Day 4 - Seville to Benahavis — Travelling bryans

Up with the alarms today as we needed to be on the road. I think we all struggled with that a little.

We took a taxi to the car rental office at Seville station and spent 30 minutes sorting that out. it’s always a little stressful. We have quite a big car, which is necessary for three big cases (though they still didn’t all go in the boot) and three people, but might be tricky on small Spanish hilltop roads. We shall see!

Andrew got us out of town and we stopped 20 minutes later at a service station for a coffee and pastry for breakfast.

We are taking the road to the Atlantic coast today - Cadiz.

Cadiz (according to Lonely Planet) is the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in Europe. We took the sign for the centre and crossed the most amazing bridge. Cadiz was originally an island. It has four quarters to the old town, so we parked near the cruise terminal and headed for Barrio del Populo, the oldest quarter.

It was a really pleasant walk along the sea-front and there were lots of people making the most of the sun and sand. We got to the cathedral and its square after about 20 minutes. The cathedral was ok - not overly inviting, but definitely dominating the skyline.

We took a slow walk back to the car through the cobbled streets and said our goodbyes to Cadiz.

It’s lovely and definitely a place we could revisit.

We drove south from Cadiz for an hour and stopped at the most beautiful village called Vejer de la Frontera. There was a fair amount of swearing and breathing in as the roads to this white-washed hilltop town got narrower and narrower. We found a great parking space and walked back up to the town. So stunning. All the houses are white and in tiny cobbled streets. The main square has a tiled fountain in the centre. We found a nice-looking bar and ate tapas and had a cold beer - toasting the fact that the car was still in one piece!

We had originally planned to drive to Gibraltar next. However, it was now around 5pm and we (well Andrew) decided we probably didn’t have time. I was quite disappointed, but I often make the mistake of thinking everything is 10 minutes from each other and over commit in the itinerary. So I had to settle for seeing the famous rock from the car window at distance.

Somehow we managed to end up on a windy country road to our final destination of the day. So we did take a little longer than planned, but by 7:30 we were checked in to our hotel in Benahavis.

Benahavis is around 30 minutes from the Costa del Sol - now beside the Mediterranean Sea, rather than the earlier Atlantic Ocean. It was a bit of magnet for wealthy second home English golfers in the 1980s and we were not too sure what to expect.

We stepped out for dinner and the restaurants were all packed! Lots of very glamourous Essex people, but also lots of equally glamourous Spanish. We let Oli choose dinner - pizza! It was delicious actually, and after that we had a walk around the streets. There was a Spanish band playing in the main street and lots of lovely singing and dancing taking place. We stayed a while and watched and then headed back to the hotel for a sleep in our rather rustic, but lovely rooms.