As planned, our trip to Ronda took place on Thursday (19th). Wow – what a place!

The train was a few minutes late but the journey (just 45 mins), was spectacular with the track running through a gorge between the mountains before eventually leaving them behind and back into the farm fields that surround the City.

The t’internet says: Ronda is a mountaintop city in Spain’s Malaga province that’s set dramatically above a deep gorge. This gorge (El Tajo) separates the city’s circa-15th-century new town from its old town, dating to Moorish rule. Puente Nuevo, a stone bridge spanning the gorge, has a lookout offering views. New town’s Plaza de Toros, a legendary 18th-century bullring, is one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks.

On arrival, although I had, naturally, mapped out a route of all the things I thought we should see 🤣🤣, our first mission was to find Pete a pair of binoculars as, despite having a number at home in the UK, we both managed to forget to pack these… this led us on a trip down the main shopping street (Carrera Espinel) which happily leads all the way to the bullring mentioned above… Binoculars purchased, we were off for our sightseeing walkabout…

It was a bit of a shock going from more-or-less just each other’s company to a city full of tourists (for you Yorkshire folk, think Skipton on a Saturday in the height of summer when the coach tours are in full flow x 100!) and to have proper shops! However, despite this, there is a really lovely feel to the City and it is well worth a visit – here’s some photos followed by some blurb on each place we made it to!

Sadly bullfighting, being considered part of the Spanish culture, is still legal in Spain although I read somewhere that some states have their own bans… It’s not something Pete or I agree with (we certainly would not like to witness it) but the buildings do look pretty amazing. That said, I suppose the Roman coliseum’s where the gladiators fought would have been too, and pitching man against man / lion or bull until death, doesn’t sound much like fun or entertainment to us!

From the bullring, we walked up to and through the Alamenda del Tajo (a small, but lovely little park with, surprisingly a statue of Ernest Hemingway who apparently spent a lot in Ronda (and Spain) where he studied and wrote about bullfighting), eager to see the views from the cliff that Ronda sits on to the sierra below and the Serrania de Ronda Mountains in the distance – it was stunning! And we hadn’t even made it to the bridge yet!

In the photo above, the building at the top is the Parador Hotel – this was once the City Hall (Ayuntamiento) and dates back to the year 1761. It’s where Ernest Hemingway lived and wrote – his novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls” tells of the atrocities committed here during the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) when Nationalist sympathisers were thrown to their deaths from the bridge and cliff right outside the Parador… 😣

The Puente Nuevo bridge stands 100 odd metres above the Guadalevín River which splits the town in two.

We decided to sit and have cake in a small park (not being able to decide, we bought one each of the four local favourites so that we could rate them… in all honesty, we didn’t really like any of them! 🤣) before donning a hard hat and taking the tour down to below the bridge… we only really did this so that I could get a close up photo of the bridge – the photo above! To be honest, it might have been a lot less strenuous to have downloaded one off the internet… but where’s the fun in that!

After the bridge, we wandered around the old town and then in the direction of the Arabes Banos (Arab Baths) which apparently date back to 13th-15th Century… we didn’t go in though as it was at the bottom of the hill and having climbed a bit already, we thought we might leave this for another day… yes, Ronda is that nice that we think we will probably do a return visit before we leave this beautiful place! Here’s some more photos:

We did very little yesterday – the weather, whilst warm, has been a bit on the cloudy side. It’s probably low 20s at the moment – which is nice but not overly hot – guess that’s what you get for staying in the mountains rather than by the beach! 🤣 Anyway, I managed a good swim and then, in the evening, we headed up the hill to get some steps in… which ended up as a 2-hour walk – about 1.5 hours uphill and then 30 mins back down! 🤣🤣

Today, we decided to go off to the market in Cortes de la Frontera… however, there was no market! God only knows where the both of us read that there was a weekly market here on Wednesdays and Saturdays but, if there is, we never found it and, in all honesty, the town is not that big that you could miss something like that! Despite this, the town was packed but only with people doing their weekly shop at the local supermarkets, bakers, fishmongers, butchers, hardware store etc… it was very busy! Unlike anything we have seen up there before… We were brave and, using the very little Spanish we have (shockingly poor I know!), managed to get ourselves understood in most of the little shops and came home with a chip fryer basket that Pete is going to set up so we can steam some veg(!) as he is already fed up with salad (which is fair enough as we’ve been on this trip for over 2 weeks now!), some citronella candles (it’s hard not to want to sit out and stare at the mountains around us as the sun is setting – yes, like the UK, the sun is always out by the time it’s setting! But the mosquitos keep getting me!) and “the best carrot cake ever” (according to Peter Collins – personally, I stuck with the chocolatey “Oreo” cake which too was delicious), alongside enough food to last us into the middle of next week!

So, that’s our first week in this lovely place over… you’d think being on a hillside in the smallest village ever would be very peaceful but alongside the animals, it’s been a right racket today – people on quad bike things and general DIY going on – we are seriously thinking of going away somewhere else for the weekends we have left here! 🤣🤣 Somewhere quieter!

Right – enough of this… I’m off to the patio for a BBQ and SALAD! Hurray – I love salad… 🤣 Hasta luego amigos xx