Happy Bank Holiday Monday to you all - hope you're all enjoying some nice sunny weather! For
the last couple of days we have experienced a significant drop in the weather
and some rain. We have gone from a high of 26°C to 12°C in 4 days - argh! Having been watching the news/weather on BBC
World News we knew it was coming so had our ‘winter woolies’ out at the ready. Good news though is that it's slowly working it's way back up
to 26°C! From Benarrabá we took the A-369 road to Ronda, which was a
really scenic, route taking us up to 1200m at its highest point. There is only one Aire in Ronda (N36.75084
W5.17086) and it's basically a car park on the edge of the town but it’s free and
you get some fantastic views just around the corner from it.
Ronda
is one of the most ancient cities in Spain, built on a rock that is
spectacularly split by the 120 metre deep gorge (El Tajo). The 2 sides are joined by
the Puente Nuevo (bridge) (built between 1751 and 1793). The
legendary name of Ronda became famous with the help of some romantic
adventurous travellers (Rainer Maria Rilke, Teofilo Gautier and Prosper Merimee),
who opened it up to famous writers, such as Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway.
 |
| Puente Nuevo |
Ronda
can get up to 75,000 tourists a day to its town, so we were expecting it to be
busy. That said, it wasn’t too bad
walking around and we managed to avoid bumping in to the Saga groups and lots
of Chinese/Japanese tourists that were in town – good result! I was last here in 1983 and remembered very
little of it other than the dramatic views you get approaching the beautiful
white washed town built on the rock.
The Plaza
de Toros (bullring) is constructed
in sandstone with an elegant double-tiered arcade of Tuscan columns, it is the
widest in the world and one of the oldest in Spain. Ronda is the birthplace of bull fighting, the
first fight took place in 1785. It now
stages only a few prestigious fights a year – not that Mel and I would want to
watch one. I remember going to watch one in 1983 and swore that I would never
watch one again!
 |
| Plaza de Toros |
 |
| Not sure why Mel has his eyes closed, unless he thought the bull was going to attack him! |
A
walk around the museum gave us a good insight into the cultural history of
bulls and bullfighting and an interesting exhibition of costumes, photographs,
harness and livery collection, along with an antique fire-arms collection
belonging to Louis XIV, Napoleon and English monarchs form the 17th-19th
century. Next to the bullring is the
School of Equestrianism, dedicated to teaching and training riders in classic
horse riding on Spanish thoroughbred horses.
It
was a long walk down to the gorge below the Puente Nuevo.
 |
| Puente Nuevo |
Palacio
de Mondragon – one of Ronda’s most beautiful palaces, dating from 1314.
Iglesia
de Santa Maria la Mayor.
Puente
Viejo (old bridge dating from 1616) and Puente de San Miguel and Casa del Rey Moro (18th century mansion and gargens).
From
Ronda we took the A-367/A-384 to Antequera and stayed on another free Aire
(N37.0215 W4.57198). It had
water/chemical toilet/grey waste disposal so all was good!
It’s
an ancient town with significant Roman ruins, a Moorish Alcazaba, and 16th
century Arco de los Gigantes.
 |
| View from the Alcazaba |
 |
| Arco de los Gigantes |
 |
| View across Antequera |
It
was then a quick workout (around the corner from the Aire) before wine o'clock and Tapas in the town!
No comments:
Post a Comment