6.16.2014
Beautiful tiles under the balconies of a building in Ronda
The next town is Grazalerma. The road is climbing up to even higher plateaus as it gets more and more narrow; but the reward is spectacular; a beautiful white washed facade of a mountain top town. the tiny town is established at the brink of a steep cliff; it looks like half the cliff is earth color and the top half is white, which is the town itself! We love it, we have a leisurely tea at a tucked in cafe, we find a gem of a gift store. I buy incense, a lovely bowl, a horseshoe, and two other plates for my friends and family members. They will be tucked into my luggage carefully until we reach Iowa. I don't know at that point that my plan will unfortunately not materialize since all our luggage will be stolen from our locked rental car the very next day. Only the horseshoe, which I bought for Emmett's restaurant will survive the robbery for the simple fact that, I will forget to put it into my luggage...
Santa Maria La Major Church in Ronda
When we finally leave Grazalerma, it is already 8 pm and there is no way we can visit another town if we want to be sensible and choose not to drive down this steep mountain range in the dark. We decide to be sensible girls and start heading down right away to find a lovely place to eat by the water again in our good old Marbella coastal line. We discover that right at the end of the mountain road is San Pedro, a small town in the vicinity of Marbella and right by the water. We don't have too long of a discussion before we decide that San Pedro is our destination tonight. We appreciate that it is much smaller and more cozy than Marbella. As we head down to the shore, a woman and her daughter stop us, they are selling a box of cherries, clearly the last box of the day, at least four pounds of cherries, she asks only for 4 Euros. Zeynep murmurs "Universe heard us, we wanted to have fruit, see, here is fruit for you". I smile and gratefully drop the two 2E coins in the mother's palm, who smiles back at me as gratefully. Now we are proud owners of four pounds of cherries.
We find a restaurant, again the last one on the beach called "Bora Bora": This reminds me of Sadun Bora, a Turkish botman, who had crossed Atlantic in a relatively small boat when I was a child. As we have the best dinner of our stay; zeynep pasta with seafood and I a seabream "cupura" in turkish, dorado in Spanish, I keep gong back to my childhood images of Sadun Bora with his daily pictures broadcast on the newspapers... Our food: todos delicioso... We take another long walk along the coast and head toward our hotel with our ambitious plan of heading toward Granada in the morning and to Cordoba the following day...
We will go up to the mountains to see the pueblos blancos (white villages) today, we are both very excited. Ronda, Grazalerma, Zahara, Jeher are some of the jewel towns recommended, we don't know how much of it we can cover in one day and we don't want to take too much risk with driving up and down the mountains, especially after dark, either. Soon after our departure from Marbella following a lovely breakfast in the old town, we realize that, perhaps, it is too ambitious a plan for one day.
Mountains of Andalucia hiding the Pueblos Blancas
Jeher is totally out of the picture since it will almost take us to the Atlantic Ocean. We settle down with the possibility of visiting Ronda, Grazalerma, and Zahara, that should be good. The road soon starts climbing up the mountains and the temperature starts dropping. It is a beautiful drive, of course when Zeynep, my daughter is the driver, it is more enjoyable for me to watch my surroundings. The drive reminds me lots of similar drives in Turkey when one has to come from inland and cross passes across the Taurus mountains separating central Anatolia from the Mediterranean or when moving from one coastal town along the Aegean to the next, separated from one another with low standing hills and mini-mountains stretching perpendicular to the coastal line. I feel very much at home.
First glimpse of Ronda from the south
We finally spot Ronda through the hiatus between two hilltops. It is indeed a very very sweet scene; against gray/brown backdrop, the buildings of town, all white washed, create a serene, pure, inviting panaroma, we are excited and feel "we are finally there". As we get closer, we realize that some stone facades are preserved in especially historic buildings. What is most interesting is that there is a long, steep canyon cutting through the middle of town:
Some stone structures are preserved among all the white wash
Three bridges hanging between the two rims of the canyon like precious necklaces connect the meadows stretching before us with the old town: Arab bridge, old bridge, and new bridge, the latter is the most impressive of the three over the deepest section of the gorge. We start walking through the old town, enjoying the castle, the palace on Santa Mayor, the meadows stretching toward the direction we came in the distance... We walk along the city walls and back and forth across the bridges and finally go down to the bottom of the gorge to have lunch at Francisco's place: We have a very good craten with asparagus and salmon as well as a red pepper tuna dish along with bread, olive oil and olives of course. Bread, olive oil and olives have already become our staple food before all other dishes and will continue to be so during the next several days.
