The Holiday

This was a walking holiday organised by the company Exodus. You can find this one under the title "Walking in Andalucia" in the "Walking in Europe" section.

The weather was sunny for the duration with temperatures around 30 centigrade, with a cooling breeze in the hills. Temperatures on our mid-week break in Seville reached a reported 41 centigrade.

A group shot, taken by Christopher Burke, one of the organisers. This looks like the top of El Terril. I'm in the back row on the right.

These images have been reduced to a width of 1280 pixels (from over 3000) and in some cases cropped and otherwise adjusted. If you would like a copy of any of the originals drop me a line.

Click on the thumbnails for the full size version

Day 1 - Arrival

Cortijo Rosario

The holiday was based at the the Cortijo Rosario, a converted Farmhouse about 15 minutes (very steep) walk from the village of Algámitas in the province of Seville, Andalucia.

The view up the hill from Algámitas. The Cortijo Rosario is the white building in the background.

A zoomed in view of the Cortijo.

Looking West from the Cortijo

Up hill from the Cortijo

	Some interesting local plants. The closest match I can find is Agave Americana. These have started flowering, hence the rall central spike.
	Some newly planted olive trees. The bushes in the background are older olive trees, pretty much every field in this area is growing olives.
	The hills we will be climbing the next two days. The nearer rocky one is Peñón (the crag) about 1050 meters high, though we will only be climbing the last 650. The further, greener one is El Terril (1121 m).

	The Cortijo from above with Algámitas in the distance.
	The Cortijo swimming pool with El Terril visible between the pillars. Some of Peñón can also be seen to the right.
	Some birds under the eaves.

Day 2 - Peñón

Peñón

We walked from the Cortijo. Here you can see the ubiquitous olive trees, with Peñón in the distance.

Camping El Peñón

The climb

Day 3 - El Terril

El Terril

Here you can see two of the white villages of which the area is famous for, plus two moorish towers and a cathedral. The nearer village is Pruna, with its tower perched on the rocky peak just behind it. Olvera is in the distance, the tower and cathedral are just visible on the rocky prominence on the right of the view.

Butterflies

There are plenty of butterflies of various sizes and colours fluttering around the top of this peak, but few of them settle long enough to photograph. Chasing them isn't a good idea as the area is surrounded by cliffs.

Day 4 - Monasterio de Caños Santos and Setenil de las Bodegas

This walk starts at the Cortijo and continues to the Monasterio de Caños Santos where we had a picnic lunch. We then carried on to the scenic village of Setenil.

Approach

Some horses. The hill in the background is Terril.

The monestry

The only translation I can get for Caños Santos is "Holy Sewers", maybe a reference to the caves or grottos where an image of the Virgin Mary was hidden during the Moorish occupation, or maybe just a poor translation.

The monestry was restored some years ago but has been pretty much abandonned since, it is not open to the public so we didn't get to see inside. You can see in some of the images that some of the restoration is starting to deteriorate, a broken tile in the first image and a broken window in the fourth, for instance.

Setenil

Setenil is an ineresting village situated in a steep sided gorge on the banks of the Rio Trejo. A lot of the houses are actually built into caves/overhangs in the cliffs.

Day 5 - Seville

We took a day away from walking and drove to Seville to spend a few days exploring the city. Sunila and I started with the Alcazar.2015

In the queue

	The Cathedral, "next door" to the Alcazar.
	The entrance.

The Alcazar

The interior was quite dark so I didn't take many pictures. There was an exhibition of ceramics which I found quite interesting, especially as it featured lots of Islamic styled tiles, patterns being one of my hobbies.

One of the tiled ceilings. I like this one as it contains motiefs based around 10-pointed stars.

The entrance courtyard.

The Alcazar Gardens

This was my favourite area. The gardens are divided into regions, each of which then has lots of areas, so you can spend ages exploring.

Torre del Oro

The Torre del Oro is is a watchtower that contains a small navel museum and a viewing platform. The viewing platform is atop the wider part of the tower, the smaller central tower was closed.

These pictures are from the viewing platform.

Day 6 - Hidden Vally

"Hidden Vally" is the tour company's name for this walk, as a large part of it is spent in isolated vallies surrounded by rocky hills. It is a round walk based on the village of Montejaque in the Grazalema Natural Park.

Thursday is market day in Montejaque.

				There is a steep ascent from the Montejaque village to a region of wide fields between between rocky peaks. The area is very other-worldly with no roads or buildings, though there were some grazing cattle. We did a circular route around one of the central peaks and returned to Montejaque.

Day 7 - Quadalteba and Guadalhorce Reservoirs

The Ascent

Some great views of the reservoirs

The peak

This peak was the highest point on our walk, it was a bit of a scramble to the top and incredibly windy. From the top we came down the far side and advanced to a rocky platform where we got some great views of the El Chorro gorge and railway.

These pictures were taken looking back during the descent.

The platform

A great place for taking pictures of the gorge, if you aren't too afraid of heights.

Vultures

These vultures seem to have their on the base on the cliff on the other side of the gorge but a few wandered over to our side.

El Chorro Gorge

The line you can see on the cliff on the right hand side of the gorge is the Caminito del Rey (King's walk). This was a walkway bolted to the side of a cliff so that workers on the hydroelectric plants could get from on to the other. It has recently been rebuilt as a much safer tourist path. See the Wikipedia article or search the web from some more pictures.