Camping Los Alcornocales

Jimena de la Frontera, a short walk from Camping Les Alcornocales, is an old town on the railway line between Algeciras and Granada. It has several old churches and an eighth-century hilltop castle fortress, worth the puff to get up to for the range of countryside viewable beneath it, running towards Gibraltar to the south. A full 20 signposted walking trails snake around the woodland, river and mountain landscapes of Los Alcornocales Natural Park: find maps and more at the two park tourist info centres: Huerta Grande, south of Algeciras, and El Aljibe in Alcalá de los Gazules. The 10th-century Moorish fortress Castellar de la Frontera Castle is on a rocky outcrop within the park. Festivals are frequent in these parts throughout the year, including Carnival in February/March, the celebrations of Easter and the summer festivals, the cattle fair in May, history and art in October, and a mushroomy mycological festival in November. (Mushrooms, along with wild asparagus, sautéed mushrooms, pork, ham and charcuterie, are among the many aspects of Andalusian eats you should investigate further during your stay.) See also the beaches of swanky Sotogrande, 30 kilometres away; Gibraltar, 40 kilometres away, and more glitz and glitter in hangout of the stars Marbella, 70 kilometres from base.