Help Me, Rhonda (Màlaga - Ronda - Seville)

Ah, transit day fun, dear reader. We commenced the morning in the usual fashion with breakfast at Krumble. Except we were a tad early. They don't open until 10am so we wandered the promenade for a while before being the first customers through the door.

We had already packed, I'm sure I've mentioned how packing cells have changed my world. So easy to pack, unpack and repack. Check out went smoothly. The car appeared quickly and, unlike the Porsche of yesterday, was unwashed. Sigh. Then it was on the road to Ronda. Ah, yes, you are ahead of me, dear reader, the link to today's title, Help Me, Rhonda by The Beach Boys.

Ronda is described as a typical Andalusian white town (almost all the buildings are white) up in the hills above Màlaga and was recommended to us by one of the staff on the day we arrived. It was only 90 minutes or so away and provided a nice break from the direct drive to Seville. The drive was all on A class roads, so no tolls and according to Google, separated dual carriageway. Again, Google lies. There were significant stretches of single lane road, but it was well marked and there were no precipitous cliffs. All good.

Ronda, the white town.

We'd had a bottle of wine from Ronda at dinner one evening so I was looking forward to seeing the grape vines. They must have been well hidden because I didn't see one vine on the way in or the way out. The only minor hiccup in the journey was locating the selected car park at the train station. After a couple of false starts we found an underground car park that was close to where we needed to be. 

Outside the Ronda Bullring.

The main shopping street in the old town stretched from the car park to the bull ring almost a kilometre down the hill. It was the usual polished limestone pedestrian thoroughfare, closed to through traffic but open to cross traffic. It was crowded despite the fact that the shops weren't all open yet. We made the bullring and to my dismay there were tour groups everywhere. Large tour groups. I thought we'd safe this far inland, but no. And like Mostar in Montenegro, Ronda has a famous bridge, and a superior one in my opinion.

The gorge from the new bridge.

We visited the tourist information centre to get a town map and walked the short distance to the 'new' bridge where everyone in Ronda had gathered. It wasn't a particularly pleasant experience with the tour groups who, like a tsunami, just keep coming until you step off the bridge out of their way. Fortunately there were not many vehicles about.

The old bridge in the distance.

The 'new' bridge (late 1750s) takes cars, the 'old' bridge, is for foot traffic only. Both span the gorge that cuts Ronda in two. The gorge is around 100 metres deep so, to construct a stone bridge to span it, is some engineering feat. As I said, more impressive than Mostar, but then Hamish and Andy haven't jumped off this one.

We left the bridge and the mindless crowd to find the Palace or Palacio Mondragãn. After a slight detour due to orienteering issues, we found a church, no surprises there, but not the Palace. A pause and review took us back past the Palace entrance, cleverly disguised and double badged as the Museo de Municipal. A more careful reading had us inside in minutes.

They love a painted dome in Spain.

The museum is a potted history of the this part of the world from first habitation until more recent times. There were the usual artefacts and displays. Nothing outstanding. The Palace itself was really the garden. While it was pleasant with great views over the countryside and provided a nice break from the hordes outside, it was also nothing special.

The path to the garden.

From the palace, we returned to the square that provided access to a viewing platform where you could photograph the entire bridge structure from river bed to road surface. Allegedly. Spoiler alert, I never found out. Jayne found a shady spot in the square and I headed down the ramp. About half way to the bottom of the gorge sits the viewing platform, but there is a catch - it's not free. Now it was only€2,50 for access, but I was pissed that that information had been withheld. It should have been a part of the signage in the square. While others in front of me were deliberating, I turned and climbed back to the square, passing many breathless people, all younger than me, on the way back. 

The new bridge, not from the viewing platform.

We walked back to new bridge where the crowds had thinned significantly. There were a couple of photo ops on the way but I tired of waiting for the vapid and vacuous selfie brigade to get out of the shot. Back in the main street, we dodged the remnant tour groups blocking the street and headed for the car park. 

Beyond the tour groups.

