We set the alarm for 6:30 but woke sooner and packed up the van for our trip to HUELVA. The start of our trip coincided with the sunrise and there was some gorgeous scenery on the way
. After a couple of hours on the road we stopped for coffee in a little town called MONESTERIO. We struck it lucky with the first café and had coffee with some local Jamon serrano, warm bread with olive oil from the area and tomato. We had driven past many olive groves and the region is well known for its olive oil and quality Jamon Iberico. In fact, posters in the town were advertising the forthcoming fiesta del Jamon.
When we got to Huelva we tried to park in the station car park but there was a height restriction. The guy manning the ticket office was incredibly helpful and tried to get one of the railway employees to move out of the one space that didn’t have an awning so that we could park there. Sadly he couldn’t get hold of him. This was our first experience of the general friendliness of the people from Huelva as he quickly gave us very precise instructions to a nearby car park, saving us loads of time
We wandered over to the Huelva Museum, which was in a really lovely building and had a very interesting range of artefacts on the ground floor and loads of lovely paintings on the first floor. I had a chat to the staff there about our family history regarding the mining in the 19th century. One of the gentleman gave me some handy hints to find out more.
We then wandered through the old part of the city as far as the cathedral. There were loads of interesting buildings and we also saw some great statues, pictured below. We thought Ben would love the statue honouring the fandango performers given his current enthusiasm for flamenco guitar. Sam would also love it because the region is renowned for its a corn-fed Jamon iberico, available in all the shops and bars.
I was hoping to find a bookshop and fortunately we happened upon one and I managed to get the two books that I had my eye on. Both were written by Juan Cobos Wilkins, with one being a history of the mining for the Rio Tinto company and the other being a dramatisation of some of the events associated with the mining in a novel that he had written. I told the guy that my father’s great grandfather,coincidentally named john Wilkins, had mined for Rio Tinto towards the end of the 19th century and he was very interested, gave me lots more hints about discovering the region and tried to sell me even more books. I resisted!
The ancestor in question, John Wilkins, had been a Cornish miner and moved over to Spain to work for Rio Tinto. When he returned to England he had two houses built, one for each of his daughters. My father eventually inherited one of those houses from his grandmother and that was where I grew up.. The house was called HUELVA and it had always been on my wish list to visit the area at some point.
On the way back we stopped for a couple of Tapas. We had one portion of Mojama con almendras Fritas, Which was the speciality of the region comprising thinly sliced tuna with fried almonds. We also had a lovely plate of prawns to round off our day of regional food.
I popped in to Casa Colon (Columbus) which houses the tourist office but it was shut. The inner patio was so beautiful that I dragged Dave in because I didn’t want him to miss it. It used to be the headquarters of the Rio Tinto company and eventually fell into a state of disrepair and was bought back by the Spanish government who then refurbished it in time for the 500 centennial celebrations of Columbus’s voyage to America.There was also a statue of Columbus as he had stayed in three nearby areas when awaiting approval for his trip to the Americas, which depended on finance from the Catholic monarchs Fernando and Isabella.
We then drove on to our next campsite – Camping Giralda Isla Cristina which was near the beach through a stretch of forest. We caught up on our phone calls and then went for a lovely sunny walk along the beach, dipping our toes in the sea, before coming back to the campsite for a nice drink in the bar and a bit of dinner in the van.
Short comment as I probably won’t sent it properly, or not at all.
Everything is so thrilling. J.x
Hi, You seem to be doing it right so keep commenting!