The rain in Spain falls, mainly

Autumn nights even in the far south of Spain can be crisp and cool, so the fireburner at Casa Mula needed stoked up with a steady supply of wood to keep off the chill. The place came with a basket of wood which only lasted the one night, so on our travels the next couple days we kept our eyes peeled for any timber going spare.

An exercise in thrift

After the last basket of logs went up in smoke we tossed in a stack of pinecones (which made a lovely crackling noise), then began eyeing up the furniture.

As I was sharpening the axe, the sound of rain began drumming on the roof. Not just rain - The Deluge. It pounded on the roof all night so it was like trying to sleep in a carwash. By morning it was merely a drizzle, but the fog and mud meant there was little point of taking any scenic back roads. Instead we decided to visit the nearest city, Malaga.

Malaga is one of Spain's largest cities, but most people only ever see its airport before striking for the resorts along the Costa del Sol. At its heart is a cathedral and fortress near a busy port. Our plan was to park up, see the cathedral, do some shopping and grab a bite to eat.

The rain returned and there was exceptionally bad spray when driving down the motorway. I hunted down an underground car park, but knew as soon as we parked up it meant dashing out into the downpour with only a borrowed faux-Burberry brollie between us. The streets were flooded and the marble pavements were slick and treacherous. In places it was like fording a river and a raft would have come in handy to shoot the rapids.

The rain sluiced off the cathedral steps like a waterfall. Inside the sound of rain was muffled, but the water had worked its way through holes in the roof to leave puddles on the floor. We dodged the mops and buckets, our wet shoes squeaking the entire time.

Back outside and we lucked upon a back street tapas bar. Everyone was hunched over big steaming bowls of stew so I told the waiter 'dos de estos por favor' so we could warm ourselves. The place was full of animated locals, all of them astounded by the water flooding the streets.

There was no point in trying to do any shopping as many of the shopkeepers were mopping frantically, trying to bail out their premises. Back at the underground car park, the lift was out of order and warning tape was stretched across the stairs. We ducked through regardless, hoping we were not about to feature in our own 1970s disaster movie. Perhaps Spanish Mudslide! Drowned Alive In A City Centre Car Park And They Haven't Even Validated My Ticket Yet.

A thoughtful member of the car park staff had set out a bucket to catch a leak. The persistent stream of water had filled the bucket ages ago and it was now sat in a spreading pool a few inches deep. But the true horror faced us once we had revved up the car and sped up the ramp to escape the underground lake.

I joined a massive traffic queue and risked pneumonia by turning up the A/C full blast to keep the steam off the windows. The streets were full of soaked pedestrians, waterlogged scooters, broken down lorries and other nuisances which left us inching forward. Traffic lights were out of order. In places the water was over a foot deep, with the grates washed away. We drove single file, hoping the car in front would find the open manhole first.

There was even a man sat under an awning with a fishing rod. He yanked it up to show that his 'catch' was a crumpled milk carton and smiled as we drove by. It was the one thing that kept my spirits up as I navigated the washed-out roads, landslides and thick fog on the long drive home.

The other consolation was finding out they sell bags of firewood at the petrol stations, so at least we had a roaring fire once more at home and could dry off!

Oh my, my Alhama!

For over 700 years most of Spain was occupied by the Moors, but the Catholics continually chipped away at their territories, driving them back to one last stronghold in Granada. In 1482 the Moors were driven further south, back towards Africa. The story goes that when the Moorish king Boabdil looked back from the mountain pass, he saw the lovely town nearby and sighed 'Oh my Alhama...'

Today this cleft in the mountains is sometimes called El Ultimo Suspiro del Moro (Last Sigh of the Moor) and indeed when you finally reach this crest in the road it does seem all of Andalucia can be seen before you.

What you'll gasp at though is the dismal line of dreary bars, grungy car repair shops and haphazard houses here which are surrounded by smelly vegetable plots. The road is pitted from the heavy lorries carting gravel and cauliflower, as the twin industries of the area are a quarry and industrial-scale farming. The Moor these days would be sighing at the slow-going traffic!

Soon enough the road left the soggy plain, veered through some forested hills and emerged in a rolling landscape covered with olive groves.

Rising above the trees is the belltower of a church, with a small town clinging to the clifftops of a gorge. Welcome to Alhama!

A photo of the photographer, for a change

Al Hamma means 'hot springs' in Arabic and the town was a popular spot to take the healthy waters all the back in even Roman times. The town continues to have an air of prosperity and you can see numerous extravagant carved doorways, great brass knockers, tidy paving and geraniums aplenty.

