Day trip to Casares

<p>Casares is the kind of place that stops you mid-sentence when you first see it. The village is built directly onto and into a steep rocky outcrop above the Sierra Bermeja foothills, with houses stacked on top of each other up the hillside to a ruined Moorish castle at the summit. It is one of the definitive pueblos blancos, the white villages of inland Andalusia, and it is close enough to Gibraltar to do comfortably in a morning.</p> <p>The village is small, under 3,000 permanent residents, and largely unchanged in character. The streets are steep, narrow, and whitewashed. The church of La Encarnación was built in the 18th century on the foundations of the mosque it replaced, which was itself built on Roman foundations; the archaeological layers here are significant. There is a small museum near the church with Roman finds from the local area.</p> <p>The Moorish castle at the top of the village dates from the 12th century and is largely ruined but worth the climb for the views: on a clear day you can see Gibraltar, the Strait, and the Moroccan coast all at once. It is one of the most extraordinary panoramas in the region and you can genuinely see why the Moors chose this specific rock to fortify.</p> <p>Casares also has a curious British connection: Blas Infante, the father of Andalusian nationalism, was born here in 1885. The town celebrates him in a small dedicated museum.</p> <p>There are a couple of decent restaurants in the village centre, and the local olive oil is produced in the valley below and sold in the village shops. From Gibraltar it is around 50 minutes drive via the A-377 inland from Manilva. There is no regular direct bus service, this one really does need a car.</p>