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Perhaps the best of all the routes, though a roundabout one, and tricky without your own transport, is to Cadiz via Grazalema, Ubrique, and Medina Sidonia. This passes through the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park before skirting the nature reserve of Cortes de la Frontera (which you can drive through by following the road beyond Benaojan) and, towards Alcala de los Gazules, running through the northern fringe of the Parque Natural de los Alcornocales , which derives its name from the forests of cork oaks, one of its main attractions. Twenty-three kilometres from Ronda, GRAZALEMA is a striking place at the centre of the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park, with the Puerto de las Palomas (Pass of the Doves - at 1350m the second highest pass in Andalucia) rearing up behind. Cross this, and you descend to Zahara and the main road west. UBRIQUE , 20km southwest, is a natural mountain fortress which was a Republican stronghold in the Civil War. According to Nicholas Luard's book, Andalucia : "It proved so difficult for the besieging nationalists to take, they eventually called up a plane from Sevilla to fly over the town and drop leaflets carrying the message: "Ubrique, if in five minutes from now all your arms are not piled in front of the Guardia Civil post and the roofs and terraces of your houses are not covered in white sheets, the town will be devastated by the bombs in this plane." The threat was effective, although not quite in the way the nationalists had intended. Without spreading a single white sheet or leaving a gun behind them Ubrique's citizens promptly abandoned the town and took to the hills behind." This is a Civil War story typical of these parts. More unusual, however, is that the town today is relatively prosperous, surviving very largely on its medieval guild craft of leather-making. MEDINA SIDONIA , further west on the minor roads, is the old ducal seat of the Guzmans, one of Spain's most famous families. Depopulated and now somewhat ramshackle, it nevertheless offers glimpses of sixteenth-century grandeur.
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