Ronda, Spain: Simply Amazing!

Some places seem to have been built with a little more drama than necessary. Ronda, Spain, is one of them.

Sitting high above a deep gorge in the province of Málaga, Ronda is one of the largest and best known of Andalusia’s Pueblos Blancos, or White Villages. The town is divided by the Guadalevín River, which cuts dramatically through the landscape below, separating the older Moorish quarter from the newer part of town. And by “newer,” we’re talking about the 15th century. Europe does have a way of making Americans feel a little young.

If you were only going to visit one of the White Villages in southern Spain, Ronda would be a very strong choice. It has history, beauty, remarkable architecture, winding streets, wonderful views, and enough drama in the landscape to make you stop every few minutes and simply look.

Ronda is also one of the oldest towns in Spain. Evidence of prehistoric settlements has been found nearby, and over the centuries the area was inhabited by Celts, Romans, Moors, and eventually Christian rulers. Like so much of Andalusia, it carries layer upon layer of history, and you can feel those layers when you walk through the old town.

But the first thing most people notice about Ronda isn’t the history.

It’s the bridge.

The Puente Nuevo, or New Bridge, spans the gorge and connects the newer section of Ronda with the old Moorish quarter known as La Ciudad. Completed in the late 18th century after decades of construction, the bridge rises nearly 400 feet above the bottom of the gorge.

And no photograph really prepares you for that. You can read the number - 400 feet - and understand intellectually that it’s high. Then you stand on the bridge, look down, and suddenly your stomach has a much more personal relationship with the measurement.

The gorge drops dramatically beneath you while the countryside stretches outward in every direction. White villages dot the hills in the distance. Mountains rise beyond them. The bridge itself seems almost impossibly wedged between two enormous walls of rock.

It’s one of those places where architecture and landscape become difficult to separate. The bridge is beautiful because of the gorge. The gorge becomes even more spectacular because of the bridge. Together, they create something unforgettable.

And yet, for Carla and me, the most enjoyable part of Ronda wasn’t necessarily the bridge. It was wandering through the old Moorish quarter. That’s almost always where I seem to end up. Give me a beautiful monument and I’ll admire it.

Give me a crooked street leading somewhere I don’t understand, and I’m gone.

The old town is wonderfully walkable, with narrow streets, small plazas, old stone walls, churches, palaces, restaurants, and buildings that seem to have grown into the landscape over centuries rather than having been placed there all at once. It’s the kind of place where wandering works particularly well.

You turn down one street because the light looks interesting. Then another because something catches your eye. And twenty minutes later you have absolutely no idea where you are.

Perfect. There are few better ways to experience an old European town.

The Moorish influence is still visible throughout Ronda, and one of the more fascinating places we visited was the Baños Árabes, the Arab Baths.

They sit outside the old city walls and can be easy to miss, but they’re worth seeking out.

The baths are among the best-preserved examples of their kind in Spain, with beautiful horseshoe arches, vaulted ceilings, and star-shaped openings above that allow shafts of light to enter the rooms.

There’s something wonderfully atmospheric about the place. You can almost imagine the steam rising hundreds of years ago.

The baths were designed as places of cleansing and purification and were located near the mosque so people could wash before prayer. The Moors had borrowed and adapted elements from Roman bathing traditions, but rather than simply soaking in hot pools, the emphasis included steam and the movement through rooms of different temperatures.

What struck me most was how beautifully practical and spiritual life seemed to overlap. Cleanse the body. Then cleanse the soul. There’s an elegance to that idea.

Ronda is also historically associated with bullfighting, and its bullring is one of the most famous in Spain. The architecture is beautiful, even if the tradition itself is one that modern visitors may feel very differently about.

That’s another thing travel does. It puts us in direct contact with parts of a culture we may admire, parts we may question, and parts we may not fully understand.

And I think there’s value in that.

Travel doesn’t require us to approve of everything we encounter. It simply asks us to pay attention. Ronda gives you plenty to pay attention to. The old streets. The fortress walls. The churches. The baths. The bridge. The gorge. The countryside. And the astonishing way the whole town seems to sit on the edge of the landscape as though gravity had somehow agreed to cooperate.

There is beauty everywhere. But it isn’t a polished kind of beauty. It’s old.

Layered. Weathered. A little irregular. Exactly the way I like it.

If Ronda has a downside, it’s the same one faced by many beautiful places in Europe. Other people have noticed. During the warmer months, the town can become very crowded, especially around the bridge and the historic center. That can take away some of the magic if you arrive hoping for a contemplative little stroll through an ancient village and instead find yourself negotiating your way through several tour groups moving in opposite directions.

For that reason, I’d strongly recommend visiting outside the busiest summer months if you can. Places like Ronda are simply better when you have enough space to hear them. And Ronda deserves to be heard.

I’ve always believed that words are powerful. They can inspire. Challenge. Comfort.

Move us. They can bring a place to life in someone else’s imagination.

But sometimes words reach their limit. Ronda did that to me. I could describe the gorge. I could tell you about the bridge. I could write about the narrow streets, the Moorish architecture, the mountains, and the countryside.

But at some point, the description becomes smaller than the thing itself. That’s when I’m happy to let photography take over. My iPhone was extremely busy that day.

Every few steps seemed to offer another image worth stopping for: the bridge from below, the gorge from above, old walls, winding streets, mountain views, courtyards, arches, rooftops, and the beautiful disorder of a town that has been growing for centuries.

That’s one of the reasons I love photography so much. It lets me keep looking after the words have run out. And Ronda gave me plenty to look at.

So the photographs accompanying this story will probably do a better job than I can of conveying the scale and beauty of the place.

But if I had to offer one piece of advice for visiting Ronda, it would be the same advice I seem to give for almost every place we love:

Walk. Don’t simply stand at the Puente Nuevo, take the photograph, and leave.

Cross it. Turn down the old streets. Visit the baths. Sit in one of the plazas.

Look over the walls. Wander into the Moorish quarter and forget for a while that you’re supposed to be going anywhere.

Ronda is beautiful from a viewpoint. But like most places, it becomes more interesting once you walk inside it. And every now and then, while wandering one of those ancient streets, stop and remember where you are. High above a gorge in southern Spain. Walking through a town where Romans, Moors, Christians, travelers, merchants, soldiers, families, and dreamers have been passing for centuries.

Then keep walking. There’s probably another beautiful street around the next corner.

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