Slow Travel in Andalusia: Olive Groves, Whitewashed Villages & Baroque Towns

After a few days exploring Sevilla, we decided to slow things down and head deep into the Andalusian countryside. For the next part of the trip, we stayed in a beautiful hacienda surrounded by olive groves, explored nearby white-washed villages, and of course, tried plenty of local food. But first, we headed back to Sevilla airport to pick up our rental car for the next couple of weeks before making our way into the countryside. Hi guys, we are in the Andalusian countryside in the middle of the olive groves, as you can see, and this is going to be a slower type of vlog. We rented out the car after finishing our Sevilla vlog and drove about two hours to get here and it's absolutely beautiful. So we are now in a very old hacienda. This is literally the equivalent of what a maseria would be in Italy. It's a really old property tied either to farming or to olive oil trading and some sorts. This one, I'm absolutely convinced it had to do something with olive oil because literally everywhere we look, 360 everywhere, it is just olive groves. It's absolutely incredible. And incidentally, or probably not, the best olive oil in the entire world comes from exactly this region here, which is UNESCO recognized. For a while, we didn't even know this place existed, not the hacienda itself, but like this region. I didn't even know there were so many olive groves here. Exactly, and I'm sure many of the international travelers don't either, so we are super excited to explore an area that is definitely not overly touristy and actually see some really beautiful small towns and villages. And we're going to do exactly that today. We're going to the biggest town close to us, which is about half an hour drive away. And also, if we have good enough weather in the upcoming days, we do have a list of smaller beautiful, beautiful villages around. So last night when we got here, the owners of the hotel told us that there's something in the air here at the moment, something called Kalima, which is apparently dust particles blown away from the Sahara over the Gibraltar Strait. And they said that if rain does start, it'll just stain everything with like mud, basically. And we woke up to this. Now, our car wasn't pristine because we ended up on a dirt road on the way here by accident, but it was clean on the outside. Look at this now. Imagine all these beautiful white houses in the area, how they get. Wow. All right. Well, at least it's not our fault. We just arrived to Priego de Córdoba, which is the largest town near where we're staying. And apparently it's known for the best olive oil. So we are starting in Barrio de la Villa or Villa, I'm not sure, which is the old Moorish quarter and the oldest part of this town. What is actually quite remarkable about this neighborhood is that it survived the Reconquista. So this is actually the old urban planning of Priego from back in the Muslim, the Moorish times and was reconquered by the Christians. This area here is the capital of the Baroque in Spain and it was redeveloped over the old Muslim influences. And it's this beautiful, beautiful mix of Baroque with Muslim culture. And some of the churches here apparently look absolutely incredible on the inside. So we're going to go and have a look. But for now, just have a look at this. This is literally what we're looking at right now. It's absolutely incredible. Magical. Flower pots everywhere. Oh, look at. I literally said magical and that happened. So we are walking on these tiny alleyways, all whitewashed. We're just seeing how much this reminds us of Puglia. The architecture of the buildings is different, but the vibe is somehow quite similar. Whitewashed buildings and flower pots everywhere. Really pretty and quiet. I was going to sit down for this segment, but look, it's orangey. It's yellow. Suit. Beautiful spot. We found Balcón de Aderve. Look at the views here all over the countryside, the olive groves. This balcony here, this is built on the old parapet of the defense walls of the old town where it literally kind of surrounds Barrio de la Villa here. And it offers some of the most incredible views. This is apparently a great spot to watch sunset. We're not going to be here for sunset, unfortunately, but the sun is not too strong now. I'm guessing normally at midday in summer here, there's no reason for you to be here. This is unbelievable. I really like the views. There's a beautiful park here with orange trees and statues and all kinds of stuff. And we are now walking towards the two main Baroque landmarks of Priego de Córdoba. We just left the church. We were in the church of La Asunción. We rushed to get there because they were supposedly closing, which they weren't. We wanted to see the, I think it's called Capela Sagraria, might be getting that wrong, not sure. But anyway, it's this little chapel inside the church. The church is gorgeous, but the little chapel is... It's not little. Yeah, I mean, it's not a little, it's just like a side entrance from the main church. It is absolutely unbelievable. The amount of... Intricacy. I think they call it stucco. Those Baroque carvings on the walls, absolutely impressive. Okay, so I looked it up, why the patios in the gardens are so beautiful here. And apparently, since 1921, there's a competition of who has the most beautiful patio here. And it's a UNESCO World Heritage... Site? No, not a site, but like cultural thing. So supposedly, every year, everyone competes and it's like this pride thing. All right, so found this place on Google Maps, traditional flamenco bar. We wanted just to sit down for a second and refresh. And it says that it's opening at 2 p.m. It's quarter past two and it's nowhere near open, so we're not sure what... Oh, it was Easter like 10 days ago, maybe that's why. Yeah, it's a relaxed small town. She's watching TikToks. I get my daily dose of animal TikToks from her. Did we learn