The steep gorge cutting across town in Ronda
By the time, we are done with our visit, we realize that all we know about where our car is that it is in a public parking space across from a hotel, the name of which we cannot recall and it is close to the entrance from Marbella direction. How mesmerized we must have been with the pueblo blanca that was awaiting us to discover, we never looked at the markers! We need to ask somebody. We enter a store, I ask the gentleman the gentleman "Habla Anglais?" "si", great! I start explaining to him that we entered town from Marbella direction not realizing my description is at 17th grade level not 5th grade, my daughter remarks to me while she cracks up with the bewildered look at the man's face. OK, I get it, he doesn't get it, I guess I overestimated his English skills or he did. It turns out his English is no better than my Spanish, and I don't claim I speak Spanish.
Zeynep picks up the button and starts in Spanish, it looks like he is getting it better now and starts using his hands to direct us toward where we need to be. Beautiful tiles under the balconies of a building in Ronda
Having lost my trust in him, I am not very hopeful still, wishing he is guiding us in the right direction. We pass through an impressive city center where we discover the grandeur of the new bridge and finally find ourselves on a familiar street that we had passed before. On the way to, though, I notice the beauty of the undersurface of the balconies of buildings: They are all made of tile with beautiful design and colors! Zeynep will show me in Seville as well how almost all old buildings have not only tile ornaments on the front wall but also underneath all balconies. Walking facing up to the sky pays off in the towns of Andalucia as long as you don't fall into an unexpected hole! Zeynep, our guide finally finds our way to the car: the hotel's name is Hotel de Andalucia: Daaa... We chuckle and get in the car with joy to head to the second town in line.
Arco de Felipe V letting one get into the white town
The next town is Grazalerma. The road is climbing up to even higher plateaus as it gets more and more narrow; but the reward is spectacular; a beautiful white washed facade of a mountain top town. the tiny town is established at the brink of a steep cliff; it looks like half the cliff is earth color and the top half is white, which is the town itself! We love it, we have a leisurely tea at a tucked in cafe, we find a gem of a gift store. I buy incense, a lovely bowl, a horseshoe, and two other plates for my friends and family members. They will be tucked into my luggage carefully until we reach Iowa. I don't know at that point that my plan will unfortunately not materialize since all our luggage will be stolen from our locked rental car the very next day. Only the horseshoe, which I bought for Emmett's restaurant will survive the robbery for the simple fact that, I will forget to put it into my luggage...
Santa Maria La Major Church in Ronda
When we finally leave Grazalerma, it is already 8 pm and there is no way we can visit another town if we want to be sensible and choose not to drive down this steep mountain range in the dark. We decide to be sensible girls and start heading down right away to find a lovely place to eat by the water again in our good old Marbella coastal line. We discover that right at the end of the mountain road is San Pedro, a small town in the vicinity of Marbella and right by the water. We don't have too long of a discussion before we decide that San Pedro is our destination tonight. We appreciate that it is much smaller and more cozy than Marbella. As we head down to the shore, a woman and her daughter stop us, they are selling a box of cherries, clearly the last box of the day, at least four pounds of cherries, she asks only for 4 Euros. Zeynep murmurs "Universe heard us, we wanted to have fruit, see, here is fruit for you". I smile and gratefully drop the two 2E coins in the mother's palm, who smiles back at me as gratefully. Now we are proud owners of four pounds of cherries.
Grazalerma, another quaint white washed town
We find a restaurant, again the last one on the beach called "Bora Bora": This reminds me of Sadun Bora, a Turkish botman, who had crossed Atlantic in a relatively small boat when I was a child. As we have the best dinner of our stay; zeynep pasta with seafood and I a seabream "cupura" in turkish, dorado in Spanish, I keep gong back to my childhood images of Sadun Bora with his daily pictures broadcast on the newspapers... Our food: todos delicioso... We take another long walk along the coast and head toward our hotel with our ambitious plan of heading toward Granada in the morning and to Cordoba the following day...
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| Not only balcony undersurface but also building entrances are donned with beautiful tiles |
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