November 17, 2019: An Excursion to El Jadida from Casablanca
	November 14, 2019: A Walking Tour of Barcelona/The Viking Jupiter Sets Sail
	Return to the Index for 2019

After leaving Barcelona the day before yesterday, we enjoyed a familiarization day at sea, and we were able to get into the routine of life on the he Viking Jupiter. I want to take you on a tour of the ship, of course, but I'll let that wait until we leave Casablanca tomorrow and have a few sea days with no excursions to talk about. A little after that, perhaps when we are crossing the Atlantic, I'll also tell you more about what sea days aboard ship are like. For today, though, let me tell you about our trip from Barcelona to Malaga and about today's shore excursion from Malaga to the ancient town of Ronda.

From Barcelona to Malaga

Not much happens on sea days- unless you want to relax at the pool, sleep in, go to a movie, or, in our case most days, go to bridge classes or play the game.

On our first sea day yesterday, the ship itself was getting from Barcelona to Malaga, Spain, a little over 400 miles down the Spanish Mediterranean coast.

Now the route I marked on the map at left is pretty obviously not the exact route we took, but I wanted to emphasize that the Jupiter didn't steam directly from one port to the other. The ship actually cruises at a little over 20mph, which means that it should take about twenty hours to make the trip. But, leaving at 5PM and arriving at 7AM on the second day would allow almost twice that time for the journey.

What that means, and what the captain told us in the daily newspaper, we were taking our sweet time getting there- for a number of reasons. One was port scheduling- not just in Malaga but in all the other upcoming ports over the next three weeks. Another was that long cruises often arrange their schedules so that there is a sea day early in the cruise to both give the passengers a chance to get settled in, explore the ship, and so on, and also to give the crew a chance to prepare all the equipment and procedures necessary to facilitate a port arrival, disembarkation/embarkation, and port departure. (What he didn't say was that perhaps it's also the maritime equivalent of going around the block when you leave home on a long trip just to make sure you don't think of something you forgot before you get too far down the road.)

So we probably didn't stooge around as much as I showed on the map, but it was obvious that we had to make at least a few turns and do some backtracking to chew up all the hours we had available for the first cruise segment. We may also have slowed down a bit at night, when the slight increase in instability that occurs at very low speeds in open water would be barely noticeable.

From Malaga to Ronda

Today, Fred and I signed up for a shore excursion that cost a bit extra (since it wasn't a simple tour of Malaga itself). We are going to take a guided tour to the old Spanish town of Ronda.

The town of Ronda is about fifty miles west of Malaga, so the tour bus ride over there will take a little over an hour.

The disembarkation procedure on the Jupiter (if you will allow me, I am going to cease italicizing the name of our ship; although it's correct to do so, hardly anybody does, and it's a pain to add the style to change it all the time) turned out to be about the same as on any of the other cruises we've done. Once again, tours met in the small theatre on Deck 3, forward. That's where you get your bus assignment (if it is a popular tour and there's more than one bus being used). When your number is called, you troop down the starboard side of Deck 3 to the aft stairs, and then down to Deck 2 where the gangway is. After scanning your ship card, you are on the gangplank down to the pier, and that is usually where you meet your tour guide.

For most shore excursions, local tour companies are employed, and it is a hassle to get non-passengers aboard ship, so that's why it's not until you get to the dock that you meet your actual guide. The practice on Viking, being a higher-end cruise line, is to employ their guest lecturers (there were five or six aboard our ship, a couple of which we became friendly with) as secondary guides- particularly when the group is large. On our trip to Ronda, we had a very nice guy from England as our secondary, and his job is to bring up the rear whenever we are walking around (making sure no one gets lost).

Aboard our bus, we headed north out of the port. In the aerial view at right, that's not our ship, of course, but it was docked in the same place. As we came around in front of the ship, Fred took a quick picture looking back at the Viking Jupiter.

I was sitting on the other side of the bus, so my picture is of Playa de la Malagueta- one of Malaga's prime beachfront communities. Our route took us around and along the beachfront street, so Fred had views to our left and up the hills where he spotted this the Alcazaba of Malaga- a palatial fortification built by the Hammudid dynasty in the early 11th century. This is the best-preserved alcazaba (from the Arabic for "citadel") in Spain. Adjacent to the entrance of the Alcazaba are remnants of a Roman theatre dating to the 1st century BC, which are undergoing restoration. Some of the Roman-era materials were reused in the Moorish construction of the Alcazaba. Ferdinand and Isabella captured Málaga from the Moors after the Siege of Málaga (1487), one of the longest sieges in the Reconquista, and raised their standard in the inner citadel. According to the architect currently restoring it, the Alcazaba of Málaga is the prototype of the military architecture used by the Moors, with its double walls and massive entry fortifications. Its only parallel is the castle of Krak des Chevaliers in Syria.

On my side, I didn't have a view of this old fortification, but rather the new beachfront apartments that have been built in modern times. The early morning sun is just reaching them, so I presume everyone is waking up and preparing for a weekend day at the beach across the street. The bus turned around a neat fountain and headed west along Paseo del Parque- a beautiful divided street that goes right through Malaga's largest park. It was still fairly dark in the park, so we didn't try to get any pictures. I hope we will come back at the end of the day when it is still light enough to get some good pictures of the beautiful greenspace.

Eventually, the park ended and the street became Malaga's main thoroughfare heading west- Avenida de Andalucia. We were going through the Malaga central business district, and here are a couple of views out the right side of the bus:

Our tour bus continued pretty much due west out of the city of Malaga into and through its western suburbs. At first, we were on a major highway- an expressway, actually. About ten or fifteen miles west, the expressway ended and the road turned into a good two-lane road, still heading west and northwest. I made my way to the front of the bus a couple of times to make some movies looking out ahead. Here they are:

On the Expressway (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Driving Through the Countryside (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Once we got out into the very green countryside, the drive was really quite nice, and the views of the Spanish countryside very pretty. There was one place where we passed a town with an interesting rock feature right beside it, and at that point the bus slowed down considerably to allow for pictures. Fred was able to get a really nice panoramic shot:

So the fifty-mile trip took a little over an hour and a half, mostly because we were on two-lane roads most of the time where the speed limit was 70KPH. We saw a lot of very nice scenery, and took a lot of good pictures. As has true before, even whittling them down to a good, representative selection still left me with quite a few of them, and I want you to be able to look at them easily and quickly.

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The pictures of the Spanish countryside that I have chosen are in the slideshow at left, and you can go through them as quickly as you wish. Use the little arrows in the lower corners of each picture to go from one to another. You can refer to the index numbers in the upper left to see where you are in the 15-picture series. Enjoy! As we neared Ronda, I made one last movie of the road through the now more arid countryside:

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Our Walking Tour of Ronda

Our tour bus pulled into the local bus depot to let us off so we could follow our guides into and through the town of Ronda. We would return to this same location some hours hence for our return trip to Malaga.

