The name Ronda inevitably conjures up pictures of its lofty Puente Nuevo (New Bridge) and spectacular bullring. Situated in the north-west of Málaga province, in the beautiful natural setting of the Serranía de Ronda range, it is the ideal spot for a weekend getaway.

In the course of its history, Ronda has been conquered by Celts, Iberians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs and Berbers, as evinced in the city’s rich heritage. It was also occupied by the French in 1810, prompting the emergence of a bandit resistance movement known as bandolerismo.

Ronda, A Monumental City

The obvious starting point is the Puente Nuevo, one of the city’s icons.Built in the 18th century, it connects the historic town to the city’s modern districts, spanning a 100-metre-deep ravine through which the river Guagalevín flows. It is well worth crossing the bridge to see the stunning views. Another vantage point is provided by the balconies in the Jardines de Cuenca, revealing a view of the bridge in all its splendour. But, there’s more. Pre-dating the Puente Nuevo is the Puente Romano (Roman Bridge), also known as the Puente de las Curtidurías, in addition to the Puente Viejo, finished in 1616.

Another sightseeing area is the inner city with its narrow streets, particularly the Calle Manuel Montero with its characteristic white houses adorned with flowering geraniums. The area also boasts a large number of mansions and palaces, notably the Mondragón Palace. Moorish in origin, the building features harmoniously blended Mudéjar and Renaissance styles. It currently houses the Ronda Museum. Other outstanding buildings are the Palace of the Marqués de Salvatierra, the Casa del Gigante (House of the Giant), a jewel of Nasrid architecture, the Renaissance-style House of St John Bosco and the Palacio del Rey Moro (Palace of the Moorish King). The latter houses a fountainhead opened up by the Moors which provides access down to the river.

When it comes to religious architecture, a must-see monument is the Church of Santa María la Mayor, built over the High Mosque of Medina. A prominent feature of its interior is the choir, carved in fine walnut and oak woods.

There are numerous vestiges of the old Moorish settlement, as we saw for ourselves. You can still visit the Muslim Medina, of which part of the wall has been preserved, although the most striking feature is the Almocábar Gate, dating from the 13th century. However, the most important vestige of that period is the Arab Baths –the best preserved on the Iberian Peninsula –built in the 13th and 14th century alongside the Arroyo de las Culebras.

Also worth exploring is Ronda’s Roman past, the major landmark being the Acipino Archaeological Site. Located some 20 kilometres outside the city, the standout feature in this complex is the Roman theatre.

Ronda – A City of Bulls

As intimated at the beginning of this post, the Bullring is another icon for which Ronda is famous. The Real Maestranza de Caballería de Ronda, unveiled in 1785, is one of the oldest and most monumental bullrings in Spain. Interestingly enough, its design is attributed to Martín de Aldehuela, artificer of the Puente Nuevo. For those who wish to explore the world of bullfighting, the bullring includes the Museo de la Tauromaquia (Museum of Tauromachy) which is open to the public.

However, Ronda is not only well-known in bullfighting circles for its bullring. It was here that modern tauromachy emerged, as did the Corridas Goyescas, and the city is the cradle of powerful matador dynasties like the Romeros and the Ordóñez. This is precisely why Ronda was frequented by its two best-known international aficionados, Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles, and the ashes of Orson Welles were deposited in the Ordóñez family estate in Ronda.

Ronda – the Home of Good Food and Drink!

The best way to round off a tour of Ronda is to try its culinary specialities, notably their sopa de castañas (chestnut soup),migas con chorizo (cured pork sausage crumble), rabo de toro (bull’s tail stew), conejo a la rondeña (Ronda-style rabbit) and perdiz al tajo (Tajo-style partridge).The ideal accompaniment to these dishes is any of wines produced in the nearby Serranía de Ronda, designated either DO Málaga or DO Sierras de Málaga.

Ready to explore all the cities concealed in Ronda? Secure your Vueling here.

