JULY 2014 - VIVA ESPANA! Day 1 - Arcos de la Frontera

Badly organised as I was, most flights into southern Spain turned out to booked solid (even before the school holidays began!) but we squeaked onto a flight into Gibraltar, which was remarkable only for the cross-winds caused by the Rock which meant that the pilot sharply aborted the landing and uttered the words ever passenger wants to hear : "Let's have another go at that, shall we?"....

Safely on terra firma in Gibraltar, we crossed the border into Spain to collect our hire car and onward to the largest of the so-called pueblos blancos (white villages), Arcos de la Frontera,

with castle and church up on the hill, and the village tumbling down to the river

along steep narrow white-washed streets.

Our own little rented house was a quiet place, with one bedroom and a kitchen-diner gving way to a charming little courtyard (which was nominally shared but we had all to ourselves save for our hosts' Spanish water-dog and cat with the world's loudest purr)