Winter in Spain and Morocco

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Southern Spain and Morocco

The prospect of several months of Scottish cold and darkness this winter is sufficiently unpleasant to drive me south: to Andalucia or Valencia, thence Morocco, (perhaps back to lovely Sidi Ifni, even?).

I`m thinking of adopting a new format, just for the hell of it. Perhaps something involving very simple line drawings? But the format should issue from the subject, surely? And that subject is not yet known. 

But perhaps one can make some decisions beforehand. I consider: size, weight of paper, doing monotypes, only black and white and colour (but restricted to about 6 different colours).

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Andalucia in early April- Trevélez or Capileira - a plan?

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Andalucia with -Trevélez marked

 

 

 

 

Andalucia with -Capileira marked

 

 

 

 

 Trevélez or Capileira...

 I think the mountain scenery will be very nice for painting. Trevélez is Spain's highest village. It isn't too hard to get to though. Capileira is another option, perhaps easier to get to and perhaps with more varied scenery.

A post-pandemic plan: to go here in April for painting. Also, to take in Granada, Cordoba, Seville and Malaga. 

 There are complications because of the need for health certificates required to enter Spain and the UK, which make travel more complicated. I hope some of these necessities disappear in the next few months, as I find these things stressful.

 
 

 

 

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Andalucia, Parque Natural Sierras Subbéticas; tourism

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Most of Andalucia

I continue with a post-COVID-19 Spanish plan: the Andalucian plan, which involves flying to Malaga, which can be reached with a direct flight from Aberdeen, Scotland where I will first visit.

Previously I had thought of going from Malaga to Seville and then to a national park (Hornachuelos) north west of there.

But  the Parque Natural Sierras Subbéticas is only and hour and a half north of Malaga, halfway to Cordoba, and quite spectacular. I could stay in Zuheros. That would cut out some travel time. 

After a week or so painting there I could continue to Cordoba, explore that, then even Seville, Cadiz, Granada or Jaen. The region is extremely rich culturally.

But I confess that I tend to find a lot of must-see places quite tiring, even disappointing. However galmourous they might be, the heavily mediated experience of tourist sites with and their bossy notices, combined with queues of other tourists and historical explanations, wearies me.

A trip that includes too many of these becomes tiresome. I feel that I am scoring things off a list to silence people who will question me about them on my return

So perhaps just one of these Heritage sites should be included in any week-long period.

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Spain, National parks, Constantina

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Southern Spain

The idea is to go to one of these Spanish National Parks in September (Anjudar, Hornachuelos), thus breaking up a Scottish trip with guaranteed good landscape painting.

Probably the best thing is to fly to Seville or Malaga, find a way to one of these parks and a place to stay, do some painting, then proceed to Aberdeen. Then return to Brazil via Spain. That keeps the flying time down.

Perhaps going to Seville then to Hornachuelos is the easier option.

Constantina seems promising, nestled in the mountains.

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