Upon waking in Seville it was time for a cappuccino, a dessert, and a walk to the Europcar office, the one at the train station. We were off to Marvao. We expected to drive through a forest of cork trees to get to a town perched on a hill shared with a castle. Another settlement that exists thanks to its impregnable situation. We rented the cheapest car, a Mini-sized but soggier Opel Adam. It had a slick stop-start and felt rock solid on the highway.

We quickly came to refer to the car as Adam. I drove Adam a half hour of Seville streets followed by an hour of four-lane divided highway followed by a few hours of windy two-lane roads followed by parking at the end of the road, just below the town. Along the way we stopped at a cafe for 1€ espressos and at a rather seedy store for groceries. We saw a lot of what I quickly realized were cork oaks, some showing bright red as if freshly injured skin.

Our hotel, Estalagem de Marvo, was very charming. Everything about it was well executed, the proprietors helpful and friendly, and so it joins Ronda and Granada and Tangier on the list of really nice places to stay. Estalagem de Marvo includes breakfast which is needed since Marvao is so small it doesn't have the patisseries that other cities offer. The hotel's reception room doubles as the town's only grocery store.