Two nights ago I had felt as though I had a bit of a sore throat. Today a cough has developed. No wonder I had found yesterday’s walk uphill to and from Güéjar Sierra a tad arduous.

Francine, bless her, volunteered to repeat the uphill and downhill trek into Güéjar Sierra to visit the farmacia in search of some cough jollop. Mission successful, having learned a few more words of Spanish.

I wasn’t good for much for the rest of the day, including eating and drinking, so it must have been bad. I began dosing myself up with Francine’s hard won cough mixture, which we think was herbal so probably more of a placebo. If you work your way beyond the units on the edge of the Sierra Nevada pitches, there are worse views to be stuck with.

We have wound up at Camping Las Lomas about 8kms east of Granada and 360m higher than Granada.The approach was a twisting mountain road which, on Sunday, was littered with cyclists, maniacs that they are, crawling up the 360m round an almost constant series of hairpin bends that afford no overtaking opportunities. Nonetheless, we finally made it without killing any.

We booked a “Sierra Nevada” pitch which, by Spanish standards, is supposedly more spacious at about 90m².  These are in the highest area of the campsite and in theory give a view of the surrounding mountains, if you look beyond the units parked in front of you. Still, it’s relatively pleasant.

I suspect that one of the normal reasons for staying here would be to visit the Alhambra Palace in Granada. Nein danke! There is a bus that goes up and down the cyclist-strewn mountain road, mostly also without killing any. However, we’ve done the Alhambra before and, frankly, whilst I know Francine enjoyed it I was left a little underwhelmed, but then I am a Philistine. Even though it’s religious, I was much more impressed by the Mezquita in Córdoba. If Granada isn’t your thing then I’m sure there are good walks in the mountains here.

About 2kms further up the winding mountain road lies the village of Güéjar Sierra. [Wrap your tongue around that if you can.] We decided we’d walk in and have a look. Going along the main road seemed a bad idea, trudging pedestrians getting squished along with the crawling cyclists. However, there was an alternative country road route, which we took.

The country road route went up a mountain beside the village, and I do mean up, before plunging back down into the village itself. At the summit of our climb, we’d gained 60m. One of my dislikes is slogging my way uphill, only to lose my height advantage by going back down again. What goes up must come down. You just know you’re going to have to reverse the process on the return.

Once we had descended back to the level of our campsite, it was 11:30. We found the main square with a shady café and sat down to enjoy a cortado. When 12:00 spun around, we enjoyed a beer as well. As we sat there watching traffic in unbelievably narrow, steep streets, one of the buses arrived and proceeded to turn around in said unbelievably narrow streets. Most entertaining, and impressive. Once it had completed its 3-point turn using a side street and began to leave, it met traffic coming into the village and had to reverse back uphill to let a car and motorcycle in before it could again try to depart.

We went in search of lunch but, being a Monday when many establishments are closed, there was a serious lack of open eateries.

We began the slog back uphill out of the village before descending once again to our campsite altitude of 1100m.

Today we left our Villafranca de Córdoba campsite to head for a Sierra Nevada site near Granada. Unusually, the little town had a supermarket that was open seven days a week so, having paid for the campsite, we called in to top up our supplies. There was even a gravel parking area for us to leave Frodo in.

Our journey was almost 200 kms. We began with a very short stretch of autovia before heading across country, which proved to be absolutely fascinating. After about 10kms we began passing olive plantations. These were olive plantations the like of which I’ve never seen before. The countryside was rolling but with serious hills. On both sides of the road, the hills as far as the eye could see were covered in olive trees and nothing else. Shooting it from a moving vehicle doesn’t do it justice but you may get the idea.

We were heading for a town called Jaén, about 70 kms further on and the scenery had not changed; we were still surrounded by olive trees as far as the eye could see. What I cannot comprehend is how on earth this crop could be harvested. We’re talking rolling hills like those of the Beaujolais in France, covered in millions of olive trees instead of vines.

At Jaén we completed our cross-country jaunt and joined another autovia. Once we left the conurbation behind us the olive trees continued unabated. This was utterly incredible, we had eventually been driving past at least 120kms of solid olive trees covering the land from horizon to horizon. With the hills, though, the horizon wasn’t as far as usual hut it was still a massive operation that I just couldn’t quite comprehend.

