Alajar in the late lunchtime, and it was crowded, obviously everyone was out making the most of the day's holiday. We stopped and had a beer outside a bar and people watched for a time, before beginning the, most uphill, journey back. Now we are having a bit of a rest, before going out to eat tonight, I expect it will be busy.