So as we need to be at Malaga airport to pick up Marcus by 8:40pm on Thursday evening, we had to be making our way back down to the coast so Dave suggested a place that I thought only existed in Wales 🏴 – a place called Ronda.
Dave sorted The Van (emptied dirty water & refilled with clean, etc) first thing at the Seville AutoCaravan place, we had brekky then set off for Ronda. It wasn’t that far but Dave spotted a Van-Wash place on the way (& stopped to give it a go as he said he was embarrassed because everybody else’s van was cleaner than his !!!) so it took a couple of hours or so in total.
The Ronda AutoCaravan site was pretty central & only about 2km from all the places we wanted to visit so we had a cup of tea, planned a cycle route and then set off on the bikes.
It was pretty chilly 🥶 but still fairly sunny 😎 and we’re used to it now – layers are the only way forward !!!
First stop was Plaza de Toros de Ronda – an 18th century bullfighting ring 🐂. It seats almost 5,000 people and the bullring itself is 66 metres in diameter & is the largest in Spain 🇪🇸 !!!
It was an €8 entry fee each and we had the English audio guide & map which were excellent. It talked us through the history & architecture of the building (see the Royal Box up in the stands below) as well as the evolution & art of bullfighting. We saw where the bull pens were (which weren’t very big – I’m standing outside in the corridor on the way to the ring – and then in the one of the actual pens) & the journey the bulls made into the ring…
{ I hadn’t realised that the bull always met it’s death in the ring – and actually now feel quite sorry for the poor animals… 😞 }
And there has only ever been ONE matador death in the Ronda Bullring…
There are big boards strategically placed around the ring that the matador could hide behind (see me below in a “Chad” piccie – “Wot. No Bull ?” 😂)
There was also a museum displaying bullfighting regalia & important outfits, etc. (check out the SIZE of the hip flasks in the final piccie 😂).
It was a really interesting couple of hours that we both thoroughly enjoyed 😊
