White Villages Tour Jimena de la Frontera, Gaucin & Casares - January

by Freddie Jade
(Marbella)

We love our little Sunday road trips, even if we do spend more time in the car. We always take the scenic route and take turns driving to make sure we can take in all the beautiful flora and fauna whilst discussing our thoughts about the world.

This side of the world you find the cutest little white villages doted about the mountains. Today we set off along the Coast and once we reached Torreguadiaro we started to go up passed San Enrique and San Martin del Tesorillo passed all the avocado and orange tress towards Jimena de la Frontera about 35km from the Coast. The town is surrounded by the Los Alcornocales Natural Park and you enter it through a wonderful three arched gateway, where you can drive all the way to the top and park in just 7 minutes. There is where we found the roman castle with amazing views and quite a few people picnicking whilst kids and dogs where running about.

Our next stop was Gaucin, which was a further 30 minutes windy road drive round to the north west on the A-377, when we arrived we couldn't really find much going on other than a small castle at the top of the hill with a small garden. We decided to have a quick coffee on the balconies at the entrance of the town and get back in the car to continue our trip back towards the Coast.

On the way down I wanted to show my partner Rey the village of Casares before joining my mother's side of the family down in the valley at their beautiful Spanish Cortijo Horse yards.
Casares is a picture postcard village that everyone says has something special about it although the Spanish saying goes "Casares, compra pan y no pares" meaning "buy bread but don't stop" you defiantly want to buy their bread but you also want to stop by.

At this point we are only 9 km from the Coast, as we decided to go on a round tour but you can just pop up from Manilva in 15 minutes or do the same route the other way round.

Above you have pictures, but no information below as we where treated to a lovely meal at the families retreat although most restaurants you can find are traditional Spanish Ventas. There is a great restaurant we like to go to regularly 2km from Casares called Arroyo Hondo, feel free to say we recommended you.

For more information visit Andalucia’s White Villages