Ronda, Spain

I knew I would love Ronda before I ever got there. I fell in love with the city from reading Nick Bantock's The Forgetting Room. His protagonist is an American bookbinder who inherits a home in Ronda after the death of his artist grandfather. The grandfather has left him clues that lead him to remember how he had loved art as a boy. 

The city of Ronda is built on a high mesa with the old medieval town connected to the newer part of town over the bridge in this photo. Bantock's character becomes obsessed with drawing and painting this bridge. Who can blame him?

                






All of the buildings in Ronda are painted white and have tile roofs. The streets are paved with flat stones. This photo shows the newer part of the town and was taken from old town. Even though much of the new town was quite old, I preferred the old town much more. It was easy to imagine that I was back in the Middle Ages as I wandered around. 

 

It is easy to see from this photo that Ronda was pretty secure from attack except from the bridge and the road at the other end of the old town. Most of the edge of this cliff is park so I was able to walk along the top and enjoy the view below. I could see for miles in all directions.

There is a river that divides the two mesas that make up the town. I climbed down a scary almost vertical tunnel cut through the cliff to give access to the water of the river in case of siege. The climb down took a long time, but up was much worse, of course.

I enjoy  finding "dream homes" when I travel - places I would like to live, assuming that money was no object. I found this one just at the bottom of the cliff pictured in the photo above. A river flows by just out of sight so there should be lots of water for all my grapes. I think I could be happy in my little stone cottage with a nice pool to keep cool on those hot summer days.

Just to be sure I learned what I'd need to know for growing my grapes, I made sure to visit the Museum of Wines of Ronda and tasted all that they had to offer.

I really enjoyed my visit to Ronda and wish I had been able to spend more time there. Maybe some day I could rent a little house for a summer to really get the feel of living there. 

Madrid, Spain

Churros and Hot Chocolate to Start a Day in Madrid 

I arrived in Madrid around 7am after flying from Guadalajara via Houston and Newark. I had already been traveling forever and still was a long way from my goal in Portugal. My train to Lisbon did not leave until about 9pm, so I checked my luggage at the train station and set out to explore Madrid.

I didn't have any real goal for the day. I had an ancient Lonely Planet that said the Prado Museum would be closed that day - bad luck! So I tore out the map page and set out to see what I could find.

I had tried churros and hot chocolate in the states and thought it was only okay, but I had heard that it was wonderful in Madrid, so my first stop was at the Chocolateria San Gines. It was colder than I'd expected, so I was looking forward to the hot drink. But that's not what I was served.

The churros, served hot from the grease, were thin and crispy on the outside and perfectly cooked in the middle - much better than the ones I'd had before that were thicker so the inside was often kind of mushy. But it was the chocolate that I'll never forget! This wasn't the drink I was expecting. It was more like super extra rich dark chocolate pudding right out of the pan when it has just cooled enough that you can stand to touch your tongue to it. It is not intended for drinking, but for spooning and dunking. And the combination of the two - heaven! The crispy churro coated with the thick rich chocolate was to die for!

My luck continued - it turned out later that the Prado was open so I spent most of my day enjoying the wonderful paintings. And then I discovered another smaller museum across the street that was showing a collection of works of Albrecht Durer, my all-time favorite artist. What an unexpected treat!

By this time, my legs were killing me and I was starving. I was very tempted to return to the chocolateria for dinner but I had feasted on art for lunch instead of food so I decided that would probably not be the best idea. I found a lovely plaza with a great little sidewalk restaurant where I spent a couple of hours over a wonderful dinner and more than one glass of red wine. After a long flight and a busy day, it was wonderful to just relax and watch the world go by until it was time to return to the train station.