Ronda is a village in the Spanish province of Málaga, and, as I said above, it is located about 50 miles west of Málaga, within the autonomous community of Andalusia. Its population is about 35,000. It now is one of the towns and villages that is included in the Sierra de las Nieves National Park.

Ronda is situated in a mountainous area about 2,5000 feet above mean sea level. The Guadalevín River runs through the city, dividing it in two and carving out the steep, 300-foot-deep El Tajo canyon above which the city perches. The Spanish fir (Abies pinsapo) is endemic to the mountains surrounding Ronda.

That little description of Ronda's geography given us on the bus by our tour guide didn't really prepare us for what we saw in the town. As it turns out, Ronda sits spectacularly on a high rock escarpment; this escarpment was created on two sides by the river. Imagine the town to be in the shape of an arrowhead pointing south. (See my little sketch at right.) From the upper left corner of the arrowhead shape, down to the southern point and around partway back up the other side you have sheer cliffs (although there is one road going down into the valley from the point of the arrowhead. The Guadalevin river currently cuts through the arrowhead just north of the point, and has created cliffs on either side of its course. So that with the exception of one road down, the southern point is isolated atop a mesa. This is the old town of Ronda.

The rest of the arrowhead is the new town, and all the rest of the roads that lead up into the city are at the top and the upper right of the arrowhead shape. The new town is connected to the old across the current canyon created by the river by two bridges. There is an old bridge pretty much on the eastern side of the arrowhead shape, and there is a new, higher bridge that connects the top of the arrowhead to the point, and this bridge is pretty much right in the middle of the shape. So it's easy to see that the old town was easily defended, and even when the town expanded to the north, even that area had good natural defenses on two sides.

We saw a lot here in Ronda, we did a goodly amount of walking, and of course we took a great many pictures (as we so often do). To try to organize them in this photo album, I'm going to divide our walking tour into a number of sections- each one centered around some particular stopping point, such as a church, a bullring, or a park.

Of course, we'll look at the sights of Ronda pretty much in the order we saw them so that I can tie everything together along the walking route we took, a route that I have marked on the high-level aerial view of the town that you see at left. About the only time we'll see a picture out of sequence is if we photographed the same site more than once because we visited it more than once on our tour. For example, we photographed the outside of the bullring a few times as we walked by it heading south through town, but we took a good many more photographs later on when we had a tour of the bullring complex. In cases like these, I'll just pull all the photographs together into a single section.

At left is an aerial view of most of Ronda, and that view encompasses all of the area we covered on our walk. On that aerial view, I have marked the path that we took, in case you are interested. I have also marked on the map most of the significant stops we made or sights that we saw. This is just to give you a general idea of how we explored the town, and perhaps will give you kind of an index into the sections below. For scale, you might be interested to know that the aerial view covers an area that is pretty much a mile on a side.

So let's depart the bus and follow our guide down into Ronda and our first stop at the Church of Our Lady of Mercy.

Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de la Merced

So you can follow us from the bus station as we headed south a half-block and then turned right to head southwest on Calle San Jose towards the Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de la Merced (The Church of Our Lady of Mercy).

Calle San Jose

A Typical Spanish Street Corner

We continued down Calle San Jose for about three blocks, and then turned left to head south on Calle Jerez. We found the church on our right, just north of the small Plaza de la Merced.

An Aerial View of the Church

The church of La Merced de Ronda still occupies its first building, now over 400 years old. The building dates to 1585, and the church itself is composed of three naves; the central nave is covered with a barrel vault, with lunettes and fajones, which are supported on an entablature with cornice flown over folded pilasters decorated on its shaft with plasterboard. The pilasters are attached to quadrangular pillars on which the semicircular arches that separate the central nave from the lateral ones, currently blinded, are turned. In the last century, these have been compartmentalized in cells.

The church is covered with a dome on a drum with paired windows. The rectangular presbytery is covered with a barrel vault with lunettes. It has a square dressing room with a half-orange vault and pictorial decoration. I went inside to have a look at the simple sanctuary:

The facade consists of three masonry sections divided by vertical brick pilasters.

(Picture at left) Shown here looking south alongside the east side of the church, is the octagonal tower containing, of course, the church bells. The brick of the lower portion of the tower matches the brick used for the pilasters.       (Picture at right) Here is a good view of the simple decoration on the front of the building, with the doors and their housing at the bottom, a smaller pilaster with a statue of Jesus above that, and then a small decorative pilaster on top of that.

The church holds a number of valuable or historic items, including a number of paintings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But the most famous item is the gold and silver reliquary inlaid with precious stones that contains the sacred hand of Saint Teresa of Jesus- a relic dating to the 1600s. Another oddity of this church is that when we walked around to the back of the building there was a little shop where the Carmelite nuns of the church made money by selling various pastries to visitors. Because the nuns had to come down into the shop to run it, the little room had its own entrance to the convent.

The Alameda del Tajo Park and Overlook

The Church of Our Lady of Mercy turned out to be right at the northeast corner of our next point of interest, the Alameda del Tajo, formerly known as Alameda de San Carlos, a tree-lined promenade and botanical garden dating from the early nineteenth century.

At left is another aerial view showing the continuation of our walk. From the church and plaza in the upper right, we walked over into the park. In the park, near the street, were some statuary, so we first spent some time looking at them. Then we followed our guide westward through the park on one of the broad walkways until we got to the overlook at the edge of the cliffs lining the western side of Ronda.

There, we listened to our guide and her historical explanation and just admired (and photographed) the views, before exiting the park to the south, still along the clifftop, towards the bullring.

There were actually two statues that we stopped to see. Since a major fair held in in Ronda in 1954, the ladies of Ronda have been the official representatives of the city, and welcoming committee for visiting dignitaries. The role is exceptionally demanding, not only from the responsibility of the role, but also from the demanding schedule of training, and gown fittings before the build up to the whatever festivities are going on. These "Damas Goyesca", as they are known, are modeled on the ladies seen in some of Francisco de Goya’s paintings of bullfighting and pageantry from the late 18th century (much like the ubiquitous statues we saw last year in Madrid). So exceptionally popular have been the Dames Goyesca, that in 2009, a bronze statue of a Goyesca lady was inaugurated in Alameda park.

Statue of Pedro Romero

Another statue was of Pedro Romero Martínez (1754 – 1839)- a legendary bullfighter from the Romero family here in Ronda. Pedro's grandfather is credited with advancing the art of using the muleta, and his father and two brothers were also toreros. As a youth he participated in bullfights in Algeciras and in Seville in 1772 and with his father in Madrid in 1775. In 1776, he killed 285 bulls, establishing a record and his reputation. He allegedly fought 5,558 bulls without incurring serious injury before retiring in 1799.

