Spain 37 - Ronda - help me Ronda, help me Ronda , the new bridge and the bull ring

---

It is now 10 days into the our holiday. Just over a quarter gone depending which way you look at it , three quarter full glass or quarter empty. We have tried to score our campsites but they are all so different making it very difficult to do so. Some have swimming pools , some better than others, some indoor most outdoors. Some have shops small and large and restuarants and take aways. Sanitaires clean and tidy others not so good. How do you score them? We have miserably failed most times if I am honest and we have given up. I shall call the camp we are on today Desperado. It is not called that it has a much nicer sounding name and is in the town of Santa Elena. It is in the heart of another national park in Spain. Olive trees and little else . It is an ACSI site and has been endorsed by both the british Camping Club and Caravan and Camping Club so it must be good. Our first thought it has a rather scruffy entrance which looks like a scrap yard with discarded gas bottles strewn about. We even read the staff were sullen. Once in though it is tidy and the man at reception was friendly enough. He struggled with our passports. His computer had gone into manyana mode and refused to read them. I even went to buy pane and leche to pass a bit of time. As you can see my spanish is coming along nicely. I can order bread and milk and get a milky coffee. He told us to go away he would continue trying and we could come back later for our passports.

We found our slot number 93 and it was facing the scrubby looking olive grove . We were joined by magpies with black heads, blue tails and grey chests. We watched our neighbours arrive and slot into their spaces. The youngsters from the village arrived and sat with bottles of coke. They were bored with life and coke does one thing - makes you belch and they were doing a lot of that to their amusement and everyone else's disgust . A solo German caravanner arrived and wished us a Guten Tag. A couple of dutch arrived . The English neighbours across the way turned up in their trailer tent. It took them a little longer than it would take to put up a tent but it was it interesting to see its construction and later to talk to them about where they came from - Cambridge and where they were going to. Later our entertainment ran to an English speaking young girl, her husband and their young baby arriving . He ran into a tree with such a clatter and a bang.

We spent the rest of the evening watching Moto GP on the tv. It was in Spanish but over a few espressos the language mattered not one jot.

Next morning Day 11 we headed off for the Sierra Nevada to a campsite just north of Granada . It opened all year round. It was just going to be a stop over for us . The young man on reception told us to park anywhere and so we did by the little lake full of goldfish and yellow and pink waterlilies. Our neighbours a bit of a league of nations . A french guy and his wife and their bike which they took into Granada the next day, a couple with their mother/mother in law who we met again a few days later at another campsite. There was a tiny restuarant on site and a bus into Granada but it felt end of season even though the campsite opens all year round. I christened the swimming pool but only managed 40 lengths a poor performance compared to my normal mile every day . It was lovely thought to swim outside in what was cold water but it felt so refreshing. We ate at the restuarant at night . I had a cheeseboard which was excellent whilst Glenn had a mixed salad ,nice but nothing special. We finished with oranges in brown sugar. Through the night it started to rain quite heavily at first pattering on Suzy's roof and tv dish . The wind picked up as well and the clouds obscured the little town below us and the mountains round us.

In the morning as we drove off for Ronda Glenn got a shower as the overnight rain came in somewhere and soaked him. The seal has gone again on the roof. Another job that will require sorting when we get home. It may be wear and tear. They say things come in threes - the fridge, the tyres and now a leaking roof.

The sky is no longer a cobalt blue. It looks more as if a watercolour artist has taken pots of white, pale blue and grey paint and not mixed them. He has dipped in his brush and just drawn a line across the sky. Our destination is Ronda .

Now go on you know you want to do it . I did. Glenn did. If you are of a certain age you will remember the Beach Boys and the hit Help me Rhonda. Go on you can sing it and we will sing it along with you.

