Preferred Travel Services has developed a wide-ranging portfolio of European escorted tours in partnership with the Press and Journal. We are delighted to be able to offer our readers two unique holiday packages with a new direct flight from Aberdeen
Imagine a place where the welfare-minded, paternalistic local employer has built a housing estate for its managers with terraced villa-style houses and neatly trimmed front gardens.
There are also cottages for the workers, a social club with tennis courts and a cricket pitch, and a hospital. A little further away is the company’s works football team.
No, you are not in the 19th-century British industrial north. You are way down in the south of Spain, near the Portuguese border.
The employer was the British Rio Tinto Mining Company which exploited the copper and sulphur mines from 1873 employing up to 20,000 men.
The works football team has a direct connection with Scotland.
The beautiful game was brought to Spain by two Scottish doctors working for the company. Recreativo de Huelva, or Huelva Recreation Club as it was called when founded in 1889, was established to provide physical exercise for the workers. When you drive into the town of Rio Tinto, a sign proudly welcomes you to the “Birthplace of Spanish Football”.
In Rio Tinto, you’ll find a wonderful mining museum, a quaint housing estate straight out of Victorian suburbia and, of course, the open-cast mines themselves – a truly spectacular, moonlike landscape.
A “must do” in Rio Tinto is a train ride on 100-year-old rolling stock through the truly amazing “Martian” landscape where the Rio Tinto (Red River) really does run bright red with all the minerals it washes from the valley floor.
This corner of Spain on the Mediterranean is a delight to explore. As well as the mines, there are the beautiful Donana wetlands, the “cowboy” town of El Rocio and the Columbus sites with replicas of his ships which “sailed the ocean blue in 1492” – all easily accessible from the beach resort of Isla Canela near the busy port and border town of Ayamonte.
The Columbus sites include La Rabida Monastery, where Columbus stayed with the monks before his voyage to the New World. Nearby lies Caravelle Wharf, with full-size replicas of Columbus’ three ships – the Pinto, the Nina and the Santa Maria.
All are much smaller than you might expect – but they actually travelled across the Atlantic in 1992, for the 500th anniversary.
The strange town of El Rocio seems like something out of the Tex-Mex West, with clapboard houses, sand-covered squares and avenues and rails to tie your horse to.
But this is no tourist movie set – in fact it is a major pilgrimage site. The “Romeria” which started over 350 years ago now attracts a million pilgrims every year.
Isla Canela is a quiet resort and is a good place from which to explore the region. It has broad, sandy beaches, an old fishing harbour and a little ferry from the modern marina across to Isla Cristina.
There is a promenade from where there are wooden boardwalks across the dunes to the beach and the sea. A frequent bus service makes the five-mile journey to the busy port of Ayamonte which lies on the mouth of the Guadiana River.
The Guadiana marks the frontier and regular ferry services cross the river to Portugal. Pleasure boats sail upriver to the pleasant white-painted village of Alcoutim.
There are two P&J Western Andalucia holidays – an escorted holiday with included trips and a walking holiday with three guided walks – the Guadiana and its neighbouring wetlands are a haven for wild flowers, birds and other fauna including the beautiful European Chameleon.
The base for both holidays is the Playamarina Spa Hotel in Isla Canela located between the beach and the marina on Punta del Moral.
The hotel has a buffet restaurant with show cooking, outdoor and indoor pools and two bars. There is also a spa and the hotel offers a free one-hour circuit of the facility.
The escorted holiday includes visits to El Rocio, the Columbus sites, Rio Tinto and a boat cruise on the Guadiana. The walking holiday has guided walks in the Natural Park area of the Donana, the Rio Piedras and Flecha del Rompido Nature Reserve and Alcoutim – also with a cruise on the Guadiana.
There are two departures in September with flights from Edinburgh and Glasgow and a special departure on October 1 with a direct flight from Aberdeen.
For a brochure please call 01224 338004 and quote the following:
AB606- Isla Canela, Rio Tinto and the Guadiana River
AB613- Walking, The Guadiana River and Western Andalucía
To book, call 0116 279 3929 and quote P&J to secure your place.