A day in Ronda, Spain

Monday, December 2, 2013 @ 8:26 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 159

I got up this morning, ate, made a sandwich and then headed to the bus station to catch my 10am bus to Ronda, Spain. Ronda is most known for its Puente Nuevo (new bridge) built in the late 1700's which spans a 100m+ gorge splitting the old city from the new city.

The bus ride was really nice and I got to see some nice small villages and some great views along the way. Ronda is near a big mountain range and the views of the mountains were also amazing. When I got to the city I walked toward the city center then saw some really nice overlooks that looked out at the mountain range on the edge of a giant cliff face.

There was an information desk nearby so I went in and got a map of the city and set out for the bridge. There were all kinds of Gran Turismo (the video game) 15th Anniversary spots all over town. They had some fancy cars and video game booths where people could play the latest version of the game. It was then that I noticed that the front part of the bridge had these incredibly massive Gran Turismo banners hanging down it. The banners completely destroyed what would have been some great photos.

I hiked down to get a better vantage point and enjoyed lunch there. There are some really nice waterfalls under the bridge. If I had more time and it was a little warmer I would have liked to do some hiking around there as well. It looked like there were several trails in the area and some of them would have had some great views of the bridge as well.

From there, I hiked back up and went through the old city and walked over and saw the two older bridges. There were some gardens on the other side of the river so I walked through those and found a really nice viewpoint of the back side of the bridge, which fortunately wasn't spammed with banners.

I walked around a little bit more then found a quiet spot to read with a view of the bridge then about a half hour later a group of 30 school kids came up and started making all kinds of noise. I ended up leaving after a few minutes and found another nice spot overlooking all the mountains to read.

It started to cool down a bit so I started searching for a place where I could get a beer. I found one little bar that had several people in it and got a beer for 1 euro. I hung out in there for a while then walked around some more and found a McDonalds where I went in and used their wifi for a bit. Outside the McDonalds was another bar that had 1 euro beer so I had another one there before heading back to the bus station.

After being outside all day and walking around, plus the beers, I was pretty tired on the ride home. It was dark so I couldn't really see any of the nice scenery but we made it back to Seville pretty quick. I hurried back to the hostel and signed up for dinner. Apparently they're making some kind of paprika chicken which sounds pretty good.

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