Andalusia 2024

Andalusia

The Costa del Sol from the air, with coastal towns strung out between the sea and the mountains.

Andalusia at the end of November: clear skies, a low sun and leaves turning yellow in the gardens. The trip begins above the Costa del Sol, with the coast near Málaga seen from the air as a strip of white towns between the sea and the mountains. On the beach in Málaga, a stone breakwater runs out into clear water, and in the hills north of the city the La Concepción Historical Botanical Garden, created in the 19th century, has avenues of tall cypresses and ponds of water plants.

Málaga

The city beach with a stone breakwater, and Málaga from above in the blue hour.

Jardín Botánico Histórico La Concepción

The 19th-century historic garden in the hills north of Málaga, with tall cypresses and a pond of water plants.

The second day belongs to Granada and the Alhambra, the complex of palaces and fortifications built by the Nasrid dynasty in the 13th and 14th centuries on the Sabika hill above the city. In the Court of the Myrtles, the long pool mirrors the Comares Tower and the arcades at either end; in the Court of the Lions, a forest of slender columns holds up the galleries around the fountain. The Generalife gardens, once the summer residence, have water channels, flowers, arcades open to the city and pavilions from which the whole Alhambra comes into view. From the terraces the eye travels across the valley to the Albaicín, the old Moorish quarter, with its white houses and cypresses on the opposite hill. The Alhambra, the Generalife and the Albaicín are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Alhambra

The Nasrid palaces: the Court of the Myrtles with the Comares Tower mirrored in its pool, the Court of the Lions and an inner garden with a fountain.

Granada

The Generalife gardens with their water channel and arcades, towers on the Alhambra walls and the Albaicín seen from above.

The last day starts in Málaga, with the city lit up in the blue hour, and heads northwest to the Caminito del Rey. The walkway was built between 1901 and 1905 for the workers of the hydroelectric plants around El Chorro, and got its name after King Alfonso XIII walked it in 1921. Rebuilt and reopened in 2015, it runs on wooden boardwalks pinned to the limestone walls of the Gaitanes gorge, high above the Guadalhorce river, past an old water channel carried on arches and across a suspension bridge. Beyond the gorge the valley widens, with scrub-covered slopes and a reservoir of muddy water.

Caminito del Rey

Boardwalks pinned to the walls of the Gaitanes gorge, the suspension bridge and the old channel on arches, high above the Guadalhorce river.

In the evening, Ronda: the town sits on the edge of El Tajo, a gorge more than 100 m deep cut by the Guadalevín river. Its two halves are joined across the chasm by the Puente Nuevo, completed in 1793 and floodlit from below at night. In the old town, narrow streets of white houses with wrought-iron balconies glow under the street lamps.

Ronda

The Puente Nuevo over the El Tajo gorge, floodlit at night, and the white streets of the old town.