Jimena de la Frontera
Written by Geoff Forster
Jimena de la Frontera: We reached Jimena de la Frontera at around 4pm on a hot June afternoon. We travelled up quite a long tree/shrub lined road and left the car at the bottom of the hill. From a distance Jimena de la Frontera looks fantastic with the old castle and the white houses spread across the hillside.
The house in the middle to the right of the white one was for sale. Prices are rocketing in this area of Spain. It looked like a complete ruin but it is probably a great investment. The place had a shanty town feel and look. We were not impressed.
Onwards and upwards ... 
The heat beat down taking its toll on poor Jane who was struggling. By the time we got to the top she was feeling illl and looked very very hot.
I'm not sure what she's doing here but her legs looked wobbly!
Looking down we spotted this lucky Ox having a paddle in the river. So I used 10x zoom to get this one.
The view from the top was good. the Alcornocales Natural Park stretched out to the west. Below was the town of Jimena de la Frontera and to the north was the Sierras and the Guadiaro and Genal Valleys.
The photograph below is to the west. 
It was baking hot, definitely the hottest day we'd had so far this year. We'd already been walking around the nearby San Pablo de Buceite for two hours but if you're at the bottom of a hill and there is a castle at the top ...
The first shot below is of Jimena de la Frontera from above.
The second is similar but of the river.
Jane was feeling quite ill so we made our way down to get water. This sounds a simple task but every bar seemed to be closed. I went on ahead and persuaded a woman preparing to open her bar that night for the first time to let us be her first customers. So with a litre of water we drank and started to feel a little cooler. Another bar was open further down the hill and we had a coke.
I'm afraid the heat meant that we didn't get as many photographs as we would have liked, but I remember Jimena de la Frontera being a lot prettier on the way down ... On the way up you see the backs of the houses whilst on the way down the streets were of a typically Spanish hillside pueblo.
Here's one of a church before we made it to the car and air conditioning! Lovely blue sky. The name plaque is below.
We will return here to take more photographs of the actual town .. perhaps in December when it's a little cooler?
