Ronda & the White Villages

Ronda

The home base for our time in the land of the White Villages was Ronda, perhaps the largest white village of all. It’s really a big town, population around 35,000. We took a short walking tour which focused on two B’s: bullfighting and bridges. It’s the massive 18th century bridge for which Ronda is an Instagram star, but we’ll start briefly with bullfighting.

In early days, bullfighting involved men maneuvering on horseback to engage with bulls as a way to practice for battle with other men on horseback. Then, in the mid-1700s, Pedro Romero, from a prominent Ronda family, chose to fight bulls on foot, and so was born modern Spanish bullfighting. Apparently, Pedro was never injured, killed thousands of bulls in this life, and died in his 80s.

Ronda’s bullring was designed by the same architect who designed the so-called New Bridge (about which in a moment) and built between 1779 and 1785. It is notable as a circular bullring, with covered spectator areas. Our guide asked the group who liked bullfighting. There were no yeses. She said that there is only one day each year, in early September, when bullfights still take place in the ring. The rest of the time, the bullring is a tourist destination: “The city earns more from tourists than bullfights.” 

The second and more photographed B is the New Bridge that connects Ronda’s old and new towns. A steep gorge of about 100 meters depth divides the two districts. As you can see, the bridge is monumental!

There are two other, earlier bridges still in Ronda, one built by the Moors, and one built soon after the Christians retook the region. But they are located much lower in the gorge, requiring ascents and descents for each transit between the old and new towns.

White Villages

The white villages of Andalusia (pueblos blancos) are a network of mainly small, whitewashed hill towns in the interior of Cádiz and Málaga. *

Their defining feature is the white limewash used on façades, originally to reflect the intense sun and help control temperature and disease, and now maintained as a cultural tradition recognized for its heritage value. 

Most of these settlements have deep roots in Roman and especially Moorish occupation, when they were fortified hill communities guarding routes through the mountains.  After the Christian conquest, mosques were replaced by churches and castles adapted, but the dense, labyrinthine street patterns and defensive siting remained largely intact.

We joked that what we touristically and admiringly call the White Villages are, to the people of the region, simply Villages. It is logical that they coalesced on hilltops or just beneath rocky, easily defended promontories, all for security. Just like villages in France and elsewhere in Europe, people lived in tightly arranged communities for protection and family connections. Reasonably, agricultural land surrounded each village.

But these are uniformly white. They’ve been white since forever. From the architect’s perspective, white exterior walls in a hot climate make perfect sense. White reflects more solar heat, which keeps it away from the interiors. And buildings close together, separated by narrow streets and paths, mean each building shades its neighbors much of the day.

There’s at least one other reason for the white walls, and it goes back to the days of plagues. It’s white limewash, also called cal, that makes the buildings white. From the late Middle Ages through the 19th century, repeated waves of plague, yellow fever and cholera hit Andalusia, and sources describe whole towns being ordered or expected to limewash houses, churches and public buildings “to combat infection.”  In some accounts residents were required annually to cover interior and exterior walls with cal, with its disinfectant and insect‑repellent reputation explicitly cited as the reason. *

We drove through dramatic countryside to visit these towns. The area is more mountainous than we expected. There are grand vistas of olive orchards as far as we could see. Then oak trees covered other hills; we tried to see Iberian pigs eating acorns beneath the trees, but didn’t succeed. Still other areas were Mediterranean scrub, much like what is called the garrigue near where we live.

We discovered that the charm of these villages comes for the most part from enjoying their whites and forms from afar. The landscape of rocky outcrops and mountainous backdrops cups the bring white villages. A walk in the village gives us more curving streets with nicely styled houses and buildings, a souvenir shop or two, and perhaps some outdoor cafés. Nothing wrong with all that, but each village resembles the last and the next.

One exception is the famous cave streets of Setenil de las Bodegas. We were particularly excited to have the chance to visit this village. Even on a chilly overcast November day, it seemed that many other people had the same idea. We drove from one edge of the village to the other and back before finding a parking space. We wondered how the place handled hordes of visitors in peak season. Once we found the famous little streets, we had to laugh: they’re so small, just a few tens of meters long. Yes, the overhanging cliff stone is dramatic — and practical. It’s obvious why the earliest inhabitants would take advantage of ready-made overhangs and secure caves. And on a hot summer day, enjoying an ice cream in the shade would be lovely. 

We think the pleasure in these villages is their beauty in the landscape, as well as pondering their long history. But if you’d like a historical tidbit or two, we’re happy to oblige:

Casares

The story has it that when Julius Caesar visited the area surrounding this small town, he ordered the construction of the village due to the curative properties of the sulphurous and alkaline waters on a skin infection which had plagued him since childhood. He also constructed a magnificent villa here which is today considered a major historic monument. *

Gaucín

The town’s magnificent castle originally was called “Zajra Guazan,” which  is a combination of an indigenous term “Zajra” for rock and the Arabic “Guazan” for strong. The present village name was a shortening of these words. *

Setenil de las Bodegas

Setenil de las Bodegas is famous for its houses, bars, and streets built under and against huge rock overhangs along the Rio Trejo, creating the iconic “town under a rock” image.  Historically it was a formidable Moorish stronghold whose rocky setting contributed to a long series of sieges during the Christian conquest.

Torre Alháquime

The village dates from Muslim times; it closely resembles Berber towns in the hills of north Africa. Torre Alhamique’s name comes from the Arabic Al Hakin family, meaning “the wise” or “the learned”. The town’s location – on the border between disputed Muslim and Christian areas – meant that it frequently changed hands between the two sides in the 14th and 15th centuries, before finally being conquered by Marques de Cadíz in 1485. *

Zahara de la Sierra

The village controlled a crucial pass between Ronda and Seville and became a flashpoint in the final wars of the Reconquista.  The surprise Muslim recapture of Zahara in 1481 provided the pretext for Castile’s last war against the Emirate of Granada, giving the village an outsized symbolic role in the story of the Reconquista. 

Back to Ronda

After visiting these White Villages, we started to think that perhaps Ronda was a big White Village. From the east, the densely packed buildings of the town gently cascade atop a promontory. But Ronda is more of a small city than a big village. Its Roman, Muslim, and Christian heritage is more complex than the single-castle White Villages.

Still, we looked for a vantage of the town from the western, cliff side. We expected to find a spread of white buildings atop the cliff. Instead, we found a dauntingly massive cliff with only hints of buildings on top. The Romans chose this spot because of the cliff — you can’t get more unassailable than this geography! So, not White Village. How about Cliff Town?

November 2025