Three go travelling

On Friday we drive off to see the town of Ronda which appears in our 1000 places to see before you die book. (Which when you think of it means that if you assume you will live to 80 you would have to visit 1.05 each month from when you first draw breath, so a bit of a tall order!)

Anyway Ronda; it is a smallish town which was centrally involved in the 700 years or so of warfare between the Christian Spanish and the Islamic Moors. It sits on a mountainous spur which is cut in two at the tip by the Guadalquivir river as it flows through a gorge more than 390 feet deep. Fortified in turns by both sides the gorge was spanned by “The New Bridge” which was built in 1793 and performed the role of prison as well as bridge, the cells being built into the piers that support the arches. In the Spanish Civil War time and money was saved by hurling prisoners from the cells to the rocks below, effective if not compliant nowadays with the European Convention of Human Rights.

The old town on its rocky island is made up of twisting narrow streets, some spectacular public buildings and graceful plazas shaded by a wide variety of trees. Many of the larger roads have orange trees lining the highway, full of fruit which seemingly is just left to fall onto the ground, all in all a peaceful and rewarding visit.

The route too and from Ronda is our first which is not largely motorway / dual carriageway. It is described in the atlas as “a tourist route”, I think on account of the views. It is certainly picturesque, sweeping vistas over the Sierra Nevada as the road winds and climbs ever so sinuously around the assorted mountains in the way. Numerous tunnels and viaducts (some literally clinging to extremely steep slopes) make up much of the 44 kilometres while the remainder is largely hairpin bends. Let’s just say you need to concentrate and the speed limits of 60 or 80 kph are reasonable assessments of what is safe. Mostly Ian does well, but on the approach to one turn he decides to help himself to a travel sweet. That next bend really is sharp and is coming up very quickly, the van wobbles around the curve and I make sure to provide the sweets to the driver from that point on rather than letting him fish around for one.

We want to get some fresh food so had decided to call into a Carrefour supermarket on the way back, so details were entered into the (not so) trusty sat nav. We exited at the correct junction and were rewarded with an interesting trek around what appeared to be a standard housing estate with an empty building which many years ago might have held a small shop. (Ian did up date the sat nav before we set off on this trip.) Getting off the estate was exciting as we seemed to have to go down narrow lanes with on coming traffic (SUVs are surprisingly popular here). Eventually we escaped and made our way to a Dias store which provided some of our needs.

Saturday was a planned relaxation day, gorgeous sun, light cooling breeze and a brilliant blue sky. A walk on the beach in the afternoon allowed Me to see more naked men than I have seen in a very long while. The average age appeared to be 70 and it is safe to say that none appeared to have spent overly long working out. Ian was complaining over the lack of “eye candy” for him when a very large lady emerged from the dunes and walked in front of us. Not so much Claudia Schaffer as Jo Brand.