Sightseeing in Ronda

Plaza de Toros

Ronda’s principal attraction is its dazzling white Plaza de Toros, which is impossible to miss, situated just off Plaza Teniente Arce and precariously perched near the edge of the cliff. In the world of Spanish bullfighting, there is Ronda and then, as they say, there are all of the other cities. Its Plaza de Toros is one of the oldest in Spain, completed in 1785 during a period when the sport was experiencing rapid changes due in large part to a family from Ronda. The inaugural bullfight featured Pedro Romero (1754-1839) of Ronda, the spearhead of a new style of fighting and the leading icon of bullfighting still today. Pedro’s grandfather Francisco was the first to use a red cape to manipulate the bulls. Pedro’s father Juan incorporated the cuadrilla, a group of horseback riders that would assist the matador. During his own career, Pedro Romero would bring the sport and the city everlasting fame by sending almost 6,000 bulls to the slaughterhouse before he retired, unharmed. His style of maintaining a death-defying proximity to the bulls helped to establish what is known as the Ronda School of bullfighting.

Ronda’s roots in the sport date to 1572 when King Felipe II established the Real Maestranza de Caballería de Ronda to train soldiers in horsemanship. Because of their ferocity when provoked, bulls were often used in training. It didn’t take long before the contest had evolved and begun to draw crowds. Among those spectators who would later be seduced by the sport were Orson Welles, who himself had trained at an early age to be a bullfighter, and Ernest Hemingway. You’ll see their likenesses in the bullfighting museum and on the nearby ceramic street signs that have been named for them. They are the favored foreign sons of Ronda, great fans of the Ordóñez family of bullfighters that would carry Ronda’s reputation through the 20th century. The statues of Cayetano Ordóñez and his son Antonio can be admired outside the plaza. Hemingway’s contribution to the sport were his books, The Sun Also Rises and Death in the Afternoon. "If there is one place to see a bullfight in Spain," he wrote, "it is at the Plaza de Toros in Ronda."

The Plaza de Toros is open Nov.-Feb. 10 am-6 pm, Mar.-April 10 am-7 pm and May-Oct. 10 am-8 pm. Entry to the ring and the Museo Taurino is 4.50i. The country’s most popular bullfights are held at the beginning of September during the corridas goyescas, in which the 19th-century costumes immortalized by Goya in his painting of the Romeros, Tauromachy (a print of this work is on display in the bullfighting museum). These fights were inaugurated by the Ordóñez family to correspond with the Fería de Pedro Romero.

After visiting the Plaza de Toros, walk through the Alameda del Tajo, the city park next door, and to the edge of the gorge. The view of the valley spreading out before this mirador to the west is expansive; the river far below cuts a green ribbon at the foot of the cliff. Follow the paseo around this edge in the direction of the Plaza de Toros. The Paseo de Blas Infante is another garden area with terrific viewpoints. Hike up and around the Parador and, wrapping around it, look on to the old city across the most impressive aspect of the gorge. The Parador was once the town hall, the setting of a gruesome civil war scene depicted in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. Though his book was a work of fiction, the event was anything but. A group of the city’s accused fascists were rounded up and herded into the town hall as two lines of townspeople assembled outside. One-by-one the condemned were forced to walk the gauntlet; along the way they were clubbed, stoned and beaten. At the end of this human tunnel lay the cliff, where, one after another, each fascist was either tossed or leaped to his death.

Just ahead is the 18th-century Puente Nuevo, the symbol of the town rising over 300 feet from the Guadalevín River below. Housed inside it is the Centro Interpretación del Puente Nuevo, which details the bridge’s construction process.