On Top of the Mountain

We left Granada this morning and headed towards Ronda. We rented a car and it turned out to be a stick shift. I haven’t driven a stick shift in over 15 years, but surprisingly the ability to coordinate brake, clutch and gear shift quickly returned.

We drove through the Andalusian countryside towards the mountain top town of Ronda. This very small city sits atop a giant rock outcropping very much like Machu Pichu in Peru. From all sides you look down and see the fertile valley. It is nearly impregnable, with old walls and vertical rock formations. It was one of the last Muslim towns to fall to the Christians. It is quite small with narrow winding streets some barely wide enough for a donkey, let alone a car. It is filled with old 15^th century churches and buildings all well maintained.  We had a map of the area and marked off what sights we wanted to see and started walking in that direction. When we couldn’t find what we were looking for we decided to just walk aimlessly down the narrow curved streets. Amazingly, because the town is so small we found most of what we wanted to see anyways. The vistas from almost anywhere are fantastic.

We had been alerted that on top of this mountain was a 1 star Michelin restaurant, and it was right next to our hotel. In truly Spanish style we had 9:30pm reservations and didn’t leave the restaurant until after midnight. The food was great.

Ronda is a delight, a small mountain top oasis. If you are ever driving through the south of Spain, this is a perfect place to overnight!