Frigiliana and Nerja

Normally we head straight for Olvera when we make it to Andalucia but this is the first time that we have been here at this time of year.  When researching the "normal" temperatures for Andalucia in March the historic high temperatures in Olvera were around 17C but a couple of degrees warmer close to the Mediterranean coast.  As it turned out, Europe has been experiencing the warmest winter on records. Average temperature have been 2.5 C degrees warmer than the historic average.

Every day has been sunny with high temperatures between 20 and 25C. It has been quite windy at times but generally speaking, the weather has been great!

We rented a small house in Frigiliana, no, not a small house, a very small house.  It is like a renovated hobbit house. I'm under 5' 8" and I have to duck to enter the house and move between the rooms.  It has been fully renovated and is quite comfortable but there is hardly any space to put stuff away. 

This is photo of the older historic part of Frigiliana

This photo was taken from the old town looking south to the Mediterranean 

We arrived in Frigiliana on the last day of Carnival. The town was exceedingly busy. It is a popular town for day trippers to visit, but when we arrived and the following day (which was a holiday) the crowds were intense.  Below is a photo taken at about 10 am.   Five tour buses had arrived and unloaded their passengers.  When we saw the crowd from a distance we thought that it was protest. When we got closer we noticed that the group was being organized into smaller tour groups.

We immediately thought "This is not for us!"   Luckily, the next day the number if visitors diminished and have continued to diminish, in part perhaps due to the concern over coronavirus infection. 

Frigiliana is located 6K inland from the coastal town of Nerja.  It is pretty little white village that is well maintained with nice restaurants and bars. There is a local bus that runs back and forth the Nerja. The fare is only 1.15 Euros.

Here are a couple of shots of the older part of Frigiliana. There are lots of stairs and dead end streets.

It takes awhile to find your way around. 










There are several walking routes to Nerja and we have walked to Nerja several times to explore Nerja and pick up some groceries.  Also there are several hiking trails in the local area that we have explored so we have been able to keep up our close to 15K per day walking routine.

This morning we hiked up the the Rio Higueron canyon. The trail is easy access from Frigiliana although you have to walk though the water part of the time.



In places the canyon is quite narrow and in the photo below you can see a rather old set of stairs that allows you to get above the water fall. At the top of the well worn stair you have to navigate a narrow ledge that has no guard rail nor cable holds.

Tomorrow we are starting our move to Olvera.  Initially we had planned to stay in Frigiliana longer but for several reasons we decided to move on.  We will stay in Olvera until close to the end of April but with the moto and bicycles we will likely take a few short trips.

There is however, a degree of uncertainly on this trip.  The coronavirus pandemic is the cause. At this point Italy is in full country shutdown. Here things are quite normal but infections have arisen in many parts of Spain and we feel certain that the infections will continue to increase.  We are limiting our contact with  others, particularly in groups,  but no contact is impossible.  The supple of antiseptic hand sanitizer has run out and no one knows when it might be available. Guess we will see what happens????