Andalucia 2008
Day Two: 9th October
Weather: Sunny but becoming overcast, with typical Manchester weather later!
Route: A ramble around Ronda
The drive north from Marbella to Ronda winds up through lovely hills, that are spoilt in places by swathes of new developments, many are gated and supposedly exclusive - they sometimes strike me as being more of a prison.
I don’t know how high up Ronda is but it took a good while to get up there, and the sight that greets you when you approach is a new housing estate. A very incongruous sight as I was expecting to see an old town, but this is further along the road and hidden from view. As Ronda is one of the top tourist attractions of Andalucia the area around the old town was mobbed with people, but as with every attraction the tourists don’t stray far from the comfort of the car or the coach. Further away from the old town the streets became much quieter, but as in Marbella free parking is at a premium. I eventually found an underground car park among the grid like network of streets some way from the old town. But it meant we had a good walk back along the side streets, and had a good look at how the locals here lived. There were cars parked in every available orifice and plenty parked where they shouldn’t have been – they are nearly as bad as the Italians – which is a compliment to their ingenuity. How they extricated some of the cars is difficult to envisage. Maybe they have a fork lift truck that pulls them out sideways? As we reached the end of the long street where the car park was sited, we kept an eye out for a landmark to guide us back later on. There was a small hotel at the end of the street that had an eye catching name – I don’t think I would fancy staying there! It was a one star establishment, and unfortunately the one star was marked on the hotel sign as a round brown circle – someone with a very warped sense of humour, or maybe it’s just me. Ernest Hemingway and Orson Wells resided in Ronda for many years, and both wrote about its beauty, but I bet they never stayed at the Hotel Colon!
But we were happy we had a good meeting point to rendezvous if we ever got split up. The route took us forward to the top of the escarpment that looks out over the plains and across to the Sierra de Las Nieves. It was a great vista to look down over the cultivated land below and beyond to the mountains, and all the time there were swallows busy swooping down for insects, back and forth. The escarpment is made up of a mix of sandstone and limestone, and the actual gorge has large deposits of tuffa from where the river has flowed in full spate many thousands of years ago. The deep El Tajo gorge carries the rio Guadalevín through the centre of Ronda. Most of the tourists made a beeline for the 18th century Puente Nuevo 'new' bridge, which straddles the 100m chasm below, for its unparalleled views out over the Serranía de Ronda mountains.
The sandstone escarpment
The distant hills to the west of Ronda
The deep El Tajo gorge
As we approached the bridge there were a lot of people milling around, so we moved further along and dropped down an old cobbled street the Calle de Santo Domingo, which led us past a lovely old building in desperate need of repair that has some lovely gardens overlooking the gorge below. The cobbled streets wound down steeply to an arched gateway that leads to the Old Bridge that was built in the 16th C, possibly sited on old Roman foundations. It was all very picturesque and because we had to make an effort to walk down there were less people around. There are views of an old Moorish castle, and a modern walkway up the other side of the valley gains the ground we had lost and the new bridge comes into view once more. The river below was little more than a trickle and didn’t look very inviting. The town’s restaurants were doing a brisk trade and we made the one mistake of the day by eating in one of the restaurants on the new town side of the bridge. It was ok and the lunch was fine, but after we had crossed back over to the old side of the bridge the restaurants were much nicer. But on the downside they were probably a lot more expensive as well.
The arch gateway just before the old bridge
Looking up towards the town from the new bridge
The old bridge
The new town on the right and the old town on the left
The route led us up narrow streets with newly renovated houses and hotels. An elegant cloistered 16th century convent is now an art museum, old Ronda, La Ciudad, sidewinds off into cobbled streets hemmed in by handsome town mansions, some still occupied by Ronda's titled families. A few minutes walk to the furthest end of the Ciudad is the Palacio Mondragón. Clumsily modernised in parts during the 1960s, this still has working vestiges of the exquisite miniature water gardens dating from its time as a Moorish palace during Ronda's brief reign as a minor Caliphate under Córdoba in the 12th century. The cobbled alley to the Mondragón leads naturally on to Ronda's loveliest public space, the leafy Plaza Duquesa de Parcent, which boasts a convent, two churches, including the toytown belltower of the iglesia Santa Maria de Mayor, and the handsome arched ayuntamiento (council) building. From here there is a path that zigzags down the escarpment past some old walls that are crumbling away due to weathering. It leads down to probably the best view of the new bridge from way below the street level above.
Looking across the gorge to the new town
The carved out path down to the old mill
A familiar sight up on the Pennines
The big cliff – tuffa deposits in the foreground
The new bridge with the old town on the right side
There is an old mill race that is cut into the valley side and this leads to an old mill building that must have been used for grinding corn or as an olive press perhaps. The pathway down is cut through the limestone bedrock and then cuts along the valley side. The old water course can be seen exiting the building by a leet and continuing down the valley side. Most of it is overgrown now, but you can still access it if you make the effort – it’s probably not seen by that many people. After making our way back up through the old town and across the bridge we passed by the old bullring.
Moo….bellow etc
Apparently Ronda is also famous as the birthplace of modern bullfighting, and is held once a year at the spectacular Feria Goyesca. It is held at the beginning of September, and the fighters and some of the audience dress in the manner of Goya's sketches of life in the region. Legendary Rondeño bullfighter Pedro Romero broke the rules from the prevailing Jerez 'school' of horseback bullfighting in the 18th century to found a style of bullfighting in which matadors stood their ground against the bull on foot – still a bit primitive for my liking – it would be a far more entertaining spectacle if they used rubber swords. Beyond the bullring it was back to the Hotel Colon and onwards to the car park. A fine ramble around some marvellous scenery.