Spain Day Six: Help Me Ronda

Nerja

We wanted to get out of Granada, so we hit the road early and stopped at a gas station for fuel and a hot, fresh baguette. Today we would visit a few of the white hill towns of Analucia, starting with Nerja, on the beach. As we drove, we could spot them shining on the hillsides. Adam dubbed this part of Spain “Spain-torini” because it looked like what we had seen in Greece (though nowhere near as spectacular).

Nerja has beaches, but also a cliff-top promenade called “the Balcony of Europe” that overlooks the beach below. We walked to the end to take in the view while enjoying some cherry cheesecake gelato. (Yes, before lunch, don’t judge!) Nerja was tiny, the only other things we did were peek into the church and walk the one main shopping street.

Shopping streets are covered in Southern Spain, to shade shoppers

Just 4 km up the hill was Frigiliana, another white hill town. We found it wasn’t worth the drive because it was mostly newer construction, nothing historic. So we were off to our next home for the night, in Ronda. As we drove we noticed we hadn’t seen any cows at all in Spain. Adam wondered if that is because they are all used for bullfights. It was a beautiful drive. Andalucia looks a lot like Tuscany.

That's our hotel atop the cliff. 

Stole this pic from a postcard because it shows more than my camera did!

We pulled into Ronda and, while we knew our hotel would be on the side of a cliff, were in awe at just how on the edge of that giant cliff it was! A camera couldn’t even capture how deep the gorge was and how high up our hotel was! We walked into our room and both of our jaws dropped. Not only was it our largest hotel room so far, but it had a terrace that overlooked rolling farms as far as the eye could see.

Our balcony

View from our balcony 

We grabbed sandwiches and baked goods at a shop across the street. Adam had ham (shocker), which we watched the man carve right off the leg – with the hoof still attached. Gag.

This place had salami though – so I had salami and cheese. I like to live on the edge sometimes. We asked for mustard, aka mostaza, but he didn’t have any. We ate our sad dry sandwiches as we drove to Setenil de las Bodegas, a nearby town under a rock.

Setenil de las Bodegas from above

Now it was Adam’s turn to melt down. Even though I kept explaining that this town was UNDER! A! ROCK! – he had no desire to go. He wanted a nap. But he was worried about me going alone, so he went anyway. This town is tiny, and nearly impossible to drive in. The streets are barely one car width wide (we had to fold in the mirrors!) and often dead end after you squeeze down them. As Adam would back up, I would gasp because we were ½ inch away from scratching the rental car. He handled the driving like a pro – but my nerves – not so much. He told me to get out, walk the town, and he would go park above and wait for me.

It is UNDER A CLIFF!

This tiny town, which dates to pre-historic times, was built underneath the rock overhangs of a cliff along a river gorge. While I wandered, I found a tiny store built into a cave that was full of tiny jars of vegetables and jam. I walked in, and asked the woman if she had mostaza. She spoke no English and I speak zero Spanish.

But she understood the word and said “ahh, salsa mostaza?” and led me to a shelf, where there was one jar of it. I paid her 2 euros for it and headed back to find Adam to give him the best peace offering ever – more impressed with my mustard find than the fact that this town was under a freaking rock! As I was walking up, he was walking down. He liked his present and we reached a mustard peace accord. We walked the town together and took photos.

Back in Ronda, Adam took a nap while I walked around to see the bullring (the oldest one in Spain) and take more photos of that incredible cliff.

And then, as if the heavens sending me mustard wasn’t enough – they sent me kittens! I was walking through the park when I saw a small orange fluff ball playing in a planter. I walked over and found not one, but THREE kittens and a mama – the first cats I had seen in all of Spain. I sat and watched them for about half an hour because the cuteness was totally mood lifting!

I went back and got Adam up for dinner. It was just staring to get dark (at 9:40!) as we walked the old town section of Ronda. We learned that in small towns, restaurants close earlier, and our options were limited. We settled into the only option in town, on a charming square in the shadow of the cathedral, and perused the menu.

