Ronda

A bit of a rough night last night, the doors rattled all night from the wind, the Parador is definitely not a new building.  Actually I didn’t mention that the Parador is actually the old town hall, not sure from what year.  The hallways reminded us of the vice regal area of the Banff Springs Hotel.

Front desk gave us excellent directions on how to get out of town.  It really wasn’t that hard, but some very tight turns and the mirrors did not come out again until we were down at the bottom of the hill.

We had not had breakfast yet and right at the bottom of the hill we see a churro truck set up, perfect breakfast.  There was one guy in front of us and we watched his churros get made.  They swirl the batter into a big circle in the grease, then take it out and cut it into strips, Pedro from Cuba would have been in awe!  Off we go with about 20 strips of Churros for 3,00 Euro, perfect after a bit too much wine last night.

Get just across the river and stop for a beautiful view and to pick up some oranges from a vendor that is set up.  We gave him a couple of strips of churros and then he wouldn’t take any money from us for a small bag of 5lb oranges.  Andre insisted on giving him 1.00 Euro, can you imagine!

View of Arcos de la Frontera

Next stop is gas, there was an attendant here so didn’t have to figure out anything new for getting gas this time.  $90.00 to fill up the little shoebox, ouch.  When you pay be credit card here you are often asked if you want it in Canadian dollars or Euros, I’m sure we’ll have lots of lovely exchange surprises when we get home.  Bonus is Andre also gets me chocolate milk, a perfect morning, chocolate milk and churros after too much wine last night…

Next adventure is we take the back road mountain route to Ronda where we will spend the day.  Started off with a very long climb with lots of people out on bicycles, this is quite a narrow windy road, I definitely wouldn’t want to be out on a bike here.  At the top of the pass we were at 1100 meters, one guy asked us to take his picture with his bike on top.  The views on the drive up were amazing again.  

Loved the colours of green here with the olive trees

Biker ahead of us on a steady climb for many kms- Drive by shooting, no where to stop here until the top

Lookout at 1100 meters.  What a view

We passed a few white villages on the way to Ronda, but decided to just take some pictures, and not visit any villages today.

GPS took us on an adventure into Ronda again, but it actually worked out well.  We parked a little outside of town and walked up to the bridges, which is one of the things Ronda is really famous for.  Some great views of the gorge and river from the bridges, it is a little bit like Arco where we stayed last night, but even more beautiful views of the gorge.  

Wall around part of the city

Arab baths

Gorge which protected the city

Ronda also has one of the oldest bullrings in Spain, so we decided to do a tour of this as well.  It is from the 1800’s, we really like the tour in Seville last year, so once again we are in a bullring.  The culture around this is really amazing, lots of history.  September is bullfighting month, so we’ve never seen a bullfight, and I’m not so sure I could do it, but it is interesting to learn more about the culture.

What`s a bull ring without a status of a bull

Oldest bull ring in Spain, Royal Box over where the bull enters the ring

Panorama of the bull ring

Nice tile on the staircase at the bull ring.

We then stopped at the tourist information which was next to the bull ring to pick up a map of the town.  The also had maps of the other Andalucía towns that we are planning to go visit next 2 weekend, so we got those as well and Andre pick up a few he might go visit during the week while I work.

We walked around town some more, and it is now around 1:30 and the churros are now long gone so lunch time for us even though it is very early for Spain to have lunch.  Lots of people trying to get you into their restaurants here, and we came across one where they told us to just come in and have  look at the view, well that did it for us. We sat right out on a balcony overlooking the gorge and some waterfalls on one side, and the beautiful landscape on the other.  Probably the most expensive meal (lunch for sure) we will have all trip, but we did have a million dollar view.  The food was very good, which helped with the price, but the wind was a little cool which spoiled the outdoor meal a little.

Waterfall from the patio where we had lunch

Expensive but very good and big portions.  This was the appetizers.

Amazing views

Spent the rest of the afternoon walking around town, did a tour of one church, walked to see the wall surrounding the town, and just spent some time walking the little streets.  By now it is about 4:30 so we decide to walk back to the car via the Arab baths, we are too late to visit these which is a bit disappointing, next time.

Church we visited.  Should have waited here for lunch.  Much cheaper and warmer

Alter inside the church.

Planters made out of cork

One of the bridges

Another view of the same bridge

Ronda`s most famous bridge

Part of the wall around the city

On the drive home we saw lots of cork trees, which reminded us of Portugal, we hadn’t seen any until around Ronda.  Got a little mixed up around Malaga, but besides that it was good drive home.  We took mostly highways this time, but still had to do a windy route at the beginning to get on the other side of the mountains.

Olive trees

Many rolling hills.

Arrived home around 7PM, went for a walk into town, and then stopped for a glass of wine and tapas at the bar at the bottom of our apartment.  Another fantastic week-end, now Andre has to top this next week!