Text by ISABELYLUIS Comunicación

Photos by SuperCar-RoadTrip.fr, Elliott Brown, Julia Kostecka, Antonio

Two clichés about Santander. One is 100% true. The other is gradually becoming less so. The first (true) one – you simply have to visit Santander, as it is one of the most beautiful cities in Spain. The second (dispensable) one – you have to eatrabas(deep-fried squid rings). Well, no, you don’t need to because the Cantabrian capital’s culinary offerings have grown in quality and diversity, something we went to try out on our palate.

Umma

Modern, informal cuisine tends to be a ploy. On the pretext of being modern and informal – wham! – they pull a fast one on you. This is not so with Umma. On the contrary. The dishes are recognisable, the produce good and, above all, the sense of taste is above average. Well above average. Miguel Ángel Rodríguez has turned an erstwhile family restaurant into one of the must-visit eateries of Santander. His flair for toying with new ingredients in the same dish, balancing them and bringing out the best in each recipe is prodigious. He takes it in his stride, and it stands to reason, as he has done it all at Noma (Copenhagen), Mugaritz (Rentería) and Cenador de Amós (Villaverde de Pontones, Cantabria), all distinguished by the Michelin Guide and the magazine, Restaurant.

Star dishes; each better, tastier and more dazzling than the next, refining and updating the flavours of Cantabria. Starting with the scrumptious croquettes – round, crisp on the outside, and creamy, almost liquid, on the inside. Then the Santoña anchovy pizza, pork jowl, Gomber cheese, black olives, rocket and dried tomatoes, and ending with two symphonic dishes – beef tongue, mushroom and hazelnut carpaccio and organic eggs with jerky and mushrooms. Take note of the home-brewed beer and the wines, far removed from the wine-cellar establishment. Noteworthy, too, are the exhibits gracing the walls, and the jazz and soul concerts held on Thursday nights.

Umma is what the Japanese exclaim when they like something a lot, and umma is what you’ll say on leaving the establishment after lunching or dining there.

Average price: €35-40 (lunch menu, €18; fast-good menu from Tuesday to Friday, €14, and tasting menu, €39).

Mexsia

When you enter Mexsia and catch sight of the glasses placed any old how, teetering on the edge of the table, you think, “This must be a special place”. Well, yes, because, as you came in, you noticed the background music and the lighting that made you think you were in a pub, rather than a restaurant. Maybe, no… well, yes – this is a gastropub. It is the brainchild of Óscar Calleja, holder of a Michelin star at Annua (in San Vicente de la Barquera). Mixture, fusion, delight. Mexico and Asia – “Mexsia”. Pungent, spicy sauce, like serrano-chile green gazpacho and charcoaled scallop, shrimpaguachile with Chamoy sauce – a fine dish with citrus accompanying excellent produce; exciting like fried maki in tempura with spider crab, masera and avocado pear, or like singed salmon nigiri with crisp nori algae. Sharp, like the homemade nachos served with three, likewise homemade sauces…

Average price: €25-30 (fast-good lunch menu from Tuesday to Friday, €15, and tasting menus for €25 and €30).

El Remedio

They might as well have called it El Paraíso, because the spot where the restaurant is located is paradisiacal, dream-like, marvellous, beautiful… A 19th-century hermitage, a deep green meadow, a cliff, with the sea in the background – unsurpassable! Here, you can live out the Stendhal syndrome for yourself. But, El Remedio is also a good name because, while you are there, you forget about all your concerns; so, it is a remedy for all ailments, albeit a temporary one.

While splendid when the sun shines, in a storm it must be spectacular. A gift on the eyes and the soul, bolstered by the cuisine of Samuel Fernández, attached to the land and sea seen from his restaurant. You must order the megano (a tiny squid done on the griddle) with potato in squid ink, scallop with boletus sauce and cured bellota ham (with a long, intense flavour), dried beans with field mushrooms, a finger-licking, long-simmered stew, fried bull’s tail with beetroot mustard and barbecue sauce. And, all this eaten while gazing out over the horizon. And dreaming away…

Average price: €40.

Goodness me – what gastronomic diversity! Why wait to relish it all? Check out our flights here.

Text and photos: Ferran Imedio (Gastronomistas.com)

Venice is a city in north-eastern Italy made up of 118 little islands separated by canals and joined by bridges. It is famous because of the beauty of its setting, and its architecture, and its art. This is why the whole city, including the famed lagoon, has been designated a World Heritage Site.