Ronda is a beautiful little town - it is certainly all white, and precariously perched along the top of the gorge but to experience it's true allure, you need to stay a couple of nights so you can wander the streets in the mornings and afternoons without the bus groups. The crowd crush did not make this detour an enjoyable experience.

The rest of the drive to Seville was relatively uneventful although the terrain looked very dry and barren with occasional areas of oasis plantations of various fruit trees. No hot houses here like the coastal farming areas. Periodically, small white towns appeared in the distance and then, suddenly we were in the outer fringes of Seville, the capital of Andalusia. 

The navigation to the hotel was straightforward with only a few death defying roundabouts and happily there was a parking reception area in front of the hotel, allowing us to check in and find the carpark proper.

No car elevators, no tight squeezes - in fact, a super large car space and a lift directly up to the hotel lobby. We found our room and walked in - to find there were two single beds and a sofa double bed made up. Wrong room? Back we went to reception who did not understand why the room was configured like this but allocated us a room that was as we had arranged. 

Once we were settled, it was time to work out our dinner plans and using our street map, we headed out to a tapas place literally around the corner - or so it seemed. Up and down the street we went but there was no restaurant entrance in sight. Google was then consulted and confirmed we should have been looking right at the front door of Barrio Cervecería Sevillana. 

Mystified, we started back towards the hotel, resigned to a room service dinner when a glance up one side street revealed the signage we had been looking for. Into an almost deserted restaurant we went, wondering where everybody was, considering it was past 8pm. We were shown to a table and the waiter introduced himself as Alejandro who then said he could only take drink orders at this stage but not food as the kitchen did not open till 8:30pm. Wine chosen, the place slowly started to fill up although there were always vacant tables inside while we were there.

One more of the new bridge.

The menu had a number of tapas options that had no translation so we asked Alejandro for some advice. He obliged with descriptions of the dishes, some of which we had tried elsewhere. We settled on three at his recommendation, since he said it would be good to leave room for dessert. We generally don't eat dessert but figured that we could always order another tapas dish if we were still hungry.

Out came the first dish, patatas bravas, which looked different to other servings of this we have eaten. It was served with chips rather than scalloped potatoes and beneath the chilli foam was a spicy tomato oil. Then arrived a small serving of calamari, followed by a "sandwich" of pork. It was actually pork loin, bacon, cheese and garlic mayonnaise on brioche. So good.

So good in fact we booked for Sunday night. Sunday is Spain's national day, Christopher Columbus Day. Who knows what will be open and there is plenty to explore on the menu.

Until tomorrow.

Don't sit down cause I've moved your chair (Málaga, Day 2)

Yesterday's clouds are gone and the temperature is on the rise again. We ditched yesterday's breakfast venue for Krumble, a café/patisserie not much further toward the old town. An excellent find. The coffee was a tad bitter for my taste but the croissants were excellent. I'd venture to say the best I've had outside France, dear reader.

Tempting.

From Krumble, we went in search of the Centre Pompidou. That's not completely accurate; we knew where the centre was because it has a perspex multi-coloured cube on ground level. It was the entrance we weren't sure about. There was definitely no door in the cube so I reasoned the entrance had to be underneath, on the same level as Pier One and the shops and restaurants.

The Pompidou cube.

We walked past a large white panel that proclaimed the Pompidou opening hours and that it is closed only 2 days of the year. No entrance there. Around the corner was the ramp to the next level and the cube. No entrance there. Back down again to the white panel. This time I read it more carefully. Closed only two days of the year ... and Tuesdays. Today was... yep, no need to go on.

Bluey is everywhere.

Plan B. Visit the Picasso Museum. I had checked on the website and there was plenty of availability. There were only two cruise ships in port so access shouldn't be a problem. Except everyone from the ships decided to visit the Picasso museum that morning. What ever happened to sleeping late and enjoying your holiday? The queue was around the corner and the sign said 'sold out'. We back-tracked a little, found a seat in the shade and checked the museum website - there was availability today. I booked for 1:00pm in the hope that the cruise crowd would be eating lunch or having a siesta.