Martinez was known as the first matador to present the bullfight as an art form as well as a display of courage. After retiring, Romero was appointed the head of a bullfighting school in Seville. Although the school lasted only from 1830 to 1832, it had an enormous influence where Romero offered his knowledge to matadors-in-training. He is credited with the invention of the classical style of bullfighting in the School of Ronda and Pedro Romero's name is inseparable from Ronda's Plaza de Toros (bullring).

Although officially retired, he returned to the bullring in Madrid at age eighty, and in his last corrida became the oldest matador to kill a bull in an official bullfight.

Ernest Hemingway arrived in Spain in 1936 as a journalist at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. During that time he learned to love Spain and the Spanish way of life, and he came to spend a great deal of time in Ronda. Hemingway wrote numerous great works featuring Spain and particularly bullfighting, including “Death in the Afternoon”, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and posthumously “The Dangerous Summer”. In addition, he created a bullfighter character for "The Sun Also Rises", and he told friends the character was modeled on Pedro Romero Martinez. There are numerous references to Hemingway around town, and we saw a couple of statues as well. Of Ronda, Hemingway wrote:

"There is one town that would be better than Aranjuez [another beautiful town in Spain] to see your first bullfight in if you are only going to see one and that is Ronda. That is where you should go if you ever go to Spain on a honeymoon or if you ever bolt with anyone. The entire town and as far as you can see in any direction is romantic background."

By the end of our tour, I had come to understand the attraction that Ronda had for Hemingway- and for another famous person who we'll get to in a minute. For now, though, we are going to head to the opposite end of the park to take in the views.

Alameda del Tajo

Just before headed off, I took the picture at left, obviously of Fred and I and looking west along one of the three wide pathways that lead over to the edge of the mesa on which Ronda sits. Then we headed off, walking along with our tour guide.

Walking Through Alameda del Tajo (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

As we walked along, of course, I thought this a good time for a little movie. Of course, you know by now that there's rarely, in my mind, a time that's not good for a movie. And that would probably be true if I were better at them, or invested in the equipment needed to make them look more professional (sorry, I realize that the "more" perhaps presumed too much).

But still and all, even though they aren't Academy Award material, you may find them entertaining, if only for the fact that they do give you a taste of the ambience of a particular place. So play the short movie at right, and walk along with me and our tour group as we walk through Alameda del Tajo.

Well, when we got to the end of the pathway, we found ourselves, as promised, at the edge of the mesa-like formation on top of which much of Ronda is located. But no one really prepared us for the views that we would have; these views were, in a word, incredible. Below are two panoramic views of what we saw- the first one Fred's and the second one mine (but from a vantage point about a hundred feet further north).

In both of them, you can see not only how sheer the cliffs are but of course how spectacular the views are. (Just behind where I was standing, there was a little neighborhood and I could easily imagine living there.)

Here is a sampling of some of the many, many pictures we took, thinking we have rarely seen a view so beautiful from an actual city or town:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

The Alameda is located just north of the Plaza de Toros; from the park all the way around south of the bullring there are overlooks like this with views like these. But the park is also a botanical garden, with a number of trees that are more than 200 years old, including Himalayan cedar, huge pine trees, and acacia. Next, our guide will be taking us along the clifftop to the Puente Nuevo (New Bridge).

From the Alameda del Tajo Park to the Puente Nuevo

The next section of our walk will take us from the south edge of the park, past the Plaza de Toros (which our guide tells us we will take a tour of later on), past another small park with another overlook promontory (which our guide tells us we will have the time to visit a bit later on) and then around a large Ronda hotel to the New Bridge.

We began by leaving the park along a walkway that was marked as Paseo de Orson Welles. I wasn't sure why, but I assumed that it was something like the case of Ernest Hemingway; Welles must have been here at some point. Just opposite the bullring we came to these two monuments:

Orson Welles

Ernest Hemingway

As it turns out (this from our guide), Orson Welles, who died in 1985, had a "love affair" with Spain and all things Spanish- much like Hemingway. Welles was so much in love with the area that his ashes are resting at the bottom of a well on a country estate just outside Ronda- an estate which belonged to his great bullfighting friend Antonio Ordoñez.

The Mirador de Ronda

From those statues, we continued south towards the Parador de Ronda, a large hotel located at the north end of the Puente Nuevo. On the way, we passed another small park and a pathway through it that seemed to lead to another viewpoint. This, our guide said, was the Mirador de Ronda- "mirador" being Spanish for "view point". This was the place she said we could come back to later in the afternoon when we would have some free time.

Walking Around the Parador de Ronda Hotel (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

The walkway seemed to end at the hotel, but it instead curved around to stay at the edge of the cliffs. When we got back out to the edge, we could look back at the Mirador de Ronda and Fred got a closeup view of what turned out to be a small performance stage (or a small bandshell or gazebo) out on the view point.

For my part, I made a movie as we walked along and around the south side of the hotel by the canyon the river has cut and we got our first views of Puente Nuevo. You can use the player at right to watch that movie. The Parador is situated on a spectacular spot in the heart of the city, and is housed in the building that used to be Ronda's town. The location is incredible, with unparalleled views of the Tagus River, and the 400-foot deep ravine that it has cut.

Looking Ahead at the Puente Nuevo

You can see in the aerial view above that our path took us around the south corner of the hotel complex, and as soon as we turned that corner we were looking east, up the gorge, towards the Puente Nuevo. At left is Fred's panoramic view of what we saw.

Construction of the first bridge that spanned the gorge at this height began in 1735, on a plan by the architects Jose Garcia and Juan Camacho for a single arch design. Unfortunately, this bridge was built too quickly and too poorly; when it collapsed in 1741, 50 people were killed.

The Puente Nuevo is the newest and largest of three bridges that span the Guadalevin River chasm that divides Ronda. The construction of this current bridge was started in 1759 and it took 34 years to build.

The Puente Nuevo Bridge in Ronda

There is a chamber above the central arch that was used for a variety of purposes, including as a prison. During the 1936-1939 civil war both sides allegedly used the prison as a torture chamber for captured opponents, killing some by throwing them from the windows to the rocks at the bottom of the El Tajo gorge. The chamber is entered through a square building that was once the guard-house. It now contains an exhibition describing the bridge's history and construction.

