Cycling in Andalucia

As I have mentioned before, we had a couple of very positive experiences using buses in Spain. It is possible to take buses from Malaga to many other towns which makes it a good place to base yourself..

So during our last few days in Malaga, we did a day trip by bus to Ronda, in the Serrania de Ronda mountains just over 100 km to the east. We took a city bus to the Malaga bus station, located conveniently right near the city train station west of the centre of town, and then the longer haul bus from there. It was an interesting drive of a couple of hours with dramatic scenery and a few stops in small villages.

The Ronda bus station is in the “new” town and it was a short walk through the narrow streets to the El Tajo gorge and the Puente Nuevo bridge that lead into the old town. Ronda’s commercial sector, El Mercadillo is on one side of the bridge and the historic sector, La Ciudad is on the other. The bridge and the gorge are very dramatic features of Ronda.

It was still quiet in Ronda so we found a nice cafe in a plaza for a second breakfast before proceeding to the bridge and our exploration of this amazing town.

One of the oldest towns in Spain, Ronda has had different names throughout the centuries: the Celtic Arumda, the Roman Acinipo and the Moorish Izn-Rand Onda. The Guadalevin River bisects the town and has cut a 120 meter deep gorge. The two sides of the town are joined by the Puente Nuevo bridge which was built between 1751 and 1793.

In the photos below, the building with the many arches and the terrace overlooking the gorge, is the Parador of Ronda, the government-owned hotel where you can stay in splendor, though there appeared to be many other accommodation options.

The Puenta Nuevo bridge is pretty jaw-dropping and you wonder how it was even built over this deep ravine so long ago. It has been the site of many deaths - even the architect who designed it fell to his death during a inspection. Hemingway immortalized the bridge in For Whom the Bell Tolls wherein Civil War combatants threw one another off the bridge. There is a chamber above the central arch that was used as a prison. In fact, the entire first bridge, started in 1735, collapsed in 1741 killing 50 people. Construction of a new design began in 1759 and was completed 1793 - 34 years later. Perhaps we are unrealistic in expecting our big infrastructure projects to be finished quickly.

There are two other old bridges - the Puente Romano or Roman bridge from Moorish times and the Puente Viejo or old bridge built in the 17th C. There is lots of deep history here and nearby - 12 km from Ronda is the archaeological site of Acinipo where there is an almost completely intact Roman theatre. The Moors built city walls and gates and there are Moorish baths by the river. The Christians built churches over mosques and convents and there are many ancient mansion houses.

After crossing the Puente Nuevo bridge and walking through the old town for a bit, we found a little road leading down into the valley floor to the other two bridges, the Arab Bridge and the Roman bridge. We also walked past the Roman Baths but didn’t go in. There is an admission charge.

It was a really pleasant people-free walk in the lower area skirting the old walls along paths that circled the old town, looking up at the old mansions on the edge of the ravine, at the Puenta Nuevo bridge from below and eventually climbing the slopes back into the old town. Most people seemed to stay right around the Puente Nuevo.

We wandered through the old town’s narrow streets, looking into courtyard gardens and little artisan shops, wondering what it would be like to live there. Way too many tourists no doubt, of which we were two. We were glad to see the town off-season.

We crossed back over the Puente Nuevo to the “new town” side and into the Plaze des Toros, the bullring, one of the oldest in Spain. It was a Ronda native, Pedro Romero, who founded modern Spanish bullfighting, where the matadors are on foot rather than horseback. He apparently killed pver 5000 bulls in his lifetime, a questionable accomplishment, and Goya painted a picture of him in action, hence the name Goyesca for Ronda’s annual bullfighting fiesta. There is a bullfighting museum on the plaza and busts of Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles, who frequented Ronda for the bullfights.

Connected to the Plaza des Toros is a lovely park, the Alameda del Tajo with a public loo - yay! - and a long promenade with stunning views of the countryside far below and beyond. I got quite queasy looking down. This looked to be fairly recent construction and I think this was actually our favourite part; there was hardly another person there.

We enjoyed listening to this woman playing in this most inspirational of settings before making our way back to the bus station and the return trip to Malaga.

