Roadtripping in Andalucía (including the most beautiful town of Andalucía!)

How amazing is it when people can inspire you. Inspire you to go to places you wouldn´t go otherwise.

This inspiration came from a lady that I guided during one of my favorite tours ever. This lady was born in Olvera and had been to Sevilla multiple times, so could even tell me new things that former guides told her. During the whole tour she told me amazing stories about the town she was born in and all the places around there that are quite unknown.

So after the tour I send very enthusiastic messages to my boyfriend to ´let´s go road tripping´ and so a month later we did!

What to expect in this article

Start of the trip (Friday)

La Línea de la Concepción

On Friday after work we drove towards La Línea de la Concepción, with a car we hired from Amovens). From Sevilla that is a 2,5 hours drive and we reached this place around 6PM. We booked a hotel here, because we were planning to go to Gibraltar the next day.

But now we had the whole evening to explore La Línea. Beforehand we did do some research about the place and saw that it is one of the biggest drugs cities in Spain, because it is close to Morocco. Because of this, we didn´t want to go to the hotel too late. We wandered here all evening and ate at the Arabia restaurant.

One evening, which means about 4 hours is enough to explore all of La Línea de la Concepción. I think it is a nice, small town and it was good to see so many people outside at night. We loved to see the sea and the rock of Gibraltar.
When you want to enter Gibraltar this is a good town to stay in a cheap hotel, like we stayed in Hostal París, which was fine for 1 night. But, I wouldn´t go here again as there is not much to do.

Saturday

Gibraltar

Saturday morning we were up early to walk to Gibraltar. Gibraltar is British Overseas Territory located in the south of Spain and it has an area of 6.8 square. It´s a cool place, but when we reached the border, we found out that my boyfriend couldn´t enter, because he is Indian.

We did have some hope as he works in Spain, but he needed a visum to enter. We saw it coming, but we didn´t want to buy a visum. I have been to Gibraltar one year ago and I do not think Gibraltar is worth to buy an expensive visum for. I rather buy him a visum for England than. What do you think about this?

Challenging roads

But now we had more time to visit other places in Andalucía! So we drove towards Juzcar. What an adventure guys!

First of all we wanted to avoid toll ways, so we choose a different way which would be 30 minutes more. This road was in the mountains, which was stunning, but… our car was really old.

So once when we stopped to take some photos of the stunning views, our car started to make weird noises. After a break those noises faded away. Luckily for us! It would have been my biggest nightmare to be stuck in the ´middle of nowhere.´

We learned our lesson and took breaks after every 30 minutes to check the car. The closer we got to Juzcar, the smaller the roads got, so you had to be careful with oncoming traffic.
So for me… who doesn´t have experience with driving in mountains… it was a challenge! As my boyfriend doesn´t have a driving license, so I had to keep driving.

A challenge, but also a cool adventure and I have learned a lot about driving with an old car in the mountains 😉

Júzcar: Blue Smurfs Town

Finally we saw something blue coming closer and closer. So we knew that had to be Júzcar, the blue village.

Since 2011, when the movie of the Smurfs 3D came out, all of the buildings in this village have been painted blue. Here you find also many statues and paintings of the Smurfs, which was fun.

We walked around, took lots of photos and wanted to have lunch. So we went to El Bandolero, I do not know what happened there, but we had to wait 30 minutes to order something and then one hour for our food. But when the food finally came, it did taste pretty good.
So then we spend around 2 hours in this restaurant. As you can imagine, I was pretty grumpy then, but luckily my boyfriend could make my mood change after we left the restaurant.

I promise you, when you come to Júzcar, you won´t be able to stop taking photos, a thing I love to do haha.

So if you want to see a surreal blue city, I can say it as pretty as Chefchaouen in Morocco. For taking lots of photos, you also definitely have to come here! Three hours is enough to spend in Júzcar (unless you also have to wait a long time for your food).

Sunday

Setenil de las Bodegas

Sunday morning. 9AM. We were in Setenil de las Bodegas. This town is grown out of a network of caves. It´s a white town like there are many in Andalucía, but this one is a bit more unique. It is 30 minutes from Ronda, where we stayed in a hotel (Hostal Rural Venta la Vega).

