In the beginning there was ...
Written by Geoff Forster
Thought a little background info might help ... perhaps I should have started with this ... ?
Blurry dream-like flashback ...
Our love affair with Spain started a number of years ago.
For Jane it was family holidays in the Costa Brava that started 'Shirley Valentine' type dreams.
I'm afraid I thought that Spain was a horrendous Blackpool abroad.
Our first taste of Spain together was in Santa Susanna. Trips to lovely villages and a Gaudi day in Barcelona and I was quickly converted. Now I was under the Spanish spell ... España obsession.
But although beautiful, Catalonia is wet & cold in winter, a major factor when it came to thinking about buying, in fact winter in all areas except Andalucía put us off.
We made a number of visits to Andalucía in 2003. Including a trip to Montefrio in the Granada province, where we nearly bought a ruined cortijo, but for problems with the paperwork.
We also visited the Almería province and the Costa Tropical (Granada).
Also mainly due to Alistair Boyd's book "Sierras of the South" I wanted to check out the Ronda area. The white mountain villages of the Serranía sounded just perfect.
So a romantic stay in Ronda and an instant love of the surrounding mountains made up my mind that this was the right area. Jane took a little more persuading. Driving on the twisty narrow mountain roads is daunting (since improved and widened). Although she did have to admit that the area is simply stunning.
So with a little arm-twisting, followed by a second visit to Benarrabá, dreams were about to become reality.
This is the oldest digital photo we have of Benarrabá. Taken on June 23rd 2004. As with all recently added photos you can click to enlarge.
Weird Blog Fact Strangely and this is strange. This has all happened before.
Indeed it was blogged about and then deleted. Some readers may have residual memories of this?
A recent decision to upload all our archive of photos onto Flickr means that we've started blogging again in 2009 and have also traveled back in time to 2004 and will reblog the photos in a newer, bigger, shinier, 'looky back' and reminisce type style.
Blurry dream-like flashback ...
Our love affair with Spain started a number of years ago.
For Jane it was family holidays in the Costa Brava that started 'Shirley Valentine' type dreams.
I'm afraid I thought that Spain was a horrendous Blackpool abroad.
Our first taste of Spain together was in Santa Susanna. Trips to lovely villages and a Gaudi day in Barcelona and I was quickly converted. Now I was under the Spanish spell ... España obsession.
But although beautiful, Catalonia is wet & cold in winter, a major factor when it came to thinking about buying, in fact winter in all areas except Andalucía put us off.
We made a number of visits to Andalucía in 2003. Including a trip to Montefrio in the Granada province, where we nearly bought a ruined cortijo, but for problems with the paperwork.
We also visited the Almería province and the Costa Tropical (Granada).
Also mainly due to Alistair Boyd's book "Sierras of the South" I wanted to check out the Ronda area. The white mountain villages of the Serranía sounded just perfect.
So a romantic stay in Ronda and an instant love of the surrounding mountains made up my mind that this was the right area. Jane took a little more persuading. Driving on the twisty narrow mountain roads is daunting (since improved and widened). Although she did have to admit that the area is simply stunning.
So with a little arm-twisting, followed by a second visit to Benarrabá, dreams were about to become reality.
This is the oldest digital photo we have of Benarrabá. Taken on June 23rd 2004. As with all recently added photos you can click to enlarge.
Weird Blog Fact Strangely and this is strange. This has all happened before.
Indeed it was blogged about and then deleted. Some readers may have residual memories of this?
A recent decision to upload all our archive of photos onto Flickr means that we've started blogging again in 2009 and have also traveled back in time to 2004 and will reblog the photos in a newer, bigger, shinier, 'looky back' and reminisce type style.