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RONDA and the PUEBLOS BLANCOS de ANDALUCIA...
Arcos de La Frontera, Olvera, Grazalema, Antequera, Bornos, etc.....

The afternoon we decided to travel from the Puerto de Santa Maria to Arcos de la Frontera, it was a cool day, but a clear one, and we were not disappointed by the view. Arcos was an old Arab outpost during the height of the Cordoba Caliphate, and was captured by the Christian forces of King Alfonso in the late 1200s. It is the quintessential "white town" with the narrow streets leading up to a ruined moorish castle. The whole town itself is in a spectacular setting, perched on the edge of a sheer cliff overhanging the River Guadalete (the one that empties out in our own Puerto de Santa Maria). The streets are tiny, labyrithian and as Fini whipped around the corners we did our best not to audibly suck air. At what seems like the top of the world, the beautiful Parador "Casa del Corregidor" sits at the edge of the Plaza de España and we had coffee on the terrace feeling like we were floating over the gorge, and took pictures of the ruined castle down the cliff from our own terrace.

The Route of the White Villages (The 'Pueblos Blancos') is one that we have travelled along a few times, in different places, once on our way to and from visiting my folks in Priego de Cordoba, and once going out to the lovely city of Ronda and coming back with Fini, and once having taken that quick trip to Arcos - just to sit on the balcony of the National Parador and sip coffee in the afternoon sunshine.. Situated in the provinces of Malaga and Cadiz in a mountainous region where the Betico, Cadiz, and Ronda mountain ranges all come together is the route of the white villages. These villages are usually oustanding for their locations: on the tops of mountains, into the sides of slopes, in ravines, etc... allowing the landscape to dominate them, and providing lovely and sometimes quite striking profiles against the mountainous terrain.

The white villages are typically full of steep narrow streets, little passageways through which to enter lovely Andalucian courtyards, rows of red tiled rows over whitewashed buildings often found clustered around a cathedral, old palace, ancient fortress, or medieval castle.

RONDA

Ronda, the largest, and perhaps most famous of the white villages is really quite a town. Originally of Celtic origin, it is perched up on the crags of a mountain overlooking a ravine 100 yards deep which divides the town into two. The New Bridge which spans this ravine (called 'el tajo') built in the 18th century is best seen from the bottom of a steep path leaving the old town park. After Fini and Roger and I trudged down to the end of the path to then look back and take pictures, we discovered the climb back up was the killer. From our vantage point halfway down the ravine, we could also look back on the park in the new side of town, sitting precariously on the sharp mountain top. When we'd first arrived, we had parked up there near the famous bullring and had walked out to the edge of the park to look down into the gorge. While we stood there sucking in air and thinking about how people with vertigo couldn't even live in this town, we watched the municipal garbage collectors rapel up the gorge sides picking potato chip bags and coke cans out from between the prickly pears that grew horizontally from the ravine walls. Imagine applying for a job to pick up garbage in Ronda. You'd have to learn how to rapel.

On the old side of town we found the 16th century convent of San Francisco, and the church of the El Espiritu Santo (we didn't go in), and the best preserved arabic architecture and the remains of some Arab baths. Most interesting though, was the Mondragon Palace or "the Palace of the Marquis de Villasterra". The Mondragon Palace, in addition to serving as an outstanding representation of various period of architecture, houses a splendid little museum. Serving many centuries in different capacities, this mansion was the resting spot of King Fernando and Queen Isabella after their conquest of Granada, while en route back to Cordoba. The palace museum covered local environmental, light industrial, architectural, and prehistoric data and issues. Finally, the gardens at the back were a delight of, like many Andalucian gardens, water, air, light, and greenery.

Walking through the new side of town (Called 'El Mercadillo'), we reveled in the fact that Christmas was only two weeks away, and the local businesspeople had all built creche displays in their shop windows. These scenes are called "Belen"s (the word means "Bethlehem") and they are much more detailed than most we'd seen in the US. See HOLIDAYS in Spain for more on these. The other piece of Ronda that was worth the visit was the bullring and the Taurino museum. The bullring in Ronda is one of the oldest in Spain. Some say it dates back to the reign of Philip the II, others put the date in the 18th century (a rebuild over the 16th c. one). In this bullring, the father of bullfighting Pedro Romero created a bullfighting school and during the Ronda fairs in the beginning of September, there are reenactments of the traditional bullfighting of Goya's time (early 1800s) in which the toreros wear outfits that copy the designs of Goya (a bullfight aficionado, apparently). Romero was the first bullfighter to face the bull on foot (eye to eye), and the first to use the muleta, or sword, that all of today's bullfighter use. Called the father of modern bullfighting, he was said to have killed over 5000 bulls. The Ronda bullfighting famillies, the Romeros and the Ordoñezes have dominated the art (or 'sport') of bullfighting for the last two hundred years. The youngest Ordoñez, Francisco, married recently in Sevilla to the daughter of the Duchess of Alba... the handsome, dark-eyed bullfighter and the heir to nobility - it was a wedding to rival Charles and Di's.

As we wandered through the taurino museum, we could view the newspaper clippings, the suits called traje de luces ('suit of lights') of the various generations, stuffed bull heads on plaques, medals, old photos, capes, muletas, banderillas and all of the other accoutrements of the trade. I have always been a bullfight fan, and someday I hope my husband will have the opportunity to see a corrida as well as I think he'll appreciate what it is all about.

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