Ronda

I never got around to posting yesterday.  I suppose I should have written something sentimental about it being my last day of classes, but I''m still processing my feelings on that.  And I was just really tired.  Kind of like I am now.  So I'll probably let the pictures do most of the talking today.

Today I got up earlier than I would have liked to go with the school on an excursion to Ronda.  It's the old city in Andalucía, home of the oldest preserved bull ring in Spain.  It has a lot of the architecture and such that you see in other cities in Andalucía, such as Córdoba and Granada.  It was under the control of Arab kings before the Christian kings came in and took over I believe.  I'm sure I've told you a similar story before.  It's at a higher elevation than Sevilla and being up in the mountains a bit it had defensive advantages in battles and conquests and such.  There's also some pretty good views.

We walked across puente nuevo, which means new bridge.  Apparently when it was first built it collapsed and people died so they had to redo it.  And make it better obviously.  But it seems to be holding up ok now.

We also went to the museo municipal de Ronda which used to be some palace I believe.  It had some cool architecture, some pretty gardens, and some good views.

Next stop was the baños arabes or arabic baths.  People used to go there to relax.  There was an area with cold water pools and then an area with warm water and then hot water which was basically just all steam and there were people that gave massages and such it sounds like.  Sounded pretty good to me.

To get back to the other part of town we walked across the old bridge.

And saw the new bridge in the distance.

Then it was time for lunch and free time.  We got something simple and boring for lunch and then got some ice cream and walked around eating that.  Then we just spent some more time taking in the view.

The last stop of the day was the bull ring.  It's the oldest in Spain of the ones that are still around.  And it's apparently got fancier architecture than most bull rings.  I still need to go to the one in Sevilla so I can compare.

Then it was back on the bus and back to the house.  We had pizza and french fries for dinner.  It was like being back home.  Except of course for the glass of wine we had with it...

And now I'm really tired.  It was a long day of walking around outside and I'm really excited to be able to sleep in and take it easy tomorrow.