Help me, Ronda

March 11th—Help me Ronda, help, help me Ronda! That’s all we could think about or sing when going to the beautiful town of Ronda, Spain. We travelled by bus about an hour and 15 minutes north of Puerto Banus. The bus was nice, but the roads were a little rough. The majority of the trip was on a windy road up into the mountains. I had flash backs of Colorado. Abby and I had to spend majority of the time watching the road to prevent from getting “car sick”. In fact, at one point on the way to Ronda, we thought Abby was going to be sick, but it passed. Anyway, we survived the trip and were glad to be in Ronda. We arrived about 10:30. It was about a 15 minute walk from the bus station into the town area. Our first thing to see was the gorge and New Bridge (Puente Nuevo), built in the late 1700s. Once on the bridge, you can look down into the ravine, called El Tajo. It is 360 feet down and 200 feet wide. It divides Ronda into the old Moorish town and the new town. From the bridge, we got a good view of the unbelievable scenery that Ronda has to offer. It really is breathtaking! After crossing over the bridge, we walked into the Old Town area. We wandered into Plaza de Maria Auxiliadora for more views and a look at the two rare pinsapos (resembling extra-large Christmas trees) in the park. This is the only region in Europe where these ancient trees are found. From there, we went into the Mondragon palace (Palacio de Mondragon). This beautiful Moorish building was erected in the 14th century, possibly as the residence of Moorish kings. It has been turned into a museum that focuses on prehistory subjects like cavemen, tools, metal and pottery with displays of archeological pieces found in the area of Ronda. After that, we wandered through more of the Old Town area and passed by the Santa Maria la Mayor Collegiate Church. Along the way we saw very full orange trees in front of the Town Hall. Abby even found an orange on the ground that she proceeded to carry the rest of the day. Then, we walked to Plaza del Socorro where we found a restaurant to eat lunch. Since it was such a beautiful, sunny day, we were able to enjoy a restaurant that had outside tables in the plaza. We had seen many horse and buggy rides throughout town so the kids really wanted to do that. We got on the carriage outside of the bullring. It was a nice ride through Old Town and New Town. After getting off the carriage, we toured the bullring. Ronda is the birthplace of modern bullfighting, and this was the first great Spanish bullring. We first saw the chapel where all matadors stop and pray to Mary for safety. After the chapel is the museum which houses stuffed bull heads, photos, artwork, posters and costumes. We then walked in the actual two-tiered arena where we all played toro. It was really neat! The kids then wanted ice cream so we got some and found a park to play at before heading back to the train station. We caught the 6:00 train back to Puerto Banus. The ride was much better back because we knew what to expect this time. Abby and I both sat on the aisle seats and watched the road the entire time. We arrived back at the apartment by 7:15.

Arriving in Costa del Sol

Hola Puerto Banus
March 7th—Today was a travel day and all went very well. We left our apartment in Madrid about 9:30, took the Metro to the Atocha train station and got on the AVE train at 10:30 heading to Malaga. It was a very nice, very fast (we topped out at 297 km/h) train; very similar to flying. It had a movie on the TV in English. However, it was Hellboy II so ended up being not very appropriate for the kids. The nice thing about traveling by train is that the kids can move around as much as possible and there is a lot more space too. We arrived in Malaga a little before 1:15. We walked to the bus station, which was across the street from the train station, to get a bus ticket to Marbella. Luckily, there was a bus leaving at 1:30 so we hopped onto the bus and headed for Marbella. It was about a 45 minute bus ride, but very beautiful because the highway travels right along the coast. When we arrived in Marbella, we took a 10 minute taxi ride to our new apartment. Wow! It is beautiful here and our view is awesome. From our balcony, we have a 180 degree view of the mountains all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. The minute the kids saw the water, all they wanted to do was go get in it. Since we hadn’t had lunch yet, we first went to get something to eat. After eating, we walked down to the beach. It was sunny, but a little chilly with the wind. That didn’t stop the kids from enjoying themselves and wading around in the water. Although we rolled their pants up a bit, before we knew it, Austin was soaked all the way up to his bum! After our quick trip to the beach, we needed to go to the grocery store. This is becoming our normal routine. Once we arrive at a new apartment, we have to find a store to get the basic essentials. Luckily, there is an El Corte Ingles a block away from our apartment. It is a huge department store (attached to a mall) and has the biggest grocery store we’ve seen so far. We actually were a little overwhelmed with all our options. However, we were excited to find peanut butter again. We just decided to eat dinner at the apartment and call it an early night.

Happy Birthday, Amy!
March 8th—I woke up to Mike and Abby singing Happy Birthday to me and a beautiful sunrise over the water. I couldn’t ask for anything more. We had a slow morning trying to convince the kids that it was too early and still a little too chilly to head to the beach. Finally at about 10:30, we had exhausted the term “not yet” so we got ready for the beach. There is a wonderful beach area with lounge chairs across the street from our apartment. As we headed there, we had to make a quick stop for some beach toys. We all enjoyed the beach for a couple of hours before walking along the port / marina area for a spot to eat lunch. The walk was filled with a ton of restaurants to choose from and along the way there are a lot of high dollar stores too. Puerto Banus is apparently a port to the rich as the marina was filled with million plus dollar yachts. During our walk, we passed 3 Lamborghinis. We stopped at a restaurant right along the marina where we could see all the boats. Mike and I shared our first paella and it was really good. The kids got crepes, but didn’t eat them all so we had them as dessert. They were really good as well. We headed back to the beach for the rest of the afternoon. It had warmed up by then and the kids actually got in the water some. We met some people who now live in Marbella but are originally from the UK. One of them had a little boy, Mikhel, who was Austin’s age so the kids played really nicely together. It was fun to talk to them about the area and our future travels. We basically closed the beach down, if there is such a thing. It was about 6:00 before we headed back to the apartment for much needed showers for the kids. Austin was literally covered from head to toe in sand. After they went to bed, Mike and I had pizza, wine, and raspberry/chocolate dessert while watching a movie. It was a great first day at Costa del Sol…we love the beach!