The White Hils Towns of Spain September 26

Tom and I spent the day exploring the "White hill towns" of southern Spain.


Our first stop was Ronda. Ronda is famous for it's location on the edge of an enormous gorge.

The "new" bridge over the gorge was completed in 1793.The bridge has two piers that decend 300 feet to the bottom of the gorge.

Puente Nuevo was the bridge Ernest Hemingway wrote about in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Civil war prisoners were hurled to their death from this bridge.



After Ronda we were off to Grazelema.We passed through a Cork grove in the Sierra de Grazelema Natural Park.


We first spotted a business that was selling something that resembled giant terra cotta roof tiles. As we puzzled what it might have been, we approached the grove of Cork trees, and then we knew. They were selling giant sheets of Cork that had been cut from the trees.

You did know that wine corks (and cork boards ;) ) come from the bark of the Cork tree, right?



We enjoyed a Cafe con Leche and a Cruz Campo in the square at Grazelema before venturing around the town. It is very charming with it's whitewashed buildings and labrynthian streets.



Last stop for the day was Arcos de Fronterra, another whitewashed hill town.

We parked in a local neighborhood and hiked (yikes!) to the top of the town, while being passed along the way by locals heading home for the day on the scooters and in cars that must require new clutches (for the uphill) and new brakes (for the downhill) constantly.The streets are narrow and were created long before Henry Ford came along, so it seems improbable that automobiles could navigate these streets, and yet they do. In case you ever find your self in this same situation, a word of advice: know where the closest doorway is at all times because when a car approaches, you will most likely need to step up into the doorway so there will be space for the oncoming car to pass you ;)