So I promised this would be my last “Cycling in Andalucia” blog post and it is. We had a couple more days in Malaga in beautiful weather, revisiting some favourite spots and getting ourselves organized for our very early flight home. Our bike van would be picking us up at 3:30 am.

We had a last late, long lunch - razor clams, octopus and grilled fish - at a seafood restaurant recommended by our host Julia.

The message on the sugar that came with my coffee for our last lunch said, “Nada Es Imposible” - Nothing is Impossible.

The people-watching is great on the promenade, including this couple lunching with their cat.

Then the bikes needed to be packed in our saved bike boxes and everything else along with the things we had bought went in our one checked hockey bag, which ended up being overweight, though surprisingly were were not charged anything extra by Air France. We’ll take two smaller bags next time.

In summary, between January 11 and March 6, we cycled 750 km, including day cycles, through Andalucía with 7000 meters of climbing. The weather was great - like early summer weather at home, perfect for cycling. We never cycled in rain and we had no wind which is always worse than rain. It really was the perfect winter cycling destination. Navigation was challenging at times with routes having to be figured out using various apps, and with a distinct lack of signage compared with other countries we have cycled in Europe. But the beauty of the countryside; the layers of history in the villages, towns and cities; the very social and colourful Spanish culture; the ease of finding great accommodation at very reasonable prices, inexpensive good food and drink; the warmth of people we met all made the occasional frustrations and difficulties worthwhile. We are hoping to return to Spain for another cycle this winter. Even though this blog has taken me a long time to finish, I have really enjoyed revisiting the places we saw and the experiences we had. Thank you for following along - I have appreciated your comments and company.

I’ll end with an ironic story. On arrival back at YVR, Jim and I were congratulating ourselves on a trip that concluded without any serious incidents - injury or sickness. Jim picked up our bike boxes at the Excess Baggage area and I got our big bag from the baggage carousel. We had an afternoon to kill before our evening ferry back to Galiano and after doing some errands, we were done and just headed out to Tsawwesses to wait for our sailing. My phone rang and it was Air France saying that one of our bike boxes was still at the airport. Uh no, I said, we have two boxes with us. Then we looked and somehow, Jim had picked up someone else’s bike box. We didn’t have time to go back to the airport and because he was more worried about his bike remaining there, he took the ferry back to the mainland the next morning to switch the bikes.

As John Steinbeck said, “…people don’t take trips - trips take people.”: I think that nicely sums up our Cycle in Andalucia 2024.

We had a final couple of days with Steve and Sally - a meet up at a little breakfast place on the beach we liked, dinner at a couple of different restaurants trying two kinds of paella, a walk through the marina and out to the end of the port finger and another evening on their rooftop terrace. It had become quite windy in Malaga while they were there so we were all having to bundle up a bit more, though it was mostly sunny.

There was a major Spanish film festival going on and the hotel across the street had the red carpet rolled out for various celebrities, none of whom we recognized but the crowd was pretty excited and selfies with different people were being taken.

There were also weddings going on at the beautiful City Hall and it was fun to see people in their finest, some in traditional dress.

We noticed how many more plants were in bloom since we were last in Malaga in early January.

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Especially wonderful was the fact that all the orange trees were now blossoming and the smell was intoxicating. They are the naranja amarga, or bitter orange, introduced to Europe by Genovese sailors, who brought it over from Asia. Rumored to bring happiness to whoever possessed it, the Moorish dynasty that reigned at the time decided to plant these bitter orange trees all over Spain and we saw them everywhere in Andalusia. So beautiful when they have fruit and so beautiful when they are in blossom. I don’t know how blossoms can so quickly follow the harvest.

The bitter oranges are used in many products including: baked goods and chocolates, jams, liquors and wines, lotions and perfume. Vino de naranja, or orange wine, is made from sweet white wine from Huelva that is mixed with the peels of Seville’s bitter oranges. I didn’t get a chance to try it; next time!

So this is the penultimate post. One more is in the works about our day trip from Malaga to Ronda by bus, one of the last things we did in Spain. Ronda was on our list of must-see places in Andalucia. Then the curtain will close on this little adventure in lovely Spain.

While Steve and Sally saw the sights downtown, Jim and I happily got on the ponies again for a cycle out to an archeological site in a small town of Rincon de la Victoria on the coast east of Malaga. It was again a lovely ride on seaside bike paths all the way.

