Nuestra Señora del Socorro

Ronda sits on each side of the 100 metre deep El Tajo gorge. Its most famous attraction is the “New Bridge”. Finally completed in 1793 after forty years of construction, the scary yet beautiful Puente Nuevo is Ronda’s most famous attraction. It connects up El Mercadillo (The Market), the newer part of town, with La Ciudad (The Town), the old Moorish quarter and is breathtaking. So dangerous was its construction that 50 workers lost their lives in the process.
Ronda is the birthplace of the modern Spanish bullfight and the hometown of its greatest dynasty. It was here, during the 18th century, that Francisco Romero faced the bull on foot for the first time, rather on horseback. Today, two of the most famous practitioners of the style pioneered by Romero are Cayetano and Francisco Rivera Ordoñez, whose grandfather featured in Hemingway‘s A Dangerous Summer.

We arrived in Rhonda uneventfully parking our car in an underground close to Rhonda Central Hotel. This was an accommodation that had a check in desk between 1600-2000 hrs approximately. Very pleasant young woman to check us in and this was the most modern and spacious accommodation thus far. We were right in the centre of Rhonda, near the "modern birthplace of the Bullring (Torres de Rhonda) that is 450 years young, now turned museum. Youtube videos and photos do not do justice to the dramatic setting of this town. It has all the charms of a small Spanish town and the river gorge it is built around makes every part of it truly spectacular. There are a lot of places to walk around, up and down including a part that is quite old that you can see from the top view and we had a bit of an explore. Nancy was taken by a large yellow stuccoed building, ripe for a major reno and one wonders when this was a last a lux place that those young people doing a tour of Europe during the time of industrialization in the 1800s. Overall, a lot of atmosphere and romance...who could not fall in love with the flowers, promenades, interesting and varied vistas and mix of old and evolving here. We left wishing we could stay at least another day. Ernest Hemingway especially loved Ronda and it served as an inspiration for some of his work; we can see why.Read more