The bridge was pretty amazing, and we took a number of pictures of it as we approached it:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Crossing Puente Nuevo and Walking Calle Tenorio

The next part of our walking tour, according to our guide, would be for us to cross the Puente Nuevo and then turn down the street that gives access to the houses and buildings at the edge of the El Tajo Canyon; a number of them are of historical and/or architectural significance. You have already seen a number of pictures of Puente Nuevo, but here are a couple from our crossing:

This picture was taken just as we started across the bridge, and it looks southwest towards the old part of Ronda on the south side of the bridge. The street we are going to walk down is just behind the row of cliffside buildings.

In this view, we have just crossed the bridge and Fred has stopped to look back across it at the hotel we walked around. The picture looks across the El Tajo Canyon.

Calle Tenorio was a pleasant, typically narrow street. Of course, streets in most of the old town of Ronda were laid out long before any consideration was made regarding vehicles- walking was the transportation mode of the day. As a matter of fact, it seems that there is only one street through old town that can accommodate vehicles- the one that crosses the Puente Nuevo.

The narrow Calle Tenoria was very picturesque. All of the buildings were well kept-up, many of them dating to the 1700s. Of course, the buildings on our right, those right along the cliff, were the most desirable, one assumes.

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

We continued down Calle Tenorio towards the Casa de San Juan Bosco, and just before we reached it we came out from the narrow street into a small plaza. On one side, along the cliff, was a residence, and on the ground floor was the Restaurant Duquesa de Parcent.

On our walk down the street to this point, we'd taken pictures of whatever seemed interesting (which was a lot), and some of these pictures are at the right.

On the south side of this little plaza, just east of Calle Tenorio and catty-corner to the restaurant, was another historic residence. In that last picture, the restaurant is to my left (and the fellow in the picture is one of a couple that we met yesterday on our first Viking Jupiter sea day. Just adjacent to the restaurant to the south, at 19-20 Calle Tenorio and just behind me to my left, was the Casa de San Juan Bosco.

Casa de San Juan Bosco

The information here about the house was transcribed from the explanatory plaque on the wall of one of the two buildings that make up the complex. (There were numerous signs like these all around the old town area, which made it easy for us tourists to figure out what was what- even though our guide was pretty informative.

The Casa de San Juan Bosco is a modernist palatial house built at the beginning of the 20th century. It belonged to the Granadinos family, who gave it to the Salesian Congregation as last will to be used as a house of rest, healing, hospitality, and care for the ill and elderly members of the Congregation.

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Fred took a nice picture of a small porch off the garden. And there are some additional pictures of the large house at left.
This house still keeps a nice patio decorated with Nasrid tiles and a very complete collection of regional ceramics. We did not go into the house as a group, although a few people came back later to do so. Inside, some of the highlights include the walnut wood furniture and tapestries from the 19th century.

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Its gardens are very interesting, especially do to its location on the edge of the cliff with beautiful views over the Serrania de Ronda.

Having gotten this far into our walking tour, I find that the pictures we took of the views from the town on its high mesa out across the valleys really don't do those views justice; they are just an approximation.

So how would you like a house with this view from your garden?

The views from the garden of the Bosco house were indeed magnificent- like the panorama at left. Some more views are below:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Adjacent to Casa de San Juan Bosco is another small square, the Mary Help of Christians square (which sounds odd in the English translation) from the Spanish Plaza de Maria Auxiliadora that appeared on some nice tiles on one of the plaza's walls. There was another overlook here, but the views were pretty much the same as from the Casa de San Juan Bosco garden.

The Restaurant El Morabito on the Plaza

Looking Past the Bosco Statue to the Overlook

A Walk Through Old Town to the Plaza Duquesa de Parcent

From the southern end of Calle Tenorio, we turned onto a small street, Calle Mondragon, that our guide told us would lead eventually to one of the old town's largest squares- the Plaza Duquesa de Parcent.

At left is an aerial view of the section of our walk, which will take us from Calle Tenorio, past the Mondragon Palace and through the side streets to the Plaza Duquesa and the Church of St. Mary.

The Mondragón Palace, also known as the Marquis de Villasierra Palace, is a Mudejar-Renaissance building and currently houses the Municipal Museum of Ronda. The building itself is arcitecturally significant, and is near the top of the list of civil monuments here in Ronda.

Although legend places it as the residence of the kings of the Taifa de Ronda, historical data relate that it is a palace of Andalusian origin, where in the fourteenth century resided son of the sultan of Morocco Abu al-Hasan 'Ali. After his death, Ronda came under the sway of the Kingdom of Granada and the palace became the residence of the last of the Nasrid governors of this area.

In 1485, Ronda was conquered by the Catholic Monarchs who established their residence in the palace during their stay in the city, after which it passed into the hands of Captain Melchor de Mondragón, whose shield appears over the door (seen in the picture at right) and whose name was given to the palace.

The facade is from the early 16th century, with two square brick towers standing out at its corners. The building was extensively renovated in the 1700s in the Baroque style, and various columns were added. We didn't go inside the museum, but the interior of the Palace is built around three courtyards. The entrance courtyard has a well, while the second is a typical Moorish "private" courtyard done in a mixture of styles. The third courtyard, which offers views out across the canyon, has a horseshoe arch and small garden. The interior includes a great hall with coffered ceiling. Outside the building there is a small square; adjacent buildings are private or belong to the nearby Church of St. Mary.

We continued through the side streets (whose names I didn't write down, so the path I showed on the aerial view above may be imprecise) towards the plaza of the Duchess of Parcent. Here are some views down the narrow, well-kept streets we traversed on our way to the plaza:

From the Mondragon Palace, we continued south to enter the Plaza Duquesa and its northwest corner. Just to our left was the entrance to a convent- one of two right here at the corner of the plaza. This one was the Convent of the Sisters of Charity. Just to our right, in a large building at the southwest side of the plaza was a second convent- this one occupied by the Sisters of Saint Isabel. Walking out into the middle of the plaza we found some statues and a fountain dedicated to the duchess, who was a civic patron of Ronda in the early twentieth century. We walked a bit further on and I turned back to take another picture- this one showing the northwest corner of the plaza.

The Church of Saint Mary

One of the square's significant buildings is the Church of Santa Maria la Mayor. Originally built in the 14th century as a Muslim mosque, the church is the largest (and most attractive) of Ronda's churches. Its distinctive tower and front facade make the church look more like a city hall than a church (although the much plainer city hall is located just across the plaza from the church).

The main doors lead directly into a small vestibule which still contains one of the original columns of the cathedral built in the years immediately after Ferdinand and Isabella’s Christian conquest of 1485. Sadly an earthquake in 1580 demolished it and the church which stands in its place today is an incomplete replacement, though still very impressive both inside and out.

