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Ruta Bancos Gigantes or Huge Bench Route in Andalucia

A new rage is slowly spreading across Andalucia with its beginnings in the province of Malaga and that is huge benches are being installed in beauty spots across the region. The Huge Bench Route or  Ruta Bancos Gigantes #rutabancosgigantes can be found on Instagram  where they are more active with updates on the new installations of these enormous benches and they have a   Facebook  page too. Map of the Ruta Bancos Gigantes The initiative started by Forest Green an agrobroker company that supplies and works with treated wood to large construction and environmental companies in Spain. The huge bench route is steadily growing, with constant new installations spreading across Andalucia. The enormous handmade wooden benches are 4 metre long and 2.3 metre high, with the seat being 1.3 metres above ground and needing steps to get onto them, appearing in natural beauty spots hopes to encourage people out into and  enjoy the views and of course take photos to be ...
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Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalucia Review

It´s fifty years since Penelope Chetwode, wife of John Betjeman, rode alone on a borrowed mare into the wilds of inland Andalusia and then penned Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalusia which was released in 1963.

I finally tracked down a copy of Chetwode´s book and read it from cover to cover eagerly. Many times I read a section out loud to my husband that was about the area we live in and the times we love chatting to our neighbours about.

By the time I´d finished the book I´d mentally plotted my own route and when eventually I got out a map I was hooked. I knew that one day I´d have to retraced Chetwode´s steps. I would even have betted I could find some of the characters in the book that remembered her.

Her journey, staying in posadas took her a month, her only set plan on leaving the Duke of Wellington´s estate near Illora in Granada province was to get to Cazorla and back to Gibraltar for her flight back to England.

Starting her explorations on Bonfire Night she rode along mule tracks to a town or village she´d decided on as her next stop, each pueblo unique yet as poor and welcoming as each other. Her room was often just a bed, a washstand and a 15 watt bulb. The toilet more often than not the deep litter in the stable shared with mules and at times chickens and pigs.

In the days when cars were few, roads were pretty non-existent and travelers rarer still, Chetwode arrived at a pueblo and attracted the attention of the whole village. The simplicity and charm of the book shares the social history long gone, though times in our neighbours memories and with a firm grasp on their heart and spending.

For times lost, for better and worse this book should be a compulsory read for all lovers of Spain.




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