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El Bosque: We left Benarrabá at around 1pm on a beautiful late October afternoon.
We drove through the pista forestal between Estación Gaucín and Cortes de la Frontera. We then took the A373 road to Ubrique and then drove onto El Bosque.
A lovely drive. We saw lots of wildlife and the scenery is stunning.
We parked the car on this tree lined street. Then we walked back down to a very wide road junction that cuts across the town. The road junction is incredibly wide! It would be better to narrow it and create some parking spaces, which are at a premium. What it must be like when all the tourists arrive in their rental cars I don't know.
El Bosque wasn't going to be a picture postcard white mountain village.
The streets gave a sense of space. All the buildings in this area looked modern. There was a number of large apartment blocks being built near the river.
We had a drink in Venta Julian on the main road.
It is behind the tree in this photograph.
Looking up, the hill behind El Bosque is forested. We walked down towards the bridge over the river. Across the bridge we found this water feature. Across the road was the bullring. It was locked up. Not a pretty building. This waterwheel fountain must be quite a sight when it is spinning. There were also a number of spouts and spotlights so it would be very pretty at night. Here's Jane, the area is nicely planted.
It was a beautiful October day, it was quite hot in the sun. Somebody has made an effort in this corner of a huge flowerbed. Back to the road junction. We headed across and up to try and find the church and plaza.
A lot of the streets in the pueblo were lined with either pollarded Plane trees or Orange trees. Here's the church. It was being renovated. It is very plain. Definitely the plainest that we've seen so far in Andalucía! Inside wasn't very ornate either. Plain walls, very few statues in niches.
Next to the plain church is the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall). The streets are a little narrower in the older part of El Bosque. These boys were playing football in the small plaza. El Bosque houses are mainly new build. All the older houses have been modernised. None of the original houses with their uneven cal painted walls and pot tiled roofs are left. Another tree lined street.
The surrounding hills are wooded. We'd done a complete lap of El Bosque and were back at the car.
We'd seen signs for a Botanical Garden so we drove off to find it.
It was closed.
Opening hours 10-14h & 17:00-20:00h Below the view through the locked gates.
It didn't look exactly as if we'd missed too much.
It wasn't Wisley or Kew! The Rio Majaceite runs through El Bosque. The day we visited it was nothing more than a small stream. Rainfall in the area is irregular and torrential.
We drove around the edge of El Bosque and crossed the Rio Majaceite again. There were some beautiful Willow trees catching the evening sunlight.
We drove out of town and took the Benahoma/Grazalema road.
We stopped near the cemetery above El Bosque to look down on the pueblo. The area around the bullring is a new housing urbanización. El Bosque. We liked El Bosque. It wasn't the pueblo we were expecting.
We liked the tree lined streets and small squares at the top end of the town. It wasn't quaint, it was modern. Geared for a large influx of tourists in Spring.