DAY 23 OLVERA – RONDA

Hotel Sierra y Cal in Olvera was a lucky find. Polite, helpful staff, nice room & facilities, & great food.
I was pondering whether to explore Olvera more but the main attractions, Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación church & the 12th C Arab castle I’d been eyeballing on the tunnelled route up, would have required a serious down & up. With less than a week to get back to Santander, I felt the need to keep to my schedule. However, this place is now on my must return list together with the Via Verde de la Sierra.

First half of todays ride was dirt/gravel (CA-414, etc) with lots of twisting climbs, passing by remote farms (many derelict), olive groves & shrub. Olvera & Torre Alháquime (village lower down) were in constant view – the fort in particular. At the top of my last real climb the downhill being looked forward to was missing! Instead I got a high plateau world of farms with ploughed fields.

Then onto metalled roads & the next disappointment. The jaw dropping views were gone – now only rolling hills. I could have been anywhere! The final disappointment was my anticipated challenging climb up to Ronda became a gentle downhill 15 km cruise along a main thoroughfare increasingly lined with urban & industrial buildings.

Ronda is much bigger than I’d expected but the centre is small and delightful. It’s also very full of tourists drinking & eating. Got a picture of my bike & me on the bridge, rehydrated with a beer, did GE stuff for a couple of hours before finding affordable Moorish hotel, Hnos. Macias, close to the action – just in case!