As we approached Granada we turned off onto more rural roads and began climbing up into the Sierra Nevada. We were on mountain roads and, being a Sunday, the road was full of cyclists which needed some careful negotiating.

Finally, without killing any maniac cyclists climbing ridiculous hills, we arrived at our campsite, Güéjar Sierra [try saying that after a vodka or two]. We’d booked one of the “posh” pitches – posh because they are a massive, by Spanish standards, 90m².

Other than being next to a very yappy small dog nearby, Frodo is very comfortable at 1100m altitude. The sky is clear blue and we are reasonably well equipped. I even managed to raid some brilliant fresh rosemary from a bush at our Villafranca de Córdoba site for yet another paella.

You cannot have too many paellas.

Scary spiders!

We are really here to see one of Spain’s most famous monuments, the Mezquita de Córdoba, the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba. If the concept of a Mosque-Cathedral confuses you, it does me, too, but then I am a self-confessed religious numbskull. This has to be something to do with the mix-up between the Moors and Christians in Spain way back when.

As if visiting a religious monument wasn’t enough scary spiders for me, I was also being asked to ride the 25mks into Cordoba on a Spanish bus. Yikes! The campsite had helpfully provided Francine with a bus timetable, the buses going from a stop a short walk outside the campsite, so my chances of getting out of it were two: slim and fat. Besides, what else would I do on the campsite all day? Along with a couple of Spanish couples, we set off for the 09:00 bus into Córdoba.

€3 each got us to the Córdoba central bus station. The bus was very nearly full up but then, it was a Friday. This was where we’d hope to catch the return bus. Disembarking, we began wandering towards the Mezquita.

Mezquita is Spanish for Mosque. It is officially known as the Catedral de Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion [Cathedral of our Lady of the Assumption]. As a mosque, it was begun in 785 [it says here]. Right, that’s as much history as I can handle.

We made it to the old city walls, entered and wound our way through some amazingly narrow streets finally arriving at the entrance to the mosque-cathedral. Coughing up our €10 each, just in case the Roman Catholic church wasn’t quite rich enough, we got tickets to enter the hallowed walls – but please remove your hat on the inside. I do that, anyway, by the way. Odd. I also spell God with a capital “G”, which is the respectful term, even though I’m a non believer. Mixed up, or what?

The interior of this confusing edifice is, I think, famous for one thing – well, hundreds of more or less identical things, in truth  – the terracotta and cream arches spanning the countless marble columns which abound in the enormous space of the interior. The enormous space was, of course, heaving with enormous numbers of tourists and I spent an age waiting in one of the quieter spots to snag the arches (almost) people free. This is the best I could manage and, after a good 10 minutes waiting for tourists taking selfies to disappear, especially those in red T-shirts, I was reasonably pleased.

I had, at least, taken a proper camera with me to play, so I wasn’t resorting to a crappy phone camera. Francine had also taken her real camera but she has also recently “upgraded” to an iPhone which she was playing with in the Mezquita. She also loaded six wacky photographic apps which do weird things to photos to pretend you’re using a proper camera. Here’s one of her efforts. That’s me bemused.

Completely religioned out, we eventually left the Mezquita and wandered down to the river to cross yet another Roman bridge giving us a view back to the Mosque on the opposite side of the river. You’ll notice that Cordoba is devoid of high rise. Well done them.

We wandered a little way from the tourist trap of the Mezquita in search of some lunch. As usual, we were a bit early for Spanish lunchtime, which seems to start at 13:00. A very pleasant waitress was happy to serve us a drink while we waited for the kitchen to open. Once it did, we chose Berenjenas con miel [aubergines with honey], Fried Boquerones [Anchovies] and a Timbale of Rabo de Toro [oxtail]. As is also usual, we ordered a bit too much.

Just outside the walls of the old town we got quite a surprise. There was what appeared to be a completely sterile stone and concrete pool. There was vegetation at its side but there was no vegetation within it, certainly nothing emergent for nymphs to emerge. Francine first spotted one dragonfly on the pool side, then we realised that there were four different species. There was actually another pool, with absolutely no vegetation, hosting some of the same species. I don’t get it.

