10-11/07/2019: Ronda
Km travelled today/sum: 20km / 8357km
Sun shine, 31 degrees, highway and country road

The next morning we had a nice breakfast in the hotel. There is a huge difference between a Moroccan and a Spanish breakfast. In Morocco you get Juice, Coffee or tea, Roti-like Bread, Omelette, sweet pastry, Fruit and Yogurt. In Spain, you only get Coffee, Juice and a two halves of toasted bread with jam 😩
Nevertheless, breakfast always tastes always good after a diet day😅. After breakfast we hopped onto one bike and were in Ronda 10 minutes later. We parked the bike on the plaza.

From here we walked through the streets to have a look at a palace, ‘Casa del Rey Moro’. The whole city was fortified and to supply the city with water the Moorish king built a water mine.

It sourced water from the river below and a human chain brought the water up to the surface..

The way down to the river is about 60m deep with around 300 steps.

Slaves had to climb those steps with skin bags full of water. Well, it was hard enough for us to make it up, even without any additional load like waterskins.

This is the view from the top of the stair case. The water mine was down by the river.

And here is the bridge which caught our eye when we were riding through Ronda yesterday. To take the picture, we had to climb down a bit. I think we managed it around lunch time – like always…. so it was really warm here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some more views from Ronda to the ravine and to another bridge.

After walking up and down the whole day we relaxed for dinner in one of the many beauituful restaurants. After a nice meal we went home and I had another look into the lonely planet. There I discovered that nearby was a town called ‘Setenil de las Bodegas’. It is known for dwellings built into rock overhangs above a river. So we decided to stay a day longer and check it out. Our host smiled when we extended our stay again. We promised that we would try harder to leave next time 😁

 

So the next day we hopped onto one bike and went to ‘Setenil de las Bodegas’. Not knowing exactly where to go, we went for the highest place. Well, that turned out to be a dead end with a nice view, but we would really like to be at the bottom. So back to the bike, put our riding gear on again, and off we went down to the main attraction.

After we found a suitable bike park, we walked back to the main street. It was nice and cool here, so we had a coffee and some small snacks and let the world pass by.

This is a view inside the restaurant. The rock formation have not been altered, so they build a wall in front of the cliff and ready was the pup/shop. It was nice and cool in summer, not sure how much water soaks through the stone in winter when it rains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From here we explored the cliffs dwellings a bit more. At one stage the road leads through a hole in the cliff, so the width of the street is just a bit wider than a car. So if a car is coming, you better search for refuge, otherwise you risk your toes J

As in overall in Spain, there is an Islamic influence in a lot of buildings. We found this beautiful restored house front, I thought I knock and let the owner know that we like it 😁

I liked this street sign, it translates to something 'non-macho violence'.

Here is the church of ‘Setenil de las Bodegas’. We thought is looked a bit like a mosque which was converted into a church. The Spanish peninsula was occupied by the Islamic Moores for around 700 years, so it is quite common that buildings were converted to be used by christians. We couldn’t find anything about it on Wikipedia or the internet, but in the church we found a pillar which looked like it had the typical islamic symmetric pattern engraved which was removed later on.

These houses were really different, and it was nice and cool along the river. We hopped onto our bike and went back to our accomodation for a swim. Tomorrow we will really make an effort to leave, maybe it will work this time. The next stop would be Granada to have a look at the Alhambra.