![]() ![]() A renovated mill beneath Benaojan a mile south of Montejaque, Molino del Santo has rivulets trickling around palms on the terrace and fountains tinkling into mossy pools. Nevertheless, no late-summer fiesta is now complete without young men in fancy dress restaging a romanticised battle of Old Spain. Not entirely true, of course – many were simply murderous thieves. They appeared on cigarette cards and in penny-thrillers, romantic outlaws who fed the poor by robbing the rich. In the early days of the Grand Tour, Andalusian bandoleros, or bandits, had a reputation as the Robin Hoods of a still-feudal region. Lanes climb steeply, swerve then tumble back downhill. The centre is a snakes-and-ladders place. Montejaque beyond is a pool of white cupped by peaks, its terracotta roofs like ripples. It hangs in the gloom above an altar draped in lace. I reach the pass, a wild, remote place of holm oak and silver-blue agave channelled between mountains, to find the painting in a hermitage. Isolation seems just as likely a saviour, though. They say it became heavier as the procession ascended until the statue-bearers felt pressed to the ground. In the 17th century its villagers carried their miracle-working painting of the Virgin to help cure Ronda of plague. I’m heading into those mountains to reach Montejaque. For a giddy moment I’m in the Spain of Laurie Lee. As I eat, the thonk of bells draws my eyes towards sheep in a distant olive grove, trailed by a shepherd in jeans. At one point I pause to pick velvet-soft figs from a tree. The view broadens as I ascend: muscular hills that shine with a fierce bronze light Ronda behind like a chalk line drawn along the top of its cliff. Ahead, west, are hills rippling to a bandsaw of blue-grey mountains. Behind me tourists in horse-drawn carriages hold selfie sticks and a group trails an umbrella-wielding guide. In Ronda I stand on Puente Nuevo, the bridge over the gorge. ![]() Plus, although these are self-guided walks (guides are provided for cultural visits), so detailed are your GPS maps, it requires effort to get lost. Luggage goes ahead by taxi and not only is no walk more than ten miles – and these are certainly walks rather than hikes – but also each ends at a small hotel serving something chilled and delicious. I know what you’re thinking: sweaty hikes and arguments about who misread the map? No, gracias. A new trip combining walks and culture from the sustainable travel specialist Pura Aventura through the Serrania de Ronda seemed just the ticket. To “smell the different soils”, as Laurie Lee put it in his Spanish memoir As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. I figured the way to find it was to follow their example and travel on foot. It’s the country of pueblos blancos and half-remembered battles and scenery of savage beauty the one that attracted Grand Tour visitors such as Disraeli and Irving long before anyone had thought of the Costa del Sol. You won’t find it written on signposts but, like the crackle of duende during a flamenco concert, you’ll know it when you experience it. Expect visitor numbers to grow again when a £1.1 million suspended gorge walk, the Camino del Desfiladero del Tajo designed by the architect behind Malaga’s Caminito del Rey, opens later this year.Įven so, what everyone is really coming to Ronda for – to inland Andalusia – is Old Spain. He’s still right, so long as you’re happy to share your precious moment with massed day-trippers from the Costa del Sol. If you’re in the mood for romance, nowhere in Spain comes close, Ernest Hemingway reckoned. Its cat’s cradle of white streets is haunted by the ghosts of Moorish princes, soundtracked by the strum of guitars and the tinkle of fountains. Teetering at the edge of the Tajo river gorge, Ronda, 90 minutes’ drive west from Malaga, remains the most spectacular urban setting in Europe. Around the same period, Washington Irving marvelled at its moonlit houses along a misty ravine. ![]() “I have searched everywhere for the city of dreams,” he wrote after wandering far from Paris to overcome writers’ block, “and found it here, in Ronda.” He wasn’t the first to do so.Įighty years earlier a 26-year-old Benjamin Disraeli wrote awestruck letters home about the mountain air and sunrises over the Andalusian town (actually, the sunsets are more impressive). In 1913 the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke experienced a vision. Sunday October 15 2023, 12.01am, The Sunday Times ![]()
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