Ronda

Today we started with breakfast followed by the second morning of lessons at GEOS Language School. Immediately after the lessons we boarded the bus that took us to Ronda, a city that was founded by the celts, who called it Arunda. We arrived just in time for lunch, so after lunch we walked around its famous bullring on our way to el Tajo, the gorge that gives the city its distinctive flavour.

After many a photo was taken, we went down to la Mina, a staircase built connecting natural caves that was used by the city to get water from the river when under siege. The steps were irregular and sometimes wet, and this gave us the adventure component for the day. The group did very well going down and then up the staircase, though a few sighs of relief were heard when we resurfaced!

By the time we got back to the city center we decided to have some free time to roam around, and quite a few of us grab the opportunity to test the delightful desserts that many cafés in the area offer.

Afterwards we headed back to the bus for the drive back to Marbella. As we entered the hills surrounding Ronda we entered a big cloud and we were under heavy rain for a good while, which prevented us from enjoying the beautiful landscape (on sunny days you can see all the way to Gibraltar's Rock and beyond to the Atlas mountains in northern Africa). So instead of looking out of the windows we decided to play another movie, and Ice Age 2 was quite successful in making us laugh.

We got to Marbella just in time for our scheduled dinner at "The Orange Tree", where Frank and his team had prepared a very tasty beef bourguignon with mashed potatoes, and a surprising cheeseless lemon cheesecake with orange ice-cream!

After dinner we walked back to the hotel for an early night, for tomorrow we have to get up quite early for our trip to Seville. At least we'll have time to catch up on our sleeve on the bus!