Zahara de la Sierra, Ronda, y la Cueva de La Pileta . A day trip from Seville

 This was not a long trip, and we wanted to make the most of it. As usual, Doreen is the one who did the research and made the plans. I was mostly along for the ride, and to offer translations when needed.

So one day we took a drive. We were heading to the White City of Zahara de la Sierra, Ronda, and Las Cueva de La Pieta. 

It was a good day.

There are several "White Cities" in Spain. They are a series of villages in Andalusia that are all whitewashed. I believe it is a specific designation, and you can't just go and paint your house red if you live in one. There are exceptions for structures that have been around for a while, but it is a very nice sight.

Most of these cities are in areas with very high relief, which makes them even more dramatic

And some of them have castles. There are a lot of castles in southern Spain because of the many years of fighting between the Moors and the Castilians. 

Ronda is famous for its Puente Nuevo, or New Bridge. It was built in 1751. The Old Bridge was built in 1616

Puente Nuevo

It is VERY high. It collapsed once during construction. You can imagine how eager I was to walk across this thing.

Puente Vieja

View from across the Puente Nuevo

We had a nice little walk around this city. It felt very "Artistically Touristy" if you know what I mean.

The our last stop was the Cueva de La Pileta, or Cave of the Pool

Very cool. They let you take photos inside, but not of the images.

We were cast in with a batch of German Tourists who took a lot of photos of the cave formations. They were pretty cool (The formations, not the Germans):

There were pots and sherds, but I am not sure which were original and which were recreations.

There were also human (Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal) bones and animal bones as well as animal bones.

The real payoff, though, were the cave paintings. 

Most were inaccessible to tourists, but these two stood out (Not taken in the cave)

This spotted pregnant horse was great.

We got back to Seville to visit the Alcazar and eat one of the best meals we had on the trip.

That was at a place called Sr Cangrejo (Mr Crab) and I tell you what. This is a destination restaurant.

Since we are Americans, we eat early (for Spain) and so the place was pretty empty. But the service was fantastic (we didn't pick out any dish, nor any wine) and the food was great. One of the dishes was the grilled shoulder of tuna. You had to work at getting the meat out, but man, was it worth it. Also, many variations of local wines, and even an excellent desert.

Then to top it all off, our server said he has an Aunt in Houston who owns a bar. He looked it up on his phone, and it turns out it was the Avant Garden! Literally five blocks from our house!

It is a small world. But I would not want to clean it.