Real Maestranza de Caballería de Ronda: Ronda

The poet Rainer María Rilke wrote that on coming to Ronda he had found the “city of my dreams” and that is how Ronda now likes to describe itself - a ciudad soñada. Perched on a rocky outcrop at 723 metres above sea level, the town is surrounded by a series of mountain ranges, and three natural parks – the Sierra de las Nieves (the “mountains of the snows”), Alcornocales (the “cork-oak forests”) and the Sierra de Grazalema. A tributary of the river Guadiaro, the Guadalevín (from the Arab, wadi al-laban, river of milk), literally splits the town in two having over thousands of years carved a gorge through the rock some 100 metres deep (the famous Tajo). Ronda's 40,000 inhabitants enjoy nearly 3,000 hours of sun a year and an average temperature of 15C. This combined with the outstanding natural beauty of the area and its short distance to the provincial capital of Málaga and the Costa del Sol has helped convert Ronda into an important tourist destination and a must-see for any traveller to the area.