Montefrio

Travelled : 233km
Visited/Stay: Montefrio- free parking N37.32010 W4.01068

The rain that has been threatening for the past couple of days finally caught up with us. Never the less we made our way towards the gorge near El Chorro.  Upon our approach the rain  was still heavy and we decided to abort our mission and instead head to Granada. On the way we consulted our guide books and a couple of villages to the North sounded intriguing.  We turned off the main drag onto the A333.  From here on we drove through valley after valley of olive groves scattered with white villages.  It was an amazing sight. 

View of Inzajar 

Nice to see a bit of colour along the roadside 

View of Priego de Córdoba 

The aire in Priego de Cordoba was free and with services but we decided to continue to Montefrio.  The view of the village as we arrived was startling with the Moorish fortifications standing proud on top of the cliff along with the only round church in Spain. 

Short cut on the way!

View of Montefrio

Mark managed to get a super parking spot in the street next to the church. 

We hopped out and had a quick look inside and wandered up to the tourist office but being Sunday it was closed. There were some interpretive signs around the town but as it was lunch time we popped into the bar next door to find it a fully fledged restaurant that was pumping with locals and we were asked if we had a reservation.  As there was room at the bar we were happy to sit there and enjoyed free tapas with each drink. We also ordered a main meal to share. The 14 hour roasted lamb shoulder was delicious. 

 We thought we better go for a walk up to the fortress unfortunately by the time we got to the top it was raining again. 

Wow ... Shells in the rock and we are about 880m alt.

We were wet by the time we got back to Bluey and went on a search for a flat parking area which we eventually found on the other side of town. We spent the rest of the afternoon listening to the rain pattering on Blueys roof.