Ronda – Part Two

 

 

After a couple of days of taking it easy here, we wandered around the city, as in a-round.  The weather has cooled off a bit and we’ve had a little rain.  We went down into the valley from where we are staying and walked along the base of the plateau through pleasant farmland and pastures.  The route took us along some narrow cobblestone streets and over the old Roman bridge where we could look up at the old walled ramparts and the Moorish castle.

 

 

We made our way over to the gorge spanned by the Puente Nuevo and started the hike up to town.  Some great views on the way up and hopefully some of the photos turned out.  The whole trek didn’t take all that long but it was a good cardio work out.  Our airBNB host had invited us to stop by the hotel where she works as the head chef so she could show us the great views from the terrace and so we did just that since we were walking right by it.  The hotel is perched right on the edge of the gorge and yes, the views are pretty nice.  Too bad the camera died!  Someone forgot to re-charge it 😊.

 

 

Our host sat us down on the terrace (we had the whole restaurant to ourselves) and offered us a beer which sounded real nice since we were hot and sweaty after the hike.  She then proceeded to bring out some tapas which she had made.  A pleasant surprise, totally unexpected and the food was delicious.  And it kept coming.  So did the beer.  The maître d’ also came over and we all chatted in broken spanglish about the city, area real estate, and general life here.  We finally had to say that was enough ‘cause we were stuffed and we also weren’t sure what the bill was going to be as this was a posh hotel.  When we tried to pay for it, we were told no, it was on the house as we were guests.  Wow!  And to top it all off before we left, she then brought out dessert, chocolate lava cake with ice cream.  OMG!

 

 

At one point in the conversation I asked if one of the dishes was a local variant of paella which it turned out it was not but our host does make it at home.  Teresa mumbled something about wanting a recipe for a good paella, but I think that got translated as I want to eat some of your paella, so we are heading out to her country farm house tomorrow for both the recipe and the eating.  We didn’t argue.  Did I mention that we like it here?