Day 4

           DAY 4

     After a restful day, we set out early to visit some of the “white villages” scattered throughout Andalucía and Cadiz Province.  These bright white villages stand out in stark contrast to the surrounding rocky mountainsides in the bright sunlight and each have their own unique histories and characteristics.  They are reached only by very windy, steep roads, which did not start the day out well for Deb and Jenny who were riding in the back seat.

Our faithful vehicle, an Opal

First stop, Ronda – a village that dates back to medieval times.  The city was originally cut off from other cities by a cavernous ravine or Gorge until a bridge (Arab Bridge) was constructed to access the city. This bridge was rebuilt several times over the centuries because of the damage done by the flooding of the river each year.  Finally, in the 17^th century, a new larger bridge (Puente Nuevo) was built (after several unsuccessful attempts) and this bridge, for which the town is known, stands today to link the old city with the new, fastest growing city in the area.

Ronda town centre

Arab Bridge

View from the bridge

Puente Nuevo

Ronda views

Street in Old Ronda

Belltower of Santa Maria de Mayor

Orange tree in the plaza

             Ronda also has a Plaza del Toros, which still has bullfights each year.  Pedro Romero, the most famous Spanish bullfighter, was born in Ronda. He is responsible for forever changing the method of bull fighting from horseback to standing in the ring with the bull.

Plaza del Toros

3 Amigos

Statue of Pedro Romero

After touring the old city and having lunch at an outdoor tapas restaurant in town centre, we headed for the next village.

            The drive took us through acres and acres of groves of cork trees, which we had never seen before.  The cork is made from the bark that is pealed off of the trunk of the tree, leaving bare wood which eventually grows new cork-bark.  

 The next white village - Grazalema is reported to be the “whitest” of all the white villages, so as we approached the town from afar we attempted to see if we thought this was true..... it kinda looked the same as all the other villages, but if they say it is whiter, who are we to argue?  

View approaching Grazalema

Street in Grazalema

House after house displayed beautiful flowers.

After strolling through this much smaller village, it was time for a late afternoon snack, then on to the next village.  It was interesting that this small village had a public pool in which we could have taken a dip, but we decided not to on this visit.

As it was late in the day and we were far from our base, we decided to see one more village named Zahara.  After asking directions from our Spanish-only speaking waiter, we set out on what was to be a 30 min. drive.  What the waiter failed to tell us (or possibly got lost in translation) was that the bridge on the most direct route was out, and we had to take an alternative route which eventually got us there, but took some map reading and navigating skills.

Approach to Zahara

Zahara sits at the base of a peak that has a castillo (Moorish castle) overlooking and guarding the access to the town.  Our first thought was that we would like to climb to the top of the peak to check out the castle.  We spotted steps around the back of the town that appeared to go up to the top and eventually found where they began, but they were very overgrown.  Yet we pressed on (did I mention that everything in this area is uphill) and climbed through brush on steep steps only to come to a dead end....  and we climbed back down.  We walked through the sleepy little village and eventually discovered the steps to the castle at the OTHER end of town.  A quick vote determined that we could really do without seeing the fortress.  We trekked back through the village and found a small shop that had homemade Macarena cookies (yes, this area is where the dance is from).  We could see a TV on in the back room of the shop where someone was watching a video of a bullfight, so we had to ring the bell twice to get someone to come and sell us our cookies.  The cookies provided the energy needed to get back to the car.

Beautiful views of the reservoir adjacent to Zahara

Church in Zahara

Finally, after a few wrong turns (which were vigorously debated by the 2 navigators-Jeff and Jenny) we made our way back down the mountain and stopped in the village of Benahavis for dinner.  We sat outside on the main street and watched the end of the Brazil soccer (OK, futbol here) while eating our pizza.  After topping off the tank with ice cream (helado), we drove the rest of the way home, arriving at a record-setting early time of 11:00.  We retired at the unheard-of time of 12:00.