The Spouse and I found ourselves on a bus full of Swedish tourists heading for the hills to the white town of Ronda. The tourists pontificated proudly in Swedish about who knows what and snaped photos over our heads on the twisty, windy drive into the hills. We were glad to be rid of them - even my Swedophile spouse who lived in Stockholhm for a year in college seemed to have had enough.
If you use your imagination and mentally strip out all of the pushy, doddering, camera-flash happy tourists, Ronda is a magical place. It perches on top of the mountains comfortably, and glows like a torch when the sun sets - orange and pink against the white buildings. The old Moorish town and the new town are separated by three ancient bridges which span a steep gorge and a slow green brook. It looks like a fairy tale painting and some mythical stories have been written about it, including the famous chapter ten of Ernest Hemmingway´s For Whom the Bell Tolls. Here it is the village where Pilar witnesses the fascist leaders of the town being flogged and flailed and then thrown from the cliff into the gorge, about a 300 ft sheer drop to the yellow rocks below.
We stayed in a lovely hotel on the edge of a cliff overlooking some pastoral hills that could have been in a painting. The hotel was also white and had a garden that was too windy to sit in. The only ones brave or foolish enough to be in the garden were the birds perched in the prickly pear cactus plants and the Spouse and I who sat under a blanket drinking vino de la naraja and giggling. The staff was rude to us when they spotted our backpacks earlier in the day. We paid them when we left, and they appeared genuinely surprised that we didn´t climb out of our window without payment. Score one for wheeled luggage. Apparently rich people use wheeled luggage and theives use backpacks...
Ronda was absolutely beautiful. The building were white and crumbly and the everpresent wind smelled like mountains and pine trees, but the swarms of day tourists were too much (although evenings after the last bus left were quiet and wonderful). We left the next day for Marbella.
If you use your imagination and mentally strip out all of the pushy, doddering, camera-flash happy tourists, Ronda is a magical place. It perches on top of the mountains comfortably, and glows like a torch when the sun sets - orange and pink against the white buildings. The old Moorish town and the new town are separated by three ancient bridges which span a steep gorge and a slow green brook. It looks like a fairy tale painting and some mythical stories have been written about it, including the famous chapter ten of Ernest Hemmingway´s For Whom the Bell Tolls. Here it is the village where Pilar witnesses the fascist leaders of the town being flogged and flailed and then thrown from the cliff into the gorge, about a 300 ft sheer drop to the yellow rocks below.
We stayed in a lovely hotel on the edge of a cliff overlooking some pastoral hills that could have been in a painting. The hotel was also white and had a garden that was too windy to sit in. The only ones brave or foolish enough to be in the garden were the birds perched in the prickly pear cactus plants and the Spouse and I who sat under a blanket drinking vino de la naraja and giggling. The staff was rude to us when they spotted our backpacks earlier in the day. We paid them when we left, and they appeared genuinely surprised that we didn´t climb out of our window without payment. Score one for wheeled luggage. Apparently rich people use wheeled luggage and theives use backpacks...
Ronda was absolutely beautiful. The building were white and crumbly and the everpresent wind smelled like mountains and pine trees, but the swarms of day tourists were too much (although evenings after the last bus left were quiet and wonderful). We left the next day for Marbella.
No comments:
Post a Comment