Drive Around Andalucia and the Costa del Sol, 2nd; Your guide to great drives. Top 25 Tours.

by Patricia Harris and David Lyon

• ISBN13: 9781841577784
• ISBN10: 1841577782
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2007-07-01
• Publisher: Thomas Cook Publishing

Summary

This guide divides Andalucia into touring areas - one per chapter. Major cultural centres or cities form chapters in their own right. The best of Andalucia's Mediterranean coastline is included, plus Gibraltar, the vibrant Moorish cities of Granada, Cordoba and Sevilla, the white villages of the interior and the mountain villages of the Sierra Nevada. Each chapter contains enough attractions to provide at least a day's worth of activities, often more, and has an introduction that sums up the main attractions and a ratings box. It is then divided into an alphabetical gazetteer and a suggested tour. In every chapter, you will find lodging and eating recommendations for individual towns, or for the area as a whole. A locator map in the introduction to the book shows the position of the tours. Among the tours are: the 85km stretch of Mediterranean coast west of Malaga to Estepona, more usually known as the Costa del Sol, the rock of Gibraltar, the stretch of coastline between Cadiz and Tarifa (Costa de la Luz) and the Costa de Almeria. No touring holiday is complete without one of these essential guides.

Author Biography

Author’s Patricia Harris and David Lyon are independent travel writers and photographers, restaurant reviewers and art critics. Their work appears regularly in a wide range of English-language periodicals and in Spanish in the Organization of American States’ publication Americas. They are restaurant critics for the Microsoft website Boston Sidewalk, contributors to the Expedia travel website and Madrid correspondents for the Visa Infinite website. They contributed Maine and Massachusetts chapters to Drive Around New England.

Table of Contents

About Drive Around Guides	p. 8
Andalucia at a glance	p. 10
Introduction	p. 12
Travel facts	p. 14
Driver's guide	p. 24
Getting to Andalucia	p. 30
Setting the scene	p. 32
Touring itineraries	p. 40
Malaga: Andalucia's second city and capital of the Costa del Sol	p. 42
The Costa del Sol: 85 kilometres of Mediterranean coast with 15 Blue Flag beaches	p. 52
Costa del Sol Oriental and Axarqula: Beaches and mountains east of the Costa del Sol	p. 64
North of Malaga: Limestone valleys, cliffs and caves	p. 72
Gibraltar: A gigantic limestone rock on the southern coast of Spain	p. 82
The Costa de la Luz: Favoured by artists, the fishing villages of the Coast of Light	p. 90
Cadiz: Atmospheric port city of music and poetry	p. 98
Heart of the Frontera: Mountain villages, including dramatic clifftop Ronda	p. 108
Sherry country: World-famous wines, churches and flamenco	p. 118
The White Villages: Fortified villages and towns that look like snow from a distance	p. 130
Parque Donana and environs: Wetland nature reserve, home to migrating waterfowl	p. 140
Huelva and environs: The wild beauty of white-sand beaches and pine-topped dunes	p. 148
Huelva's high country: Hilltop villages producing hams, olives and cheese	p. 156
Sevilla: Capital and queen of Andalucia	p. 164
East of Sevilla: Roman Carmona and Estepa	p. 180
Cordoba: The fabled capital of western Islam	p. 188
South of Cordoba: Christian and Moorish architecture, castles and fortified towns	p. 202
Renaissance cities: Glorious buildings, financed by olive wealth	p. 212
Jaen's high country: The mountainous border between Andalucia and Europe	p. 224
Granada: Alluring palaces, gardens and fabled fortresses	p. 232
Las Alpujarras de Granada: Mountain scenery and wildlife	p. 246
Las Alpujarras de Almeria: Orange groves and upland hiking trails	p. 258
Almeria and environs: The lush oasis of Almeria set in a desert landscape	p. 266
The Costa de Almeria: White sand and turquoise seas	p. 274
Language	p. 282
Index	p. 283
Feedback form	p. 287
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

"We are always struck by how many sightseers in Andalucía hail from other parts of Spain. We watched one day as a bus tour turned up at Almeria's alcazaba - depositing a large group of pensioners to make the up-hill walk, many of them arm-in-arm, to the fortress. Pausing to rest in the shade of a tree, one woman turned to her comrade and sighed, 'Tomorrow - Granada!'"

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Excerpted from Drive Around Andalucia and the Costa del Sol by Patricia Harris, David Lyon
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.