Street art.

Plan C. Picasso Casa Natale. This is also a museum of sorts and hosts exhibitions of his work. It was less than a 10 minute walk from the museum so off we went, dodging tour groups all the while. Picasso's house, at least where he was born, is situated off a square or plaza. There was a number of groups milling around so we went directly to the door to read "the house is closed due to a change in exhibition". It reopens on October 22nd. A tad too long to wait.

A random church.

Curses foiled again, as Snidely Whiplash would say. So we sat and people watched for a while. There was obviously some treasure hunt game happening from one of the cruise ships, as groups of people entered the park area, one in each group wearing a plastic lei. Mmmm, such fun. We wandered back towards Pier One to have a look around the markets and the rich people's boats.

In the Square near Picasso Casa Natale.

Finally we made the Picasso Museum and went through both exhibitions. In terms of Picasso, I've seen better exhibitions of his work - the one at the Victorian Art Gallery in Melbourne a few years back comes to mind. These comprise works on loan from his daughter-in-law and his grandson. Additionally, there were some interesting works on display from some of Picasso's contemporaries.

Imagine what he could do with Gina Rinehart?

As I have mentioned previously, travel is supposed to broaden one's mind. It just makes me dislike people more. Who, in their right mind, would bring two toddlers to an art exhibition? In a double pram? I know it's a generational thing, but seriously. One pre-language child discovered the joy of echo chambers. He was enjoying himself. His older sister thought it fun to march around, slapping her feet as loudly as possible. One of the security people ordered her back to her mother's side and sent her father outside to continue his phone call away from the art works. They should be called the 'entitled' generation. Absolutely no consideration or concern for anyone but themselves.

Electro-sexual Sewing Machine by Dominguez.

Then it was back to the hotel to blog and rest before a 5pm guided tour of the Roman Theatre and Alcazaba. We were certainly getting our steps up today. I had chosen this time because I reasoned the cruise ships leave in the late afternoon so that crowd would all be ship bound. And because when I booked, there were only two other people registered.

Sad face to see a large crowd around our red umbrella meeting point. Happily the group was then divided into Spanish and English, although we still ended up with 22 people. One, a young girl from Thailand had bought her suitcase with her. Now the tour was of the theatre and fortress. The fort, as you might expect, was carved out of the hill side and reached from the lower level to the top of the hill. No lift. No smooth pathway. Fortunately for her, a nice young American man offered to carry the case for her after he saw her initial struggles. The couple with the pram sensibly ditched it at the start of the tour and carried the child.

It was a steep climb.

Like most of southern Spain, this area has a history of conquest, defeat, conquest and was shared by Romans, Visigoths, Christians and Muslims over the years. Similar to the Roman Theatre in Cartagena, the fort was only rediscovered recently. In the 1960s, the government was 'rehabilitating' a less than desirable suburb and discovered some wonderful columns and arches that had been 'appropriated' by the people to build their houses. Rehabilitation became an archaeological quest and parts of the fort, Alcazaba, were reclaimed and restored.

Arches and bricks.

And columns. Different eras.

Gardens and water for a calming influence.

That night we hit the roof top bar for drinks and food and shots of the sunset. Well, two out of three ain't bad. The cloudless sky did little to enhance the sunset, although the moon was the star (OK moon) of the show. The photos Jayne took with her mobile on the first night look like the best we'll get as far as a colourful sunset goes.

The roof top terrace.

Time for bed after a big day of walking, over 22,000 steps.

Sunset, as it was.

Oops, I almost forgot. The title, dear reader. The latest trend in Spanish hotels is to dispense with carpet and have marble or faux wooden floors. In our current abode, we have marble. The chair at the desk is large, heavy and awkward to move. If not picked up carefully, it makes quite a racket, so every time someone moves a chair, you hear it. Not so pleasant at 1:30am. Hence the Arctic Monkeys and Don't Sit Down Cause I've Moved Your Chair.

Until tomorrow.