Ronda
Andalusian Hill Town Split By The 120 Metre Tajo Gorge, Spanned By The Puente Nuevo Of 1793, With One Of The Oldest Bullrings In Spain · Ronda, Andalusia
A town built on both sides of a gorge a hundred and twenty metres deep, joined by an eighteenth-century bridge that took forty years and killed a number of the men who built it. That is the whole image and it earns its reputation: the Tajo gorge cuts straight through the middle of the town, the houses stop at the edge with no run-up, and the Puente Nuevo spans it with a chamber inside the arch that has been a prison and a store. On one side is the old Moorish town, quiet and walled, with Arab baths well preserved at the bottom of the hill; on the other the newer town, holding one of the oldest bullrings in Spain and a museum that explains why this place matters to that tradition. Ronda sits an hour up from the Costa del Sol and it shows: coaches arrive from mid-morning and leave by five, so the answer is simple. Stay the night, or come early, because between five and ten this is a quiet town on a cliff and between eleven and four it is a car park with a very good view.
Plaza de Espana, Ronda, Andalusia, 29400, Spain
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED, and the town has none: the bridge, the gorge and the viewpoints are public and always open, and the bridge is lit at night. What has hours are the ticketed sites - the chamber inside the bridge, the bullring, the Arab baths and the water mine - which keep daytime hours with SHORTER WINTER OPENING and several take a long midday break. The real rhythm is the coach traffic, which arrives mid-morning and leaves by about five.