Two Days in Tarifa with a side trip to Gibraltar

Tarifa is the most southerly town on mainland Spain.  It is located on a point of land that separates the Atlantic Ocean from the Mediterranean Sea. The town is well know by the sailboard and kite surfing crowd. It was very windy there yesterday! Tarifa is about 85K from Gaucin. It takes about an hour and half to drive there.

You have to pass Gibraltar to reach Tarifa so we took a 10K detour to visit Gibraltar.  It is possible to drive into Gibraltar but there are an abundance of parking lots located on the Spanish side of the border and it's only a 1.5K walk from the parking area to the centre of the city of Gibraltar.

In order to walk to Gibraltar you have to pass through a border control. All we had to do was flash our passports. As soon as you cross the border you have to walk across the Gibraltar airport.  In fact you have to walk across the runway!  There are traffic lights on either side of the airport to control the traffic when an aircraft is landing or taking off.  A sign on the airport indicated that it is a RAF station but commercial air carriers also use it.

Even though it is low tourist season, it was very busy.... lots of Brits, looking for deals.  You can buy stuff duty free and take it back into Spain.   I was surprised by this... It's the EU!  Brits and Spaniards can cross the borders and work in each others country. Why would there be a duty?  Don't know.

We arrived just in time for a late breakfast so we opted for a full British breakfast... fried eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, tomato and cold toast!  We wandered around town for a while. Didn't find any deals so we strolled back into Spain and continued the ride to Tarifa.  We didn't bother taking the cable car up the rock.  The top was overhung with cloud. We won't be in hurry to go back to Gibraltar. We didn't find it that interesting.

The road to Tarifa from Gibraltar around the bay and past Algeciras was hectic. 4  lanes with busy roundabouts and lots of traffic.  Algeciras is major port city. Once we got past the city the road around the point was quite scenic, albeit rough and bumpy.  Due to the windy locations there are windmills all along the ridges visible from the road.

Tarifa is town (small city?) with a population of 18,000.  We read that in the height of the tourist season there can be 90,000 people in town. I can't imagine what it would be like!   I wouldn't say that the town was busy but there were still quite few tourists around.  We found a very nice hotel call Hostel Alborada.  It is not a hostel, by our normal understanding of the term.  It was a small hotel, not fancy but it had been recently renovated and we were very happy with it. It is located a few blocks from the beach and few blocks outside the old city walls. Good value for E45. per night.

One strange item that we have encountered in a couple of hotels is what we call the "Uni-Pillow". Instead of two independent pillows the bed is equipped with on long pillow, the full width of the bed. We both like to adjust the position of our pillow. Can't do it with these ones. (see below)

Sitting area in lobby

Hostel Alborada with Moto Parking

The Uni-Pillow

We did a lot of walking, exploring the old town and following the beach path.  What we did discover were some incredible restaurants.  Up until this point, the food in Spain has been OK.  Fresh but basic, with limited selection.  Great cheeses, meats (ham, etc. ), wine, bread and desserts, but limited selection of fresh vegetables, especially salad greens.

The afternoon we arrived in Tarifa we went looking for something to eat and came across a popular bar/cafe called Bar El Frances.  As we strolled through the old town, we had walked past a few mostly empty cafes, but this one was full. That's usually a good sign and it was.  Excellent food! The best food we have had on this trip. We went back the next day as well. Highly recommended.

There are several beaches. The main beach on the Atlantic side of the point is wide and long. The down side, if you are not a kite surfer or sailor, is that it wind is generally always blowing.  Yesterday it was windy enough that you felt like you being sandblasted. This morning was better. The kite surfers were on the water early.

     I have great video of the action but I can't get it to upload.  The upload speed on this connection is  extremely low.

The beach walk.

A beach bar selfie. 

Nice temperatures at this time of year though. Low of 16C overnight and highs in the mid 20's It is an excellent area for outdoor activities. In addition to the wind related water sports, there are good mountain biking and walking trails through the surrounding hills.

After a leisurely breakfast we packed up and left Tarifa at noon. Do to the mountainous topography of the national park, there is only one road north-east out of Tarifa.  It puts you back through the edge of Algeciras and Gibraltar. Instead of taking A405, the main road back to Gaucin, we continued east into the state of Malaga and took the back road to Gaucin, A377.

After passing Gibraltar we took the coastal highway and stopped for lunch at the "Seaside Grill and Bar" (how's that for a Spanish name?)  entering the community of Manilva.  This is the south end of the  Costa del Sol (the holiday seaside of Spain) that runs for 5 or 600K along the Mediterranean.

The waiter / owner of the Seaside Grill was very nice. We ordered in Spanish then switched to English when he saw the license plates on the bike.  He was Italian but had lived and worked in Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela, etc.  We had a nice chat about the area.

This reminds me that I have been wanting to write about the topic of language....  I though that I would need to be able to speak Spanish to get by here, particularly in the smaller villages.  It is true that our knowledge of Spanish has been helpful, but this is Europe.  Most people here speak more than one language. Many can by in several languages.   We have not had a communication problem yet, except in France!?   In Spain, you can definitely get by very well with English only in most situations.

The back road to Gaucin was pretty interesting. On this road, the distance to Gaucin is just over 30K, from the coast, but it took about 45 mins. to get back to town.  Although the road was paved it was very rough and wavy. The road surface has slumped and shifted over time and had been patched infrequently.  You felt like you were on a roller coaster most of the time.  We just took our time. It was very scenic and curvy trip though the mountains.

We had a fun time on this 2 day birthday trip.