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Introduction to Hill Towns

February 6, 2002

Dear Friends and Families,

Four months into our Road Trip, we headed for the White Hill Towns of Andalucia. I didn't know what to expect. The guidebooks are filled with flowery descriptions of cliff-hanging villages with tiny, twisted streets lined with churches, Roman, Moorish and Christian ruins, homes piled one upon the other with hidden gardens behind plain white plastered walls and iron-grilled windows. Was this true or hype?

We set out from Granada early Saturday morning, heading west. We were looking forward to the few-hour drive ahead so we even washed the car. That's one of those chores that we have often ignored on our trip, but we knew that a clean car would fit better in picturesque towns.

A couple hours out, we saw the town of Olvera on the horizon, with its Moorish castle and Catholic church above the sea of whitewashed homes. It really was picture-perfect and we detoured off the main road and pointed toward the castle. It would be hard to miss such a massive place. However, I learned my first important White Hill Town driving lesson: seeing and reaching are two different things. First, we had shown up just in time for the Saturday produce and flea market. It's still intimidating driving through the middle of old ladies with shopping bags. Then, in search of the base of the castle, we got caught in a web of one-way paths. Paths, not streets. To make this story short, we never made it. I lost my nerve before we reached our goal. We left town knowing that there should be plenty of castles and hilltop churches in the other towns.

Our goal was a town called Arcos de la Frontera. Towns earned the "de la Frontera" suffix by serving as border towns during the Christian fight with the Moors to reconquer Spain. Our guidebooks said Arcos was a town "with not much to offer other than its basic whitewashed self." But it also said it was a good base for seeing several of the white towns and had a reasonably priced old-town hotel. The book also mentioned something in passing about the difficulty of the drive up to the hotel area.

By the time we reached Arcos, Olvera had already given me my lesson on narrow streets, so we parked in the not-so-old-town and walked up - way up. We found our hotel and Marianne asked for the best room in the house. It's easy to be demanding when it's off-season and the hotel is almost empty. We got a room named in honor of Rick Steves, the author of our guidebook! This had better be good.

It was. It was spectacular. The view from our huge patio was more than the quite reasonable room rent. For five days, we could not stop looking out at the valley floor 500 feet below us and at the oldest parts of the old town flanking us left and right. We took pictures morning, noon and evening. It was as mesmerizing as watching the ocean.

But we weren't moved in yet. We had checked in, but our bags were still in the car and the car was still a half-mile away and almost a 500 feet below. After a pleasant lunch, I was restored enough to try the drive up the hill, contrary to the advice of our guidebook. And, contrary to the advice of the signs about town saying that, not only was it normally difficult to reach the top, the "main" uphill road was currently being rebuilt, so traffic was detoured to a yet-smaller detour.

No problem. We have a smallish car. We'd seen cars up by the hotel that were at least the size of ours. How hard can it be? Well, we didn't take any pictures of us on the way up because we were both holding our breath ... for 10 minutes. Later, I looked at other, smaller, cars going up the detour and I was amazed they'd made it. It took me a day and a half to work up the nerve to drive out. I am happy to report that we added no new marks to either the whitewashed village or the car.

So, what did we see? In the center of old Arcos, the church of Santa Maria stands over the town square. In the 18th Century, the Santa Maria congregation fought with that of neighboring St. Peter's and won papal endorsement as the primary church of Arcos. As a prize, Rome sent Santa Maria a desiccated body reputed to be that of St. Felix, a Third-Century martyr. I don't know what St. Pete's got as second prize.

The Santa Maria is also famous for it's resident bell ringer who lives in a tower apartment. For the record, the only apparent parochial competition left is between the manual bell ringer and St. Pete's mechanical system. The later rings more often but perhaps the former rings with more feeling.

We took a "patio tour" offered by the local Tourist office. It was just us and Mercedes the guide as we wandered around old Arcos. She told us bits and pieces of the history of the town and the oldest buildings. In addition to the 9th Century Moorish castle, and the two churches, "old" included a number of16th and 17th Century homes built around inner courtyards or patios.

The largest house was originally the governor's home but is now a "Paradore" or state-organized deluxe hotel. We dropped in on several other patios as well and Mercedes assured us that, if the front door was open, that meant it was OK to peek into the inner courtyard. People were understandably proud of the plants and flowers and generally peaceful ambience at the core of an old hill town home.

Other Arcos activities included the regular: eat, walk, window shop and sleep, as well as staring out over the edge of our balcony. Mercedes had shown us pictures of the hill a few years ago, when our balcony was ten feet away from the edge. Those ten feet slid away after a water pipe broke nearby. I was nervous after the history lesson. As for eating, we discovered that other hotels had better breakfasts, so every morning we would evaluate. The winner of the Arcos breakfast contest was the Paradore where they served a four-star brunch at two-star prices.

We managed to work in an afternoon day-trip out of Arcos to see the towns of Grazalema and Zahara. Marianne drove this time. I navigated. After we got lost for almost an hour, we passed below Arcos again and then found our road over, and up, to Grazalema. At 1100 meters (about 3500 feet) we passed through a fog-shrouded pass and then dropped back into town.

It was yet another picture-perfect town. Around the town is a wonderful nature reserve with walking and climbing paths in between imposing rocks and crags. But I must admit that, when we looked at our town pictures, we could hardly tell one white town from another. All nice. All quaint. All white. All with narrow streets.

Before dark settled, we had one more town to hit, Zahara. Before Zahara, we had 15 kilometers (10 miles) of a very narrow, very windy, very steep road. First, the road went up to a pass at 1357 meters (about 4,500 feet) and then down, down, down, almost to the valley floor. We knew it was the right, quaint, white, town-with-narrow-streets because Zahara was topped by the ruins of one of the last Moorish castles to fall before the final victory by the 15th Century Christians.

This time we parked at the edge of the old part of town and walked in. Then we noted that Zahara has comparatively wide streets and, at this time of year, on Tuesday evening, virtually no traffic. Next time we will drive.

Before the sun set, we managed to buy postcards, look inside a church, and walk across the town square. For a sleepy little place like Zahara, that was enough, but it also showed the particular charm of the place. I suppose if the people of Arcos ever want to get away from the hustle and bustle of their town, they only have to go over to Zahara.

So, are the White Hill Towns of Andalucia as nice as the guidebooks say? Yes, they are. Each of the four we saw was different from the others. Each was small but each had a specific charm. There are a dozen or two more of these towns that we did not visit, but we can always come back because they should always keep their magic. .

Next stop, Cordoba.

Take care. Visit a small town.

John and Marianne