Trevélez

Wednesday

We reluctantly checked out of our excellent hotel in Granada, picked up our hire car from the airport, and headed for the hills, driving south from Granada and up to the highest village of Trevélez, home to many of Spain's most well-known producers of hams dried in the dry mountain air. Our destination - the Hotel La Fragua II - is reputed to have the finest restaurant in the village. The drive was spectacular, a little scary at times, as we climbed more than a kilometre in altitude. When we reached the village itself, the sat nav tried to take us straight up along the slippery mule path, and the route soon became impossible. We rolled back to somewhere safe to park and walked up to the hotel. It being lunchtime, the staff were in the restaurant. Once we'd explained our plight, the barman volunteered to drive the car up for us, which he did with ease via a slightly less precipitous track. Then we were straight in for a lunch of gazpacho, stewed kid and stuffed aubergines.

View from the balcony, with the weather closing in

A rather short time later, we were back for dinner, which was a ham and pork fest. ¡Jamón, jamón! The food was excellent, if a little plentiful for us. All of the other guests were clearly serious walkers who'd spent the day in the clouds and had stronger appetites.

Thursday

The rain and cloud closed in on the village, so we didn't venture far. We walked around the village, which has a difference in altitude of 200 meters from one end to the other, so it was still good exercise. Many of the buildings are secadores, great warehouses where the hams are dried for between one and two years. The smell of ham was everywhere, the floors slick with pork grease, and we visited several of the shops attached to the secadores, sometimes to escape the torrential rain, sometimes to buy some of the excellent ham. After apologising to one of the butchers for bringing the English weather, he told us that it was the first rain that they had seen since May. Tomorrow we head back down the mountains and to Nerja on the coast, where we're hoping to see the sun again!