Exploring the Via Verde in Andalusia

Zagan the autocaravana (he’s gone native) is surrounded by fellow Spanish motorhomes at a free aire in Dona Mencia (N37.54645, W4.35271), about an hour south of Cordoba. We’ve ground to a halt for a few days due to injury, but we’ve landed in a great place at the right time of the year.

Rewinding a few days to our free parking place in Guadix, we were woken by the sound of a generator in the aire around 8am. Now most folks adhere to aire etiquette and wouldn’t disturb their fellow van dwellers until much later in the day, unless it was an emergency. The sun was coming up, so we peeled off our external thermal screens to find the real source of the noise. A hot air balloon being inflated on the other side of the car park. Not something you get to see every day, so we sat and watched through the windscreen until it soared high into the sky above us.

Once the free entertainment had ended, we packed up and hit the road. Looking at our rapidly disintegrating map (it’s done well to last from 2011!), we couldn’t find any interesting places to stop along the free motorways towards Cordoba. We’d already visited Granada on a previous trip, taking in the wonderful Alhambra, so we opted to skip it and go cross-country instead.

The road meandered through mile after mile of olive trees. Having come down through acres of almond blossom and orange trees, the olives were a nice change, but now we’ve seen nothing else for hours of driving. It’s not surprising as Andalusia is the largest olive-producing area on Earth, with around 300 million trees. You can get litres of olive oil in the supermarket here for just a few euros – way cheaper than at home or direct from the co-operatives dotted by the roadside. This got me thinking, how many trees do you need for a litre of oil? After a bit of research it turns out that each tree produces 15-20 kilos of olives which make between 4 and 5 litres of oil. Looking at the prices in the supermarket and working back (guestimating a cut for all the middle men) each tree is probably produces just a few euros each year for the farmers.

Jay had quite fancied popping back to the Alpujurras on this trip, to see the towns and villages made famous by Chris Stewart’s iconic book ‘Driving over lemons‘, but we decided against it as we’d been in that area before and fancied something new. Little did we know our first stop would take us to somewhere very similar, but it wasn’t just the bum-clenching drive through narrow streets lined with white-washed cottages that made Frailes seem familiar. After parking up in the free motorhome aire (N37.48833, W3.83105), Jay set off for a run while I went to explore the town and seek out a shop for some bread.

Reading the local information signs, Frailes used to be a spa town, with its water claiming to heal all sorts of health issues. At the top of the town a recently refurbished area surrounds the flow of curative waters. There are even a couple of buttons to press in the wall to get the fountains flowing higher up so you can fill a cup or dunk a limb under it (with hindsight perhaps we should have filled a bottle with the stuff!). Other signposts dotted around the town pointed to Michael Jacobs’ house. That isn’t a typically Spanish name, so with bread acquired from a van driving around the village beeping its horn outside every other house, I headed back to Zagan to do a bit of digging.

Micheal Jacobs was born in Italy and educated in England. He rented a place in Frailes in 1999 and grew to love the place, putting down more permanent roots and helping the village survive and thrive. He wrote around 29 books over his lifetime, including one about life in Frailes called ‘The Factory of Light‘. Sadly it’s not available on Kindle, so we’ll get a copy ordered to read when we get home as we both love this type of book, and it will be even more of an interesting read having been there. Frailes didn’t hold us for more than one night, I think the sight of a beggar sitting outside the only supermarket was the clincher – surely in a fairly remote town of this size everyone knows everyone and their business. It stuck me as strange that locals just walked past him.

The following day we stopped at Lidl in Alcala la Real for a big stock up, and to take a photo of the Fortress of La Mota . There aren’t many Lidl car parks with such a lovely view. Then it was another hour or so of olive tree-lined roads to bring us to Dona Mecina.

We parked up with a handful of other motorhomes and after a spot of lunch the bikes were off and we set off along the Via Verde de la Subbetica. The cycle path is 57 kilometres long and follows the route of the train which used to transport all of the olives from the region. It also joins up with another Via Verde near Jaen so you can follow 112 kilometres of the ‘oil train route’. This means you get to cycle over old level crossings, complete with little white buildings next to them now transformed crossing operators hut into art galleries or cycle hire places. Through tunnels, over viaducts and all amongst some amazing scenery.

In the late afternoon we went for a walk around Dona Mencia. Posters around the town advertise a carnival this weekend with the Infant Carnival starting at 6pm, and the Juvenile one at 11pm! They know how to party late in Spain. Another poster caught our eye, for a flamenco night to celebrate Andalusia day – on the 28th February – tomorrow. That night the motorhome aire started to fill up. A procession of Spanish autocaravanas arrived until late into the night. Andalucia Day is typically celebrated with family and with small local events, and it looked like we might be in the middle of one.

Thursday morning, with a flattish cycle path right by I door, I went out for a long run. I planned to try and run a half marathon and was feeling great, until around kilometre 7 when I fell over. I tripped on a stone, it was stupid of me but other than a bit of a shock and grazed hands and elbows I figured I would be OK to just walk back. I phoned Jay and asked him to cycle over and join me as it would take a fair while to walk back and I could do with some company – and a few plasters.

Jay arrived in his running gear and my hero husband ran alongside me as I cycled back to Zagan. By now my right knee was throbbing and it became clear that I’d cut myself there too. Back at Zagan the big first aid kit was raided (and at that point we realised a lot of the stuff in it was woefully out of date) and I was cleaned up. I sat with my leg raised watching families gathering around picnic benches, setting up gazebos and preparing for a day in the warm spring sunshine celebrating Andalusia day. After a couple of hours Jay was dispatched to the town to get some plasters to hold together the cut in my knee as it wouldn’t stop bleeding. A couple more hours of following advice on the NHS website and it still wasn’t happy, and neither was I as it dawned on us that I needed to visit the medical centre.

After an ‘interesting’ free-wheel ride on the bike to the medical centre we were shown straight in to the examination room. We were the only people in the centre other than staff, I suspect the national holiday may have had something to do with this. Armed with a piece of paper explaining what happened with the help of Google Translate everything got cleaned, iodine-injected or swabbed, wrapped and prescriptions issued. They were even kind enough to call a taxi for me as I couldn’t cycle back up the hill. I’m on sofa rest for the next two days (as I can’t get up into the bed!) before a return visit to the centre to ensure things are healing as they should.

Today families are still enjoying picnics around us, cycling the Via Verde on hired multi-people bikes and go-karts and keeping me entertained. Jay has lots of running, walking and cycling options to keep him busy and there’s a well-reviewed restaurant next to us that we might hobble over to for lunch. Rubbish things do happen when you are on the road, like they would at home, but we deal with them and make the most of whatever situation we’re in. Hopefully I’ll be well enough to get to Cordoba for the sardine burying festival on Wednesday (I kid you not!), but if not I suspect something will be kicking off in Dona Mencia as it’s the start of Lent and they love any excuse for a fiesta around here.

Ju x