It is named for the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region in the tenth Century before Christ. The city is known variously as La Dominante, la Serenísima, the Queen of the Adriatic, the City of Water, the City of Masks, and the Floating City. In a piece inThe New York TimesLuigi Barcina described it as "the most beautiful city ever built by man”. It is universally regarded as one of Europe’s most romantic cities, where visitors can enjoy the waterway, gondolas, palazzos, old treasures, and delicious cuisine, as the water laps ceaselessly against the walls of fabulous churches and other ornate buildings. A boat ride down the Grand Canal makes you feel like a figure in an old painting.

Venice is an open-air museum. Its architecture, monuments, and buildings reflect its Byzantine heritage, and nowhere more strikingly than in the mosaics of the Basilica de San Marcos. Very near the Piazza de San Marcos (St. Mark’s Square),we find the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace), where the city’s ruler once dwelled, and which exemplifies the ostentation of the Renaissance period. Visitors may descend to the gloomy palace dungeons, and then get some fresh air on the famous Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs), where prisoners often caught their last glimpse of the Adriatic.

The city’s main street isn’t a street at all, but the celebrated Grand Canal. This is a good place to buy a City Pass, the most economical option for moving around Venice on its vaporetto water buses, with many stops along the Grand canal.

One of the numerous mansions along the canal is the sumptuous, 14^th C. Palazzo de Santa Sofia; better known as the Ca d’oro, (house of gold), because the abundant gilt in the polychrome and white marble exteriors that once made this lovely Gothic building shine like a jewel. There is also the famous Rialto bridge, which retains all the elegance that made it such a sensation when it was completed in 1591, 400 years after the first pontoon bridge was built on the site.

A city’s true character is often to be found in its markets, and Venice has two that should not be missed by visitors. One is the Erbaria product and fish market in the Rialto district, where you should check out the local asparagus and artichokes. Then there is La Pescheria for a dazzling variety of mainly local fish and seafood.

For connoisseurs of Italian cuisine, the Riva del Vinis the place to find the café or restaurant of your dreams in a quiet riverbank setting. Other excellent restaurant districts are Campo Santa Margherita, with its floating terraces, Zattere, where you can watch the sun set over the Laguna Veneto, and the streets near the fashionable Campo Giacomo di Rialto,where many Venetians take their “aperitivi” in the late afternoon. Try a Spritz and a snack of delicious codfish. The classic Venetian recipe for Spritzes, by the way, is 1/3 dry wine like Prosecco, 1/3 soda or bubbly mineral water, and 1/3 sweet Aperol or bitter Campari.

Outstanding amongst the city’s numerous museums is the Guggenheim, with possibly the continent’s best collection of European and American art from the first half of the 20^th C, housed in the old Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal, where it was opened in 1980 to show Peggy Guggenheim’s personal collection, masterpieces from the Gianni Mattioli collection, a garden of sculptures by Nasher, and temporary exhibitions.

To view the city in all its splendour from a distance you can take a number 42 vaporetto at the San Sacaria stop in St. Mark’s Square to the island of Murano, passing the Fondamento Nuove and stopping to visit the San Michelle cemetery, a “cemetery island”, where you can see the graves of such luminaries as Igor Stravinsky, Joseph Brodsky, Sergei Diaghilev, Ezra Pound, and Luigi Nono.

If all the water makes you hanker for a beach, there’s the legendary,Lido –a 7-mile long sandbar in the lagoon– with its many stylish cafes and restaurants.

To really discover Venice, you need to get lost there, so use the vaporettos freely and get off at any stop –the streets are safe even after dark. And a night-time visit to St. Mark’s Square is an experience you will always treasure.

Venice. There’s simply nothing like it. However often you visit, the surprises keep coming! Now’s the time to book a flight there with Vueling. Check out our prices here!