Archeological evidence suggests that the mosque itself had been constructed on top of an older Christian church dating from Visigothic times, however we also know that this was built on top an even older Roman altar, possibly a temple to Diana, which was built to honor the victory of Julius Caesar over the forces of Pompeii, Cneo, and Sexto in the battle of Munda (the Roman name for Ronda) in 45BC.

The balconies at the front of Santa María la Mayor were added later during the reign of Felipe II (1527-98) so that the nobility and gentry of Ronda could watch for nobility and gentry of the city to watch marksmanship tournaments (archers, not guns), bullfights and other events being held in the square. These events are no longer held, of course, as the square has been converted into the lovely square that it is today.

Entrance to the Santa María la Mayor is free for worshippers and Ronda residents, but there is a 4€ ($5) fee for tourists. We would not have had time to see everything inside, so our group didn't go in, satisfying ourselves with more photos of the outside of the church:

We continued our walk, leaving the plaza by the northeast corner, going right alongside the church. Just northeast of the church, is a residential building and cafe. From the side of the church, I took a picture looking back towards the plaza, in which you can see the Ronda City Hall. Walking this way, our guide pointed out that the actual chapel of the church is behind the facade that faces the square, and we passed the ornate side entrance that leads directly into the chapel.

Walking Back to Puente Nuevo

From the plaza and church we followed our guide back to the main street through the old town and then headed back north towards the Puente Nuevo.

The street through the old town that eventually crosses the Puente Nuevo is Calle Arminan, and so that's the street our guide took us out onto to head north. I have rotated the aerial view at left so west is at the top to make it easier to fit onto the page. Our last stop in the old town would be the Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de La Paz which is off the main road on a side street.

I've marked our route on the aerial view, and I have also marked the locations of a few pictures that we took between the two churches. You'll be able to tell from comparing the aerial view to the pictures where each was taken, but I have marked them anyway:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Our guide brought us up the side street to the entrance to the Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de La Paz- the Church of Our Lady of Peace.

Church of Our Lady of Peace

Dedicatory Plaque

The Church of Our Lady of Peace was originally a hermitage constructed by alderman Francisco de Morales and his wife in the mid-16th century and known both as la Vera Cruz and Hospital de la Sangre, although at the same time it took the name of San Juan de Letrán through its association with the parish created by the Catholic Monarchs, whose nearby parish church disappeared around that time, its furnishings being taken over to the new building.

Amongst the notable images taken was the Virgin de la Paz, the patron Saint of Ronda, which has been revered here for centuries, and from whom the church takes its present day name.

Beside the door into the church there is a dedicatory plaque dated 1898 which reads (if my broken translation is accurate):

"On the sixtieth anniversary of the canonical coronation of our lady of peace, patron saint of round, at the initiative of miguel casa lopez and dna amalia rey, senior vice-brother and vice-treasurer."

Before we go inside and look at the chapel itself, there was another feature outside.

Diego José de Cádiz (1743–1801) was a Spanish Capuchin friar who was a noted and popular preacher throughout the region of Andalusia during the 18th century. He was beatified by the Catholic Church in 1894.

José Francisco López-Caamaño y García Pérez was born in Cádiz in 1743- descended from the Visigoth kings. Despite his noble ancestry, Joseph made little progress at school, receiving the nickname of the "dunce of Cadiz". He was rejected by the Observant Franciscan friars but later accepted by the Capuchin friars. At the age of 15 he entered their novitiate in Seville, and given the name Didacus Joseph. He became a member of the Order in 1759 and ordained to the priesthood in Carmona in 1766.

In 1771 he was assigned to one of the teams of friars who preached to residents of isolated, rural villages- those areas being a major focus of the Capuchins of that era. His biographers stated that the congregations marveled at the tender love he displayed to the crucifix he would hold while preaching, and the singular power of his words, which swayed his audiences and left an impression on their lives. He wandered throughout the entire peninsula on foot, preaching in this way to the various communities he encountered on the road.

Spain was embracing the Enlightenment- particularly in the upper classes; Didacus became a major force in promoting the traditional devotions and beliefs of Catholicism as part of the identity of the nation, and is seen as an early integrist in the development of Spanish culture, opposing Liberal Catholicism. He was a strong critic of the policy of consumerism (relying not on indigenous goods but on those from other countries) that was popular in government circles. For this, he was denounced to the Spanish Inquisition for attacking royal prerogatives. He preached at the Royal Court in 1783, but found that he had no effect on the nobility, and he left Madrid in disappointment. Leaving Madrid in disappointment, he later wrote: "I do not want the royal couple to remember me".

Didacus was appointed an official of the Inquisition, the synodal examiner for almost all Spanish dioceses and an honorary canon. The University of Granada conferred upon him the honorary degrees of Master of Arts and doctorates in Theology and canon law. Didacus died in 1801, apparently as a result of yellow fever, at the age of 58, here in Ronda. His remains are kept for veneration in an urn in the small, simple chapel of this church.

The building consists of a single nave covered by a Mudejar framework that, during the reforms of the 18th Century, was hidden by baroque vaults.

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

The statue of the Virgin is placed in one of the side-chapels within the apse and is decorated with golden, baroque plasterwork. The façade, belonging to the 16th Century, is covered with baroque decoration from the 18th Century, which is now completely restored. It is topped of with an angled belfry of a typically 18th-Century style.

From this church, our guide led us back to the Calle Arminan where we continued north to the Puente Nuevo. One interesting site that we passed was the Museo Lara; tucked away in a historic building known as the "Palace of the Count of the Conquest of the Batanes Islands",” the museum has as much interest in the beauty of historic objects as it does in recreating the horrifying fantasies of sorcery.

The first thing we noticed passing by were the figures at some of the windows, including the man with a telescope just above the entry door. Museo Lara is a private museum showcasing the collections of one man, the founder of the museum, Juan Antonio Lara Jury. The main floors of the museum feature a wandering selection of collections from old watches to early examples of handguns, vintage sewing machines and typewriters, and even a handful of old microscopes. Below the main floor, the lower level also features exhibits on movie projectors and bullfighting paraphernalia. However the cellar, as with any good museum, contains the exhibitions that truly set the Museo Lara apart.

Featuring exhibitions surrounding both the Spanish Inquisition and witchcraft, the lower levels of the museum turn sinister fairly quickly. The "Living inquisition" displays feature a number of historic torture devices including a full size stretching rack. Add to this an exhibit on witchcraft and a taxidermy mash-up featuring a life-size mermaid, well, you get the idea.

A little further towards the bridge (actually in the last block before it) we passed a tile mural that we'd seen earlier from across the street. The display was titled "Ronda to Romantic Travelers" and consisted of a beautiful map of old Ronda on ceramic tiles, surrounded by quotations from famous people, such as Washington Irving and Lady Tennyson, who'd spent time here. Each of those quotes, also on tiles, was in Spanish and in the particular visitor's native language.

