Espain, Feb 6-7, Arcos and Ronda

We got on the early bus to Arcos de la Frontera, one of RIck Steves' "Back Doors" of Spain. Its a beautiful medieval town, all white, with narrow, narrow streets, 2 churches, and a cliff-top view over a huge valley. We went to the convent, where they have a 1-way mirror and a lazy susan, and you ring the bell and say "Cookies? (Or "Patas??")", and they say "5 Euros", and you put 5 euros on the tray, and they rotate the tray 180° and on the other side is a box of delicious, blessed pine-nut nun-cookies. Mm. Down the street, there is a bakery that serves Sultanas, giant macaroons that so good, that people who dislike macaroons would find them one of the best things in the world (I tend to dislike macaroons). We went to the end of town, looked at the view, went to our restaurant for lunch.

This restaurant, apart from having really fantastic food (I will note that fine dining in Arcos is like 1/3 the price of fine dining in a big city, with the same quality of food), had the best menu translation we have yet seen. I need to go back to Arcos just to take pictures of the 2 pages of the menu I missed with my camera (I forgot to take pictures of the back of each page). I had some Rabbit in Sauce, which was delicious, but not nearly as amusing as the "Lomitos of deer to the from Cadiz one" under the Meets section that Melanie ordered. Next time I shall endeavor to order the "ATTACKED OF ELVERS!" or the "ATTACKED OF FANTASY OF MUSHROOMS WITH HAM IBERIAN!!". Those seemed more like meals for later in the day.


We took a bus to Ronda that afternoon, and met some nice Irish people who were heading to the same Hotel, so we shared a taxi. They've been travelling a lot for quite some time, and have been avid users of Homeexchange.com, where you stay in someone's house while they stay in yours. This is very neat.

Anyway, Ronda is the best city I've ever been to, and Hotel San Gabriel is fantastic. I could stay there for weeks. Ronda is a magical town in southern spain situated on top of a canyon, divided in half by a 120m deep chasm, through which a river flows and cascades down in a waterfall towards the valley 750m below. We got there in time for the sunset, which you can see from several beautiful viewing gazebos on the side of the cliff overlooking the valley, and at the moment the sun set, a flock of hundreds or thousands of birds flew up from the cliff face, and made no sound other than the flapping of hundreds or thousands of wings. Ronda is a magical place.

Hotel San Gabriel is a really pretty place, with comfy beds, hundreds of books in every language spread everywhere, a little movie theater with comfy seats and a dvd collection, and the best breakfast of home-baked breads and marmalades we'd had in Spain. We came into town with a local tapas bar suggestion (Bodega San Francisco), which was seconded by our hotel owner, and proceeded to feast on some of the best food we've ever had. After trying a couple ham sandwiches, chicken, pork and shrimp skewers and some butter-fried-shrimp-rice, we mistakenly ordered 2 raciones (raciones are main-course sized versions of tapas) and got a gigantic, 2-person salad and an unholy pile of battered shrimp. These too were consumed in a frenzy of deliciousness. The bill? €22. Awesome.

Our next day involved the aforementioned breakfast @ San Gabriel and a hike through the cliffside trails. If you have the chance to go to Ronda, take it. It's just great.

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