More from Ronda

Dinner last night, my second Thanksgiving meal, was tapas. I started at a fairly standard looking place, whose name I can't remember, where I had cured salmon and jamon serrano on toast. Then I moved on to Traga Tapas, the tapas outpost of the very high-end Tragabuches, perhaps Ronda's most expensive restaurant. Unlike most Spanish tapas bars, which have a well-worn, pedestrian look, Traga Tapas is sleek and trendy, as were its diners and its bartender. The offerings are somewhat inventive. I had a pintcho with sausage and onion and something called a stewed croquette (it was fried, but I guess the filling was stewed meat). The two most interesting items were the the asparagus pintcho which was topped with ethereal ribbons of sheep cheese and what I believe were apricot preserves and the chopped pork "sandwich," where the top layer looked like bread but was actually something like bechamel.


Today's lunch, at Almocabar, considered one of Ronda's best restaurants, was fabulous. I started with the stuffed squid with truffles, which was stuffed, it turns out, with the squid's legs. My main course was the picturesque and delicious duck leg with baked apple shown at the top.


During my morning ramble I saw this sign for a preschool.


Having eaten a fairly large lunch at late-for-me Spanish hours (at 2:15 I was the first diner), dinner (at 10PM) was just a quartet of pintchos at Casa Ortega: eel, chicharron (gimme some skin), salmon atop salmon salad, and the coveted jamon Iberico.

Ronda is home to Spain's first purpose-built bullring, built along the lines of a Roman arena. Ronda's importance in the history of bullfighting made Hemingway a fan of the town. Now they only stage bullfights on special occasions and it otherwise serves as a museum. I actually have no interest in the barbaric sport; I've never attended a bullfight, nor do intend to do so in the future. But it's an important part of Ronda's patrimony, and as a tourist I figured I should visit it. After all, though I'm also not a fan of genocide I've been to Dachau, Auschwitz and the Cambodian killing fields.