Arcos sits on top of a limestone ridge with a sheer drop on one side and the river Guadalete curling around the bottom of it, which is exactly how you want your first white village to look. It is the gateway to the Pueblos Blancos of Cádiz province, and you can see the whole town from a long way off as a tumble of whitewashed houses heaped along the crest, with the church tower and the old castle holding the high end. Jerez and its sherry cellars are about half an hour to the south-west, which tells you what the surrounding country smells like in late summer: dry earth, sunflowers gone to seed, and a little wine on the wind.
The town was a frontier settlement for centuries, and the name says as much, since "de la Frontera" marks the line between the Moorish south and Christian Castile before the reconquest in the thirteenth century. That history is still in the layout. The streets in the old quarter are narrow, steep and sometimes barely wider than a car, and the cobbles are worn smooth, so ride the upper town slowly or park low and walk. The Basílica de Santa María de la Asunción and the castle face each other across the main square, and the balcony beside it hangs over the cliff with a view down to the reservoir and across a wide plain of farmland. It is worth the short stroll even in full riding kit, though you will be sweating by the time you get back.
For the motorcycle, Arcos is a starting gun more than a destination. A town of this size has plenty of fuel on the lower ring road, as well as bakeries and bars open early, so top up here before heading east. The ride toward Ronda gets interesting quickly once you pass Bornos and begin climbing into the Sierra de Grazalema, where the road tightens into long, rolling bends between cork oak and rock. Surfaces are generally decent, though some patches of the smaller roads get bumpy after rain. Summer afternoons here are properly hot, often well into the high thirties, so an early start is not a suggestion but a survival technique.
If you are hungry before you leave, ask in a bar for something local, perhaps a plate of cured pork, tortillitas or a glass of the dry fino from down the road. Then settle your helmet, point east, and let the white villages come to you one by one.