Ronda and White Villages

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Marbella

   Marbella is the glossy end of the Costa del Sol, and most riders will pass it with a polite nod. Fair enough, but the old town deserves better than that. The Casco Antiguo is a compact knot of whitewashed lanes, flower pots and small squares, with the Plaza de los Naranjos at its heart, planted with orange trees and ringed by Renaissance buildings. Parts of the old Moorish walls and castle survive, a reminder that this coast was Muslim Andalusia for centuries before the Catholic conquest of 1485.

   Read the complete Marbella write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Marbella sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Ronda.

2. 2. Ronda

   Ronda is built on both sides of a gorge, and nobody quite believes it until they stand on the bridge. The Tajo, a cleft some hundred metres deep, cuts the town in two, and the Guadalevín river runs along its bottom. The Puente Nuevo, a tall stone bridge finished in the late eighteenth century after earlier collapses, joins the old Moorish quarter to the newer town on the other side, and the views from the viewpoints around it, down the cliff and out over the plain, are among the best in Andalusia.

   Read the complete Ronda write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ronda comes up 33 km in. Next is Gaucín.

3. 3. Gaucín

   Gaucín clings to the side of a hill in the Serranía de Ronda, a white village of steep lanes that seems to be pouring down the slope toward the Genal valley. Above it stands the Castillo del Águila, the Eagle Castle, a Moorish fortress, perched on a rock. On a clear day the view from up there takes in the Rock of Gibraltar and, beyond the strait, the hills of Morocco. It is the sort of vista that makes you stop talking and just look for a while.

   Read the complete Gaucín write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   66 km in you reach Gaucín. Next is Grazalema.

4. 4. Grazalema

   In Spain, the wettest place is in the south. That surprises people who think of Andalusia as a land of endless sun, but the Sierra de Grazalema catches the Atlantic weather as it comes in from the Gulf of Cádiz and forces it upwards, and the result is the highest rainfall in the country, with well over two metres in an ordinary year. The village of Grazalema sits in the middle of this, at the foot of a limestone crag, a cluster of white houses with red-tiled roofs, balconies with geraniums, and a small square with a church. The surrounding natural park protects one of the last forests of Spanish fir, the pinsapo, an ancient tree that survived the ice ages in these damp mountains and nowhere else.

   Read the complete Grazalema write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Grazalema, late in the day. Next is Arcos de la Frontera.

5. 5. Arcos de la Frontera

   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.

   Read the complete Arcos de la Frontera write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Arcos de la Frontera sits at 218 km, late in the day.

Recorded source links

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