Patio

I can't say I'm too impressed with Motril -- it's not very visitor-friendly. Parking spaces are like gold dust. When you do find one, about half a mile from where you want to be, you spend an equal amount of time looking for the parking meter. They are not next to the parking spaces, and there's no indication of where they are, so you wander about asking passers-by till you find one. Motril does have one saving grace though, the restaurant La Espicha -- hidden in an anonymous housing estate. They go to the fish quay twice a day for fresh fish. The waiter took us to look at the chill cabinet, explained what all the fish and shellfish were, and demonstrated how fresh the anchovies were -- still curved and springy. So we had a selection of prawns, anchovies, fried squid, and a special Motril dish of sardines steamed over vegetables in an earthenware cazuela -- unusual and delicious. It was much more expensive than yesterday's lunch, but well worth it -- and we won't need to eat any more today. Nor will the calico cat whom one prawn made our best friend forever -- or at least till the last sardine was eaten.

In the morning we visited the sugar cane museum. Motril was a centre of the sugar cane industry in the 15th and 16th centuries, sugar cane having been introduced by the Moors in the 10th century. When the Reyes Catolicos pushed the Moors out, they replaced the polyculture of sugar, fruit, and vegetables with a monoculture of sugar cane, which made the area fantastically rich until they destroyed the environment by cutting down all the timber for miles around to fuel the boilers. This was one of the reasons the industry collapsed towards the end of the 18th century. It was revived later when industrial methods were introduced, and the last refinery only closed in 2006; there are still a couple of rum distilleries.

We also went to a photo exhibition in the Casa de la Condesa de Torre-Isabel -- a very handsome mansion (see blip). The photos, massive prints by Paco del Pino, immediately made me think of Arachne -- low-key geometric, abstract compositions made up of lines and shapes. We liked them very much.