Take time to explore the narrow lanes

IT ISN’T all sunshine here, although there’s a lot of it; happily, it can also rain. We’ve seen no downpours or deluges, in spite of the locals’ ardent prayers but, yesterday, we woke to find the day darker than any in the five weeks we’ve been here and outside it was very cold.

A wind blew from behind the house and it had the feeling of snow in it. In the event, however, a mist rolled in over the high peaks of the Sierra de Contraviesa, the range between us and the sea, and by mid-afternoon, it had changed to light, persistent, rain. The locals must have been throwing their hats in the air for joy, despite the danger of head colds.

Wind shook the trees, and the red, bone-dry leaves on the poplars took to the air, carried aloft and out over the deep ravines like spirits released from the desiccated bodies of the dead.

Two days ago, as we walked through the shaded streets of one of the white villages, I noticed how leaves on the pavement rang like metal, so silent was the street, so rigid and strong the leaves, a species of maple, dried into shapes like a cupped hand, scratching the stones when they moved. These villages descend and ascend steeply from the tarred road, with perhaps one street, leading to the church, just about accessible to cars. The rest are steep, cobbled lanes, with an open channel for water down the middle. They are meticulously clean, and the houses are all whitewashed, very smart, with balconies and flowers.

The dwellings are built, literally, on top of one another, with rooms bridging the lanes supported on big limbs of chestnut trees, overlaid with slabs of rock. The roofs are flat. The roof beams are also big, unplaned logs, on top of which are laid layers of flat, whitewashed stones, about a foot square, one on the other. Above that, is a thick, impermeable layer of “launa”, a coarse, black river sand, a foot or more deep.

Quaint, stovepipe-shaped chimneys of white mortar rise from the village roofscapes, each with two rectangular openings below the apex which is topped with a flat stone upon which is built a peaked cap of mortar. The Berbers, expelled from Spain centuries ago, were the creators of these villages, terraces and farms and every aspect of Alpujarras houses is Berber. They would fit unnoticed into villages I have seen in the High Atlas in Morocco. All new houses must retain this character today.

The Alpujarra region is in the Sierra Nevada National Park. I believe I have never, in all my travels, seen anywhere as densely picturesque, not only in the natural surroundings of mountains, deep ravines, chestnut and poplar forests, but in the villages, of which there are, perhaps, 20, each more beautiful than the last. Ibiza town, pre-1965, would be the only comparison.

A half-dozen of these villages are touristy and why not? Artisan products are their stock in trade, brilliantly coloured rag rugs hung over the walls and balconies, handmade leather goods, ceramics, pottery and basket work. Each has a rural hotel or hostel, appealing to walkers or Spanish weekend visitors who make pilgrimages to this area, as the inland Irish made pilgrimages to the Ring of Kerry, Connemara or West Cork.

Excellent restaurants are to be found in most villages, but one must explore the steep and narrow lanes to find them. Almost always, they prove worthwhile, and cheap too. A meal for two, with wine, comes to, at most €30, and accommodation in an adequate hotel is about €45 for a double room per night.

The views from the villages are breathtaking. Most village communities have, by now, residents who have arrived from elsewhere, from other parts of Spain or abroad, tempted by the cheap price of village houses or ruins on the mountains around them. Many are themselves artisans or artists, and have restored falling-down water mills and farmhouses into lovely homes, reinstating the land around them into productive life.

In Órgiva, the “gateway” town to the high villages, there is hardly a street without a British-registered car; English voices are heard everywhere. While we have no problem with English voices (we lived in London for years) we did not come to the Sierra Nevada to hear them, and fled to the higher villages, where locals predominate, living Spanish lives.

This morning, the sky is turquoise blue and the air clean as a whistle. The sun is bright and it is very cold. Last week, some almond trees burst into glorious blossom overnight. Most didn’t, lucky for them.

Last night, there was hard frost and those first, pretty trees might not, now, bear fruit.