Our meat choices were baby lamb kidneys, blood sausage balls, sweetbreads – it was a HOUSE OF SPANISH NIGHTMARES. There was a photo of a baby pig leg with the hoof and everything on a plate. I ordered the “tropical salad” which turned out to be iceberg lettuce topped with canned corn and pineapple. The bread tasted like a campfire. The chef brought us a “gift” of breaded, fried mushrooms. Adam looked at me and said, “Babe, it’s like they have a cheat sheet of everything you hate!” He had garlic soup, which had egg in it and all I could taste was yolk. I started singing “Help Me Rhonda” to try to make light of the situation, which only helped a little. We ended up getting the special – Iberian pork steak. The waiter told us it was a baby, so it was red meat – like beef. Um, ok. It actually tasted good and was definitely more like steak than pork. I tried not to think about it and ate it. We had to get back because it was midnight and we had to wake up at 2am for the Cavs game.

I will leave you with more photos of the best view in all of Spain:

 (Borrowed from a postcard)

Tomorrow: Adam looks for the barber of Seville

xoxo

Spain Day Two: Gaudy, But We Love It!

Bull Fighting Ring, Barcelona

We started the day by grabbing pastries and coffee from the bakery directly next door to our hotel, then catching the Hop On Hop Off bus. This open-top bus costs 28 euros for 24 hours and is the most convenient way to see a lot of Barcelona on a tight schedule. It also comes with a pretty decent audio tour, in English. We rode on the top deck and saw the old harbor, beaches, Olympic Village, a bullfighting ring, the famous Barcelona building I call “the bullet,” a modernist hospital, a Frank Gehry-designed hotel and sculpture, and a lot more.

"the bullet"

Our destination was Park Guell, on the far edge of town. We got off the bus and walked 15 minutes to the park ticket office, only to learn that the next available tickets were for 6pm. It was noon. We hiked back, got back on the bus, and went to the other Gaudi building we wanted to see – La Padrera.

The roof of La Padrera, looking down into the center courtyard;

"storm troopers" on the left

La Padrera is an amazing apartment building that looks like melting ice cream – all curvy shapes and soft edges. Gaudi said that rooftops should be beautiful too – not just functional. So we began our tour on the roof, where he designed a series of sculptural chimneys, stairwell exits and antennae covers. Adam said they looked like storm troopers. The ones topped with broken champagne bottles are obviously based on a certain male body part. Gaudi did base all his designs on nature!

ummmm...

The arches on the rooftop were built to frame Gaudi’s masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia. 

Arch framing La Sagrada Familia, way in the distance

We descended the stairs and entered an actual apartment. It was huge! Way bigger than I expected. It encircled the center courtyard and took up an entire floor, so it had natural light from both sides. People still live on other floors in the building. Can you even imagine living in a Gaudi building? I mean, the guy has a commonly used word (gaudy) based entirely on his name and design style. How cool!

Next we stopped for tapas along the Passeig de Gracia, and I ordered pasta because I was tapas-ed out.  We walked to the Placa de Catalunya, the huge square in the center of the city, and sat for a bit to watch pigeons and people taking selfies. Then we strolled down Ramblas, which was incredibly crowded, so we dipped into the Gothic Quarter and found a quiet square on which to enjoy some gelato.

After strolling and shopping a bit, we grabbed a cab back to Park Guell for our 6pm ticket time. Park Guell is a Gaudi-designed housing development that was started, but never finished. It is basically the grounds that were going to have houses built on site, but the houses never followed. Everything in the park is covered with broken tiles. We saw the salamander, which is the symbol of the city, and the serpent shaped bench that winds for hundreds of meters around a huge vaulted space that overlooks all of Barcelona. 

The grounds also feature a grotto built entirely of stone, part of which Gaudi designed to look like you are inside the barrel of a wave. Overall, Park Guell was well worth the extra effort and cost it took to get there. We agreed we were glad we had gone.

The Wave

We headed back to the hotel and vowed to hold out until 9pm to eat dinner, as that is when the restaurants start to fill up. It was still light outside when we left the hotel at 9:30. WTF Spain? We are used to darkness falling at 8:30, not 10pm. It was weird! No wonder people eat so late!

Strolling past the cathedral, just as people have done for 800 years

Cool street art, made up of thousands of tiny photos

We had dinner at 10pm at a place called Taller de Tapas, which was also very good. I had white sangria instead of red this time. We had salads, bread, cheese, meat that was cooked in a pot with chilis and garlic – it all was delicious!

Back at the hotel, we went to the rooftop one last time and said goodnight to Barcelona.

"the bullet" in the distance

Tomorrow: The road trip begins!

xoxo