Ronda - the Birthplace of Bull fighting
Hello again everyone!
For those of you keeping track, Ronda was our second official stop on our tour around Spain and Portugal. As a point of reference, I am actually writing this post in Salema, a small beach town on the Portuguese coast, but since we are a few days behind in our posts I am going to catch you up on our wonderful visit to Ronda.To start it off, here is a fun video clip I took in Ronda of some of the locals dancing Flamenco in the streets. It was a very festive atmosphere!
Ronda is a pretty incredible little white hill town in the south of Spain. When I say white hill town I don’t mean that the hills are white, but that all the houses in the town are white. There are a whole string of these towns across southern Spain, as they demarcate what used to be the border towns for the battle between the Spaniards and the Moors. These towns on the border normally have in their name “de la frontera” which means “of the frontier”. When we left Ronda we drove past a number of other small towns, but none that looked as impressive as Ronda.
Ronda’s most impressive feature is that it is built completely on cliff walls. And not just one, the middle of town is split down the middle by a ravine or crevasse that is over 300 feet deep. Originally the Moors built on one side and were able to defend it against the Spanish. Then after the Spanish overtook it, they built a bridge across and built on the other side as well. The new bridge is a very impressive site, and we have many pictures of it to show you.
We came to Ronda on the end of a big festival that they have every year. It turns out that bull fighting originated in Ronda, as a way for soldiers to train before battles. The “Feria de Pedro Romero” celebrates one of the most famous bull fighters in the country’s history, who was of course from Ronda, and they commemorate it by bringing in the most famous current bull fighters in Spain.
So we landed right in the middle of this festival. We did not attend any of the bull fights for a couple of reasons. We didn’t really want to see them kill the 6 bulls that they kill in each fight, and we didn’t want to pay the 80 euros per person to attend either.
Our hotel was great, and was actually the host of a big party for the most famous bull fighter who attended the event. The hotel, called the “Jardin de la Muralla”, meaning the Gardens of the City Wall” is located right next to the old city walls, and was very beautiful. You can see by the pictures how nice it it, although air conditioning would have been appreciated. =^)
Here are the pictures from this visit:
The first pictures are of our hotel. It was really great.




For Candido, because he asked, here is a shot of the mythical man-purse that is all the rage in Europe. Don't hate me because I am beautiful. =^)






Here is Laura next to the Bull ring. Turns out that it is the biggest and oldest bull ring in the country.



Ronda was also very beautiful at night.

For anyone who just can't get enough of our pictures, here is a link to our Flickr account where we have the rest of our Granada pictures. Hope you enjoy!
Next after Ronda we went to Tarifa, Gibralter, and Africa (Morocco). I will post information and pictures soon!




