Now we had to get to the bus station for our return 15:45 transport. The place was heaving. We were in plenty of time but Spain has no concept of queuing so it ain’t first come first served. A hoard was gathered around the port our bus would depart from. Eventually, half the hoard loaded onto the bus before ours, leaving another half a hoard. If we didn’t get on, the next (and last) bus was at 20:00. Eventually our 15:45 bus pulled in and we managed to finagle our way on while there was still plenty of space.

With just a single seat remaining, we arrived at Frodo having filled the last seat with a student from the university.

Today was a (happily) uneventful drive of 240kms. We had booked a campsite in Villafranca de Córdoba, Camping Albolafia.

Our route was largely cross-country and rather unscintillating, though it was better than trudging down a tedious motorway. Most memorable to me was passing through the town of Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo, which clearly had a rich coal mining history. We past what looked like old spoil heaps, now turned into mini mountains, with many old metal pitheads standing by the road as a reminder.

We negotiated a lengthy descent of the high plateau towards Córdoba. The traffic and road system of Córdoba was a bit of a shock after a rural journey but we made that unscathed and began heading to Villafranca de Córdoba.

The campsite reviews were a bit mixed but, having checked in, we managed to find Frodo what we thought was a very decent pitch right on the edge, although we were facing the rugrats’ playground. Even better, were facing the right way to maximize the shade from Frodo’s shop-blind awning.

Fingers firmly crossed.

We had overnight rain. The rain was quite light, in that we couldn’t even hear it on the roof of the van. It was, however long-lived, going on from about 02:00 until the so-called morning when a vestige of light can be seen around 08:00, in this barking time zone. Whereas when we arrived we had a splendid view of the hillside opposite, this morning we couldn’t tell that there was a hillside opposite.

We’d both had a very unsettled night. Francine woke me as soon as she realized it was raining ‘cos I’d left the chairs out. I went outside in not much to fold them up and put them under the van. It was a bit late, in truth, they were already wet.

There’s an irritating design “feature” with Frodo. Here’s what I think happens. Rain runs down the rear window and drips off the lower edge. Unfortunately what it drips onto is the very proud lower rear moulding, the full width of the van, containing the number plate and rear light clusters. The dripping is not consistent but it is constant. With our heads on pillows at the rear end of the van, after not very long this incessant dripping becomes like a Chinese water torture. In heavier rain that beats a tattoo on the roof, the dripping sound is somewhat masked but that was not the case last night.

This is not the first time this has happened, naturally, since rain in the UK is quite frequent. Previously, I thought that pitching Frodo slightly nose down would cause the water on the roof to run forward rather than overflowing the rear of the van eventually running down the window. At this site, levelling up when pitching was a bit of a challenge and I hadn’t thought about it, smiling with satisfaction as Frodo looked level in both axes. Whoops!

Assuming my assessment is correct, there might be another potential solution, which is to open the rear window wide enough for the drips to fall beyond the lower moulding. Sadly, with the bikes mounted on the back, rear window movement is very restricted. If I’m expecting rain, maybe I’ll dismount the bikes and try it.

Francine resorted to ear plugs and I got little more sleep. I could have stopped counting sheep and started counting drips but I decided that would be too masochistic.

After five nights (probably one too many) and nearly taking root, we’re leaving Madrigal de la Vera and travelling a modest 175kms or so into Extremadura to Alcuéscar.

Francine had had enough of cramped campsites in/near towns and was lusting after the countryside. It almost seems as though, the further we go, the smaller the pitches become. Burgos suffered from punters failing to understand the pitch markers, and from no hedges marking boundaries making everything feel a bit haphazard. Camping Don Quijote at Salamanca [left] had pitches of 70m² max, if you were lucky. Then, in Complejo La Mata at Madrigal de la Vera [right] I calculated the actual pitch size at 50m² – ours was about 9m/10m x 5m tops. The saving grace here was that the site was so underutilized that our surrounding pitches were empty and it felt quite luxurious, as long as you avoided the shanty town of permanents. In between all those pairs of trees in the picture are other pitches. At the height of the season, this would be unbearable but now, it was quite civilized.

Francine just heard of someone (via Farcebook) who, having booked for January in the south of Spain, had just been told they’d get a pitch of 6m x 4m – they have to be effin’ joking.