how to say the word vale? Yes, you say that in any social interaction. It means everything and anything. At the same time. Is that enough to order? Vale. Do you like that? Vale. Okay, so we sat down at Taberna Guernica. This is one of the better tapas bars in Priego. Obviously, the flamenco bar was still closed, so we don't know if that's ever going to open again. Yeah, it's on a side street and the town itself is quiet, but this taberna is buzzing. It's full of people. We got a wine here, an alcohol-free beer here, and some tapas snacks. And we're also getting one traditional dish to Cordoba that we didn't eat in Sevilla. We haven't tried it yet. We just stopped to get something small to eat. And the supermarket itself is extremely clean. Yes, and big. A lot of space. And a lot of stuff as well. And the prices, oh my God. Obviously, we are in the olive oil country, and I understand why olive oil is so well-priced here. But it's like three times less expensive than London. Everything else is just really, really affordable. And not affordable to the point where you would say, yes, but the buying power in the UK is different. No, no, no. It's well below what it should be by comparison. It's really, really good. Yeah, and so many fish options. I don't know. And healthy stuff. Yeah, really good healthy stuff. In England, if you want to eat healthy food, it costs you an arm and a leg, or at least an arm. And over here, you can eat very, very well at home with not too expensive food. Actually, it reminds me of Italy, because Italy is a bit like this as well. Anyway, we're going to get in the car, drive home, hang out over there. And go to dinner in a very beautiful village. We drove back to the hacienda, which is surrounded by the vast olive groves of Priego de Córdoba. This landscape is home to one of Spain's most celebrated olive oil regions, known for producing some of the highest quality olive oil in the world. Hacienda El Trajal is a cozy boutique hotel with just six bedrooms, and we stayed in the only room with access to the property's old tower, with beautiful views over the pool and the surrounding olive groves. The outdoor spaces are really thoughtfully designed, with different lounge areas, a place for guests to prepare and enjoy their own dinners, and even a well-stocked minibar. But the real showstopper is the pool, beautifully designed, peaceful, and completely surrounded by nature. Sadly, we visited in early April, so the water was still a little too cold to properly enjoy it, but from May to October, this must be an amazing place to slow down and unwind. We came to Zújaros for dinner tonight, and apparently this is one of the most beautiful villages in Spain, but it's not touristy at all, so you can't find souvenirs, the menus are in just Spanish, so no multiple languages, and apparently it's a very well-kept secret, or not, I don't know. But this view is stunning. That is our view. So Andalusia has many whitewashed villages like this, well, not like this, but they do have many, and actually we're gonna go now for dinner to a restaurant that is set right beside that really old fortress over there, that is an Arab fortress from the 9th century, so about 1200 years ago. And it's still standing, barely. Well, kind of. But the landscape is very, very impressive, again, loads of olive groves everywhere, this whole area has so many olive groves. I've never seen so many olive trees, ever. I really like this. Why is this not more widespread? I feel like this is so useful. Right? You mean widespread? Nice. I just had the curiosity to look up how many residents this village has, and apparently in 2023, the last time they counted, there were precisely 606. Okay, we've already been walking for about 3 minutes, so we're gonna reach the restaurant any second. I don't think I will ever get used to eating dinner this late. I was sleeping at the table. So even though normally we actually do eat dinner quite late, probably like 8 or 8.30, it was already 10.30, but we finished dinner now. We were the last ones to arrive, approximately, and then the first ones to leave. So people linger. The food was great, it was very interesting flavors, very different dishes than what we've had so far. It's such a remote, small village, and it had a lot of twists, like dishes. Innovative. Yes, yes, yes. My salmon was so good. With miso? Yeah, yeah. It was an Asian twist. Really good. Look how charming this place is. There's no one here. Also, the prices were so, so good. A glass of white wine was 3 euro in a fancy restaurant. The fanciest in town. The only one, yes. And there was one more. Yeah, so we paid for wine, beer, two starters, and two mains. It was 50 euros. We are off back to the car now. We've got about a 20-25 minute drive back home. Going straight to sleep because we want to wake up tomorrow, have some breakfast at the hotel, and then we've got some activities planned. After breakfast, we got back in the car and headed towards our next stop. But on the way, we couldn't resist pulling into a small shop from one of the area's well-known olive oil producers. Of course, we had to pick up a bottle to take home, along with a few olive oil-based products from the region. It is windy. And cold. Exactly, and it is a lot colder than we thought it would be when we came here. But we made it. We are in Iznajar. And look at this incredible view that we have. This is a tiny village in the middle of Andalusia. And we are right beside the largest reservoir lake in the region. This was only built in the 60s, so before that, this was just farmland. And this lake here has several functions, but mainly it is to regulate the extreme weather in the area because sometimes they do get a lot of rain all at once. And this is kind of where it stores to then be distributed later, gradually, whenever they need it. Also, because they do get very extended drought periods, sometimes they last months or even years in some cases. So