La Sierra Nevada and around

Having previously spent time around La Sierra Nevada, our plan was to revisit and explore some more. Arriving in Orgiva, the main town within the Alpujarra region, we found the newly opened motorhome Aire on the edge of the town - Another fantastic initiative to promote tourism and provide facilities for people on the move - run by a lovely welcoming Spanish couple. Sadly though we were really disappointed with orgiva itself - not sure if it was because we arrived on a Sunday (in January), but the whole town seemed extremely run down and uninviting, and many people obviously struggling and having a hard time - many people begging on the streets 😞 A real shame as we had really looked forward to spending time there and exploring, but the place felt quite uncomfortable. So after a short walk the following day we decided to leave and head a bit further north. But not before picking beautiful lemons, in fond memory of Chris Stewart's Driving over Lemons tale of life in the Alpujarra around Orgiva.



Arrived in Monachil, a small town to the east of Granada, and within the Sierra Nevada national park, only for Dave to realise that he had previously stayed here on a mountain biking trip a few years ago 🤣 The sun came out and we did a wonderful walk along the river and through a breathtaking gorge, before heading back to the town over beautiful olive groves and small holdings, with pretty wild flowers. Sadly there was nowhere ideal to stay the night so we left monachil and headed to a campsite on the northern side of the national park at Guejar Sierra.



Guejar Sierra lies at an altitude of over 1000 meters, so the snow capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains were clearly visible from the campsite. It was SO cold! 


Dave set off on a mega bike ride in the peaks (not in the snow) with at times his head quite literally above the clouds 🤣 The walking was quite tough (and long) around Guejar, so not ideal for Rubes, who was once again struggling with a poorly leg, so after a nice meal in the campsite restaurant that evening we decided to move on the next day.



Winding our way a bit further north our next stop was at Beas de Granada - a small town to the east of Granada. Again we took advantage of a wonderful newly opened motorhome Aire, run by a young Spanish couple - an obvious boost to tourism in the area. This was our base for a fabulous walk along the ancient right of way from Beas to the Alhambra in Granada - the Vereda del Barranco. The route is @16km long (one way), so we only managed part of it there and back - but would be a fantastic walk to do in full sometime in the future, arriving at the Alhambra - how magnificent 😃 But what we did do was beautiful and interesting, and Ruby loved it too 🤣


Interesting signage along the way


Swimming, again!


So our trip to the Sierra Nevada was fairly brief, and a bit shorter than planned. Unfortunately we didn’t find an ideal place to base ourselves, which would have catered for all our needs - and at this time of the year 🥲 But the up side of this was that we did move around a bit (not huge distances in between) and in doing so discovered some places we would definitely like to return to in the future 👍 Monachil is definitely somewhere to return as there are so many walking and biking opportunities there, and of course walking along the ancient route to the Alhambra is a must 😃

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