The next day we left Drive 17 – Don Quixote’s La Mancha and headed towards Drive 22 – Andalusian Renaissance and Wooded Mountains. After a Lidl fix in Bailen, we headed for Baeza, where we just did a “drive-by”, checking out their aire behind the bus station, where you are guaranteed an early wake-up call.

Next stop was Ubeda, where we lunched in their decent, busy aire. Although this town is described as “a remarkable assembly of Rennaissance architecture with an Andalusian flavour”, these two Philistines didn’t fancy the walk to see some more old buildings, especially as the light wasn’t marvellous.

So we drove to our spot for the night through endless rolling hills completely covered in olive trees, with brooding snow-capped mountains as a backdrop. We went through the impressive town of Cazarlo, which is literally built on the side of a mountain, and just outside the town at La Iruela there’s an aire with the most amazing views, which we have to ourselves for the night.

*** Just to mention that our blogs tend to be a couple of weeks behind reality, as we’re always in catch-up mode ***