66. Ronda la Vieja

Our next visit, to the original Ronda, is a good lesson in civic planning. If you locate your town on a nice rolling plain instead of a giant rock, it ends up in little piles of rubble. Actually this is all that's left of the Roman settlement 2,000 years ago. It's mostly a large empty field, filled with cow shit and the occasional pile of rubble, with a couple of vicious dogs wandering about. But at the end of the field, there is a fairly well-preserved amphitheatre. Not worth making a detour for, but if you're driving by and your car breaks down in front of it, it's not a bad place to wait until the tow truck arrives.

Of course, not all the residents are cavedwellers, and the town has lined the mountain with typical whitewashed houses. I may be reading too much into this, but they don't seem particularly religious, since they located their church in about as remote a place as possible. After walking around the town for a bit, we got back in our slightly damaged car and motored to our next destination.

As an added precaution, the townspeople often built their homes into the rock, as you can see here. The modern day Flintstones still occupy their cave houses, which are quite elaborate, some of which reach three stories.

65. Setenil

On Wednesday, most of the group was too tired to think about another driving tour, but not Brian and Somchai. I charted an ambitious tour of some of the more out of the way White Towns, but a series of missed turns ensured that we only did a small fraction of my intended course. Annoyingly, we had to retrace our path to Ronda, since all local roads lead there. We then picked up a very detailed map, which was a big mistake, since it was very detailed, and very wrong. Outside of Ronda was a roundabout with six very clearly marked roads going (obviously) in different directions, at least on the map. The problem arose from the fact that on the ground, there were only five such roads, and the one we wanted was nowhere to be found. We spun around the roundabout for about a half hour looking for the sixth road but to no avail. So we gave up and took a much longer path to our first destination, Setenil. Again, your typical clifftop white town, but this one takes its defenses even more seriously. First you have to get through their incredibly narrow roads. We didn't, and we lost a mirror against one of those picturesque houses. We did have a very nice lunch at the restaurant in the little plaza, located thre because it's the only flat surface in town.

Just some closing photos of Ronda. At the end of the visit, Trish headed to the airport so some people went with her, while the lazy ones, including Somchai and me, headed back home, where Amy made a great dinner and we had a laid back evening at home.

Some random buildings inside the old town include the church of Santa Maria, which, like most churches in the area, was originally a mosque, and you can still see the minaret converted into a belfry. The palace hugging the cliff is the Mondragon Palace, which was the home of the local Moorish ruler. The elegant arched building is the current city hall.

While the town sits atop a giant rock, it does have a softer side as well. So the townspeople busied themselves building huge walls and forts around that approach as well. The surrounding countryside is quite pretty and there are lots of walks to take, but we didn't have time so we didn't make it beyond the walls.

After our long drive and leisurely lunch, didn't have much time for exploring the town. I also had a conference call so I walked around with a mobile in one hand and camera in the other, snapping random pictures. The rest of the group headed for a novelty photo studio, much to my surprise. As you can see from the photo assortment, we all sort of did our own thing for a while, some in period dress, others not so much.

The two sides of town are connected by the Puente Nuevo, which as Mom knows is the New Bridge. It's called the New Bridge because the first bridge to cross this gorge collapsed the day it was finished. The bridge empties into the more modern town square, pictured here. Below the bridge, dangling from the cliff face, is a very nice restaurant where we had a three hour lunch.

Andalucia was the first part of Spain to be conquered by the muslims from Africa, and the last part to be re-conquered by the Christians in the late 1400's. With all the armies marching back and forth, the regular folk soon learned to base themselves in some very unlikely but easily protected places, and Ronda is a good example. It sits atop a huge rocky outcrop, with a gorge dividing it into two parts. Houses line both sides, perched precariously alongside the gorge. Presumably there are no back doors to these places.

64. Ronda

On Tuesday, we took a group trip to Ronda, the only White Town that qualifies as a city. The trip was a very scenic, but very slow, meandering through the mountains, made even slower because we had to keep stopping for Tracey's bathroom breaks. As you can see, it is indeed white, and basically looks like Mijas. It even has a grown up version of Mijas' bullring. But as you'll see, it's spectacular setting makes it worth the long trip.

I read that recently the mayor of Marbella was arrested for taking bribes and issuing something like 30,000 illegal building permits for houses along the sea,which is a protected zone. If those 30,000 homes were in fact built, I would imagine that Marbella would have lost a bit of its lustre by now.

The mostly pedestrian-only town centre is a great place to wander around. There are lots of interesting boutiques lining the alleyways and there's a pretty photo op around every corner.

Marbella is at the far western end of the Costa del Sol, but worlds away in ambiance. Unlike the big package tour towns, Marbella is resolutely upscale. The town center is well preserved and immaculately kept. It looks like the walls are painted hourly, and then the most colourful flowers are draped all over the place. Having said that, you wouldn't really notice its upscale character on a day trip and the town centre isn't really remarkable but for its immaculate condition. The real wealth is out of town on the beachfront properties and big yachts moored nearby.

63. Marbella

After a couple of days in Mijas, we started exploring our surroundings. On Monday, most of the group headed across the sea for a daytrip into Morocco, but Somchai needed a visa (Thais need visas everywhere) so we stayed back. Instead we took a bus to the Spanish coastal town of Marbella. We had a lovely lunch under the orange trees in the town square pictured here.

Mijas was very convenient, though, and there was a nearby store where we stocked up on manchego cheese and dozens of bottles of this red wine, a rioja I think, and the name was very grand, like the Duke of rioja. But the bottles were like $2 and we talked about the Duke the whole week. Unfortunately since I was drunk for most of it I don't remember his excellency's name, but maybe one of my fellow travelers will remember. In addition to the shop, there were lots of restaurants for dinner. They weren't bad, although pretty interchangeable, and I think I had paella every night. Mijas also had its own little bullring, the smallest in Spain. They even let Somchai get in the ring and slaughter a few bulls.

As I said earlier, the town is swamped with daytrippers, but when the tour buses leave, it's like a quaint Spanish town. But with one important distinction, which is that 90% of the people living here are English. On our first day we went to a local "tapas" bar, and we were so excited about our first Spanish meal. But the tapas were things like baked potato wedges and fish fingers, with roast beef and spaghetti as more substantial choices. The English owners were nice and chatty, and when we were leaving, Somchai told them that they spoke English very well, surprising the rest of us that Somchai could have mistaken this thoroughly English pub for a local Spanish restaurant.

As you can see, it makes a pretty dramatic visual statement in white, just like a Cubist painting. One weird thing about staying in Mijas is that Spain was the first European country I had visited, with my high school Spanish class. We went for a week, and visited Madrid, Granada and...Mijas! We really just went to Mijas because we had a half day to kill along the way, and the train stopped close to the town. But it seems weird that of the thousands of towns to see in Spain, I'd be in Mijas twice.