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Olvera: 1st Visit We headed to Olvera in late August. I was keen to visit Olvera because when we were house hunting in rural Andalucía, via the internet, we had found a number of agents in the area with large web sites full of fairly low cost houses, so we had thought about moving to this area.
We drove down the A369 to Atajate then we took the road past Jimera de Libar onto the Cortes - Ronda road. We then headed past Montejaque onto the Seville road for a few km before turning off and heading to Olvera.
I had read about Olvera with its famous church, castle and main street, we got our first glimpse of Olvera perched on the hill long before we neared the pueblo. We parked on a lower street below a very large wall and headed up into town.
The sky was grey and it was muggy unusual for August we were told.
We turned the corner and were met with an unexpected sight. The whole street was being dug up. We picked our way through the rubble up the steep slope. Was this Olvera's famous main street? A second shock was the castle. Seen from a distance perched on a rock near the church it had looked really good. On closer inspection it was disappointing to say the least. It looked as if it had been renovated fairly recently and the repointing has been a little overdone.
Is it just me or does this castle look really bad?
Here's a photo ... So far Olvera was failing to impress.
Until ... we turned the corner at the top of the building site and there it was the main street heading down into the distance. Then looking up we saw the absolutely magnificent twin towers of the church.
What a building. This is another long steep street. The houses were all traditional Spanish townhouses and the street was quite busy. Turning to the right we headed into a little plaza below the church and found the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall). It has a similar coloured brick facade and uses the church behind to good effect, making it look a lot grander than it really is.
We then started the long walk down Olvera's famous main street.
Here's a photograph looking back up towards the church. We had expected the street to be like Ronda's main shopping street but Olvera's is a mixture of shops and houses. It was however very very long. There was a tiled area with quite an impressive water feature, the hill behind had been thoughtfully planted and a magnificent statue of Christ sat on the top. Very beautiful, shame about the grey sky. we will have to return to Olvera to photograph the town on a better day. It would have made such a difference in the photograph below. We were still walking down the main street! Finally we reached this roundabout with a lovely fountain in the centre. We turned and headed back up, stopping for a coffee and tostada in a busy bar. There were some English visitors in there, house hunters.
We looked in an English Estate Agents window. Prices seemed quite high, considering the distance Olvera is inland.
The main street is impressive in length but lacks shops.
The church is magnificent.
The castle ... is best seen from 10 miles away.
Overall Olvera is well worth a visit. We will return one day soon when the sky is blue! Just before we got in the car I took this photograph between two tall buildings on the edge of town.
The olive trees dominate the landscape for hundreds of miles between Seville and Granada. At first the patchwork effect is pleasing, however after a while they can become very monotonous.

OLvera Revisited: We set off in Mid july on a glorious day with blue skies to visit Olvera and hopefully get some better photographs. Blue skies always help! We took a wrong turn which took us up a small back road into the pueblo (this turned out to be quite good). Here's the castle from behind. The white building is the old cemetery. We found a parking space quite near this cemetery. There is a new one not far from where I took this photograph. The countryside is mainly rolling agricultural land. A patchwork quilt of olive groves and cereal fields. The road on the left is the A382 the one on the right the road up to Olvera. This is Pruna castle taken from Olvera with 10x zoom you can just see the outskirts of Pruna on the left behind the hill. Across the roof tops of Olvera. El Castillo de Olvera. This is a lovely plaza at the top of Olvera next to the magnificent church. The most beautiful church we've yet seen in Andalucía (We've been here 16 months now exploring). Here's the fantastic church with the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall) in a small plaza below. A long steep side street. The very long main street in Olvera. We walked down the main street to this paved area with the hillside garden and water feature (switched off today) The statue of Jesus does look a lot better with a blue sky behind it! Looking back up the main street. The church is a very dominant building. We took a walk around some side streets. The castle again. I took this photograph because this is the street that was being dug up on our first visit. As you can see it has been finished. There is no doubt that the older part of Olvera is very impressive the church is incredible and dominates the pueblo and the surrounding countryside. The next photograph was taken a month later on a visit to Torre-Alháquime The photograph was taken from the road between Setenil de las Bodegas and Torre-Alháquime. We have only explored the area close to the top of the pueblo. Olvera is a lot larger than you think.
We understand there is a large British community living in and around Olvera.
A new bar has opened called the 'Tartan Bar' so if you are in the area and feel the need to speak English you should head here. We're not sure if you can get haggis tapas here!