While travelling between the various cities, we stopped a few times to check out some small towns. Of course, we got lost more than once, which impacted our schedule a bit, so after getting lost the first couple of times, we were a bit more particular and careful, as to when we stopped. I think with more time in Spain, we would have been less reticent to stop (and explore) more often.

Between Granada and Nerja, while driving south to the coast, we took a detour and paid a visit to Lanjorn. There were some rather precipitious roads, while driving on the steep slopes of the Sierra Nevada, while driving to visit this town (only 8km off of the main road). The town has numerous hostales and hotels, with a lot of tourist shops. It wasn't quite what we were looking to see, so after a half-hour of wandering, we headed back to the main road.

Later that afternoon, we drove up and down the a portion of the Mediteranean coast, stopping a number time to admire the view. Unfortuntely, I had my digital camera set wrong, and in the bright light of the mid-day Spanish sun, I could not view the LCD well, and hence that "quality check" did not pick up the fact that I saturated many of my images. Here is one image of the coast, that I took after I finally woke up to the fact that my camera was set wrong:

Another place we visited was Otivar. The road up from the coast was quite dramatic, as it wound about many times, with a lot of steep drops, and it was barely wide enough for two cars to pass.


Knowing that I would forget the name "Otivar", I decided to take an image of a sugar packet from the restaurant were we stopped for drinks.

Another place that we visited was Frigiliana, which I found an interesting stop. It is a short car drive north of Nerja (about 7km north).

Frigilia has been civilized for thousands of years, as proven by Neolithic remains found in a nearby cave. The Phoenicians left their mark in the form of a Palaeo-Punic necropolis (cemetary) dating from between the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. This is believed to indicate a Phoenician city in this locale.

In 1487, shortly after the fall of Velez Malaga into Christian hands, representatives of Frigilianas Moslem community paid homage to the Catholic Monarchs in an attempt to avoid reprisals and conserve some semblance of rights for the morisco (Moslem converts to Christianity) population. (In many cases, the Moslem conversion to Christianity was merely a facade, and no real conversion took place). In 1501, the Catholic Monarchs ceded Frigilianas territory to a trusted Jew (in return for services rendered to the Spanish Christian Crown). Later, in 1508, it was incorporated into the estate of a Castilian nobleman.

But eventually, the difficult living conditions, the Christian inquisitions and treatment of the "moriscos" lead to a rebellion across much of the area south of Granada, to which Frigilana's population joined. The "moriscos" established themselves at a castle in Frigiliana where they managed to repel the first battalions of the forces sent by the governor of Velez-Malaga. However Christian reinforcements arrived from Granada, and with over 2,400 rebel deaths the rebellion was crushed. The Moorish castle was subsequently razed to the ground.

After this defeat, a lot of ethnic cleansing took place, and most the population (that survived the battle) left. It was repopulated by Christians from Granada and other more northern areas.

Once again, an image of a bag of the sugar from the restaurant where we had lunch, to remind me where we had stopped. Of course I would never waste film taking such images. This is one of the useful aspects of a digital camera. Other people store audio tidbids on the camera, to remind them of some of the details of what they just saw, and tried to take an image of.