The journey was long up mountainous roads that snaked their way ever upward. We got stuck behind slow moving cars, behind vans, behind buses and behind lorries with no place to pass. Asparagus crops , well they looked like asparagus grew along the roadside. We bought fresh melon along the way 2 or 3 euros for the most juiciest melon I have tasted for some while. Straight off the fields. We see white villages nestling in the crevices between rocks, abandoned houses and villages. We are staying at Camping El Sur a kilometre and a half walk from the town itself. At 25 euros a night it is expensive . No free WiFi, a restuarant and tiny shop it is not the best we have stayed at but it will suffice.

I set the washing on and we set off for the town. We had google Earth'd it and thought it a long walk but we actually did it in 18 minutes - 2 minutes shy of what the receptionish told us it took. It was hot along the way and not a pleasant walk with no pavements and no cafes to stop off at for a cooling drink. We entered the city through its main gates and passed the alcazaba without even noticing it. We ended up in the Place Duguesas de Parcent with its cafes and churches . We sat and ate dinner Tapas , chips and salad listening to three sets of bells going off at 12 noon, 12.01 and 12.02 My tapas was a mixture of Tortilla Potata, potatoes with fish, pasta butterflies with fish, some kind of salad and breaded things. It was very tasty and very enjoyable . At 9 euros 50 a filling lunch eaten in the hot sunny Baroque square.

Our first stop was Casa Mondragon. A Baroque fronted house that held a little secret. From the outside it is just a 16th century palazzo with baroque frontage but inside is a tiny museum housed within an Islamic interior. We paid our 3 euros Jubiladoes rate (OAP's to you) and entered the courtyard open to the sky. Wooden balconies suspended on all four sides. Heavily carved Islamic style doors and upstairs that led to richly painted ceilings. Nothing so grand as Cordoba or Granada but its simplicity was wonderful to see. The museum was housed in each tiny room and depicted a period of Iberian life from the cave dwellers with their flints and bone impliments to the pottery of the later hunter gatherers. Coins from the Roman occupation and lead coffins. An eclectic mix but it was the house and garden that shone. Outside was the islamic water garden with fountains and full of colour from the many plants. From here we walked down the gorge to view the Puento Neuvo the new bridge that spanned the gorge linking the old city with the new. So many steps down and so many back . It was worth the walk though to see the feat of engineering required at the time to cross that narrow gorge. Tourists everywhere. Japanese with the selfie sticks blocking the way and Americans. Ronda was busy.

Now we don't like bullfighting but when you come to Ronda you have little choice but to visit the oldest bull fighting arena in Spain. The Real Maestraze de Caballeria de Ronda was founded by the nobility of Ronda in 1572. Two hundred years later they built the bull ring. Rather than concentrate on bullfighting these days the arena concentrates of the conservation of the unique heritage of chivalry, houseriding and the bullfighting memorabilia. The ring itself has been recognised as the first purpose built arena in Spain and it looks like a coliseum of Ancient rome with its arcades and seating. The first bullfight took place in 1785 between the local matador Pedro Romero and the Sevillian Pepe Hillo. The ring is on several levels and is quite elegant . Ladies and men separated in their own sections. All seats were wooden and numbered. Two stories of Tuscan columns. It felt odd sitting in the arena on the hard seats but it was pleasing to see such a well designed building. Downstairs was a bullfighting museum full of bullfighting costumes, engravings and lithographs plus prints by Goya. A small chapel was open where the fighters prayed to the Virgin for success against the bull. The harness and livery collection was outstanding and included much from the house of Orleans . Harnesses of breathtaking beauty , maroon , gold and silver. All used to pull the royal carriages.

Our last stop was the long walk down to the Arab Baths. We paid three euros each to go in and saw the reception rooms, the underground cisterns and the baths themselves. Not overly impressive but interesting as neither of us had seen Arab baths before .

Now all that was left was the long walk home. Harder to walk back it felt too warm. It took a little while longer. We ate that night in the camp restaurant . Glenn ate the lamb which he said was average . I was left with just another cheese board . Not half as good as the one in the campsite the other night. Tomorrow I had no idea that Glenn had a surprise for me . And what a surprise it was to be.

---