Saturday, 3 October

The day starts excitingly for us as Australia’s biggest Football match, the Australian Football League Grand Final – the logical equivalent of the USA’s Super Bowl, is taking place. Furthermore, the Editor’s team is playing and early on takes a big lead against a team they lost to 3 weeks ago in an earlier final. Update: We Won, easily. Three GF victories in a row!

Any way, on with the show. It is not as an aggressive day today in terms of activities so we are able to relax a bit more in the morning. We have our last breakfast down in the catacombs and then pack our bags and have them delivered to the lobby as we check out today to go to our next destination. We all meet in the village square to wait for our bus.

We drive through the hills and see some impressive countryside.

We then drive to Grazalema where in the first weekend of October, the residents reconstruct the life and times of The Tempranillo.

Click to view The extraordinary story of Robin Hood of Andalusia

This link shows the story of last year’s festival but looking at the crowds and traffic control I would guess that this year’s will be even bigger.

You can see in that photo a stage where re-enactments of the history are played. The size of that crowd was much to thick for me to penetrate so most of the following pictures are from Julie who, of course, went everywhere.

Thanks Julie for all the great photos. It really showed what Grazalema and this festival was all about. Of course, viewers could not miss the dazzling array of period costumes in those photos. I refer you again to the link above for details of the rich history of Grazalema.

An way, it is time for lunch. The group meets up and finds our way through the crowds to our restaurant.

Most did not order the fish as Frank was to be cooking it that night. However, it was easily the best of the mains as the Pork and, especially, the Venison were very disappointing, tough as old boots. Maybe the biggest meal disappointment on the trip.

We hop onto our bus to drive to our accommodation which is “{The Lodge” outside of Ronda. There is not enough room for the whole group so some of the group stay in the sister property Hotel la fuente de la Figuera.

The Lodge is another 15 minutes along the back road, passing through some small villages along the way.

We are greeted by Pom our Host who offers us celebratory arrival drinks before going to our rooms, very civilised.

Turns out that Julie and I have been given the honeymoon suite.

As mentioned before, Frank is cooking dinner for tonight for the group.

We are joined by the Hotel people of the group.

Thanks, Frank. That was great. The Hotel people jump on the bus to go back while we “Lodgers” crash out. A bigger day to come tomorrow.