Ronda

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Ronda day 8-9 (July 18- July 19)

An easy start of 10:30am to make the short bus ride to Algericas, and then the 2 hour train trip through some lovely Spanish countryside, with mountains and valleys, orange and olive groves.

Ronda is a small town, one of the last of the Moorish towns to be taken over by the Catholics. It has Roman ruins, as well as the old and new bridges (the old from the 17th century and the new the 18th. I had heard that the architect of the impressive new bridge had fallen to his death when he had lowered himself down to inscribe his signature on the arches of the bridge, and there were other stories that he had committed suicide on completion or fallen trying to grab his hat, but our leader informed us that these were legends but that in fact he died a boring and natural death.

The walk down to the viewing point was fairly steep, but worth the good vantage point. The walk back up to the bridge was very hot and so we were ready for a break for the rest of the afternoon. We did stop by the oldest bullring in Spain, the place where one matador decided to first get off his horse to face the bull from the ground level (this still in the 1700’s).

In the evening a few of us found a restaurant on the cliffs overlooking the bridge, the gorge and the mountains beyond. A perfect place to watch the sunset and enjoy some fine food.

The next day we visited the inside of the bullring and the museum area. The bullring had a nice feel to it, and I’m glad to have seen it minus the actual purpose it was built for. It is a long tradition in Spain, but for me the killing of animals just for sport is not something I wanted to participate in.

We then went to look at a small display under the bridge about the history and construction of it. Finally, a visit to the bandelero’s museum where an array of their clothes and other artefacts were displayed. It was amazing the amount of written material, like small pamphlets, and also cartoon style stories were created contemporarily to the bandits telling of their exploits. It was also interesting to learn that they were not all men, that there were some famous bandeleros as well.

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Photos

View into courtyard of home
Many houses have door ajar for you to admire their courtyards

Hotels on cliff side
We had dinner at the one on the left with terrace

Comments

[Chris W]

Nice layout
I am getting ready to travel to Andalucia myself, and I wanted to make an account here on travelblog, but I wanted to make sure people didn't need an account to leave comments so that's what I am testing haha but I love the layout and your pics are great!!!