Ronda and Malaga

This past weekend our program went on an excursion to two cities in Southern Spain, Ronda and Malaga. We went to Ronda for the afternoon and toured the city. It was one of the most charming cities I've been to thus far in Spain. It is much smaller, and in my opinion, much prettier. Ronda itself wasn't on the map to English speakers until recently. Ernest Hemingway wrote a novel called For Whom the Bell Tolls which takes place in Ronda, bringing the small town to the attention of travelers all over the world. The bridge that Hemingway writes about is in the center of town and there is now an entire portion of the city dedicated to him. The English major in me was excited yet again by the literary influences on the cities we visit... although I think I was the only one in our group to get much excitement out of it.

While in Ronda we visited Los Banos Arabes, the Arab baths, and they were very cool. They are one of the few baths that mimic the Roman baths in their entirety. They have three separate rooms, the hot room, the warm room and cool room. The baths are located outside of the city walls, so that people would cleanse themselves before entering the city. The arabic inhabitants washed themselves five times a day and frequented the baths often, men in the morning and women and children in the afternoon. But when the Christians conquered southern spain the history of the baths changed completely. The Christians did not look favorably upon bathing like the Arabs did and the baths were no longer used by the community, but instead denounced as a center for prostitutes... so impressive how something can change so drastically depending upon the way you look at it.

We also visited a mansion in Ronda that had spectacular views of the valleys below and a beautiful garden. People were much smarter in the way they engineered houses in those days, creating inside patios and gardens as natural air conditioners. The houses we have visited are a good ten degrees cooler inside without using any air conditioning. We've been told their streets are so narrow, so as to block the sun from coming in through the windows and keeping the house itself cooler throughout the day. Here I was thinking they just didn't like wide streets...

After visiting Ronda we drove to Malaga that afternoon. We went with a small group of friends to the beach to watch the sunset that night. The water is incredibly warm on the Mediterranean coast. At eight oclock at night we could have easily gone in the water and been more comfortable than in San Diego beaches during the heat of the day.

The next day in Malaga we went on a long tour of the city. We visited the mother of the Alhambra in Granada, Alcazaba. The Alcazaba had more Roman influence than the Alhambra in Granada which was a neat difference between the two. Alcazaba has an old Roman theatre which was very cool and incorporated Roman columns in to the building, setting it apart from the Alhambra. Generally speaking however it looked like an extension of the Alhambra. Beautiful.

Malaga was a beautiful beach city. There were parks everywhere stretching along the Port. The city itself is older than Rome! So you can imagine the amount of history within the city. Unfortunately as the city grew they tore down a lot of the old Arabic neighborhoods to build outward, so a lot of the original city has been lost. Malaga itself is situated on a hill that runs in to the ocean, so instead of continuing to build over the mountain thousands of years ago, they filled in sand to extend the land mass out in to the water. Our hotel would have been under water had they not expanded the city so long ago. It is so nice to learn so much history about the surrounding cities while we are here. It continues to enrich our stay here :)

The pictures are of the bridge Hemingway wrote about, the view from Ronda and the roman theater.