Ronda was our last new city in Spain. (Our actual last stop was back to Madrid, for flying out purposes). On a sunny Saturday, we trained less than two hours from Cordoba to arrive at the destination that we’d basically been anticipating our entire trip. Save the best for last, right? We’d seen photos of the Parador de Ronda, of course, but you know how photos online go – taken by a professional photographer from the most expensive room with the most impressive view at the perfect sunset lighting. But from the photos and website description, supposing that at least the location given was accurate, we knew that the parador was on the edge of the cliff. We assumed that the train station was not, so we started discussing options for getting from the station to the hotel. We googled the distance, crossing our fingers that there would be cabs, but figuring we could walk it if we absolutely had to. It was only a 17 minute walk, which wouldn’t be bad if it wasn’t on the side of a mountain and we weren’t lugging suitcases. We really aren’t wimps, but you had to be there to understand the copious amounts of luggage dragging while having people try to push you down the stairs that we experienced during this trip. Still, worst case scenario, we knew we could do it. We then began discussing how far we thought the parador was from town. Could we walk to town from where we were staying? Would there be a cab easily accessible? We hatched plans.
As we exited the train station in Ronda, we saw a sign with a number to call for taxis. Not wanting to pay for the international call, we went back inside of the station and asked the gentleman working there if he could call for us. After the call, he told us a number – I think it was 14, but I might be pulling that out of… somewhere else. We were a little confused, but he assured us a taxi was coming. Sure enough, minutes later a taxi pulled up with the number 14 (or whatever it was) on the side. Easy enough.
No sooner did we pull out of the train station than we started seeing stores and restaurants. And probably 10 minutes later, max, our parador – right between the new and old sections of town. Perfect! Except… we’d been waiting and waiting for that view, and so far, we hadn’t seen a mountain. After checking in, we took a sneak peak out of the panoramic window by the lobby dining area. We were indeed on the mountain’s edge! Amazing. Apparently, the train station is on the mountain, as is the town. At this point, we practically ran to our room, luggage and all – luckily there was an elevator, but even if there hadn’t been, some things are worth dragging luggage up stairs for. Immediately upon getting into the room, we dropped our bags in the doorway and raced each other to the window/balcony. And our jaws dropped. I am convinced that our room must have had the best view in the entire parador. Our balcony was right at the edge of the cliff, and overlooked the entire valley below. I have stayed in a lot of places over the years, and I can honestly say that this is probably one of the top three views I’ve experienced at an accommodation. Needless to say, we spent almost all of the time we weren’t out exploring on the balcony.
Starving, we found a restaurant just across from the parador. We expected it to be super touristy, but we were starving. Also, it served something I could eat other than patatas bravas. Don’t get me wrong, I love patatas bravas, but I’m pretty sure that if I ate any more, I would have turned into a potato. And I certainly would have been the shape of one. And they had a veggie burger. (For those who don’t know, I’m a vegetarian). Which I expected to be a frozen patty they heated up, but it was handmade. Fan-freaking-tastic! Bonus, we got to try Rondena beer which, as you probably guessed, is Ronda’s own.
Stomach’s full, we looked at the not overly helpful map of “viewing sites” we got from the hotel, and realized that the Ponte Nuevo, the famous New Bridge, was right next to our hotel. I mean right next to it. From the bridge, we could see the hiking trails, and the general direction where people seemed to enter them. We made a note to each other to explore that later. For the time being, we wandered in the opposite direction on, a walkway that went started by the back of our hotel (where the view was), and extended to the right. It’s a paved sidewalk – definitely not hiking – and it’s along the edge, but certainly not “on the mountain.” Just close enough to get a great view. Basically, if you want a good view but don’t want any type of strenuous activity, you can take this easily. People of all ages were enjoying this path. There’s another viewing area along there, in a gazebo where musicians come and play. And by musicians, I mean one woman with a guitar playing Paul Simon and, later, one guy with an accordian. But people all gathered and sang along and danced, so it was kind of cheesy fun. Note, the photos I’ve included here were taken later, from our balcony(!).
