Luque (by Michelle)

David's grandmother, uncle, and cousins are Luques, so on our trip to Andalucia we stayed at a casa rural in a small, but lovely town called Luque. (My photos were a little disappointing so I stole the above off the internet.) Ironically, the day before we left for Luque, David received an email from another man named Luque in France (where the ancestral Great Grandfather came from) who David had emailed this summer. The man said that the name Luque is of Bernnaise origin which pretty much eliminates chances that ancestors came from this town in southern Spain.

Never the less, it was a great town and I bet we were one of the first groups to buy nearly one of every souvenir in town with the name Luque on it. The whole of Andalucia, as I blogged before, is hundreds (no exaggeration) of miles of olive groves. Luque is situated high on a hill with a great old castle overlooking these orchards for what seems like forever. I loved it and hope we can explore this area again sometime. (We missed the Olive Oil Museum, so I guess now we will have to go back.)

One thing that I'll remember about Luque is the 10 minutes that it took to back out of a wrong turn. The streets were astonishingly narrow, steep and confusing. We were tempted to park the rental car there and leave it for good, but Uncle Philip, navigator extraordinare, helped me back out.

I love this photo with Eva because, though not a great photo, it captures the feel of the town for me. The church that we were beside was blasting some religious music (it sort of sounded Middle Eastern) with an absolutely awful sound system. You could hear it all over town, so from this vantage it sounded terribly loud and a bit creepy, but it didn't distract from a beautiful sunset and the white cascade of houses all around.