A bit of a rock 'n roll night for Trilogy, but we woke to calm, glassy water. No one was inclined to swim because the water close to the shore was littered with plastic, which we understand is from the disintegration of plastic used for covering the hydronic farms, which are densely packed along the south coast of Spain.
We got underway but not before we were yelled at by an irate pair in a tender who decided we were encroaching on 'their' jetski turf. We stared in disbelief at the intensity of the reprimand, especially as we were clearly underway and had legally anchored at a designated anchorage. Such is the lot of a foreign yacht!
The rest of the sail was in a light breeze directly on the nose. For the first time this trip, we did not hoist the mainsail and only had the headsail unfurled for about an hour. There was a point at which we could have thought the Spanish Armarda was on the horizon, but it was just two tall ships, thankfully! We entered Puerto Sotogrande in the late afternoon and after refuelling Trilogy, we berthed in this large and quite ritzy marina. The boys were keen to fit in a swim before sunset at the long sandy beach adjacent to the marina, while the girls enjoyed the chance to rest for a while. The boys had made a reservation at one of the marinas many restaurants, so after showers and GNTs we wandered down the jetty to La Terrasse. The meal was exceptional. We all ordered the scallops in pastry for starters and for mains we had: grilled tuna on arugula with grilled peppers, grilled salmon with hollandaise sauce and salad, and slow cooked lamb shanks served with 'mushy' potatoes and spinach. We also had an exceptional red wine of the crianza grape variety. To compliment the meal, there was a great guitarist/saxophonist singing all our favourite songs. A wander around the area afterwards revealed upmarket cars lining the streets and upmarket real estate advertised for the many hundreds of patrons who frequent the marina. We happened on a World Cup soccer match in a pub which was packed with both Brits and Spanish. Unbelievably, it was England Vs Australia and we were elated to witness a 33 to 13 victory for the Aussies against the Brits! A baileys back on board finished a wonderful evening together.
As there was very little food remaining on Trilogy, next morning we enjoyed a cooked breakfast at one of the other classy cafes. The local markets were setting up nearby but the stalls were mostly selling imported clothing and goods, along with the usual jewellery and craft items. We opted for a day trip to Ronda, a hill town of historical significance. It proved impossible to hire a car on a Sunday, but Peter's persistence got us a Mercedes taxi for the day for 160 euros. Ronda is set dramatically above a deep gorge called El Tajo, which separates the city’s circa-15th-century new town from its old town, dating to Moorish rule. Puente Nuevo, a stone bridge completed in 1793, spans the gorge formed by the Guadalevin River and offers sweeping views across the Serrania de Ronda mountains.
In the new town, Plaza de Toros has a legendary 18th-century bullring, which is one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks. The origins of Andalucía's strange, compelling ritual are lost in time, and are almost certainly rooted in some forgotten rite of passage of the shadowy, mysterious Celtiberians who peopled the peninsula centuries before the coming of the Romans. What form the ritual took is now impossible to say, but it was during the Visigothic era around the 5th Century AD that the taunting of bulls by young men out to prove their courage, or their profound stupidity, began to assume the aspects of a formalised spectacle. The men would subject the animals to humiliating taunts and leap or somersault over them when they charged.
Bullfighting remained largely a noble prerogative until the 18th Century, when Philip V denounced it as barbarous and determined to put a stop to it. Although the Catholic church was among the most prominent breeders of fighting bulls in Spain, the squeamish king succeeded in attracting the support of a compliant Pope in his crusade. A decree was issued that threatened excommunication to any nobleman who persisted in the practice. Faced with this, the gentry increasingly stepped aside in favour of a new breed of low-born professionals who did the fighting for them. Though Pedro Romero, the famed matador of Ronda was not as innovative in practical details as his father and grandfather, he was revolutionary in an altogether more fundamental way. He is considered the first matador to truly conceive of the bullfight as an art and a skill in its own right, and not simply as a clownishly macho preamble to the bull's slaughter. Pedro Romero unquestionably outshone some great rivals and he set standards and rules for the corrida which persist to this day.