SmaylaRoad & trail journals

Abroad · By 4×4 · Autumn 2023

Spain 2023, the C30 to Granada

Fifteen days of roadbook with the old Chevrolet: the Bardenas Reales, Aragon and its monasteries, tracks across inland Spain, the Gorafe desert, then Granada.

Duration
15 days · September and October 2023
Route
Basque Country · Aragon · Andalusia
Highlight
The Gorafe desert
Vehicle
1963 Chevrolet C30
The C30 before Castil de Tierra

23–25 September

France without motorways, then the Basque Country

Crossing France without motorways is fun, you just must not be in a hurry: 416 km and about seven hours of driving on the first day. Again the next day, before the real holiday begins in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.

Camp below a cliff pitted with hollowsThe journal1963 Chevrolet C30, the workshop journalThe garage · 1963Read the journal →
France on the back roads
A gate in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port
A Basque village below the hills

26–27 September

The Bardenas and Veruela

The first days of our splendid roadbook. In the Bardenas Reales desert, the C30 poses below Castil de Tierra, the emblematic earth pillar. Then Aragon, its canyons, its crocus-strewn mountains, and the calm of Veruela monastery.

The C30 before Castil de Tierra
The Bardenas Reales
The two of us in the Bardenas
A canyon in Aragon
Autumn crocuses in the mountains
The nave of Veruela monastery
The cloister of Veruela

28–30 September

Piedra and inland Spain

The waterfalls of the Monasterio de Piedra and their mirror lake, then the first big stage of the road trip to the Tierras de Moya: plateaus, turquoise reservoirs, red rock gorges, hilltop villages behind their walls. The rest should take us all the way to Granada.

A waterfall at the Monasterio de Piedra
The mirror lake at Piedra
A stone mesa on the plateau
A turquoise reservoir
A red rock gorge
A pool below the waterfall
A wind-carved rock
Walls of a hilltop village
Christian in the lanes
A Mudéjar tower

1–3 October

Towards Granada, by the tracks

We draw delightfully closer to Granada, through a Spain little known to tourists. Olive groves, clear rivers, a spring of unreal blue, and a day on the track around the Puente de las Herrerías, up, down. In the evenings, bivouacs facing the sunset, and a deer watching us among the pines.

A reservoir in the sierra
A tunnel cut through the rock
Olive trees as far as the eye can see
A crystal-clear river
A blue spring
The C30 on the heights
Sunset over the sierra
Bivouac at sunset
The C30 on the track
A deer among the pines

4 October

Gorafe, the grand finale

A wonderful last day on the tracks, and the grand finale: arriving in Gorafe through its desert. Ravines, ridges and badlands as far as the eye can see, and the C30 having fun straddling the gullies.

Emmanuelle facing the Gorafe desert
The Gorafe desert
The track through the badlands
Gorafe's ravines and ridges
The C30 straddling a gully

5–9 October

Granada and the cave houses

Love at first sight for Granada. After all those days on the tracks almost alone, diving into the crowds could have been a mistake, but no: we loved it. We just needed a plan, as there was no way to park our "big boy" in town.

The plan was cave houses Emmanuelle had dreamed of for years, reached by small roads. One of the finest stays of her life. And to finish, one hour at the seaside in Valencia, out of fifteen days in Spain.

Granada cathedral
Cave houses
The Alhambra from the Albaicín
A flowery lane in Granada
View from a cave house
A dip in the Mediterranean at Valencia