Ronda

Today was a very good day. We met the Galloway family in town for churros and chocolate...and made plans to travel to Ronda for the afternoon. A two hour trip via car from Alhuarin de la Torre, the town we are staying in during our time here, the landscape out the window was beautiful and the conversation was wonderful, too. our combined five kids acted as if they had always known each other...a gift for our boys after days away from friends.

Ronda is dramatically perched on vertical cliffs and contains wonderful Andalusian architecture. The vistas from viewpoints are out (and down!) to stunning farmland, distant mountains, and the historic bridge that spectacularly spans two portions of the town.

We came across a garden, La Casa Del Rey Moro, out on the far edge of town. The beautiful gardens have a distinctively Moorish influence designed over a hundred years ago by Forestiere, the designer of the Maria Luisa park we visited in Sevilla. The site also included a minos...or mine...that allowed a decent to the water...en escape route from invaders carved within the sandstone wall of the cliff. The descent down wasn't too bad...but the climb back up was like an intense Stairmaster workout! 186 really tall and winding steps!

So we earned a great lunch...pizza, gazpacho (!), salad and then some of us ventured out for a short but beautiful hike down and under the bridge. We came across an old ruin, and discovered an elaborate old aqueduct system that I imagined moved (and still moves) water for landowners/farmers in the valley below.