Francine got no argument from me, who really doesn’t do towns and cities anyway. What she found was a camper vans only site, run by a Dutch couple, with just eight pitches and within walking distance [about 2 mls/3 kms] of Alcuéscar. The reviews sounded fantastic; actually given what we’d already seen, unbelievably fantastic. With so few pitches, she sent an email to book and confirmed that they had room for us. They did, so off we set.

Our journey took us over an interesting cross-country route to begin with. Leaving the Gredos mountains behind us, the land was almost instantly flat. Sometimes, we passed fenced, golden land with scattered, quite low-level trees, that reminded me of Africa. Then the scenery would change, the trees would disappear and we were passing large swathes of open golden land that was reminiscent of outback Australia. Then we’d be back in Africa.

Eventually we hit the almost inevitable autovia and just trudged along it with little in the way of interest. That got us close to our destination and we were soon approaching the campsite, La Tierre Verde, up a very gravelly track. Reception was open between 12:00 and 14:00, and later in the afternoon from 17:00, so we had to time our arrival. We were here at 13:00. Good so far.

Ringing the bell was met with resounding silence. There was a note on the door saying they’d had to go out for business and giving a phone number. Francine called it and we were told to pick our own pitch. With only one other unit on site, we had a good choice. We got Frodo levelled and settled but had to wait for Sr. Dutch-Owner to hook us up to the electricity. In the interim, we fired up the fridge on gas, just to keep the beer and white wine cool.

Given what we’ve seen thus far, this really is luxurious. At this end of the season, the land is very scrubby but and at last we have a selection of birds to entertain us. Catching them on camera may prove tricky ‘cos they seem a bit flighty.

Just outside the entrance to our campsite, Complejo La Mata, is a rocky river, the Garganta de Alardos. There’s not a huge amount of water in it but it is flowing. One of the more appealing aspects for those keen on the activity [not me] are some permanent swimming pools. The water, I must say, is stunningly clear. Beyond the stream in the distance are the Gredos mountains.

The approach road to La Mata continues a short distance beyond the campsite so we thought we’d investigate. We wandered along and found a Spanish couple with a parked motor home enjoying one of the swimming pools. Dragonflies were there none. Since there is absolutely no vegetation in the entirely boulder-strewn river, I can’t say I was particularly surprised. In one bush beside the water course, Francine did spot a new (to me) species of Potter Wasp; I think it’s a Euodynerus species, possibly E. variegatus but don’t quote me.

It was approaching lunchtime so we wondered how manic the restaurants in Madrigal might be. We started sauntering in, which took us past the Roman Bridge, after which our road into town is named.

When I say it was approaching lunchtime, I should qualify that by saying it was approaching our lunchtime. Given the late eating habits of the Spanish, it was not approaching their lunchtime. A handful of folks did begin eating at a restaurant opposite a bar where we sat refreshing our feet with beers but it was all relatively quiet for a Sunday lunchtime.

We wandered into one restaurant in search of a menu, which they did not have posted outside, and were told that on Sunday there was no menu, only casa. In other words, it was a fixed menu of the day and that was all – you had that or nothing. Looking at a few other establishments, the same seemed to true. We saw signs proclaiming “fin de semana” [weekend] and “menú del día” [menu of the day]. The latter is normally available in a Spanish restaurant but today it appeared to be the only choice (if that can be called a choice).

We just wanted a light midday bite to leave room for an evening meal. A menú del día was going to be two courses and way too much food for us, so we sauntered back to the campsite to enjoy our own tapas chez Frodo.

We are camped beside a part of one of the routes through to Santiago de Compostela. There are supposedly 200 routes, starting from various places (It says here), seven are popular. I suspect the one by us is one of the less popular ones. About 3kms of it takes us from our campsite on a pilgrimage into Alcuéscar.

We began our walk and as we turned onto the path heading into Alcuéscar we were joined by a handful (well, three) of other pilgrims. You can spot the real pilgrims ‘cos they have walking poles in a variety of designs, ranging from aluminium trekking poles to a simple wooden stick. The tourists, on a short pilgrimage to a local bar/supermarket, carry nothing.

Our pilgrimage to Alcuéscar was largely pointless; Alcuéscar was mainly closed. We knew where the Dia supermacado was but struggled to find an open bar. We eventually found a bar with signs of life down near the main road through town. We went in and ordered two beers. Having been given the beers we were presented with a tapa of … I don’t know what.

