With the campervan packed, filled with fuel and water we headed off to the hills to spend a few days at Setenil de las Bodegas, situated at an altitude of 640m with a population of around 2,700.

The centre of the pueblo has been declared a Historic site and it is embedded in the gorge formed by the Trejo river as it passes through the village. It is part of the route of the white villages and is connected via its railway station some 5km east, to the Bobadilla – Algeciras railway line. Google suggests the station is permanently closed but other sites seem to suggest that 1 or two trains per day stop here. The station of Ronda lies just a few tens of kilometres to the South.

Setenil de las Bodegas is part of the association of the most beautiful towns of Spain.

Our accommodation for the next couple of nights was at the campsite, Camping el Nogalejo. A well kept site, the pitches were perfect for Nellie, our small camper van and our pitch was basked in sunshine until a motorhome parked in the adjacent pitch. There are only around 17 pitches and the site doesn’t appear to respond to emails nor telephone calls, so in the end we just turned up. As is the case this year, it was busier than we expected with pretty much all camping spots taken by sunset.

We are in the midst of a winter heatwave here in Spain, with abnormally high temperatures for the season leading to an almost summer-like feel in many areas. That includes the town of Setenil where daytime highs were around 25C.

The restaurant at the campsite has an excellent reputation but on Mondays, it is closed, so early evening we headed into Setenil for a beer and a bite to eat. The town was very quiet and we struggled to find anywhere open. The one advantage was that we were able to take some fantastic tourist-free photos around dusk.

The picture above is probably the most iconic of this pretty village and shows the houses and shops intertwined with the fabric of the gorge.

The location was occupied as early as the 1st century AD and remained an almost impregnable location during the various conflicts post the 12th century.

Setenil has a reputation for its meat products, particularly chorizo and cerdo (pork) which would go some way to explaining why many of the shops were selling Chicharrones (more on this delicacy later).

The following day we walked back into town and discovered many other streets and rows of houses built into the rock.

At the top of the hill is the church of la Encarnacion, a rather plain concrete structure on the outside but the usual vivid colours of a typical catholic church and as is often the case, free to enter. The church was constructed under the patronage of the Catholic king and queen – Isabel and Ferdinand – and is characterised by late gothic architecture that symbolised the triumph over the moslem people at the end of the fifteenth century.

In the evening, we had a superb meal at the Campsite restaurant.

On Wednesday, we returned to our base in Conil de la Frontera and met up with Richard and Jennifer, recently arrived at Camping Rosaleda. Moe now has a signed copy of Jennifer’s latest book – “Happiness Seeker”. And the storyline isn’t set in Spain!

More importantly though, Wednesday evening was the first English quiz night and the four of us made a tremendous start with 45 points out of 50 and second place.