A pleasant plaza shaded by palm trees plays host to a fountain and the red walls of a mock Moorish fortress.

Across the street is another fountain, a church and then a gobsmacking view over the gorge below.

On the valley floor I noticed a couple of large derelict buildings crying out to be converted into a hotel, bar or holiday flats (email me if you want to invest in my business plan). They were sat in drifts of crisp leaves falling from the birches.

Elsewhere in town were still more fountains and churches and lovely old buildings.

I spent maybe an hour looking around - it's not a big place - but I took more photos then than the entire week before, so it was a brilliant detour.

Another Spanish village

Turn one last bend in the road and yet another Spanish village of white sugarcubes tumbling down a mountaintop comes into view. Welcome to Competa!

Competa stays hidden from view until the final twist in a torturous road which hugs the mountainsides between Malaga and Granada. It is quite a large town for these parts with all you'd expect for a place on the tourist trail: hotels, shops, bars and English people.

Walking through the central plaza and it sounded as though everyone in earshot was British. Here you can see the colourful church tower which is about the only building in town not painted white. For a couple of euros you can see the sanctuary and treasury, plus climb a few dozen steps up the belltower for views over the town and down into the plaza below.

From here you can tell the town has grown quite a bit of late, with orange groves being flattened for flats and a hotel, but there are also vital services like a modern school and hospital which must be a lifeline for the local residents.

Competa is famous for its blossom honey and a sweet wine made from muscatel grapes. In the middle of August each year they roll barrels of wine into the plaza for a huge party.

Despite all this, the hill towns of Spain cannot compete with those in Italy. Most of the churches are almost bare of decoration and/or completely modernised. Not many of the towns were fortified so there are rarely castles or walls to explore. Centuries of a hardscrabble existence meant there was not the money for palaces full of art, tapestries and sculpture.

What you will find in these types of towns are a friendly welcome, a relaxed pace of life, lots of fresh air and a sense of tranquility.

On our visit the only thing to do in Competa was wander the stepped streets, which are lined with thousands of flower pots...

...plus the occasional snoozing dog! Sometimes all you need is a quiet spot to curl up in the sun in order to enjoy life to the full.

A Moorish village in Spain

Sedella is a traditional village in the hills above Malaga in Spain's southernmost province, Andalucia. Traffic could only penetrate so far into the village before the steep cobbles and narrow lanes became impossible to navigate.

We stayed a week here one early November in Casa Mula, 'the Mule House' which still had a donkey for a neighbour. This one-time livestock shed has been converted into a prim white tower, with one room stacked atop the other, finishing with a rooftop terrace.

View of Sedella from Casa Mula's roof terrace

The ground floor kitchen with its cane ceiling was small but perfectly suitable. Next floor up was the sitting room with a wood burner. Up again, to the bedroom and bathroom, before popping out onto the roof with its loungers and BBQ. The view took in the stepped streets of the village, with the peaks of the Sierra de Almijara soaring overhead.

At night we could only hear the occasional church bell punctuating the continual murmur of mountain streams sweeping down the mountain slopes. Oh, and what at first sounded like a chainsaw-armed maniac but instead turned out to be scooters revving up the back alleys....

The twisting mountain roads meant it took awhile to travel around the foothills (some of the approaches to Sedella were marked 'dangerous' on our road map). We managed to make trips into the large city of Malaga as well as to other lovely towns like Competa and Alhama, which I will feature on these pages soon.

I will mention though that our first foray was to Colmenar, a centre of honey production which had a small old town at its core. From here there were views of the cloud-shrouded mountains and olive groves surrounding us.

While strolling the palm-shaded plaza of Colmenar, we were greeted with the sound of a pellet rifle. A pigeon fell flapping onto the ground near the fountain and a youngster ran up, grabbed its feet and dashed the bird against the pavement. He then hopped into a waiting car which roared off down the street, heading for someone's cooking pot. This put me off making any attempts to pick one of the ripe limes from the plaza's trees, lest I be mistaken for easy game.

About two miles away from Sedella is another small village, Salares, which was free of traffic and sharpshooters.

The intricate brickwork of the church belltower indicates it used to be the minaret of a Moorish mosque from the Arabian days.

In addition, a stone footbridge which leads out of the village and into the wooded slopes of the valley above it is called the 'Arab bridge'. Every step of the trail offers a new angle on Salares as you climb higher into the forest, with nothing but the wafting aroma of rosemary shrubs and the far-off tinkling of goat bells for company.

And with all this plus warm sunshine and 75 degrees in November, you won't be wondering for long why my thoughts have turned to this lovely place this time of year!