Ronda

Start of the second half of our holiday and after breakfast we went to the car-hire office to pick up the car. By 9.15 we were heading for Ronda. We missed our turning at the Malaga intersection and ended up taking a slightly different but more spectacular route to our destination. We went up and over a few mountains on the way, on some particularly twisty-windy roads arriving at Ronda around 12.30. The weather was hot and sunny - Anne was delighted - I kept my hat on!

Ronda's old town is breathtaking, one of the best we've visited but, before exploring we stopped off for a pizza for lunch after taking photos from the famous bridge. Then we walked for miles around the streets and environs of the old town, crossing the original bridge, which lies upstream but lower in height than the more famous "new" bridge. We had a coffee on the edge of the cliff upon which the town is built and then made our way down to the best vantage point for viewing the new bridge and accompanying waterfall from below.

After walking the long way round to the lower part of the old town and then uphill to the main town, we grabbed a cooling ice-cream from McDonalds and then went to the gardens by the Bull Ring, rumoured to be the oldest in Spain. The owner was one of Orson Welles best friends and Orson's ashes were scattered in the gardens.

We set off back for Nerja at around 5.45 hoping we wouldn't be caught up in the mountains on the treacherous roads when the sun went down. We took the route we had planned to use to come to Ronda and it turned out to be even more hair-raising and spectacular than the one we travelled earlier in the day- we had one very near miss - my fault for driving on the wrong side of the road! One of the best moments was when we passed a herd of goats on the road being shepherded (or goatherded I suppose) down the mountainside. On our journey back, the dangerous route - and driving - were counterpointed nicely by the sounds of Radio Nacional Espana's classical music station - Handel, Salieri and Mozart.

Back at the hotel we'd missed dinner but piled into the drink then, for some bizarre reason, ended up in Nerja's only "authentic" English Fish'n'Chips bar. Days later our clothes were still stinking of fat - the food went down well though.

After a visit to the Balcon de Europa for a nightcap, we returned to the hotel to plan for tomorrow, deciding against Cordoba (around 4 hours away) and choosing Antequera instead (around 2 hours away).

I went to bed with aching arms, an aching right leg and my left wrist in agony - I don't know what's wrong with my bones these days but they're constantly sore and the seven hours of driving today didn't do them much good.

Best day of the trip so far though....