Back to the Ponte Nuevo a little while later, we decided to find the hiking trail, even if just to get a feel of where it was, so we weren’t searching around in the cold and relative dark the next morning, when we planned to do a sunrise hike.
Tip: If you’re walking across the Ponte Nuevo, from the “new” section to the old, turn right at the first street you come to. Follow it around. Eventually, you’ll see the entrance. We didn’t time it, but I’d say it’s maybe 10 minutes or so from the bridge.
At first, the hiking trail was large downhill steps. Not so bad. We came to one of viewing platform (and one natural outcrop of the mountain that wasn’t supposed to be a viewing platform, but worked as one). The view of the Ponte Nuevo, the waterfall, and the farmland below was fantastic. A few photos later, we looked at the fork in the path and took the one that seemed to head towards the bridge and waterfall.
Another Tip: This is not the way to the hiking trail that leads to the bottom of the gorge, which we had guessed, but it is the way to head under the bridge. This isn’t as strenuous, but it’s probably a little more concerning if you don’t like heights, as you are walking right along the edge of a drop-off, with a railing and, at parts, a wobbly fence. We didn’t do the whole thing, because we weren’t really in the right attire and footwear, but vowed to come back the next day. More on this path in the next post.
We headed back in the direction of the the viewing point. This time, we went the opposite way. This, we knew, would lead us towards the bottom of the gorge. We didn’t plan to do the whole hike, but we wanted to get an idea of where we’d be heading the following day. More large steps, which eventually gave way to more or less sidewalk, when we came to another fork in the path. My cousin had found a blog post from a few years ago that pictured an archway and instructed hikers to head through the arch. We glanced an archway to our left and went that way. We were still on basically paved ground, which didn’t really seem like a hike. We continued. Through the arch, we came on another fork, and took the route that seemed to lead us in a downward, albeit windy, direction. Still paved. Eventually, we decided to turn back. We were determined to catch sunset from our balcony, and the sun was getting low in the sky. As we were walking back, we noticed cars coming at us. Which was super confusing since we were supposed to be on a hiking path, albeit a cemented one. And it was then that we realized we were on the road. Perhaps, we thought, this wasn’t the hiking path afterall. We’d taken a wrong turn somewhere, but we couldn’t figure out where. We retraced our steps and pondered it. Back up the mountain, back up the wide steps, and more wide steps, back past the viewing area, back up more wide steps, and finally onto flat ground at the entrance to the trail. We made it back just in time for sunset (pictured above!).
Back in our hotel room, we looked again at the trail area from afar. We saw what we knew to be the wide steps at the start, the fork in the path by the viewing platform, the paved route we’d taken, the second fork where we’d headed left towards the arch. And the we saw it – two other arches…in the opposite direction of the way we’d gone. Tomorrow, we’d knew which way to head. We just had to figure out which of those remaining two arches to head through.
That evening, after siesta of course, we wandered through the new section of town. Everyone was out. I mean everyone. Babies, grandparents, dogs. So many dogs. The streets, many of which are pedestrian streets, were packed. Why, you ask? Here’s a fun Ronda fact: everyone goes out and eats dessert before dinner. It’s like pastry and waffle happy hour. Literally around five or six in the evening, the dessert shops, which no exaggeration are probably every third shop, are jam packed. Not realizing exactly what this tradition was at first – we just thought an oddly high number of people wanted dessert at 6PM that day – we figured we’d get dessert after dinner. After all, we’d been chasing waffles our whole trip. Nope. All closed. Post dinner, the streets were surprisingly quiet. The next day, we knew better. The picture of the packed Ronda streets is blurry, but I think you get the idea. All those blurry colors in the background are people. Probably people headed out for pre-dinner dessert – another tradition, like siesta, that I would definitely love to incorporate in my daily life back home. Though maybe not quite way we did the following day. I’ll be writing on that ridiculous experience in a whole separate post later, because it deserves it.
So, we did what anyone would do (right?). After dinner, we went back to the parador, ordered chocolate cafe from the cafe there, brought it up to our room, and sat in our beds and ate it. I’d like to note that this was not the first time in the trip we ate desserts in bed, nor would it be the last.
Next up, Ronda part 2 – A Frosty Sunrise Hike.
TraveLuxe 