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Published: September 27th 2012
Oh Ronda! We were but with you for a moment and now we are gone!
On paper it seemed reasonable to drive from the Alpujarras to Ronda in a day; stay overnight and then do some sights the next day before moving on to Seville in the afternoon. Wrong.
The drive down from the mountain was thankfully uneventful though there are a hell of a lot of those bollards in the shoulder of the roads to make a girl’s knuckles stay white!
Our GPs directed us on major motorways along the Costa del Sol (soooo badly named cause – ‘there ain’t no soul there baby!’) We stopped for a coffee and a wee in Marbella (a kind of Sunshine Coast Grande) and were surprised at the irony of the Lonely Planet guidebook that said of Marbella: ‘Long a favorite bolt hole for criminals on the so-called ‘Costa del Crime’, Marbella is an unholy mélange of wealth flaunting ‘celebrities’ and water guzzling golf courses that has traditionally provided an antidote to. …Torremolinos.’
Oh God. If that’s an Antidote I’d hate to see the poison! Please? Beam
me up Scotty!
From the wilds of the mountains, through the so-called civilisation of the ‘Costa has no soul’, to the quirky oasis of the hotel Enfrente Art (thanks again Ren and Andrew!)- Ronda was a more than a welcome relief!
Enfrente Art is a chain of hotels run by a Belgian entrepreneur- music recording baron, game inventor and art aficionado. It has to be seen to be believed. Camel seats. Gaudi inspired motorbikes, Dali- breakfast buffets. Picasso lounges. So much fun!
We stayed in the Tower Room- a Moorish tower on 3 levels- bottom; bathroom; middle, Daliesque sitting spaces; top, bedroom. Amazing!
We wandered the city at night and then again the next day but realized we had left not enough time to really absorb its wonders! Ronda, one day we shall linger longer! Here is Dave for a minute with a special story.
Dave: One of memorable experiences for me was taking the back road behind our hotel down outside the city's defences. It dropped down beside decaying buildings and took us over an ancient bridge before arriving at the entrance to some Moorish Baths. We went in - entry being free on
Mondays - and were treated to an unexpected historical time warp.
We wandered through the cool catacombs lit by star-shaped skylights in the stone ceilings before sitting down to watch a film - first in Spanish, and then in English. The film began with an animation showing a Moorish farmer in the 13th Century walking his horse and cart down the very road we had just walked - across this bridge which was the first and only entry point from the North into Ronda across the river (ie the direction of all the Christians trying to breach your defences) - and up through the north gate.
The baños (baths) were a place where pilgrims were expected to ablute before entering the city. The film showed a tower which incorporated a donkey-driven waterwheel - an extraordinary piece of technology which lifted porcelain pots of water on an enormous leather belt and delivered them to the acequia (aqueduct) at the top of the tower and down into the baths.
When we finished watching the film, we went out into the gardens and climbed up and onto this tower. The infrastructure for the waterwheel, the donkey race, the aqueduct, and
its entry point into the baths were all completely intact.
An extraordinary experience of history coming alive.
OK - back to me! The rest of the drive to Sevilla was not at all what I had expected. I had imagined once we moved to the west that we would pass through fields of green. The moonscape we traversed was a shock.
Can I now say officially that I hate the British female voice on the Tom Tom GPS? Seriously, I want to kill her.
Sometimes she had no idea where we were- I think AVIS need to invest in an update of their Tom Tom maps. Secondly, she had no knowledge of the one-way streets (and folks, there were many) so the amount of times she asked us to turn left or right up a one-way street could make you grind your teeth to the stumps and thirdly, I swear her voice seemed more passive-aggressive the more lost we became! Bitch!
By the time we reached Santa Justa railway station in Sevilla and ‘handed the car in’ I was so close to a primal scream it wasn’t funny!
Next post Sevilla!
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RENanDREW
Ren & Andrew
So glad you liked Ronda and Hotel Enfrente Arte! We only had two days and two nights there, and really want to allocate 4 or 5 days to Ronda on our next trip to Spain. Looking forward to your thoughts on Seville :)