Villa Antiopa Museographic Collection opened its doors in December 2022. This beach-side Roman villa was built at the end of the 3rdC AD and was discovered 20-odd years ago during the construction of an apartment building. It now occupies the entire lower level of the apartments above and is considered one of the best preserved maritime villas in Andalucía.

On arrival, we were a little surprised and dubious about this as the online info did not really make this clear but it turned out to be an amazing experience. As there was nowhere outside to safely lock up the bikes, the staff were happy for us to bring them inside the reception area. Bonus one! Bonus two was that we were practically alone inside. Bonus 3 was an excellent audio guide and a very clever interpretation of what life was probably like for the family who occupied this villa.

The site consists of rooms of the villa, with partially intact mosaic floors and foundations that you see via a walkway around the circumference, with displays of Roman ceramics and other artifacts and short informative films at different points.

We happily spent a few hours immersed in Roman villa living and emerged a bit dazed into present day Med life, biking back to “Villa Julia”. Definitely recommend this excursion if you are ever near here.

Steve and Sally bused out to our beach neighborhood for HH and dinner at one of the many seafood eateries. It’s hard to choose but we went with a recommendation from Julia. Not sure the Romans had it this good.

Afterwards we enjoyed some local music at another busy little bar nearby. Suddenly, the guitarist called out “Hey Canada!” Looking at us. Huh! Then someone told us it was because we clapped. Who knew? Identified by your cultural appreciation gestures. He didn’t mistake us for Romans though.

We met up in Malaga with Steve and Sally who had flown in from their home in Kent, UK. They met up with us in July 2016 in Budapest at the end of another long cycling trip that began on the North Sea in Germany. Fun to celebrate with friends again. Here we were in 2016 in Budapest.

And here we are in 2024 in Malaga. We are all still standing!

We rendezvoused with Steve and Sally to tour the Museum of Malaga, a combined fine arts and archeological museum, opened in 2016 in its present location and the biggest museum in Andalucía. It’s a beautiful Neoclassical building, originally the port Customs House. Construction began in 1791, it was sacked in 1810 during the occupation of Malaga by French forces during the Peninsular War and was finally completed in 1829. The various floors are around a big inner courtyard. The Picasso Museum that we had toured during our previous stay in Malaga had temporarily closed its Picasso exhibit for a reason I forget, but Steve and Sally were able to see a different collection of his work in this museum - though smaller it was equally interesting I thought. There was one room of his work donated by a longtime friend and personal secretary of Picasso.

This small painting, called La Coruña, done when Picasso was just 14, demonstrates how he had already mastered tradition painting techniques.

And then he went off in many different directions.

The other really interesting exhibit in the Museum of Malaga was called “Selective Memory: Art after the Spanish Civil War”. It explained that “The aftermath of the national conflict made it impossible for the artistic avant-garde to flourish in Spain, the borders were closed to European innovations…educational institutions and the local art market focused on the nostalgia of 19thC. painting and the perfection of its signature genres: bourgeois portraits, landscapes and scenes of folk customs and traditions.” But the avant-garde movement began to subversively emerge with surrealism, fantastic figurative painting that featured deformed figures in oppressive settings and expressionism. That’s Fred Astaire on the left.

The archeology exhibits also referenced the oppression of the Spanish Civil War and how ideology influenced archeology in that Franco was determined to establish the Spanish Aryan/Christian heritage in order to strengthen political ties with Germany. Research into Spain’s Visogothic past (a Germanic people) became a matter of state and there was a hasty excavation of the Visigoth Necropolis and the distribution of artifacts to various museums to exhibit prior to Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler’s visit to Spain. The long history of Islamic occupation was strategically dismissed.

There were some fascinating archeological finds, many of which eventually came to the museum from a private collection of the Marquis and Marchioness of Casa-Loring.

And a bust of José Freüller y Alcalá-Galiano, Marquis of La Paniego. There’s that name again though I think a different guy..

After all the art and archeology, we repaired for libations to another historical site, the 50 year old, Bodega Bar el Pimpi, visited by Picasso and other famous folks. In the heart of the old town across from the Roman Amphitheatre, it’s a touristy place but fun with many interconnected spaces dripping with vines and flowering plants, wine and sherry barrels, old flamenco posters and a bull’s head.

