Last Day in Gaucin

We are getting ready to leave Gaucin. Tomorrow morning we are heading for Marbella on the Costa del Sol. It's only 85K from here, 1 1/2 hours by road.  Marbella is a fairly major tourist area. It will be interesting to compare it with other places we have visited.

This past weekend in Gaucin has been quite interesting.  Gaucin hosted "La Gran Vuelta de la Valle Genal"   or  loosely translated "the big tour of the Genal Valley"   It is a 132k run though 15 communities in the valley. It can be done solo or as a team of 3 event.  Also there was a the short run event... only 50K !!!?

The event essentially took over the town. The main entrance to town, shown in the first photo, was completely closed to traffic for the best part of two days.  The start for individual runners was at 6 am. Teams started a couple of hour later. In order to finish, all runners had to be in by 1 pm today.   Most must made it much before the deadline because the finish line was torn down by then. 

The fish line on road into town

First finisher in the 50K event.

Busy afternoon in one of the plazas

 We spend part of the day getting organized for our exit but we managed to get in some good walking.  We didn't quite make it to 50K, but pretty close!

Sunset on the terraza

 This afternoon we went to El Ático, a restaurant in Gaucin. The owners had been on holidays so this was the first opportunity that we had to go, although we had seen the menu and location on our exploration of town.  By far this was our best restaurant experience in Gaucin!   The location is fabulous. It is located on a hill looking toward the coast.

The food was superb! Linda and I each had a starter. I had a wonderful bowl of the soup of the day. Linda had the spiced black bean quesadillas. Then we shared the main course, salmon and vegetables.  Wonderfully prepared.  We finished off with a couple of decadent deserts and coffee.  Great wine, great service. Our only regret is that we didn't discover it until the day before we are leaving. Thanks Lisa, for a great experience. See you next year!

The view from our table at El Ático.

 After dinner we went for long walk around town and up to the castle.  As you can see in the photo below, the oranges are almost ripe. Another reason to stay longer.

I just want to say how much we enjoyed our stay here in this little pueblo.   The house we rented, Casa Muñeca,  is great. It worked very well for us. It is a small two bedroom house in the upper part of town. Even though the house is small, it works very well. That is to say, that the layout of the house makes it seem larger than it is.  The main living area is open and bright. The outdoor patio is wonderful and the kitchen has all you need.  We would highly recommend it. It can be found on several accommodation listings including AirBnB, VRBO, etc.