Andalusia and Me

The first time I ever saw Andalucía was back in the 1970s As you did in that free-thinking, free-moving, post-hippie era, I set off with two fellow students in a battered 2CV to rattle all the way from Montpellier in southwest France, where we were fine tuning our French studies, south to Marrakesh—about 1200 miles (2000 km) As soon as we had cut through the dramatic Sierra Morena, the gateway to Andalucía from the monotonous plains of La Mancha, I was transfixed. Here was a wild, grandiose landscape, a universe of elemental, raw escarpments either glowing with chalky limestone or soaking up the light with flinty shale, interspersed with carpets of olive trees or lush ravines. It was magical.