Hiking down to Río Genal

Genalguacil is about an hour's drive up into the Serranía de Ronda and it's worth every minute of the road, even if you never get out of the car for a coffee. The village calls itself a pueblo museo and it isn't just marketing, since 1994 they've held an art symposium every two years, the artists work in the streets and then just leave the pieces behind, so the whole village slowly turned into an open-air gallery. You wander through narrow whitewashed alleys and keep bumping into sculptures tucked into corners, on staircases, against walls, no ticket and no museum needed, though there is one too if you want the indoor collection.

We picked up a stretch of the local waymarked trail that drops out of the village down into the valley toward the Río Genal, part of a bigger network that eventually runs on to Jubrique. We only walked the piece down to the river and back, about 7km round trip, and it's not a gentle afternoon stroll. Big sections are 20% grade or steeper, both going down and coming back up, over loose rock most of the way, so proper shoes matter here more than usual.

At the bottom you reach Prado de la Escribana, an old resting meadow where drovers used to stop, and where the Genal gets dammed every year with earth and stones to make a proper swimming pool, shaded by old olive trees. We had the whole place to ourselves on a quiet weekday, but there's clearly a food truck parked there, El Descansadero, with picnic tables set up around it. So it looks like a spot that comes alive on weekends or in high summer, we just can't say for sure which days it actually runs, worth checking before you make the trip down if a bite to eat by the water is part of the plan.

Back up in the village there isn't much more to eat or drink either, just one café and a refugio that had already closed its doors by the time we got back around noon. That's fine though, the village itself is the real attraction, so just wander the streets and count the artworks as you go.