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Today its gardens and patios provide explosions of color. Inside it’s a museum which explains the archeology and technology of some of the area’s ancient inhabitants. This area saw two trading civilizations vie for dominance mid 1st millennium BC: The Tartessians traded tin (necessary to make bronze) perhaps as far away as Britain. They dominated Andalusia’s long Guadalquivir valley from their base near the river’s mouth (today’s Cadiz). Their city disappeared – never to be found – around 600 BC. In the meantime, the Phoenicians spread craft, culture, and technology throughout the Mediterranean. Their collection of city-states was much more broadly spread and they may have saved city civilization after it nearly collapsed during the last thousand years of the Bronze Age.

A traditional Arab water garden. The Moors would use slaves chained to the rocks to form a bucket brigade to move water from the stream at the bottom of the gulch into a water tower at the highest part of the old city.

A view from the opposite side through one of the palace's Moorish arches.

The small palace of Vasco Martín de Salvatierra, who ruled Ronda for Ferdinand and Isabel after their 1485 reconquest, was closed; but its 18th century façade provided a bit of perhaps unintended comic relief in the stately Ciudad (the old Moorish city.) It rests near the edge of el Tajo on a steep slope made slippery as the on-and-off again rain lubricated these old cobblestones. The iron work balcony rivals the craftsmanship of the Corinthian columns and stone reliefs. But would you add a garage door with its no-parking sign next to such a facade?

You probably recognized the critters holding up the façade with their heads as caryatids. Baroque decoration reused this ancient Greek technique (shown here on an old picture we took of the Erechtheum on Athens’ Acropolis.) These five are replicas of the graceful originals. (There were six but Lord Elgin took one to decorate his Scottish mansion.) The Greek’s temple protected a sacred snake.

What we have here is much younger, better preserved, and a bit more tongue-in-cheek. The guys here (some equipment lacking) are technically telamons, not caryatids. The graceful flowing robes of their Greek models seem lacking here as these represent the sculptor’s vision of what pre-Columbian Native Americans looked like in the buff. Above it all is emblazoned the coat-of-arms of the Marquis of Salvatierra who lived here long before this façade was added.

Just down the slippery slope from the Salvatierra palace was another building which we were not allowed inside – but the outside had two spectacular attractions – the gardens of a noted early 20th century French landscape architect and the ancient tunnel/staircase built to supply water to the city when under siege.

The place is called Casa del Rey Moro -- the house of the Moorish king. Legend says it housed king Almonated, known for drinking wine from the skulls of his enemies. (Let’s not make the man into a monster, his enemies were long dead and the wine was probably rated above 95 by Wine Spectator.) In the 20th century, the inhabitants were somewhat more refined including the Duchess of Parcent for whom the town’s central park is named. The house does not appear very well maintained and there's rumor that it's on the block and may become a luxury hotel...

…but the gardens are well maintained and superbly designed by Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier (is there a better name for a French landscape architect?) If you’ve walked through the formal gardens that culminate in the Eiffel Tower, you’ve experienced his work in Paris known as the Champ de Mars. We’ll see more of his work when we share our pictures of Seville’s parks as well. Here in Ronda in 1912 he created intimate green geometry with great gorge views fusing French, Hispanic, and Moorish influences. Note one of the two towers of the palace at right center.

The other attraction of the home of the Moorish king is the vertical tunnel built to ensure the water supply if the town was besieged. Visits require a steep descent down over 300 slippery stairs -- and then a climb back up the equivalent of 30 story building. Note the ever-present pedometer on this fearless tourist's waist.

The “mine” exploited some natural vertical fissures in the limestone when it was built in the 14th century. Openings such as this are the only light on the stairs in many places. Steps are steep and we found many of them slick with water from the rain which came and went during our day-long visit.

Large rooms open in a few places (probably these were natural caves in the limestone). These were converted to store arms or grain and one of them had access to a well, complete with a waterwheel. But not all water climbed up to the old Cuidad that way – slaves carried up “zagues” – skin jugs. All of this reminded us of a much more elegant well in what was then the Italian Papal state of Orvieto where Pope Clement VII had Renaissance architect Antonio da Sangallo the Younger secure an uninterruptible water supply with another mine known as St. Patrick's Well in the 16th century. See this double-helix wonder at http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/OrvietoUmbriaItalyAppendixE#slideshow .

