Memories of my latest journey down to Andalusia still linger in my mind now I’m back home. The pleasant and sweet scent of orange blossoms, the bright green rolling hills landscape, where even a lonely white cottage becomes a monument, those pretty white washed villages perched spectacularly atop a crag or the western atmosphere sheltered in the spectacular badlands-like Tabernas desert, one of the wildest and driest parts of Europe.
In my latest trip down to Andalusia I have been traveling extensively for a week from Malaga to the dramatic cliffs of the Cabo de Gata promontory passing through those lovely pueblos blancos Andalusia is famous for and a dramatic desert landscape where Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western movies were filmed in the 1960s. Spring is a great period to travel in the Spain’s south. Blooming trees, green field landscapes and a not yet fierce sun. Andalusia is still home somehow to the stereotyped essence of Spain: easy going and relaxed people, fiesta-loving land, bullfighters and flamenco performances, afternoon siesta under a fierce sun-dappled land. Though this simplistic portrait of Spain’s deep south might sound outdated and somehow romantic, it carries some truth by the way. Both growing modernisation and tourist invasion haven’t been able to root out the authentic spirited and passionate atmosphere coming from that historical mix of different faiths and cultures, Christianity and Islam, this land has been home for centuries. This curious mix still survives in everything you see in Andalusia nowadays: food, language, architecture, people. Everything here seems to be related to what once was historically a mobile frontier between Christianity and Islam. What Andalusia has inherited since then is still a precious treasure made of values and roots.
That’s why I love Andalusia. A gentle land where the beauty of nature seems to elegantly join what man created and built.
Enjoy my Andalusia photo gallery.