EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALMay 13, 1999
Cortijo Faín, near Arcos de la Frontera
Serendipity – The Faculty of Making Happy Discoveries by
Accident
Dick wants to visit Valderrama, where the 1998 Ryder Cup was played.
We’re driving through a purpose-built urbanization project with sprawling, modern
houses and several immaculate golf courses. The officials at Valderrama are charmed by
Dick’s introduction. "I’m visiting from Canada, can I look at the golf
course?"
Each pueblo is distinct, and seems more precariously balanced on the
edge of a hillside than the last. From Gaucín we gawk at unsurpassed views overlooking
the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, at the hump of Gibraltar and across the straight to
North Africa. The once Roman city is now a crescent-shaped village, sitting on a saddle of
rock forming part of the Sierra de Ronda. Its maze of steep alleys are unnavigable to an
outsider, and a lone, loitering Gaucínillo gives us a few hints on how we might find a
midday meal. Tucked in a silent lane, in the shadows of unruly facades, the Hotel
Casablanca is a converted 19th century winepress house. It was purchased by the
Marquesa de Pardonas de Zaragoza who enthusiastically transformed some meager cottages
into a large residence. It was subsequently bought by an English couple who converted the
Marquesa’s house into a 5-room hotel. Each room has a private bathroom and terrace.
An old dog sleeps in the lobby, all creaking floors and Spanish antiques and an English
library. Beyond is what is now typical in our minds: The building’s façade hides
what’s inside. The reception opens into a patio, with a dribbling pool, a series
of terraces, antique tiles, a walled garden, and the huge wine press – the size of a
old growth tree trunk, leaning on its side with the surrounding architecture built around
it. It looks like a giant wooden screw. A choir of songbirds, perched in magnolias and
jacarandas, sing ecstatically. A menu delivers something extraordinary in these parts:
Goat cheese salad, a wealth of local produce, smoked salmon, Pavlova. Beyond the patio, we
are at the top of everything. The highest terrace is above the village’s tiled
rooftops – overlooking the Genal Valley towards Gibraltar and North Africa’s Rif
Mountains. This place is a happy discovery in the centre of a glorious white cake.
Ronda’s deep in its tourist season, with the narrow roads packed
with tour buses and pedestrians, but it’s a clear day, and there’s an
opportunity not to be missed. Ronda is one of the most spectacularly located cities in
Spain, sitting on a massive rocky outcrop, straddling a precipitous limestone cleft.
Because of this impregnable spot the town was one of the last Moorish bastions, staving
off a fall to the Catholic Monarchs until 1485. It is necessary to cross the Puente Nuevo
(the new bridge) to pass through town. The bridge, built in the late 18th
century, passes over the 100 metre-deep Tajo gorge, a breathtaking crevice cut by the Rio
Guadalevin and the surrounding Sierra de Ronda. The town teeters at the very edge of both
sides of the gorge, offering dizzying views from a dining table or hotel room.
3 kilometres outside the ancient pueblo Arcos de la Frontera there is a
whitewashed, 17th century farmhouse standing in an estate of olive trees and
eucalyptus. Cortijo Faín is a square of white stone at the end of a tree-lined drive,
cloaked in bougainvillea, with an original stone water trough, potted geraniums and
sleeping bull-mastifs. One side is an old stable, with a bar, reception and an open
hearth. One side is kitchen, with a small hole at the bottom of the wooden door where the
dogs slip in and out at mealtimes. The third side is the original ranch house, or Cortijo,
with a wide, musty staircase and a handful of rooms, furnished with antiques and iron
bedsteads. We spend the afternoon with our eyes closed, in the olive grove, which hides a
swimming pool. At nine o’clock the guests collect in the dining room, where over
salmon and stuffed pork, a comedy of errors is played out between the defeated waiter and
the persistent dogs, who open doors with their noses and rest drooling chins on the laps
of the diners.