Photos: Fernando Sanz
Text: Tensi Sánchez de actitudesmgz.com

Its industrial past well behind it, but true to its roots, Bilbao is today a modern, cosmopolitan city offering the finest cuisine, music and, in particular, art and architecture. Indeed, ever since the Guggenheim Museum opened to the public in the mid-1990s, the Basque capital has become a magnet for devotees of contemporary art and architecture. In tandem with the museum’s inception, the city saw an upsurge in urban renewal – historical constructions were restored, stunning modern buildings erected and the estuary precincts were integrated with green areas and the layout of a metro network, designed by the likes of Sir Norman Foster. Hence, Bilbao is currently one of Europe’s best cities to live in. Here, then, is our tour of its most groundbreaking museums and buildings.

Around the Guggenheim Museum

This monumental building designed by Frank O. Gehry is an icon of the transformed Bilbao and an international art and architectural yardstick. It is rewarding to saunter around the building and become enveloped in the curves on its facades, and in awe of the famous Spider by Louise Bourgeois, or the acclaimed Puppy by Jeff Koons. Venturing into its interior, however, is a unique experience. Wandering through the steel labyrinth of The Matter of Time, by Richard Serra, or visiting the noteworthy temporary exhibitions that pass through the Guggenheim, is something all art lovers should make a point of doing.

Near the museum stands La Salve Bridge. While is has been spanning the estuary since 1972, it was not until 2007 that the French artist Daniel Buren added its famous Red Arch. Also worth seeing and adjoining the Guggenheim is the New University of Deusto Library, by Rafael Moneo, with its monolithic volume and rounded corners.

Just behind it stands the Iberdrola Tower. Designed by César Pelli, this 41-storey, 165-metre-high tower with its dramatic appearance is the tallest building in the Basque Country. It is flanked by the Viviendas Ferrater housing project, two luxury buildings designed by Carlos and Lucía Ferrater, Xavier Martí and Luis Domínguez. Opposite them lies the Plaza de Euskadi, by the landscape architect, Diana Balmori.

The Museo de Bellas Artes – A Contemporary Classic

Located near the Plaza de Euskadi, opposite Doña Casilda Park, the Museo de Bellas Artes provides an enhancement to the great collections of classical European art with its selection of top-notch works, including a Lucretia by Lucas Cranach the Elder and paintings by Francisco de Goya, El Greco and Zurbarán, while the contemporary section features paintings by Miquel Barceló and Francis Bacon. Here, you can actually travel from ancient times to the 21st century. To cater for such a variety, the building, originally dating from 1945, was upgraded incrementally, leading to its current appearance. The latest renovation has endowed both the exterior and interior with a leading-edge look. It dates from from 1996, when Luis María Uriarte opened new spaces and added the structure and glass foyer which now provide access to the museum.

Strolling Along the Estuary

The ría, once a dark, polluted estuary, was converted into one of the recreational areas of choice for Bilbao’s residents. Part of this upgrade is due to the Isozaki Atea (Isozaki Gateway) project, an ensemble of seven buildings designed by the Japanese architect, Arata Isozaki, in collaboration with the Bilbao architect, Iñaki Aurrekoetxea. Opposite this precinct stands the Zubizuri Bridge, Santiago Calatrava’s contribution to Bilbao, although also the most controversial landmark in the city.

The Alhóndiga and Osakidetza

Venturing into Bilbao’s Ensanche district will inevitably lead visitors to the Azkuna Zentroa or Azkuna Centre, better known as the Alhóndiga, a former wine exchange which has now been converted into a vibrant hub of leisure and culture. Originally completed in 1909 to a design by Ricardo Bastida, it was innovative for its time on account of the architect’s use of such materials as reinforced concrete. Following an overhaul assigned to architect Philippe Starck, it re-opened to the public in 2010 as a multi-purpose centre.

A short distance away, you get the impression of suddenly having stepped into the heart of Europe  when confronted by the Osakidetza (Public Health building), unmistakeable for the polyhedral design of its facade, by Juan Coll-Barreu.

Before leaving Bilbao, be sure to visit the city’s metro which, designed by Sir Norman Foster, is said to be one of the best in the world.

Book your Vueling to Bilbao and delight in its museums and magnificent buildings.

Text and images by Aleix Palau for Los Viajes de ISABELYLUIS