Ronda

We’d planned to leave the camp site in Torremolinos on Monday, but decided to chill out for another day and so we left there this morning. First stop was to be the nearby Carrefour hypermarket, as we need to get a few household bits and bobs as well as food, but we were caught out again as this was another supermarket with height restrictions on the car park. Next time we’ll have to check it out on Street View beforehand!

Today’s stop was Ronda (I only realised today that it is spelt without a ‘h’ – oops!) so we continued on our way. Seeing a roadside sign for another Carrefour hypermarket, we left the motorway, but the lack of subsequent signage meant that we instead ended up in Aldi for our food shopping.

Back on the motorway, we drove past the Carrefour we’d been looking for, and continued to Marbella. The road was really busy, so I was pleased when we turned inland to head over the mountains. As we’ll soon be entering Portugal, and neither of us can speak a word of Portuguese, we played a language course on the van’s stereo as we drove along. As we climbed the mountain, the views were superb.

We parked up on the outskirts of Ronda, high up on a cliff with a wonderful view. Before long we were in the old town – the Plaza de Toros, then the Plaza España and next to that the focal point of the town, the Puente Nuevo which crosses the deep gorge below.

We crossed the bridge, and then followed the path down into the gorge. At first it wasn’t so steep, and the cobbled footpath was in a good state of repair, but as we went further down the path became much steeper, giving way to bare rocks, so we stopped at a viewpoint more than half way down before turning back. When we got to the top we enjoyed a well earned drink at the bar there!

We then wandered around the rest of the old town. There is a Puente Viejo, but it’s nowhere near as stunning. It’s a lovely place to go, very picturesque and definitely worth visiting, but there’s not that much to do other than sit outside a bar watching the world go by.

It was our original intention to stay in Ronda for the evening and then drive to Cádiz in the morning, but we’d have been camped out in a car park which was on quite a wonk, so not great. As it wasn’t much after 4pm we decided to change plans and drive to Cádiz, about 120 km away, as this will give us two full days in the City.

Before leaving, we raided the naughty cupboard where our snacks are kept, and as we drove along we ate the first of the four bags of Percy Pigs which we brought away with us. They were lush! Unfortunately that means we now only have three bags to last us until September.

We’re now parked up with nine other vans in a car park outside Cádiz, overlooking the river. A few hundred yards downstream there’s a catamaran shuttle to Cádiz, so tomorrow we’ll be on an early boat into town. We’re really looking forward to eating at the seafood restaurants there – roll on the morning!

The USB socket saga continues, and I had a very disappointing update from Knaus this afternoon. After telling me last week that they’d sent the USB sockets to the dealer in Sevilla, they have now said that these were out of stock and so weren’t sent after all. This means that we won’t be able to get this resolved whilst in Sevilla, and it’s now looking like we’ll have to get this fixed at a dealer in Portugal. It’s all so frustrating.

Mike