By Friday after a week of work and assignments, we were ready for a day out!
We decided to head for Ronda, another mountain town, famous for being the birthplace of bullfighting and for the 100m gorge running through the town, the two halves of which are connected by a few bridges. Again, the drive was spectacular, windy (but good!) mountain roads, hills and switchbacks, views that took our breath away. On the way we drove past El Burgo, another typical whitewashed village. We pulled over at a viewpoint shortly after that and took a short walk to admire the scenery. It was cold! Well, to us, it was cold: only 7ºC and I was wearing a skirt and sandals.
When we arrived in Ronda and looked for parking, we were hoping to avoid a repeat of the parking garage in Lisbon. We did venture into an underground carpark but it had two lanes(!) and wasn’t too steep or tight. Quite manageable. For Eric, at least.
We walked past the bullring and to the edge of town, on a cliff, where the views down wouldn’t be fun if you’re afraid of heights! It was easy enough to follow along the cliff edges (there are good barriers) to the bridge, where we could really see the scale of the gorge. We could see paths going down the side of the gorge so decided to follow them. We went down…. and down…. and down… til we were about level with the bottom of the bridge, but the ground was still a long way down. There were still cliffs (and no barriers) so it was feeling a little dicey, but really incredible to see the gorge and the bridge from that angle. And then we had to climb back up. About 80 metres up, in about half a kilometre. A pretty good workout!
We wandered around the old parts of town for a little bit, got some fresh squeezed orange juice and espresso, then decided to head home before it got dark. The drive back was just as spectacular!
