I was not sorry to leave Gibraltar, it is a busy and crowded place and despite the lack of space the car seems to dominate (although I was impressed that there are cycle lanes all the way from the Spanish coast and into the Gibraltar town centre).
Firstly this morning I largely retraced my route from yesterday to get me to the hilltop town of San Roque mentioned by Lee and a fitting place to head for somebody fleeing Gibraltar as the town was established by Spaniards who left there after it was seized in 1704 by the British and Dutch. I had coffee sitting in a sunny plaza in the more modern lower town before heading up the cobbled road to the older quarter. Like so many of the villages I pass through it was a place of narrow streets and quaint whitewashed buildings centred around a neat church and small square. Apart from having fewer people and being more presentable it was probably an image that Lee may have recognised ninety years ago. After Gibraltar it was blissfully quiet and car free.
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| San Roque |
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| San Roque Old Town |
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| San Roque Old Town |
From San Roque it was back to EuroVelo 8 and my route to Estepona via four miles of countryside and summer flowers. In the last couple of days as I have looked more closely at the days ahead I have realised that these latter stages of the EuroVelo 8 have gaps in: from Marbella to Malaga there is a missing stretch of some thirty-five miles and thirty miles towards Almuñécar is absent too. I have not failed to download them, they are just not there on the website. I can easily fill those gaps with a route of my own and those miles add only a little time to my trip. But the more important consideration for me is that for parts of those missing sections I am unable to use the flat coastal area because motorway has supplanted any previous coast road. The consequence: once again I will have to head into the hills.
Today though that was not a problem. I had a long and flat section alongside a canal - a steep sided concrete lined ditch seemingly imposed on the landscape, unlike those back home that blend into it - and a hill to cross to get to the coast from where I joined the coast road to get to Estepona. That road though was for the most part a fast dual carriageway, although thankfully with a wide hard shoulder. It is something I may have to get used to in the next two or three days as my trip draws to a close because when I can cycle the coast I think this is what I can expect.
I joined that coast road just after Torrequadiaro, a place I thought from my map would be a small town but seemed instead to be a tranquil luxury-holiday complex, a place with an air of quiet privilege, of neat and tidy modern flats in pastel colours, manicured foliage and marinas full of expensive looking boats. The more I progressed along that coast road the more developed things became. At first I had views of a sparkling blue sea on one side and, on the barren brown rock landscape between towns on the other, a steady sprinkling of villas and development sites together with their meaningless and meretricious advertising boards ('Infinity Bay, a luxurious development that redefines lifestyle'). But only a few miles later the sea had disappeared behind the continuous series of flats, shops and restaurants that now hemmed me in from both sides on this main road along the coast.
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| Torrequadiaro |
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| On the coast |
After an hour of fast road and dull buildings I was glad to turn off for Estepona. And I have been pleasantly surprised with the place. The small road into the town was tree lined and with grass and flowers filling the central reservation, both shaded and colourful. I am staying in the old town and it is a delight of quiet streets and with every house adorned with plants and flowers in the, apparently, typical Andalucía fashion; I can only think that a garden centre somewhere has done very well out of Estepona. I relaxed in the rooftop bar of my accommodation, wandered the peaceful streets of the old town and ate in a busier square near the softly lit promenade, more modern but notably neat, clean and tidy. I have to admit that Estepona is a place I would be keen to return to.
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| Roof Bar |
My departure tomorrow though might be in question as, with potentially only a couple of days of cycling to get to Almuñécar, I have two broken spokes on my rear wheel. The first went a couple of days ago and my expectation for an easy last three or four days meant I was willing to risk continuing as the wheel has more spokes than the average to provide strength. It now looks like that my optimism was misplaced. I have only 110 miles to go but before I do them I need to get to the bike repair shop in town and hope that they can repair it in a timely manner.
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