Ronda

You desparately need to visit Ronda.



It is a small town in southern spain, perched precariously along the edges of a camera clutching gorge. Everywhere you look it´s hard not to drop what you´re doing and take another picture. We spent three days here and both agreed it´s been the highlight of the trip so far. Ernest Hemmingway, Picasso and Orson Welles all spent considerable amounts of time in ronda, and E. Hemmingway tries to clue people in with this passage:

"The town of Ronda...is the ideal spot to visit with a girlfriend, spend a honeymoon, watch a bullfight for the first time..."

We only did one out of the three there (bullfights are in september), but I have to say, he is right on the money.

Ronda is the birthplace of modern bullfighting, and has the oldest bullring in Spain. An interesting museum in the stadium talked about how bullfighting changed from a horse sport to one on foot because of the Maestranza de Ronda (Think Spanish noblemen/knights) would fight and kill the bulls on foot if their honour required it. (We aren´t sure how a bull dishonours someone yet.)



To be honest we spent most of our time here wandering around being incredibly impressed with the gorgeous views, however we did trek out to a set of famous cliffside gardens and secret (well, formerly secret) cave stairwell to the bottom of the gorge. During seiges slaves would form a human chain, taking water from the river and bringing it up to the town. The moorish also used it as a makeshift armory and barracks.



With such an easily defendable position, the moorish were not forced out by the christians until the 1450´s, well after the rest of Spain had been retaken. The best preserved moorish baths in the Iberian penisula are here, which we toured for free because it was a sunday, it was an incredible building and looked like it could be fired back up with a bit of spring cleaning.



On our last night in Ronda we decided to hike down to the bottom of the gorge. Halfway down the main path was a small ´Welcome´sign and a path leading to a considerably ´aged´ house. We were called out to by a very unassuming man who beckoned us to come down the path to see him. The small house in the picture below (bottom right of valley) was (or so he told us) a house ernest hemmingway wrote at, and picasso painted. Whether it´s true or not is probably irrelevant, the views and setting were spectacular. He moved from Germany in 1984 and had been writing during the evenings ever since. He mentioned at last count he had sold 25 million books. He brought out a copy of his last book (I am kicking myself for not memorizing the title - it was german) and it did indeed have his name there.



Oh, and I almost forgot, we had some INCREDIBLE red wine there called Monte Ducay - Gran Reserva 1998, which we picked up for 4 euros, a steal for sure. If anyone sees it in Canada - check it out (if it´s not hideously expensive...maybe even then too!)