by Travis Gill
Today I turned 48 years old! I never imagined years ago that I would be enjoying my birthday riding through southern Spain on a motorcycle during a world-wide virus pandemic. We’ve got a great day of riding and hiking planned so we loaded the mules and headed south towards cooler temperatures of the Mediterranean coast.
Our route covered 182 km (113 miles) of riding from Córdoba, to El Torcal de Antequera, then to an Airbnb close to Málaga.
Along the way to El Torcal de Antequera, we stopped at a unique road-side attraction near Lucena, Spain.
Fábrica De Sillas Hermanos Huertas S L is a furniture manufacturer, started by two brothers, that specializes in manufacturing chairs.
This chair is the “Worlds Largest” and stands as tall as an eight-story building, (85 feet tall), weighs 120,000 kilograms, and uses 230 cubic meters of timber. That is enough wood to make roughly 9,200 normal sized seats!
The sitting surface of this gigantic chair is actually the roof of an office. A stairway and elevator provide access to the office which is complete with great view of the countryside, a large circular table and, of course, chairs made by the manufacturer.
Unfortunatly, the office and factory were closed so we didn’t get to see much more, but we can now say we have officially seen the world largest chair!
El Torcal de Antequera
This nature reserve, in the Sierra del Torcal mountain range, isn’t too far away from the A45 roadway.
Once you make the final climb up to the visitors center, you are greeted with the unique lanscape of these unique geological formations.
It’s so beautiful here that I fully expected an access gate with a fee. Nope – This entire area is completely free to the public!
Gorgeous views, summer flowers, perfect temperature, and a nice breeze. Life is good!
We parked the mules, and went through the process of removing our motorcycle gear and changing into more comfortable hiking clothes. I say “process” because it is very much a process that takes close to 10 minutes. Perhaps we’ll do a future video of this on our YouTube page.
This is quite a magical area. The unique rock formations are regarded as one of the most impressive karst landscapes in Europe.
We chose to hike the Yellow Route which is a short 3 km loop that takes you through the most beautiful portions of the park…
…with rock formations known as El Dedo, El Camello, La Jarra and La Botella.
Each bend in the trail brought us to new formations and new opportunities to snap pictures.
We only come across a handful of people on the trail, so much of our hike was in quiet contemplation.
Just the sounds of a quiet breeze, birds, and cicadas. Heavenly.
God created some charming country with stunning, breath taking views.
Towards the last part of the trail we heard a couple speaking German so we said “Guten Tag!” as they passed by. Before long we were walking together and sharing stories of travel with Julia and Thomas from Germany.
Julia and Thomas had been to this park before and showed us a great lookout area to enjoy the wonderful views of surrounding fields and the town of Villanueva de la Concepción to the south.
We took some time watch the raptors that were gracefully searching for their next meal in the fields below.
A bright and beautiful butterfly even came swooping in for a picture.
We ended up having a wonderful afternoon enjoying this picturesque park with its unique geological wonders.
Thanks to Thomas, a fellow photographer, for taking this picture of the two of us. Check out Thomas’ Instagram page – he takes some wonderful pictures.
Next Blog Post
Joint us next post as we explore the Spanish city of Málaga!
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Awesome place, I’m fortunate to have visited some years ago. I hope no one has moved the rocks! It has recently been declared a world heritage site by UNESCO
I wonderful place to visit for sure. I am glad that it has been declared a heritage site so that it will be protected for future generations to enjoy.