Just past that building, we found ourselves at the east end and the north side of the Puente Nuevo.

The Views from the Puente Nuevo

When we crossed the bridge earlier, our guide had told us that we would be returning to it, this time on the other side where there was a large viewing platform where we would be able to see the Puente Viejo (Old Bridge) and more of the river canyon.

At left is another aerial view. We have been walking north along Calle Arminan (which happens to change to Virgin of Peace Street on the north side of the bridge). Now we have arrived at the bridge, and we've found some steps down to a spacious viewing platform. There are such great views here, and so many tourists anxious to see them that if they didn't have this platform, the bridge would be clogged with picture-takers and others gawking at the views down the canyon to the Old Bridge.

So our guide gave us twenty minutes here, and Fred and I went down to the platform to see what we could see.

What we could see was pretty spectacular. From both the upper and lower levels of the viewing platform, there were expansive views to the east- to the new town on the other side of the canyon, down the canyon to the Puente Viejo, way out east to the mountains, and of course back at the Puente Nuevo itself. Let's begin with some panoramic views. Here are the three best. First, one from Fred:

Looking Across the Canyon to the Northeast

Next are a couple from me, each one put together from four separate pictures:

Looking East Down the Canyon to the Old Bridge

The next one looks pretty much straight north. Notice the restaurant on the lower levels of the building across the bridge; the diners must have incredible views:

One of the reasons we would like to come back to Ronda sometime is to walk the pathways on the other side of the canyon from here, and get all the way down to the Puente Viejo.

The Tajo Canyon North of the New Bridge (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

I made one movie from the platform here, panning back and forth across the canyon. I was lucky that a street performer was playing music in the background ("Hallelujah", if you don't recognize it). You can use the movie player at left to watch my movie.

In addition, we took a number of very pretty still shots of scenes in and around the canyon, and the best of these are below:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Our guide called us up from the observation platform, and we continued across the Puente Nuevo back into Ronda's New Town towards our next stop at the bullring.

As you can see from the aerial view at left, our route took us across the bridge, across the street, and through the Plaza Espana- essentially a wide place in the Calle Virgen de la Paz with a fountain in the middle. We continued up the avenue and then around to the entrance to the bullring.

Along we way, Fred took some good pictures of typical street scenes here in Ronda:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

For my part, I stopped in Plaza Espana to take a series of pictures from the Hotel Parador around to the east side of the plaza that I could stitch together into a panoramic view:

The Plaza Espana

A Tour of the Plaza de Toros de Ronda

We continued up the street to the Plaza de Toros de Ronda, and our guide led us around the south side of the bullring to the entrance. We'd been through this plaza earlier as we walked south into the old town, and I postponed until now any pictures we took of the bullring then.

Of course this next part of our walking tour will be here in the Plaza de Toros, so that's the focus of the aerial view at left.

As it turned out, our guide led us around the south side of the structure to the tour entrance, where she picked up our included tickets and gave them to us. We went through the turnstiles into an open area where the animals used in the bullfights arrive at the facility. There appeared to be outdoor pens where they are kept (and a large entrance for livestock trucks).

We went around one of the pens and up some stairs to a walkway along one of the auxiliary buildings and over a complex of outdoor chutes where bulls are funneled into an indoor chute. We also went inside, and found ourselves above the long, narrow chute where the bulls are prepared for entry into the arena.

We had someone from the facility describe the process to us, and then we went downstairs to find ourselves in the same chute that is used for the bulls. We went into the arena through the entry used for the animals, and were then free to walk around the inside of the impressive arena for a while. After about a half hour, our guide took us through an exit at the west side of the arena and into the bullfighting museum underneath about a fifth of the circle of the arena. We walked all the way through the linear museum to exit the arena through one of the doors on the south side. We then walked back around to Calle Virgen de la Paz to again gather with our guide to find out about lunch.

We took a lot of pictures here, so let me organize them into sections for you.

The Plaza

First, let me describe the plaza that lies south of the bullring itself. We came through here earlier, and were here again after returning from the Old Town.

The Plaza South of the Bullring

In the view at left, taken earlier in the day, we are looking at the bullring from the south. In 1923, the original Espinel theater in Ronda was built next to what was then the main entrance of the Plaza de Toros de Ronda- pretty much right behind Fred in that view. The theatre was at the left of the picture. Subsequently the entrance was relocated to Virgen de la Paz, where it still stands across from a restaurant named after the famous Pedro Romero. In the 1980s, the old Espinel theater was demolished and relocated, and it gave way to a parking lot. In 2009, that parking lot was finally removed and the city of Ronda opened up a competition for designers to construct new gardens next to the entrance of the bullfighting ring. Some historians argued that the entrance should be restored to its original location, but today gardens that embody the golden era of bullfighting in Spain now stretch to a scenic outlook next to the ring. (We will be visiting that overlook a bit later on.)

The Bullfight Monument

The centerpiece of this open area is the Bullfight Monument of Ronda. It is a tribute monument of the city of Ronda to Toro de Lidia, "pillar of the festival, culture and history of a town" as it says in the plaque laid at the foot of the bull sculpture. This monument was inaugurated under the Tourism Action Plan of Ronda in 2005, by the mayor of Ronda. They may be repetitive, but here are some other views of this monument that we took at various times today:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

In the picture of the plaza above, you can see a couple walking away from the camera (just to the left of Fred). Beyond them, right back by the wall of the visitor center entrance, there is a neat sculpture of a bullfighter- which kind of balances the monument to the bull.

Before we start wandering around, it might be a good idea for me to duplicate here a diagram that we found in the entry building while our guide was getting the tickets organized.

The Real Maestranza de Caballeria de Ronda was founded in 1573 as a corporation made up of the local nobility. Today, it is an entirely self-financed not-for-profit cultural association. Its principal source of income is the fees it charges to visitors. It uses this income to pay for the maintenance and running of the buildings including the world famous bullring- a protected historical monument-, the museum and collections, the historical archives, and a specialized library and riding school. All of these are open to the public. The RMCR also awards grants to young people still in school and it also organizes international cultural and research activities.

Today, we will visit most of the complex, although we did not go into the gift shop, cafe, historical archives, or the harness and livery museum. Nor did we go inside the building housing the dressage ring.

The Stockyards, Stables, and Pens

We entered the complex through the building that houses the cafe and this brought us into the area where the stockyards are. Off to our left at the southwest end of the stockyards area our guide pointed out the livestock entry, where one presumes that the trucks bringing the bulls to the complex would enter. We followed our guide to a ramp that led up to a catwalk alongside the dressage building and above the two stockyard sections:

We walked on the catwalk towards the pens, and just before we got there we could look down into the stables; I assume this is for the horses that are used by people other than the matador out in the ring. Here is a view of the catwalk looking back the way we have come. Down below us, just before we entered the pens building, we could see a complex of chutes used to direct the bulls to specific pens. You can see another view of this maze of directional chutes here.

