Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Ronda

"There is one town that would be better than Aranjuez to see your first bullfight in if you were only going to see one and that is Ronda. That is where you should go if you ever go to Spain on a honeymoon or if you ever bolt with any one. The entire town and as far as you can see in any direction is romantic background and there is an hotel there that is so comfortable, so well run and where you eat so well and usually have a cool breeze at night that, with the romantic background and the modern comfort, if a honeymoon or an elopement is not a success in Ronda it would be as well to start for Paris and both commence making your own friends. Ronda has everything you wish for a stay of that sort, romantic scenery, you can see it if necessary without leaving the hotel, beautiful short walks, good wine, seafood, a fine hotel, [and] practically nothing else to do..."
Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

Possibly the only point Hemingway made which is not valid today (even though he was writing in the nineteen twenties) is that there is little to do in Ronda. Its Baroque churches alone would have the most insatiable sight-seer buckling at the knees after a day or so, though it is true that the only really unmissable sights are the bullring and the Puente Nuevo, New Bridge, and even more the giddy view from it of the gorge which splits the town (the Tajo de Ronda in Spanish, not to be confused with the Rio Tajo, the Tagus - the river at the bottom of the gorge is the Guadalevín). As I said, Ronda has sights a-plenty, particularly from the 18th and 19th centuries, but going back to Arab and Roman, and if you get out to the Serranía de Ronda, the system of mountain ranges surrounding the town, you can find dolmens, cave paintings and other traces of prehistoric settlement.

These days, it must be said, you are more likely to see Ronda on a day excursion from the Costa del Sol than on honeymoon or elopement, but it is a fine, elegant, historic town and, even when the tour-bus transported day trippers are thickest on the ground, it has a dignity rarely found. That affluence of excursionists doesn't mean Ronda is lacking in hotel beds, on the contrary - Ronda Tourist Board's website lists thirty-four hotels, not counting pensiones, though I have not been able to deduce which of them Hemingway was referring to. For tourism is Ronda's primary industry, as is also shown by its ninety-two restaurants (for a population of around 35,000) and twenty-four gift shops.

The city of Ronda was founded by the Romans, who called it Arunda and under whom it was a trading centre of note. The Visigoths seem to have pretty much ignored it, but during the time of Islamic Spain, it was first the capital of a province and later the capital of a taifa, minor kingdom, all to itself (it was at this time that the greatest Moorish impression was made on the town, the layout of its streets and its city walls), though it later became part of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. It was taken by the reconquista in 1485.

The Real Maestranza de Caballería de Ronda, more or less the Royal Ronda Master Cavalry, was founded in 1572, being like its equivalent in Seville, a cross between a riding school, a military academy and a gentlemen's club (like its equivalent in Seville, too, it still exists and is best known for owning and running the bullring). Seventeenth and eighteenth century Ronda was characterized by a certain impoverishment of the region, caused by failure to repopulate it properly after the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. Even so, the town grew, and a bridge over the tajo was built in 1731 to allow expansion to the north. Unfortunately, this first, hastily-erected (8 months, start to finish) single-span bridge collapsed almost straight away, killing some 50 people - try not to think of them as you look down into the gorge from the the present Puente Nuevo, a much more thoughtful affair, built between 1751 and 1793. The bullring was built at the same time, from 1779 to 1785.

This was the time of the romantic, picaresque Ronda, the Ronda of bullfighters and bandoleros, Andalusian bandits, not a few of whom doubled up as both (Juan Mingolla Gallardo, Pasos Largos, known as "Ronda's Last Bandolero" was trapped and killed by the Civil Guard in 1934). Ronda's Bullfighting Museum and its Museo del Bandolero are both of considerable interest (and to visit the latter but not the former on ethical grounds would be silly: your anti-bullfight stance would imply you were in favour of highway robbery).

In the 19th and 20th centuries, Ronda remained an essentially rural, agricultural centre, until the fifties when it began to be a popular tourist centre. The introduction of the Goyesque Bullfight in Ronda put it even more firmly on the bullfighting map, it being a first-rate event with top-flight bullfighters, in spite of the Goya-era fancy-dress costumes worn by all concerned (not, to the casual eye, any more absurd than their normal outfits, anyway). The Corrida Goyesca de Ronda is held annually at the beginning of September.

The other reason Ronda is an important tourist draw is its old streets and fine collection of historic buildings. Ronda's sights include:
In the "old" town:
The Church of Santa María la Mayor, with its mixture of Gothic and Renaissance styles, a climbavble bell tower, and the arch of the former mosque's Mihrab tucked away behind the altar;
the Ayuntamiento, City Hall, originally an early 18th-century barracks;
the Mondragón Palace, mostly Arabic, with some Gothic;
the austere Renaissance Palace of the Marqués de Salvatierra, with its curious nude figures either side of the lintel above the doorway (each pair being a man and a woman, she covering herself as though surprised in the shower, he sticking his tongue out at you);
the Palacio del Rey Moro, Palace of the Moorish King, an enormous affair of which you can visit the gardens and the "water mine" excavated down to the bottom of Ronda's gorge;
the Casa del Gigante, House of the Giant, this being a stone figure on the corner of the building and identified as of Phoenician origin. The house itself is a carefully restored Moorish palace;
the Minaret of Saint Sebastian, just what you would expect, the tower of a 14th-century mosque, the surprise being that the Church of Saint Sebastian has disappeared;
the Arab Baths, "the best conserved of its kind at the Iberian Peninsula."
In the "new" town:
the bullring, one of the oldest in existence;
the Alameda Park looking out over the gorge;
a number of interesting churches, including those of Santa Cecilia and La Merced, Our Lady of Mercy, which holds a reliquary supposedly containing the "incorrupt hand of St. Theresa of Jesus;"
and most of Ronda's better restaurants, especially in the vicinity of the bullring.

Pro's:
- Historic town with plenty of sights
- Fresh, cool mountain air
- Excellent hotels and restaurants
- Wonderful scenery
- Exhilirating drive up from the coast

Con's:
- Day trippers (even if you are one as well)
- Not cheap

You'll like it if you like:
Toledo and other historic cities which get too many tourists, stewed oxtail and game dishes, bullfighting...

More Ronda:
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