Friday, May 22, 2020

Virtual Tour of Spain: Days Twelve to Fifteen: Ronda (May 19-22, 2020)

Welcome to our "Virtual Tour of Spain" May 8 to 22, 2020!
FINAL POST of our Virtual Tour!
Days Twelve to Fifteen: 
Tuesday, May 19 to Thursday, May 21, 2020
Train to Ronda, Walking the Town
Friday, May 22, 2020: Return Flight to US!
Gorgeous drone flyover of the hilltop town of Ronda, from the nearly three-minute YouTube video, below, or visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6415ZBirbk

Hello everyone!  A bit of change in plans on our final segment of our Virtual Tour of Spain: On our original Spain travel itinerary, we had planned to travel from Ronda today (May 22) back to Malaga for an evening RyanAir flight to Marrakech, Morocco, for a four-day visit there.  But we are wrapping up our Virtual Tour to return to the US TODAY,  Friday, May 22, sooooo .... we took the direct train from Ronda's station last night (Thursday, May 21) at 4:31pm and arrived into Madrid Atocha station at 8:35pm.  Our Thursday overnight stay in Madrid was at the charming Hostal Patria (NOT a "hostel" but a boutique hotel).  Then today (Friday May 22) we leave Madrid on Iberia at 3:50pm and arrive back into Washington Dulles, non-stop, at 6:40pm.

Our last post in our fifteen-day "Virtual Tour of Spain" will concentrate on Ronda.  This will be my first visit; Cecilia visited here 34 years ago, so second-time visit for her.  On Tuesday (May 19) we left Malaga at 9:39am, and arrived into Ronda at 12:36pm. By car, the route from Malaga to Ronda is only 65 miles, but our train route goes a more circuitous route spanning three hours! The train route is gorgeous, hugging the coast.  See the train route in the Google Maps view, below:

Train from Malaga to Ronda


Ronda is a fitting capstone to our Virtual Tour of Spain.  It is set high on a mountain over the deep gorge "El Tajo."  Ronda's history spans from its prehistoric roots (cave paintings from the Neolithic period) to its settlement by early Celts in the sixth century BC, its Roman occupation in 218BC, becoming a city at the time of Julius Caesar, and its Moorish roots in the 800's on one side of the gorge to its more "modern" middle-ages-to-present town on the other side of the gorge.  You can best appreciate this amazing location by way of a drone flight over Ronda which is where we'll start our final Virtual Tour post, today.

Drone Flyover of Ronda


Next is a 12-minute tour of Ronda, narrated in Spanish, from Canal Andalucia Turismo: (You can turn on closed-captioning by hovering over the video and clicking on the "CC" at the bottom.  To convert to an English auto-translation, click on the "settings" wheel, select closed caption and auto-translate and pick English).


Next is Rick Steve's tour through Ronda:


Finally, I'm happy to welcome back Ruben who first took us on his great YouTube visit through el Rastro in Madrid, now here for a trek through Ronda: (You can turn on closed-captioning by hovering over the video and clicking on the "CC" at the bottom.  To convert to an English auto-translation, click on the "settings" wheel, select closed caption and auto-translate and pick English).



Google Walking Orientation Map of Ronda:
Here's our orientation map of the center of Ronda, with the Google Maps satellite view showing the amazing layout of this mountaintop town. We begin our walk from the Bullring, then go onward to the Puente Viejo spanning the gorge that separates the town, then to the "Arab baths" archaeological site, and conclude our walk at the Fuente de los Ocho Caños:



Virtual Walk: Along Calle Virgen de los Remedios to Puente Viejo
From our Ronda "headquarters" -- the Apartamentos Rondacentro -- we head towards Calle Virgen de los Remedios and head southeast toward Calle Escolleras, then turn right onto Calle Escolleras, slight left to stay on Calle Escolleras and then we arrive at the ancient Puente Viejo. Walking time is a mere 7 minutes!


Tech notes about navigating in Google Street Views: When viewing the "Virtual Tour of Spain" daily entries on a phone, you may find that you can get "stuck" within a Google Street View while you are swiping up or down on the page. That's because the Google Street View image is live and responds to your finger swiping. Just swipe up or down on the LEFT or RIGHT MARGINS (outside of the Street View image), and your navigation up or down the page continues normally.

Return to US: Friday afternoon, May 22, 2020
By Thursday night, we took our train from Ronda to Madrid's Atocha station -- about four hours. We take advantage of our last night in Madrid with a tapas walk, again, along Cava Baja. TODAY, Friday, May 22, we take Iberia's 3:50pm flight to Washington, arriving at Dulles Airport at 6:40pm.
That's our DAYS TWELVE to FIFTEEN, with our many memories over these past fifteen days!

Thank you, thank you for joining us on our "Virtual Tour of Spain" ... one we will be using ourselves as a guide and roadmap for our "Live Tour of Spain" hopefully in 2021.

Stay safe, everyone, and looking forward to seeing you soon in our "Virtual Reunion" today (May 22) at 5pm Eastern Time via Zoom. You'll receive personal invitations with the Zoom meeting link.

Abrazos
--Don

LINKS to TODAY's AND ALL PRIOR DAYS's
"VIRTUAL TOUR OF SPAIN" POSTS
Links to today's post and prior days of our Virtual Tour of Spain:

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