Andalusia Day Ten - Ronda Fest

Tuesday 26 October

Today we explored the 'old Ronda', the 15th century part south of the gorge.  We walked from the new, north side, to the south via one of the original bridges, Puente Romano, and could see across to the other old one, Puneto Viejo which is the oldest (built in 1616) and smallest of the 3 bridges in Ronda.  

We first visited the Casa del Rey de Moro, a fantastic house set overlooking the gorge with amazing views, and access to the Masrid era Water Mine, one of the best preserved water mines in Spain.  

Built in the 14th Century, the water mine has over 120 steps down to the river and, when Christians were ousted by the Muslim conquerers, they had to carry the water up the steps to the town.  

It was amazing to be down at the river's edge, and the reflections were beautiful.  

Then we visited the Baños Arabes, Ronda's Arab Baths.  They were built in the Moorish style, similar to Roman Baths, except that steam was use to sweat out pollutants from the body, rather than soaking in hot water as the Romans would.  

The baths were fed by water from the Guadalevín and there was a clever design drawing it up from the river and channelling it down to the baths.  

Next we visited the Palacio de Mondragón (Mondragon Palace), the Municipal Museum of Ronda and home to the history of Ronda from the stone age to present time.  It hosts some beautiful Moorish architecture.  

Then we then walked down the the Arabic walls and city gates in the south, back past the Plaza Duquesca de Parcent, via the Jardines de Cuenca and back to the Puerto Nuevo - stopping for various coffees and tapas on the way.  

Andalusia Day Nine - Cádiz to Ronda via Zahara de la Sierra

Monday 25 October

We left Cádiz and drove into the Sierra de Gazalema.  This National Area hosts Arcos de la Frontera, one of the Pueblos Blancos (White Villages) we'd already seen on our way south on the Friday.  We drove across the Sierra stopping at the Mirador Puerto del Boya for a gaze. 

The vistas were wonderful.

And the drive was hairpin after hairpin for much of it!

We stopped at another Pueblos Blancos, Zahara de la Sierra, for lunch and a stroll.  This is renowned for its stunning setting with its castle built on a rocky peak and a turquoise lake beneath it.  Once inside, you find more narrow, cobbled streets with beautiful white houses and the requisite plant pots hung from the walls. 

After lunch we walked up to the castle and, finding it was locked due to refurbishment, we walked back down.

There is a huge lake hugging the east side of the village.  It was clear how much water loss there had been and, like the other bodies of water we saw, far from full.

Back in the car and off to Ronda for our next stay.  Once again, we managed to lose ourselves in a narrow one-way system.  My google maps just isn't smart enough to know the difference between a narrow street that a small car can fit down, and a narrow street that only a moped can.  We ended up circling the newer part of Ronda, JC driving and me trying to direct him whilst messaging our AirBnB host for more directions.  Eventually we headed in what we thought was the right direction, only to be blocked by a guy on a moped speeding out of the road we were turning into.  I wound down the window to hear him say "Ruth?"  It was our AirBnB host who had come out to find us!  What a star.

Our AirBnB accommodation was the nicest we'd had of the trip, when it came to space and views. It had an easterly-facing terrace over the hills.  Our host had stocked up the fridge with beers, chocolate, breads and juices which was such a lovely touch.  There was also some strong looking liquor which we figured was sherry.

Once vaguely unpacked, we headed out towards the old city to find the bridge.  The Puenta Nuevo bridge is one of the main tourist attractions across the Guadalevín River, providing the main link between old and new towns.  As the sunlight faded it was lit up.

Then we enjoyed a stunning sunset from the western terraces.

Andalusia Day Eight - All Things Cádiz Old Town

Sunday 24 October

Up and out for a full day's exploration of Cádiz today - a Ruth treat.  Cádiz is an old city, probably founded by the Phoenicians and oozes maritime/naval history - it is still the home of the Spanish Navy.  

We headed through the Old Town and onto the city walls, with its resident canons.  

Park Genovés is a beautifully planted space with huge topiaries and finds such as Los Niños Bajo el Paraquas, the Children Under the Fountain. 

We also found this strange exhibit which looks to have been a natural rock which has been turned into a fountain/bridge walkway.  It was fun to walk through the rock and get splashed in the process.

Cádiz, as many cities do, has a fair amount of tiled fountains, and we were amused by the pigeons this one had attracted.

Cádiz's beach, the Playa de la Caleta, is a shallow harbour and was busy late October.  It was too tempting not to have a paddle!

The south end of it is protected by the Castle of San Sebastian, and it seemed churlish not to walk up the walkway to see how far we could get.

This far.

Next on the Cádiz tour was the cathedral.  Cádiz cathedral was probably the newest cathedral of our trip.  It was built in the 18th century in a largely baroque style, with rococo and neoclassical elements.  As usual, these buildings blow you away with their soaring towers, vast spaces and catholic symbolism.  But, if you look closely in this cathedral, you can see the netting that is slung across up high.  Initially, I thought this was to stop birds invading the space of the worshipers, but, on inspection, it's stopping small bits off the roof falling onto visitors' heads.

We then climbed the bell tower and and enjoyed the awesome views.

By this time it was nearly 1500 and we'd left it a bit late to find lunch, but we managed.  Then we wandered the backstreets which, as ever, are fascinating.

We ambled some more and ended up on a street bar for supper.  And, just in case I thought I'd get bored, I had a crossword with me! 

Andalusia Day Seven - Seville to Cádiz via Arcos de la Frontera

Saturday 23 October 

We managed to drive out of the Seville labyrinth of narrow, one way roads without trauma and soon were driving south to Cádiz.  As our Cádiz property wasn't available until mid afternoon - and we were receiving such poor comms from the AirBnB host I wasn't 100% sure it was going to happen - we decided to detour via Arcos de la Frontera.

Arcos de la Frontera is one of the famed pueblos blancos, 'white villages', of Andalusia.  We arrived just before the main church shut at the Plaza del Calbildo and paid a few Euros to stick our head inside.  Pretty much everything else was shut, which wasn't a surprise.

We followed signs down to the parador (viewpoint).

Perched on top a limestone ridge, the views down to the River Guadelte and reservoir are amazing.  

We had a leisurely tapas lunch then headed down to Cádiz.  If my holiday destination isn't on the coast, I try to at least make an effort to swing by the sea to get a few lung fulls of maritime air.  This time we were going one better and spending a couple of nights in this port/city.

Cádiz is on a narrow peninsula of land and approached from the North across some stunning bridges.  I love this photo I took somewhat randomly - the pillars are lined up and displays its beautiful design. 

We had finally heard from our AirBnB host, so had details of where to park.  However it was much easier said than done to find it.  Although our garage was just outside of the Old City, and the streets were wide and straight, there were huge one way systems in place and we got caught heading south west on a road off which we couldn't turn.  At one stage I thought we'd be going back over the bridge!  We managed to dive off before this happened and eventually found our garage.  Our accommodation was on the fair side of 'OK' but fortunately we were only there for 2 nights.  

We headed out quite quickly and, as our AirBnB was inside the Old City, it was a mere stroll to one of the palm fringed plazas.

We headed down to the shore for sunset.  It's October and I'm wearing shorts - bliss.