they use this guy here to actually… This guy. And also this gives drinking water, I think, to about 200,000 people. Even to us? I think, yeah, because we're going to go eat something and if they give us water, it's probably from the lake. Beautiful view. You have the lake surrounding this village. We did say that this is one of the most beautiful villages in Spain for a good reason. It's not necessarily just this, but as you've seen yesterday, people in this area, in the region of Cordoba, take a lot of pride in the flowers that they have displayed on the walls of the town and the villages and so on. And this village right here has won some, I think, several prizes for the most beautiful patio. Like this tiny square full of flowers. This is kind of crazy. Patio de las Comedias. So this is consistently winning prizes for how beautiful this little patio is. That's what they call it here. And they have some souvenirs there, right? Yeah, it's like a donation box. They say if you come here and you admire it, you should… So I think if we have some coins, we'll drop something in there. Yeah, there's a souvenir shop, I think, as well. Really pretty. Yeah, very pretty. I think we'll also see a lot of this type of wall decorations in Cordoba in the next few days. I like how I'm downhill from you and I look like I'm two feet tall. Oh, now you know how I feel. Patio de las Comedias was such a beautiful surprise, such a hidden gem. And not just the patio itself was a hidden gem, I think this whole village is a hidden gem. Apparently, it's called Las Comedias because in 1531, after the Christian reconquest of the area, they started sort of like a theater spot over there. So they would put on plays and obviously probably mainly comedias. But before that, it used to be a Moorish marketplace. See, that's the nice thing coming to these villages that no one knows about. I mean, some people know about them because that's how we found out about them. But you just find random really beautiful spots. Okay, so now we are going to grab some food. Hopefully, it's not closed, this spot. And apparently, it's owned by Brits. Hopefully, it's not fish and chips. Hopefully. So the kitchen was closed. And we just ended up having some cheesecake, which was very good. It was Basque cheesecake. That's the one with no biscuits at the bottom. Yes, everything came down to 13 euros. Yeah, we paid 13 euros for Laura's glass of wine, my alcohol-free beer, my coffee and the cake. And this was kind of a posh establishment. This is by far the poshest in the town. Super, super affordable, yeah. We just heard a rooster from one of the apartments. I mean, that's an interesting cut. It's a bit annoying for the neighbors, probably. If ever you are in the area, look up the village of Monte Frio. We really wanted to get there. There's this fantastic viewpoint that has been named by National Geographic as the most beautiful viewpoint in the world at some point recently. So that's a great place to go to. It's about an hour from us. But sadly, if we go there and then try and make it home, it will just be too late. So we decided to go back to Priego. Because, well, it's a bigger town. They have more options for food. So we're going to grab some early dinner there. And then go home, pack up, and tomorrow we're going to our next destination. Many things happened since we last talked. Okay, so we are now in a countryside, remote hotel, country house kind of thing that has a restaurant as well. So we went to Priego. We walked around for a bit. And three restaurants that we wanted that, according to Google Maps, they were open. Turns out they were not open. I feel like this is one of the things you need to really come to terms with if you travel in these more remote areas. Because more often than not there will be misunderstandings with opening times. It can happen. And you have to adapt to this way of life. Yes. They do eat their dinner very late. It is what it is. The restaurant, El Ploncio, I think it's pronounced. Again, quite empty. I mean, it's early. By early, I mean 8pm. Because that is very early. But it has this really beautiful inner courtyard here we're looking at right now. It's obviously an old country house from back in the Moorish times, I think. Or at least it was somehow redone in that time. Because this sort of inner courtyard, like a medina, it's so beautiful. We were just saying that this is our ideal home layout. Just this inner courtyard and you don't need anything else. It remains clean, it's covered from the rain and it's so beautiful. Dinner was very, very good. I'm not sure if it was very, very good or just we haven't eaten in so long. I think it was super good. It was delicious. Everything was fantastic, honestly. It was one of the highlights since coming here. Yeah? Easily. Even the setting and the service. I think they even opened the restaurant a bit earlier. I think so. Because we were there. Yeah, I think so. It's interesting how the least planned thing that we had in all of these days so far was the best probably. We should do this more often. I like to plan. We also got to see one of the most beautiful sunsets we've probably ever seen. Or at least definitely the best one so far here in Spain. It was the first day that was actually clear sky-ish. So we actually got to see the sunset and it was amazing. If you by any chance are in this area, don't miss out on this place. Very good hearty food and also the prices. Yeah. So good. A glass of wine was €2.70. And it was very good. The mains that we had, the chicken, was €10. And you can tell they love their olive oil. Oh yeah. Thanks for watching this slow-living Andalusian video. And we hope you enjoyed it. It was very different and interesting for us too. And we're super happy that we got to spend a bit more time here in this area. Until next time, make sure you like this video, subscribe to our channel and we'll definitely see you in our next video in Córdoba. And around.