We have visited a number of these 'white villages' but I think they are generally a bit overrated. Not this place though! Setenil is an unusual town, built around the curves of a small stream winding its way through a small gorge. Cave dwellings (or troglodyte houses) have been inhabited here for hundreds of years, in fact there is history here going back to the Romans, and possibly well before.
There are a number of streets where the buildings have been built underneath the natural rock roof and like other cave dwellings, the rocks provide warmth in winter and coolness in summer. This particular street, Calle Cuevas del Sol, is full of bars and shops.
You can see in the photo above, there are buildings built above and in fact this is where a lot of the town is, higher up. It's quite hard to make sense of a map in places, as parts of the roads are hidden!
The little stream, Rio Trejo.
Calle Cuevas de la Sombre, which means shady street, is on the other side of the stream.
As some of the houses have been demolished it allows us to see the size of this house - it's tiny! Yet it looks inhabited. I suppose it is possible that some of the houses have excavated further into the rock face to make more space. I do wonder how many times these buildings may have been flooded though over the centuries. You get a flash flood in a place like that and there isn't that much room for raging water before it gets to house level.
I loved this lady's tiny outside space with the tiles and all those plants! Next door looked interesting with that wonderful wooden door, too.
Interesting rock surface and the pink flowers are all Sedums growing out of the rock.
Must be very dark and gloomy in some of those houses!
I certainly wouldn't choose to live in a house with a massive rock looming over me like that! But it makes for a scenic and interesting place for us tourists to visit.
We were going to visit Ronda next, but the weather got more and more overcast the closer we got. We parked up in the town and the heaven's opened. We thought we'd put the kettle on (the joys of a motorhome 😀), have a cup of tea and wait for a bit. But it kept on raining. Now the last time K and I were in Spain, we planned to visit Ronda. In fact we stayed at an aire in the town the night before - up the other end of the town from the scenic bit. The next morning it was pouring with rain, and we would have to take a bus to get to the interesting part of town. We decided to give it a miss and headed north, way north, to where the sun was shining! We've decided that Ronda and us are not a good mix and that we may never get to see the town, ever! Well, maybe third time lucky.
I didn't take any photos of us at Setenil so here's one of me at dinner at the campsite that evening. That was fish underneath a sauce that looked like custard, served with a strange rice dish with nuts and raisins. It was a bit dry. 😀
A map showing our route from Gibraltar to Setenil, via the Monarch walk.
High on my bucket list has always been to see a Monarch butterfly - not the African Monarch which I have seen a few times in Spain, but the famous North American one, Danaus plexippus. I didn't think it was likely that I ever would unless I happened to go to a tropical butterfly house and they had any there, although they do breed in Madeira.
So I was most surprised, and excited, to stumble across somebody's blog talking about a place in Andalucia where you can see American Monarch butterflies. The reason for this is because their food plant, Milkweed, has been planted in this place. It's not a native plant of Europe so without it, the butterfly cannot breed. Every once in a while a wave of Monarchs get blown off course and land up in Europe, often in Spain, but without Milkweed they just die off when the butterfly dies its natural death. Give it the plant it needs to breed, and they will lay eggs and the whole caterpillar/butterfly cycle can happen. (What I don't understand is why these butterflies don't feel inclined to migrate, as in America they are famous for their mass migration north every summer, from Mexico where they overwinter, to as far north as Canada).
It wasn't long before we started to see the butterflies as we started our walk, which followed the course of a stream for most of the way. It was a stinking hot day, so we were pleased to have a lot of the walk in a shady area!
The small stream, above and below, with Foxgloves growing wild above. I must admit, we didn't see any Milkweed. It must be somewhere though.
A not very good photo but the only one we managed of a wings open shot. Unfortunately the only times they settled was usually in really shady areas near the stream. They are strong flying butterflies and there were plenty around that didn't want to stop, so we don't have the best photos overall.
Iris foetidissima.
On our way to our next destination we stopped at this layby for lunch. There was a bit of a path up the hill which was surrounded by wildflowers
From the top of the path there were views to several whitewashed villages, which the Spanish call 'pueblos blancos'. There are a lot of them in parts of inland Andalucia. One of them was our next destination.
Back to the butterflies, that was a tick off the bucket list and a really enjoyable morning!
If you are reading this and want to know where the walk is, it’s near Castellar de la Frontera which is not far from Gibraltar. Look on google maps for Venta La Cantina, which is a restaurant where you can park. Just near the car park is a sign for Sendero de la Mariposa Monarca, which is also marked on google maps, so you can probably search for it. Easy peasy!
After spending time up on top of the rock, we came back down into the town to find somewhere to eat. We found a typical British pub with small garden selling all the usual British pub grub, including my favourite - scampi and chips! I haven't had scampi for years as it doesn't generally exist in foreign countries. I'm holding sachets of tartare sauce and even better, malt vinegar, for my chips. So British!
What do I spy? Oh, one of my favourite shops! 😁
Yes of course I went in, and anybody British will understand what I came out with - knickers and mint sauce! There was a tiny food section and I couldn't buy much as we had to carry whatever we bought around with us. But no way could I pass up on some nostalgia shopping in Marks' food hall and undies departments! (Mint sauce is not available in France, except in the British section of larger supermarkets, at vastly inflated prices). I can and do buy clothes from M&S France online, but it's not the same as going into the shop! Last time I was in England was Sept 2019 just before moving south, to scatter Mum's ashes. Haven't had much reason to go back since she died.
Main Street sums up just what it is.
A traditional British letter box.
However, the contrast between things like letter boxes and Marks and Spencers, with Mediterranean plantings was a little weird. Nice though! I could happily live in this part of the UK. 😀
The Royal Engineers Monument with a Jacaranda tree behind. The Engineers constructed tunnels through the rock during various sieges, including making openings where cannons could fire upon ships below.
We tried to get a bus to the other end of the rock to explore further but the first bus went sailing past as it was full - then the next bus did the same - I think they were full of school kids. So we gave up on that idea and just wandered around, finding ourselves in this pleasant park. Commonwealth Park was opened in 2014 and is surrounded by the city walls.
Looking up the hill from this angle makes the rock look quite small - yet that observatory was sitting on a tall pointy bit of rock and as you saw from my photos in the previous post, it was really quite high up.
We took a regular bus back to the airport and walked across the runway to the border control on the Spanish side. Lots of people were crossing this way.
I had to show you these tickets as they made us laugh! The bottom tickets are for the shuttle bus in the morning, and as two of us were over 65 they could get a senior discount. I was one year too young but the kind lady let me have the senior discount too. However taking a normal town bus back to the airport we just bought tickets on the bus from the driver, and it wasn't until later that I noticed he had given us senior tickets! I mean, do we really look that old? 😁😂😀
I really enjoyed our day out although it was a bit of a shame that we could not get a bus so that we could explore a little more. We will definitely come back again to see more and experience that slightly strange Britishness that the rock exudes. I totally recommend it!