The Viewing Level in the Pens

The pens consists of a long chute or hallway with individual "rooms" on either side. A bull would typically be directed to each of these rooms, and the matadors would stand up on the upper level and try to determine which bull they would like to "fight" so as to get the best score possible.

Not Exactly Running with the Bulls- but Close (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Apparently, when the bulls are safely in their enclosures, the matadors can also go down and look at them in their enclosures. And that's the next place where our group went.

When we got down to that level, we found that indeed it was just a long, dirt-floored hallway with these pens off to each side. We walked along the hallway and looked into a couple of the pens, but they were fairly unremarkable.

I thought I would make a movie of what the bull might see when it is released from its pen and is funneled down the corridor to come out into the bullring, but there were too many people in the way to make it very interesting. But you can use the movie player at right to watch the movie that I did make, which might at least give you a better idea of what the area was like- if not put you in the bull's shoes.

After we'd looked in a pen or two, our guide took us down the corridor and out into the bullring itself.

In the Bull Ring

We came out into the bullring via the door used by the bulls. The Plaza de Toros de Ronda has a diameter of almost 220 feet surrounded by two layers of seating, each with five raised rows and 136 pillars that make up 68 arches. The Royal Box has a sloping roof covered in Arabic tiles. The design of the main entrance to the bull ring features two Tuscan columns and the royal shield of Spain surround by baroque edging. The main door is large enough to allow horses and carriages to enter the ring, and above the door is an iron wrought balcony that embodies the bullfighting culture.

The Plaza de Toros de Ronda

The city of Ronda is home to the Real Maestranza de Caballería, the oldest and most noble order of horsemanship in Spain. In 1485 the Catholic King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella won Ronda back from the Moors and ended over seven centuries of Islamic rule. Construction of the bullring started in 1779 and finished in 1785.

The Plaza de Toros here in Ronda stands on the west edge of the new town, about two blocks from Puente Nuevo and the El Tajo canyon. The design is attributed to the architect Martín de Aldehuela. While it may not be the oldest bull fighting ring in Spain, it is one of the first entirely constructed from stone, instead of a combination of stone and brick. The architecture is also unique in that all seating in the ring is covered.

This Plaza de Toros is considered a rather small arena with only five thousand seats, but the bull ring itself is the largest in Spain. Ronda's first inaugural bull fighting event in May of 1784 resulted in a partial collapse of the stands, and the structure had to be closed temporarily for repairs. It reopened the next year with its second inaugural event, which is known as one of the greatest bullfights in Ronda's history. Rivals Pedro Romero and Pepe Hillo faced each other in front of the most noble families in Ronda.

Because of its rural location and the small size of the surrounding town of Ronda, this bullring does not host as many bullfights as other, larger venues such as Seville. But when it does, the arena's seats are almost always filled. I made two movies here in the bullring during the half hour we had to wander about, and you can use the players below to watch them:

A Look Around the Arena (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

My Own Little Tour (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

I've never been inside a bull ring before, much less standing in the middle of the arena. From the outside, the Plaza de Toros seemed small, but when you view it from the floor of the arena, it seems much larger. The arena itself was beautifully built, as I hope our photographs show. Of all the pictures we took I have a selection of nine or so that you may wish to see:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Wandering around the arena was extremely interesting, but a half hour after we came out into it, our guide beckoned us to one of the exits from the arena. This put us on the pathway just below the seats, and we took that route a short ways around the seating area to the exit that led us to one of the entrances to the museum.

In the Bullfighting Museum

The Plaza de Toros de Ronda also houses a museum dedicated to the spectacle of bullfighting. The Mueso Taurino holds two centuries of famous bullfighting regalia and important outfits. The collection also includes a great many weapons used by the Real Maestranza in Spanish war.

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From the bull ring, our guide led us through a passageway that seemed to go back to the entry building, because I could see the cafe ahead. But we made a left turn into the museum. The museum was underneath the seats of a long arc of the circular bull ring and there were numerous exhibits, paintings, posters, and such along its length. We perused the items with our friends Phillip and John, whom we'd met the first day we were on the ship.

Fred and I took some pictures of some of the exhibits- basically whatever we thought was photogenic or interesting. Our pictures aren't a full catalog by any means, but there are enough of them that I've put them in a slideshow so that you can look at them quickly and easily.

The slideshow is at left. To move from one picture to another, just use the little arrows in the lower corners of each slide. You can refer to the index numbers in the upper left of each slide to see where you are in the series of 19 pictures. Enjoy walking through the museum with us!

At the far end of the museum, our guide took us back outside to the plaza, and then around to the northeast side of the complex where there were a couple more sculptures.

Antonio Ordóñez

Soon after the ring's creation in the 18th century, the Romero family of Ronda emerged to provide over three generations of bullfighters. The most important of them was Pedro Romero (1754-1839), a key figure in the history of bullfighting who slew more than 5,600 bulls.

Cayetano Ordóñez

The Romero and Ordóñez families were known for their great bullfights in the Plaza, and bronze statues of Cayetano Ordóñez and son Antonio Ordóñez stand outside one of the entrances to the bullring. Ordoñez created the Feria Goyesca, a bullfight held the first week of September every year in honor of Pedro Romero.

The Ordoñez family, widely considered the second bullfighting dynasty of Ronda, participates in the spectacle along with the bullfighters and their assistants. They dress up in costumes reminiscent of the characters in paintings by Spanish romantic painter Francisco Goya.

Lunch

As with most shore excursions that are away from a ship over a mealtime, that meal is part of the excursion itself, and for us that meant lunch at a restaurant here in Ronda.

As we walked up the street to the restaurant, we found some interesting store windows, and when we got to the restaurant we went to the back of the building and upstairs where three busloads of our shipmates would be served. The lunch was very good, and we made some friends at our table- a couple of whom we did other things with later in the cruise.

Here are some of the pictures we took during lunch:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Mirador de Ronda

After lunch, our guide gave us over an hour of free time for us to wander elsewhere around Ronda. We didn't think we would have time to walk all the way down to Puente Viejo, so we stayed in the new town, visiting the new park by the bullring and a popular square a bit east from the restaurant.

From the restaurant, Fred and I first headed over to the new park that was built southeast of the bull ring, extending from the plaza where the large bull sculpture is all the way to the edge of the canyon, terminating at the Mirador de Ronda ("mirador" being a word that denotes an observation point or overlook). We walked through the park and to the overlook itself. There, we saw the same sort of views that we'd seen early this morning at the Alameda del Tajo.