We rounded out the day on the roof terrace of Steve and Sally’s hotel, enjoying the night-time views over the city and the Med and Sally and I getting silly after watching the incessant posing for photos of one young beautiful thing. Old people having fun!

Our bus trip from Granada near the Sierra Nevada mountains back to Malaga on the Med offered us some pretty dramatic scenery. I managed to get some shots from the moving bus. And just to say again that using buses in Spain is a very viable and inexpensive option, with an even more extensive network than trains. It seemed that there were only commuter, short-haul trains from Granada back to Malaga that would not take the bikes so we enjoyed another comfortable bus ride.

It was a bit peculiar returning to Malaga after our weeks of cycling in other parts of Andalucia. What felt so strange and unknown to us in early January on our arrival in Spain, now at the end of February, felt familiar and comfortable. After unwrapping our bikes from their garbage bag wrapping and adding the parts we had to remove for the bus trip, we followed the bike path down to the waterfront promenade and back to our old neighbourhood, Pedregalejo.

We were staying in a new apartment attached to the house of our host, Julia for our remaining 10 days in Spain but it was just down the street from our previous AirBnB and that host had referred us to Julia, her friend. So we had had already seen the apartment before leaving Malaga and Julia had even agreed to keep our bike boxes and big hockey bag for our panniers in her shed. Great to not have to find more bike boxes for the flight home. Julia welcomed us and showed us around, leaving us equipped with coffee, milk, wine, bread, cheese, fruit and other provisions. The apartment was built for her mother, now gone and was very spacious with a big private patio at the front and a small private courtyard at the back.

We settled in and headed down to our favourite little bar to toast the completion of our circular cycle in Andalucia. Nice to be back on the sea with the aroma of those sardines grilling on the wood fires on the beach. And it’s the perfect place to watch the sunset.

The next day we shopped for more provisions and then went for a hike up to a park in the hills above our neighbourhood, recommended by Julia. We walked up through residential streets and lovely houses.

We eventually reached a park high above the Med where Julia told us you could still see the craters from the bombing of Malaga from the sea during the Spanish Civil War. And indeed you could. According to an article about the bombing of Malaga in SurEnglish:

“The Battle of Malaga, which began in Ronda on 3 February 1937, was an offensive carried out by the Nationalist and Italian forces during the Spanish Civil War. The assault was a combined effort to eradicate the Republicans' hold over the province of Malaga. The force of 15,000 Nationalist troops was commanded by the notorious Queipo de Llano. They were backed by nine mechanised Italian battalions of around 10,000 soldiers. On 3 February, the pro-Franco forces were met by heavy Republican resistance in Ronda, but the defensive efforts were quickly squashed. Arms and ammunition were short in Malaga, moral was very low and panic developed because of the fear of being cut off.

The Nationalist campaign to conquer Malaga continued at great speed and they soon reached the heights around the city. Nationalist troops infiltrated Malaga with artillery and tanks, while Italian and German aerial and marine forces bombed and devastated the city. Because the Republicans were unprepared for armoured warfare, the battle for Malaga was over in less than a week.

The city of Malaga was besieged and burning, forcing a general evacuation of civilians from the city. The Republican high command, which feared the consequences of a nationalist occupation, had already left. The fortunate fled in the few available cars, the rest on foot, and Republican sympathisers who were left behind were shot or imprisoned. The Italian military authorities are said to have been horrified by the number of executions that took place. Witness accounts claim that more than 4,000 Republicans were shot in the first week of the occupation.

Thousands of Republican refugees had attempted to flee Malaga along the coastal road, but Nationalist troops soon caught up with them. The refugees faced a 200km journey along the N340 in search of a safe refuge, while being pursued by Italian tanks, bombed by German aircraft and shelled by rebel Nationalist ships. The civilians were left defenceless and completely unprepared for the attacks. It is believed that between 3,000 and 5,000 citizens, who were mostly mothers carrying children, the old and the sick, were killed.”

Back down on the sea promenade, it was hard to believe this occurred a little over 87 years ago on perhaps a similar beautiful quiet spring day. Another example of the utter senselessness of war.