At 9AM it was pretty quiet in Setenil and the lighting was stunning. Setenil is also a town where you just have to walk around and take lots of photos, because it is very photogenic.

The main thing what you should have seen are the white houses under the rocks of course, but the whole town is amazing to see. We spend here from 9AM to 12AM and have seen the whole town in that time. So then it was time to go to the most beautiful place I have seen in Andalucía so far…

Zahara de la Sierra

Zahara de la Sierra is also a white town, but a bit more special. The views from this town are incredible! Just look at the photos please, because a 1000 words can not do justice to this place.

The first thing we did when we reached Zahara by car (oh that car drive… definitely in my top 5 of most beautiful landscapes) was going to a viewpoint in front of Zahara, so we had a view over the nature and over Zahara de la Sierra.

After that it was just a matter of climbing Zahara. We had to stop every few meters, because the view just keeps getting better and better.
After reaching the highest point, it was time to explore the small city centre, which is just 1-2 streets. We were there around 3PM and it was pretty lively, which was a good thing to discover. After that, we treated ourselves with coca cola and sat in the center for a while, seeing the children play.

This is definitely one of the most amazing places we have visited in Andalucía. Just because of the views!

Montecorto

We finished Zahara de la Sierra around 5PM, pretty early and we didn´t wanted to go to the hotel yet, but going to one of the other places on our list, was also not possible.

So what to do then? On our way from our hotel in Ronda to Setenil de las Bodegas we saw a small, cute place called Montecorto. So we decided to go there.
If we had looked on internet we would have seen that Montecorto is just 49km2 and it has 590 inhabitants, so very small.
We finished the whole village in 30 minutes. But… it is a cute village with lot of art, which I did not expect at all. I also felt like we were the only tourists in a while, because lots of locals were looking at us, thinking ´who are these fools and why do they want to see our village? ;)´
I did enjoy walking around here and seeing all the art.

Monday

Olvera

Already the last day of our roadtrip and the day we were going to the birth city of the lady from my tour. I was too excited, I can tell you!

Another white town of Andalucía, but special because of two buildings, the old Arab castle and the neoclassical Encarnación Church. Two extremes, as we sadly know Christianity and Islam don´t get along that well, even in modern 2020.

We first went to Monumento Al Sagrado Corazon. This is a monument with many rocks. You have a great view over the two buildings and Olvera itself.
After this, it was time to head towards both buildings. The streets of Olvera are all lovely and white.

From the church we had the most stunning view over Olvera, which was covered in fog, which only made it more mysterious.
I found it amusing that there was an Olvera statue next to the church. You don´t see that in most towns of Andalucía, I have only seen it in Sevilla and Málaga so far. So of course we had to take some snaps there, even though it was of course overcrowded.
Then we bought tickets (only 2 euro pp) for the Arabic castle to have an even better view over the church, Olvera and her surroundings.
Fantastic views as you can imagine!

Arahal

After Olvera it was time to head back home, to our beloved Sevilla. But as we still had time, we wanted to go to one more place, close to Sevilla. So Arahal was our next destination!

In Arahal we walked a bit, went to the town hall and the church of Santa María Magdalena. I took a lot of pictures of doors, because all of the doors in Arahal are an art piece.

After walking here for an hour, we became hungry and for dinner it was too early (7PM) for most restaurants in Arahal, so it was really time to head back and so our road trip was over.

Summary

The places on this trip were one by one very unique and special. Juzcár was super fun, la Línea a cool experience, Zahara mindblowing beautiful, Olvera very special and Setenil very photogenic.

I also made a list of places we could go if we had more time. So if you do, please make sure you include these places as well.

6. Bolonia Beach: Is according to the lady of Olvera one of the best beaches in Spain and even bulls wander around there.
7. Sierra de Atunes: Follow the path of tuna if you are there. It is apparently a very cool trail.
8.Tarifa: A place completely south of Spain with amazing beaches and nature. Very popular with surfers.