At bottom is the prize: the waters of the rio Guadalevín. Supposedly this mine, when built, was a military secret. With slave labor to build it and carry its water over the centuries, its secret would be poorly kept. Near the end of the Reconquista, the Marquis de Cádiz attacked on the river and thirsty Ronda surrendered soon thereafter.

Let’s look at a few more buildings briefly. Just off a lovely central park named after the Duchess of Parcent, who built the gardens at the Moorish King’s house, rises the double-galleried town hall --very long but quite narrow. Given that the church next door also contains two tiers of galleries, you might suspect that the park was once used for bullfights and these many galleries would shield spectators. Built in 1734 as a barracks, this building was converted into shops and a corn exchange (not the same as an open mike at a comedy club) before becoming the Ayuntamiento.

Above is the entrance to Ronda’s bullring, the oldest in Spain and quite important in the history of bullfighting. The Ronda school of bullfighting school does nuance, unlike its main competitor, the Seville school which evolved from the Moors. Here Pedro Romero (1754-1839) perfected choreographed moves based upon his grandfather’s rescue of a noble by distracting the bull with a cape. Behind these gates is Spain’s widest bullring – although all have pretty much the same area unless they are at high altitude. If so, the ring is smaller so man and beast do not tire too easily in the reduced oxygen. The statues here honor another great Ronda family of matadors, the 20th century Ordóñez dynasty. Grandpa Antonio alone killed over 1000 bulls and was one of Hemingway’s best friends. (In fact, Hemingway started to train to be a bullfighter but gave it up when his skills proved mediocre. Fiction's gain, but a loss for the bulls who occasionally win one in the ring.)

Finally we see the quirky museum honoring Serranía de Ronda’s legendary bandits (bandoleros). This part of Andalusia is famous for such rascals who have been romanticized into Robin Hoods. Bandits in these hills go back pretty much uninterrupted to at least Roman days when locals complained to Cicero about them. The bandoleros around this area were sometimes called cowboys (vaqueros) for their cattle rustling skills. The phenomenon peaked in the 19th century after guerrilla fighters no longer had Napoleon’s troops to fight -- and little chance for gainful employment. (Hedge funds hadn’t been invented yet.) Their popularity in the media continues. What Cervantes featured in “Don Quixote” continues in picaresque depictions on modern Spanish TV. Butch Cassidy anyone?

Let’s look at one last building, the old town’s Church of Santa Maria la Mayor. Its double galleried front gives it one of the most unusual religious facades we saw in a building this old. Inside, it’s an explosion of gold and carved wood. The Moorish DNA is most obvious in the minaret base of its tower.

While unusual, the front somewhat matches the long city hall next to it – three stories with galleries on the upper two floors (see lower right inset). On both buildings these verandas provide safe views during festivals in the central plaza. Like many Andalusian churches created just after the Reconquista, it was built on the foundation of the defeated Moors' mosque and dedicated to the Incarnation. Often visitors to such churches are reminded of the Incarnation by an elaborate relief of Archangel Gabriel informing the Virgin Mary with the dove of the Holy Spirit hovering above the entrance door. But not at Santa Maria la Mayor. Instead a bronze plaque (upper right) serves this function, placed far from the door perhaps as an afterthought in 1999. From John’s first gospel (called, of course, the Last Gospel) the plaque’s Latin reminds pre-Vatican II Catholics, “Et verbum caro factus est.” The word was made flesh.

Santa Maria la Mayor (to the right) is one of several monumental buildings defining this lovely park in the old city (Cuidad) dedicated to the early 20th century Duchess of Parcent. It's a fitting tribute to the woman who hired landscape architect Forestier to create the gardens at her home (Casa del Rey Moor). The building edge at left is that of city hall and at center distance is the tower of the Convent of Santa Isabel. Isabel was a Portugal Queen who tried to give much of her husband’s wealth to the poor. When he died, she founded and lived in a Franciscan convent of St. Claire.

Santa Maria’s Arab roots shine through this old minaret tower -- baptized with a Renaissance wedding cake. The Moors chose a site that may have been a Roman temple. After the 1485 Reconquista, Ferdinand and Isabel ordered a Gothic church to rise upon the mosque’s foundation. An earthquake a century later caused a rebuild and additions that lasted through the 18th century. The results are either hodgepodge or fusion incorporating elements of Mudejar, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque.

The only other trace of the Moors is in this arch, thought to be from the old Mihrab, the niche worshippers in a mosque use to face Mecca during prayers.