There were quite a few people here at the overlook, but we got some good pictures:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

The views were great, but the overlook had another attraction- a very pretty wrought-iron gazebo. And occupying the gazebo was a young lady, Leticia Prados, playing the harp (and, not surprisingly, selling her CDs of the "Leticia Harp Experience").

We'd heard the harp music as we wandered around, but we came out onto the mirador a bit away from the gazebo, so it wasn't immediately apparent where the music was coming from. But we saw the young lady soon enough, and her music provided a nice backdrop as we walked around taking pictures.

Walking Around Mirador de Ronda (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

We'd taken all the still shots we wanted, and then I had the thought that I should take advantage of the musical background to make a movie here at Mirador de Ronda as well. So I once again walked around the gazebo and the area, taking in the exhilarating views from the edge of the overlook, and also capturing some of Leticia and her music.

I think the film turned out pretty good, and you can use the movie player at left to watch it.

When we were finished at Mirador de Ronda, we went back by the south side of the bull ring and across the street into the interesting neighborhoods of Ronda.

The Plaza del Socorro

From the Mirador, our route took us back by the bull ring and across Calle Virgen de la Paz and over towards one of Ronda's prettiest and busiest squares- Socorro Square.

After we crossed Calle Virgen de la Paz, we just took a typical street heading east towards Socorro Square. We were walking along the important Carrera Espinel street, without a doubt the most commercial and lively of the entire city.

Sometimes I find it just as interesting to look in typical shops and such just to see how local folks go about their daily lives, and we often take pictures of window displays and stuff like that. On the way to the square, we found a few picture-taking opportunities:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

(I was particularly amused by the windows full of miniature figures and objects. Make sure you don't miss seeing Scooby Doo on the little miniature television.)

After just a long block, we came to the southeast end of Socorro Square. The Plaza del Socorro de Ronda is located in the urban center of the new area of the city. It is one of the most emblematic squares in Ronda, and also the busiest- as everyone who lives in or walks around Ronda seems to end up here at some point.

Walking Through Socorro Square (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

The first thing I did when we reached the square was to make a movie as we walked north into the square from Carrera Espinel. It was Saturday, and there were quite a few people around at the cafes, a kids playground, and just enjoying the sunny afternoon. You can use the player at left to watch my movie.

Once the War of Independence against the French was over, this square had to be restored almost entirely, and it was at this time that most of the buildings surrounding the square were constructed.

This is a cozy pedestrian square, with important buildings, restaurants and terraces, and adorned with statues. The square is triangular in shape and in the center there is a fountain that is a meeting place for those visiting the square. A bit north of that is a monument to Hercules (with an inscription whose translation is loosely "Andalusia is for Spain and for Humanity").

The Facade of the Church of Our Lady of Socorro

The church that currently stands here is a modern one, and it replaced one that was destroyed by fire in 1936. The current church was designed by Malaga architect Enrique Atencia, and was built between 1950 and 1956. The previous church dates back to the existence of a simple hermitage where the Royal Master of Calatrava was at the time of the conquest of Ronda. Later, the site would become a lazareto and then a hospital for the poor and pilgrims, at which time the site got the name "El Socorro". The hospital was consecrated in 1557 by the Bishop of Malaga.

During the years of the Franco regime, the square in which the church is located was known as "Plaza del General Franco", but in 1981, after the transition to democracy, the mayor of Ronda, Juan Harillo Ordonez, signed a decree which officially changed the name of the square to the current Plaza del Socorro, also ordering the removal of plates on the walls in memory of Franco.

The current church is square and is organized internally in three naves. The church has Baroque plasterwork and a total of five domes- a main one in the center and the other four at the corners of the square. The rest of the roof elements are barrel vaults with lunettes and large stained-glass windows.

The facade is perfectly symmetrical, flanked by two quadrangular bell towers that are somewhat tapered as they rise. with the body of bells chamfered and in plan somewhat smaller than the base. Both towers are crowned by spiers of tiles. The entrance, located in the center of the façade, is made of stone and has a half-point arched access hole between paired pilasters that support a broken pediment with a niche containing an image of the Infant Jesus. The entire cover is crowned with a curved pediment and a large imperial shield.

Casino de Ronda

At the north end of the square is the Casino de Ronda, also known as the "Circle of Artists". The idea for the Artist's Society building came from Emilia Oliver, a doctor in Art History, and the so-called Casino of the Circle of Artists stands as the first example of modernist architecture in the city of Ronda.

Its construction dates from 1900 to 1903, and it presides over an entire front of the square with its elegant main facade, and its construction established not only a cultural landmark but an architectural reference for the century that began then. Construction was overseen by Pedro Alonso y Gutiérrez, the Municipal and Diocesan Architect of Córdoba. The three-storey building has strong Plateresque influences, but also has floral decorations and the prominent presence of a female bust at the apex of the pyramidal finish of the facade that shows modernist influences.

The facade facing the square shows a very pronounced symmetry. It has elongated windows, balcony running at the second level and an arched arcade gallery with neo-Gothic crests on the upper floor. Inside the building there is a large covered central courtyard that is the structure's focal point.

The building is culturally significant for Andalusia, as it was here that the Assembly of 1918 was held where the flag and the legend of the Andalusian coat of arms were approved.

We left the square via a different street, walking back to Calle Virgen de la Paz where we reunited with our group. When we were all together, we headed back north to the bus station and our return to Malaga. Walking around Ronda was immensely interesting and entertaining and well worth the cost of the excursion. The scenery was spectacular, and both Fred and I thought we would like to come back here and do some more exploring around the canyon- and most particularly visit the Puente Viejo.

Our Return Trip to Malaga

Our trip back through the Andalusian countryside was really pleasant, as the rural area of Andalusia was even prettier in the afternoon sun than it was this morning. All too soon we were back in the outskirts of Malaga, and soon after that were going back through Malaga's central park on our way to the ship.

Even Stopping at a Light Was Entertaining (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

We contented ourselves on the way back to the port through the city itself with listening to our guide point out some of the points of interest we passed and just relaxing after our walk.

Here are a few of the pictures we took from the bus:

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And here is the last set of pictures from our ride back to the port; most of these were taken as we neared that port:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

We got back to the ship about 5PM ahead of a 6PM departure for Casablanca, and we had a nice evening on board. You'll get introduced to the ship shortly, but I'll wait until we have a couple of sea days after Casablanca.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	November 17, 2019: An Excursion to El Jadida from Casablanca
	November 14, 2019: A Walking Tour of Barcelona/The Viking Jupiter Sets Sail
	Return to the Index for 2019