The weather was basically overcast but dry so we went outside to enjoy the dulcet tones of a tractor-load of local workers pollarding the streetside trees with a clumsily wielded Stihl chainsaw on a long pole.There’s nothing [buzz] like a [buzz] calm drink [buzz] in a sunny [not, buzz] local bar.

While sucking our beers [buzz] out of the bottle [buzz] – they seem to serve them this way to stop warming the beer up with a glass – we began [buzz] nibbling our tapa [buzz] with toothpicks. My initial impression was [buzz] that it might be tripe [buzz]. No, it wasn’t. It was, however [buzz], something very soft and fatty [buzz] in a tomato sauce with onion and carrot [buzz]. You can serve pretty much [buzz] anything in such a sauce [buzz] and get away with it.

Now, we have seen frequent occurrences [chainsaw moved on] of a bizarre offering, bizarre to us, that is, both on menus and in supermarkets. What we saw in supermarkets on polystyrene trays was pigs snout. This very same, though I’m failing to recall the Spanish, was on offer at the bar in our very first Burgos campsite. Clearly cooked for long enough to make an oak tree tender, I have a nasty feeling that that is what we were eating.

Fat, slithery and slug-like, I polished it off. Well, why not, this might end up being lunch? Never let it be said that I am culinarily unadventurous.

We repaired to the Dia supermercado, which prover to be considerably less super than the one we’d recently visited in Madrigal de la Vera. Nonetheless, we filled out rucksacks with a few provisions and set off back along the pilgrim route to our campsite.

I was grateful to arrive back at Frodo.

Somehow, in all the messing about with my bicycle mixed in with occasional moments of trying to enjoy a holiday, I seem to have misplaced a set of reading glasses. I’ve got the pouch that should contain them but it’s empty. Normally, I’d have put the glasses down on a table somewhere but try as I might, finding them eluded me. There is, of course, the possibility that I might have left them at a restaurant having read the bill to pay it. I didn’t think I had, though.

I’ve got another pair, which I keep in my rucksack, so it’s not a real problem but I like having a second pair to be safe.

Spain is full of emporiums run by Chinese folks. The stock ranges from cooking pans, material, light bulbs, tools, electrical supplies, motoring accessories, the lot. They are an absolute Aladdin’s cave. What you can’t buy in these place is largely not worth buying. We are not talking high end items but relatively cheap. They can often help you out in a fix (though not, it seems, with bicycle innertubes). When we had Casa Libélule in Jalón, we learned such establishments were affectionately known as Chinese Takeaways.

There is one such right beside the Dia supermercado in Madrigal de la Vera. Since we were off on our bikes [YEAH!] to do a top-up shop prior to moving on on Monday, Francine suggested looking for some replacement reading glasses in the Chinese Takeaway.

What is difficult once inside is finding what you’re looking for, so huge is the range of items they carry with apparently little in the way of logical organization. We both began scouring the aisles with no success.

Near the checkout, Francine did find sunglasses but that was it. Then we turned around and there, low down behind us were a few boxes of reading glasses arranged by power. Francine rummaged in the 2.00-2.50 dioptre box and finally found a 2.00 pair.

For a princely €3.75, I was the proud owner of a perfectly comfortable pair of reading glasses, in a plastic case and complete with a cleaning cloth AND a grandad cord to string them around my neck. Amazing! I really should go and buy a few more pairs for home.

Francine joked that now that I had a new pair, we’d be bound to find the old pair that I’d sought to replace. These would be magic reading glasses.

Back at Frodo later in the day, Francine did some laundry and went to get the washing line from one of Frodo’s lockers.

“Come here”, she shouted, ominously.

“It doesn’t sound as though I want to come there”, I said. Such summonses often mean that she has discovered something amiss and Mr. Fixit is needed.

I went around the back of Frodo. There, on the sandy ground, was my original pair of reading glasses. I’m in the habit of hooking them into the neck of my shirt and, when bending down using Frodo’s locker, which is quite low, they’d evidently slipped out of my shirt and onto the ground unnoticed.

Magic reading glasses indeed.

Maybe I should use that grandad neck cord that came with the new pair.