Riding across Andalusia on horseback

horseback riding in Andalusia — This is a 'dreamlike' way to explore the diverse landscape

(Image credit: Sophy Roberts)

"This sort of landscape gives you an insight into Eternity," wrote Penelope Chetwode of Spain's rural south in her classic travel book "Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalusia". The region's rugged hinterland remains as "vast" and "beautiful" and "still" today as it was when she rode across it in 1961, said Sophy Roberts in the FT, and there's no better way to discover it than on horseback.

I joined a group riding trip with a guide – George Scott, who grew up in England but now lives near Cazalla de la Sierra, a village north of Seville. From there, we rode west through the Morena mountains to the Portuguese border – a journey of about 100 miles along old cattle trails, mule tracks and pilgrimage routes, on which we met just one other tourist in the course of a week. Scott's staff went ahead of us to set up bell tents "festooned with hurricane lamps", and dining tables "dressed in ginghams and antique damasks". But Scott improvised the routes in between these camps, apparently trusting in "the poetry of serendipity". (Chetwode herself wrote that she had made many discoveries owing to "the splendid inaccuracy of the maps".) The journey felt more "difficult" as a result, and we occasionally got lost, but for me this only made it more dreamlike – a sense that began on the first night, when we arrived at Scott's 16th century farmhouse to find its "crumbling courtyards" illuminated by hundreds of candles.

Scott proved a good guide to the region's "cultural layers" – from bullfighting and shepherding to the "unspoken atrocities" of the civil war. We rode through pine forests and groves of evergreen oaks, along riverbanks "bejewelled" with birds, and through wildflower meadows alive with butterflies. Deer staring at us from the woods called to mind a renaissance tapestry, and one day we were joined by a muleteer who sang flamenco beside our campfire – two timeless scenes among many on an unforgettable adventure.