Salinas de Chiclana, Spain

June 21, 2014

Chiclana is a town just 45 minutes south of Rota.  It's most famous feature is the 3.7 mile long beach. The town has around 3,000 hours of sun per year with December bringing the rains totaling 24 inches per year. The marsh surrounding Chiclana has a naturally high salinity making it perfect for harvesting salt.  This farm has four stops for the water before the salt gets harvested.  First is an estuary that is flooded periodically from the tidal river that goes through marsh where they also grow fish.  The next two steps are narrow and curvy channels where the water will evaporate from the strong and dry winds coming from the Saharan desert.  The last step is a series of rectangular ponds that get flooded from the curvy channels.  This water will evaporate and then get flooded totaling 5 layers of dried salt.  Three types of salt are harvested.  First, the virgin marine salt that comes from the bottom of the last pools and is rinsed with saltwater.  Second is the salt flour that is what solidifies on the surface and is very fine harvested by hand with nets.  Lastly is the flaky salt that comes from the middle layers from the bottom of the last pools and has the most intense flavor.  After the tour of the farm we had a lovely meal and got to taste all the different salts on the best foods to bring out the flavors. This farm is open to the public and operates as a kind of environmental center.

http://www.rotamwr.com/galleries/view/cata-de-sal-exploring-sea-salt

Chipiona, Spain

June 14, 2014

This town is just 30 minutes north of Rota with a very strong tourism industry that almost triples the 18,000 permanent resident population.  Besides the beaches (which I personally think that Rota's are better) the lighthouse is the most prominent feature.  This lighthouse is the tallest in Spain, third in Europe and fifteenth in the world.  It is 205 feet tall and the light can be seen for 25 nautical miles (29 linear miles). It was built in 1867 and is the guide into the Guadalquivir River to get to Seville.  There is also a very nice marina that was built in the 1990s.  Also in Chipiona is a castle guilt in 1295 by King Fernando III after the Christian re-conquest.  We had lunch on a beach side cafe thing that we ordered langostinos (shrimp) from Chipiona.  It was an exercise in shrimp anatomy and we are sure that our 'method' for eating them was far from efficient.  Fishing and agriculture are the main non-tourist industries.  All around the beaches are stone jetty type things that were used to trap the fishes.

Grazalema, Spain

June 7, 2014

This town is within the steep mountains of the Sierra de la Grazalema natural park.  The mountains have tons of hikes that start in Grazalema.  We saw many many bicyclists who stop in town to fill up on water and otherwise prance around in their spandex outfits. Tourism is the primary industry, but historically had lots of sheep herding that lead to wool crafts.  An interesting fact unknown to Wikipedia is that the very small town is divided into two neighborhoods directly in the middle.  The names are Jopones and Jopiches which translate to 'big bull penis' and 'small bull penis'. The 'small bull penis' part of town is where the wealthy lived with the more grand houses and where most of the state institutions are located.  The division of the town was based in religious separation with Jopones belonging to the Religious Brotherhood Nuestra Senora del Carmen and Jopiches belonging to the Religious Brotherhood of Nuestra Senora de los Angeles.  Driving through the Sierra del Pinar mountain range was a bit of a thrill with steep cliffs - but beautiful views.  We went to lunch in the nearby town of Zahara where we had been several months ago.  I had a delicious seafood paella.