Olé! Ronda y Sevilla

Ronda

Ronda from tower (click to enlarge, back space to return)

Ferry to Tarifa, bus to Algeciras, walk to train station, train to Ronda. Sounds like a lot but it was easy.

 

On the walk to the train station we stopped at a restaurant to have lunch. The easy French from Morocco was over and now it was all Spanish. Egad! I tried to get us some beer and we ended up with diluted red wine with ice cubes - maybe it was sangria?

The atmosphere was wonderful - men, women, children, open doors, wine, beer, laughter. A change from Morocco.

Karethe and Jaime took us for a walk around their new hometown. Breathtaking! Busy but not hectic, commercial but not tacky and overdone, bucolic but not isolated, intimate but not inward.

Ronda's sights included a Moorish bathhouse,
Medieval church, two ancient bridges crossing a deep gorge... and tiny chapel for the condemned to pray before their hanging.

We were in Ronda for two nights and one day so we only walked about the town. We had a long leisurely Spanish lunch from 2 - 5 pm with K&J, a friend Jill, Paki the owner and assorted others who dropped by the sidewalk to say hola. Of course lunch was preceded by chocolate and churros!

Sevilla

The thing to see in the old part of Sevilla is the Cathedral de Santa Maria de la Sede. (I don't know what Sede means.) The area of the cathedral is the biggest in the world. They have a certificate from Guinness records that says so!  

It's tower, formally a Moorish minaret, dates back to the 12th century and matches the style of the one in Marrakesh. 

Roccoco-coco-coco!  We also saw San Salvador church. Excessive, expansive, outrageous is too mild to describe them. They needed Lithium in the 18th century!!

Ian didn't take a picture of a donkey when we were in Morocco so I took my own in Sevilla.

Our hotel was called Hostal del Callejon del Agua (roughly translated as Water Lane) so the cab driver let us off at a small entrance to Water Lane. The hotel is actually on Corral del Rey so we spent half an hour going up and down and around tiny cobblestone lanes and streets.  Like the medina but clean and restored. There isn't one ninety degree angle or two parallel streets to be found.

Alcazar's Islamic domed ceiling from 1200's

Next door is the Alcazar (palace). It's a huge Moorish-Gothic-Renaissance maze of chambers, antechambers, halls, gardens, arches, domes, flowers, tiles and tapestries.

We walked away from the cathedral-alcazar-horse drawn carriage-souvenir part of town looking for some place for lunch. Every twist and turn revealed charming squares, beautifully kept old buildings, peeks at inner courtyards and little shops.

At a tapas bar, we looked at the extensive menu with what must have been bewildered looks on our faces. The man behind the bar on the other side of the room called out "Ingliss?"  "Who me?" He waved me up to the bar. "Do you like tuna?" "Do you like lamb?" We spent a long leisurely afternoon eating wonderful food and drinking great wine.

A group of coworkers came in and whiled away the hours before going back to work. A woman out shopping came in for a glass of beer. Grandma and grandpa came in with a two year old and propped her up at the bar for the bar men to admire. No music, just chatting and laughter.