Ronda, May 11, Andalucía - favorite!

Wednesday, May 11, Ronda

We slept in this morning and then decided to drop our laundry at a local laundromat where they will wash, dry and fold for you.  This should get us through the rest of the trip, as we haven't used our warm weather clothes much.

It is cold and windy this morning, prompting another stop at a little shop where Beth finds a nice scarf.  We stop by Confiteria Daver for a pastry (croissant and ham & cheese tart) and some coffee/juice,

then head across the bridge and wind through some narrow streets to find the path leading down into the gorge.  The sun is actually trying to shine when we begin.

View from half way down

Beautiful, dramatic scenery as we descend.  The path becomes dirt and near the bottom it clings to the rock with a thin wire as handrail!

 Part way down, we meet Sophie from New Zealand.  She is touring Europe for a few months before heading to a job in the UK, and she wanders with us.

Sophie and Beth

  We take a few photos of each other at the bottom of the gorge.  And then begin the climb back up...huff, puff.

We rest a moment at the top, then wander some more around the narrow streets of the old town.
A nice small market. (I love markets, as you probably already know.)

 A few nice shops and fortunately, perhaps, we are restricted in purchases due to luggage space.  Some beautiful ceramics made locally.  Our one purchase is a red ceramic bull.  And the rain returns.

Back across the bridge, we take a shot of where we were at the half-way-down point earlier....

then we head to Plaza Del Toro, one of the earliest purpose-built bull rings built in 1785. It opened with fights by Pedro Romero and Pepe Illo.  Great matadors are highly respected and honored with statues, plaques, etc. Pedro had a son, Juan, who was also a great fighter - the street in front is named after him.   There has only been one fatal goring at this ring, in 1820.  Fights continue but none are scheduled while we are here. Some of the older plazas in other towns doubled as bull rings.

There  is a car show going on outside of the ring, which Greg and some locals appreciate.

 There is a small museum which covers equestrian topics, saddlery and other gear, as well as 14th & 15th century firearms and weaponry.  A horse and lance man (picador) is involved in each bull fight. An interesting small room is dedicated to dueling customs, which began with swords, then changed to pistols.  A dozen or more sets of dueling pistols are on display. We pass the chapel where all the matadors pray before entering the ring(closed).  And then a museum which displays costumes, stuffed bulls, advertising, reporting and photos, etc. of bullfighting.  Don't call it a sport - for they consider it an art form.

We can enter the ring, but it has a sand floor and the rain has made it quite a mess.  Greg ventures out there briefly, umbrella in hand.

Here is the door through which the bull enters.

We stop at Nueva 13, next door to where we ate last night, and have a good hot bowl of chicken soup to warm up.  Apparently last night's restaurant and this place share kitchens as we often see waiters going back and forth via the front door....not the only time we notice this phenomenon.

We head back to the room, then Greg goes to pick up the laundry while Beth writes a bit of the blog.  Later, it has mostly stopped raining and we decide to head to San Francisco Bodega for dinner - a Rick Steves recommendation.  It is a bit of a walk, on the other side of the old town, but seems much less touristy.  There is an old neighborhood bar also called San Francisco and we get some odd looks from the locals when we poke our heads in. The small restaurant is across the street. The TV there is replaying recent bullfights, so we get to watch what we read about earlier today!

We order a salad first and it is very good and plenty for two, greens, tomatoes, egg, corn, beets, peppers and tuna.

Of course everything is dressed with olive oil and vinegar or balsamic vinegar.  Next we order a half racion of Iberian hams which are sliced paper thin - we like the pork loin one the best.

Most places you can order a pinchot - tiny bite of something, a tapas - a couple of bites,  a half racion 2-3x a tapas size, or a full racion.  We also order spicy pork kebab tapas....but they aren't really spicy.  Nothing we have had is spicy and when we mention it to someone, their answer is that this is not Mexico, it is Spain. Okay then.

We take a few night pictures on the walk back.  Ronda is pretty quiet, as many tourists come for the day only.

Rain makes everything glisten.


 Again it feels good to throw an extra blanket on the bed.  It is colder than usual here and wetter than usual, but is supposed to get better by Friday.  Beth makes some hotel reservations for tomorrow in Arcos de la Fonterra.  My cell phone works fine and fortunately most people in the tourist industry speak enough English to understand us! So far we haven't had a problem getting reservations the day before!