Ronda in Southern Spain

Hotels, Nature, News

Merry Christmas and a Happy 2010!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. These are our goals for 2010, please feel free to comment and let us know what you think.

Ronda's Busking Santa

Ronda's Busking Santa

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Ronda Today would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in 2010, and thank you all for your support in 2009. With your help, we’ve has grown to be the Serranía de Ronda’s largest English language portal, and puts us in a very good position for 2010.

The picture you see to the right is of Ronda’s friendly busker, who entertains tourists and Rondeños alike with his accordion. In the leadup to Christmas he’s been dressed as Santa and delighted the crowds with his renditions of Jingle Bells. If you see him around, please help him with a few spare coins.

2010 will bring a lot of changes to Ronda Today as we continue to grow, our hope is to expand the range of content we provide, not just in terms of tourism information, we also have a mission to become the Serranía’s first English language <strong>daily news source</strong>.

Needless to say the look of the Ronda Today website is an evolving process, but we successfully migrated to the Wordpress platform, which is giving us a lot of scope for adding new features that appeal to our readers. We’ll be launching a monthly newsletter from the end of January, you can subscribe now at the bottom of the page, or send an email to <a href=”mailto:admin@rondatoday.com”>admin@rondatoday.com</a>.

As we develop the daily news section of Ronda Today you can expect to see more changes to page layouts, though we’re quite happy with the current design and only plan to enhance functionality rather than completely redesign the website. We welcome your thoughts, good or bad, and proudly take our readers opinions under consideration.

Look out for new partnerships developing between Ronda Today and other major websites in the Serranía and Andalucía, and just to whet your appetite, look out for the mobile version of Ronda Today, yes, we have some huge goals.

You’ll also start to see Ronda Today coordinating some new initiatives in tourism; we’re actively working with adventure, nature, and accommodation providers to create package holidays in the Serranía. We hope to announce more details soon.

During 2009 we tried a few new things, such as creating short videos of some of the cultural activities that occur in Ronda, but sadly we don’t have the time to create an endless supply of videos, though we’re hopeful of reaching an agreement with one of Ronda’s television stations to use their videos.

A number of other goals are being formulated as well, and 2010 will finally see the full launch of our sister sites. The last quarter of 2009 was a very difficult time to launch new projects, not because of financial setbacks, but instead because too many new opportunities for working with other organisations appeared on the horizon.

In 2010 Ronda Today will be working closely with the owners of The Seninella (Costa West) magazine to develop a Serranía de Ronda section within the magazine. Our hope is that more people who live in the Costa del Sol will be encouraged to visit the Serranía for weekend holidays.

We hope you continue to find Ronda Today a useful resource. 2010 is looking like it’s going to be our year to shine, please tell all your friends about Ronda Today, and please let us know what you like, what you dislike, what you’d like to see us do. Merry Christmas!

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Ronda

Ronda is one of Spain's most visited cities for good reason, our little city is very compact, in fact from arriving in Ronda, to seeing the Real Maestranza bullring, the Puente Nuevo, the many beautiful churches, our museums, or the wonderful coffee shops and tapas bars, we have it all within a short 30 minute walk.

Of course, most visitors need at least 2 or 3 days to see everything because a lot can be packed into your time in Ronda. Stay in one of Ronda’s many excellent hotels, with a choice of restaurant covering tapas in a local bar, menu del dia, or a la carte menu.

A walking tour of Ronda is a pleasant and enjoyable way to spend a lazy few hours, almost everything you could want to see in Ronda is no more than 200-300 metres from the new bridge.

Ronda Today is the Serranía de Ronda's only daily English language news source, our we take pride in providing Ronda News as it happens.

Stay in Ronda

As one of the most visited cities in Spain, Ronda has a fantastic selection of hotels, hostels, guesthouses, and self-catered accommodation guaranteed to suit all tastes.

Whether it's just one night, or several weeks that you need we can help you find somewhere to rest your weary bones while you're in the city of dreams - La Ciudad Soñada.

Join great names like Orson Welles, Earnest Hemingway, Rainer Rilke, James Joyce, Jorge Luis Borges, Madonna, or Jamie Oliver who have enjoyed their time in Ronda.

Visitors who plan to make Ronda their new home should check out our property section, where we talk about some of the gotchas that can occur. Forewarned is forearmed.

Why Visit Ronda

A small city perched on a seemingly precarious platform of rock, Ronda is in fact an impregnable fortress only defeated in battle through trickery, and during the reconquest with modern (for the era) rock blasting cannon.

The mountains and valleys of the Serranía de Ronda are home to a tough breed of people, yet in Ronda these people are refined, some are gentry, some gypsies, others are just common folk, but all proudly call themselves Rondeños.

These days the population of Ronda is a little over 35,000 souls; big enough to offer all the essential services, but not big enough to suffer traffic problems or big city woes.

Rondeños have played a pivotal role in shaping Andalucía and modern Spain, and the city has hosted some of the great names of politics, the arts, education, and played her role in military events.

An hour from the Costa del Sol, Ronda is too far away to be heavily influenced by events on the coast, yet still close enough to benefit from the economic strength that tourism brings to Southern Spain. At a height of 723m, Ronda has a cooler year round temperature than the coast, making life in Ronda altogether more agreeable than other Andalucían cities.

Serranía de Ronda

Ronda is the biggest city in northern Malaga province, and the closest city to many of the smaller villages in Cadiz province, making Ronda an ideal base for exploring the Serrania.

Within a few kilometres of Ronda are some of the most visited Pueblos Blancos, the famous white villages of Andalucia, Setenil de las Bodegas, Grazalema, Gaucín, Juzcar, Benalauria, Montejaque, Teba, Cortes de la Frontera, Igualeja, the list goes on...

As well, Ronda is close to three natural parques, the Grazalema park, Alcornocales park, and the Sierra de las Nieves park. The Serranía is also home to pre-historic cave paintings at Benaojan, Neolithic dolmens at Montecorto, and of course, the Roman city of Acinipo.

The countryside of the Serranía is described as unique, in fact universally important. Many endemic species make their home here, including the pre ice age Pinsapa pine tree, and numerous orchids only found on our mountains.