This photograph shows the last piece of road (autovia), being dropped into place that will link the southern coast of Spain dirctly to Madrid and the north. The section is about 20 miles and runs a few miles south of Granada to Motril on the coast. The road opened a few weeks ago and the next phase is to link the entire coast via autovias.I made the 20 mile journey down to the coast on the new road, but for my return journey I came back on the old road and drove past deserted gas stations and empty cafes. The new road has killed stone dead the business's that flourished up until a few weeks ago.
When I made my little film, Cafe, I asked an owner of one of these cafes how many cups of coffee he made a day. He said 600 cups every weekday morning. When I called back a few days ago there were just 4 other customers drinking coffee.
However, the old road replaced an even older road sometime during the 1950's. This original road was used by traders and seasonal workers to get to the coast where sugar cane was cut, plus herders used the road to move livestock. An elderly neighbour in our village told us once that she went on the 'old' old road with her father when she was a little girl - they went on his mule and the return trip took one week!
To conclude this post I did the same journey on the original old road (the old, old, road). To see how that was affected by the new road in the 1950's. To be honest I didn't complete the entire journey because as beautiful as the scenery was, the road was twisty and unpleasant to drive on resulting in my feeling rather sick!
5 miles down the old, old road and I found this abandoned hotel, home to dozens of cats.
A little further on is this abandoned arab style fort. I couldn't give this photo any scale but this is a big building, the door is a lot wider than my car.
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wow interesting "road"trips you took us on..
ReplyDeleteeverything is relative to something else i suppose..fast is good for some things..and slow, slow, slow is good for others..but always slow is bad for business!
have you poked around the old hotel? it looks both beautiful and eerie!
The second building piques my curiosity...what is the view like? I would love to wander around that site. Thanks for the tour.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry for the small communities and business owners. There is usually no turning back when those shifts happen. Perhaps one day nostalgia will generate an effort to revive such places, but by then the authenticity and continuity of generations are gone. I know from other posts that you truly care about these types of events. It's a good lesson for all of us to support and enjoy the local, the authentic, and the commonplace in our own communities and the ones we visit.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing to me that the hotel and fort, both extraordinary, are abandoned. Did you stand there and breathe in the past? Get that chill up your spine?
I wonder if the Tour de France ever covered the 'old' old road back in the 'old' old days?