Ronda, with about 34,000 inhabitants, stands on a plateau in the Serranía de Ronda, in the province of Málaga, in Andalusia. The city is split in two by the Tajo, a gorge over a hundred metres deep carved by the Guadalevín river, and its white houses overlook the drop. Romantic writers and artists, and later Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles, fell for it: Welles's ashes rest on a nearby estate.
History
Inhabited since antiquity, it was Muslim Runda, capital of a taifa kingdom and later a Nasrid town, until the Catholic Monarchs took it in 1485. In the 18th century the nobles of the Real Maestranza de Caballería created modern bullfighting on foot here, thanks to the Romero dynasty of bullfighters.
What to see
- The Puente Nuevo, completed in 1793, about 98 metres above the bottom of the gorge, the city's symbol; trails lead down to view it from below.
- The Real Maestranza bullring, from 1785, one of Spain's oldest and most beautiful, with a bullfighting museum.
- La Ciudad, the old quarter, with the church of Santa María la Mayor, built on the mosque, the Mondragón palace, residence of the Muslim kings, and the Marqués de Salvatierra palace.
- The Casa del Rey Moro and gardens, with the Mine, a secret stairway cut through the rock down to the river.
- The Arab Baths, among the best preserved on the peninsula.
- The Puente Viejo and Puente Árabe, the other two bridges.
- The Alameda del Tajo and the balconies over the drop, with views over the valley.
Festivals and food
The Pedro Romero Fair, in early September, culminates in the Corrida Goyesca, with bullfighters in Goya-era costume. Food: rabo de toro (oxtail), sopa de los cuarenta, yemas del Tajo, goat's cheeses and DO Sierras de Málaga wines from the Serranía de Ronda subzone.
Around Ronda
- The pueblos blancos, the white villages of the Sierra de Cádiz and the Serranía, such as Setenil de las Bodegas, with houses under the rock, Grazalema, Zahara de la Sierra and Olvera.
- The Cueva de la Pileta, with Palaeolithic cave paintings.
- Sierra de las Nieves National Park.
Getting there
Ronda has trains to Granada, Córdoba and Algeciras and buses to Málaga, Seville and Marbella. Málaga airport is about an hour and a half away.