Granada to Malaga Bike

Andalucia, Spain's enchanting southern province, holds a lot to attract the serious cyclist. As long as one avoids the coast, there are fantastically quiet and stupendously beautiful rides through landscapes like no other. The roads frequently follow the landscape without alteration, providing an endlessly varied undulation of hills, descents and curves, all through mind-blowing scenery and between uniquely pretty 'pueblos blancos' - Andalucia's white towns that contrast so beautifully with their natural surroundings.

You can glide through vast nature reserves with golden eagles and buzzards overhead, shady cork oak forests, and across wide open plateaux, stopping to visit labyrinthine caves decorated with 25,000-year-old art, or to sip espressos and eat tapas on village terraces. Don Quixote tilted his windmills here, and travelling on horseback in 1750, Etienne de Silhouette described it as 'the best part of all Spain, the most fertile, the richest; in short, the one in which all of Nature's gifts have been distributed'.

Landscapes apart, Andalucia is also one of the great melting-pots of the Mediterranean. It is the westernmost meeting-place of the pre-historic migrants from the Greek islands and later the Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Romans. Later came great waves of invading Moors, Berbers, and Syrians. Their kingdom,'Al-Andalus', lasted over 700 years, leaving distinctive traditions and architecture still evident in many villages, jasmine-scented courtyards and castellated fortresses. The charm of this rural region is enhanced by abundant greetings from the impossibly polite and often outstandingly beautiful descendants of such a cosmopolitan past. We hope you can come and meet some of them with us.