Ronda

One of our group excursions was a city called Ronda in the state of Málaga (like Sevilla is a city in Sevilla state). Ronda sits high up in the mountains surrounded by farms. As my host mom said, it was preciosa.  

Ronda has a pretty famous Plaza de Toros. Bull-fighting is a bit controversial, but it's a part of the culture, and we got a pretty neat tour. It was cool to see the museum that's half underground and around the plaza. It had a bunch of toreador costumes and a lot of Goya prints actually. The only part that disturbed me was that they showed us where they keep the bulls before they fight. I felt nervous and claustrophobic in there, so I can't imagine how terrified the bulls must be. Freaky stuff right there.

The streets of Ronda are really cute. They have a lot of touristy restaurants, but they still all look good. I haven't really eaten anything not good in Spain, anyway. There's a little market in town, and it reminded me of the artisan part of the Kerrytown Farmer's Market in Ann Arbor (because there was no food). There was a guy that sold these really cool face carvings made from olive tree roots, an organic beauty product stand, and some really cool local jewelers. 

We then went to this old house thing that had an amazing view of all the nature surrounding the city. The gardens were beautiful, and you could see all the mountains and the famous Puente Nuevo.

Ronda has a few plazas, too, all of which are very charming.

The coolest part of the city though, are these gorge-like things that the Puente Nuevo goes over. Again, it's just one of those things you'd think you'd only get to see on stumbleupon.

There was a restaurant below the bridge by the gorge. We split a bottle of the local wine there. I'm horrible at describing wine, so I'll just say that it was really good. And I might add that yes, here I am of age.