I have lived in Ronda long enough to know that most visitors arrive for one reason: the bridge.
They see photographs of the Puente Nuevo soaring above the El Tajo Gorge and imagine they have already seen the city. Then they arrive and quickly discover that Ronda is much more than a dramatic viewpoint.
This is a place where Roman ruins sit alongside Moorish monuments, where centuries-old winemaking traditions are being revived, and where the legends of mountain bandits still echo through the surrounding hills. Just beyond the city lies the Serranía de Ronda, one of Andalusia’s most beautiful and least understood regions, filled with white villages, ancient pathways and some of the finest local produce in southern Spain.
Whenever friends or readers ask me where they should begin exploring inland Málaga province, I always tell them the same thing: start in Ronda, but don’t stop there.