Wednesday was our trip to Ronda, and since Pauline had booked bridge for the afternoon that day, we were going to have a day with no bridge which pleased Kathleen so much.

Our trip to Ronda started even earlier - at 7.45 - so we needed to have the desk give us an early call - and have a special early breakfast which was even more basic than usual. We again got to the bus at the appointed spot with a little time to spare, and got good seats fairly near the front.

As we drove out of town and in effect repeated our travels from the airport the first day, we again could see very little, as it was pretty dark. We did see the most magnificent sunrise as we drove along. The weather was gradually improving and we didn't need jackets much on that trip. Our guide was a tall blond girl - from Worcester, I think, who was very friendly and chatty - but had this very annoying habit or saying “actually” about every other word. We were actually caught up with counting how many times she said the word, rather than listening to her commentary. It didn't matter if we missed what she said, because she repeated it over and over and over again - so the gist of it actually got through. And for the rest of the day, and the rest of the holiday, we started laughing each time we caught each other out saying the dreaded word.

We saw fishing boats, looking small and the fishermen dressed like anybody else - and their houses by the seashore - looking rather ordinary - but apparently they actually used to live in the hill villages and had actually to walk down to the sea each day so the government actually built them all these little houses by the sea, which was actually much better. Do you get the drift?

We saw a cement factory - not very pretty, but with a pleasant home for the owner built in front making you wonder why he didn't actually choose to live farther away up in the hills.

We saw sugar cane growing wild all over the place - and villages devoted entirely to German emigrants and holidaymakers where the signs were in German rather than Spanish.

We saw landslides of rocks, blocking the roads; heard how big and impressive the airport is; how all the movie stars and TV personalities have homes in this area; who got married to who when and where and how. We saw each golf course and who plays there - all famous movie stars of course. And somewhere there is a pink house which belongs to one of them - I can't remember who - but they didn't know which one, because of course the movie star wants his privacy. So every pink house got duly stared at - so we were bound to have found the right one.

After following the coast for another half an hour, we had a toilet and coffee break. Some of us braved the toilet - while others preferred not to, as it was not very nice. Kathleen tried to buy a custard apple - which we had learned about the day before from our other guide - but the lady was so busy chatting to her friends in the shop that she ignored us and we went away without anything. I don't think it was a deliberate snub - just that she wasn't in a hurry and couldn't understand why we should be.

After while we started climbing up into the mountains - and the scenery from being beautiful became unbelievable - winding narrow roads looking down very steep gorges in one direction. Some people on the back of the coach, Margaret included, felt very ill from the trip - but we enjoyed it enormously.

After about another half hour we arrived in Ronda - a town of about 300,000 (I wonder if I got that wrong)  completely surrounded by hills so a very good defensive position, but also very cut off from the rest of civilisation so it became the haunt of lots of outlaws and fugitives. We parked the bus on a very tiny cobbled street, and we had to walk for the rest of our tour that day. Margaret decided to go to a hotel to lie down - not feeling at all like sightseeing.

The rest of us, went up and down narrow streets, with the most wonderful dapper Spanish gentleman who was our tour guide. I think he probably was also the author of the book I bought on Ronda - because as he told us about each aspect of the town that we were passing through, it was as if he were an actor on stage - telling it with the most beautiful composition of words - and beautifully delivered. He answered questions and improvised to some extent - but really what was important to him, was communicating to us what a marvellous spot this was. And he succeeded.

Both Kathleen and I felt it was probably the most remarkable city (except Portland) that we had ever been in. The aspect from the walled garden that we went into must have stretched 25 miles in all directions - and it was all so indescribably beautiful. It was like a view from a hot air balloon or helicopter - up above and looking way down at the world- except we were still in the world.

We visited a church (not a cathedral in this town - no bishop) but it had been architecturally done over in three different periods so there were three very distinct altars and areas in the church which was like seeing three different churches with several hundred years between them.

From the church, we went up and down more of these tiny cobbles streets and came to a house which was owned by the Silesian fathers - and that was fun to look through, and that was where we got such a marvellous view. Then we walked over the new bridge - across the most amazing gorge - caused by an earthquake I think - and then went into the more modern section of town.

Our goal was the bull ring - and none of us were very keen on the idea of bull fighting. But our guide told us the history and did it so beautifully, that we enjoyed seeing this amazingly small field - where the bulls come out, where the rich sit in the shade, where the horses are used, etc.

After that, we decided to find someplace to have lunch, and happened on an outside cafe with very good pizza and very slow service. Eventually we ate and paid, and walked through the streets where very few shops were open (dratted siesta time again). We did find one with some lovely bouncy puppets which we were very tempted by, but in deciding how many sherries they were worth, decided that they certainly weren't bargains - and Kathleen took notes so she could make her own.

We eventually found our group again outside the bull ring, and walked another half mile or so to the hotel where the bus was waiting for us, first calling in at the rather posh hotel to use their clean and pleasant toilets.

The trip down was equally exciting - and although we were tired, we enjoyed every minute of it, actually. Actually our guide talked far less on the way down, which was actually very nice. And we arrived back at our hotel around seven . We didn't change for dinner and afterwards we got some cards and went into the bar to play our knockout competition against Zaib and Margaret. We would have played in the bridge room, but the lights kept going out and getting up every 20 seconds to hit the button to put them on again was somewhat discouraging. So we played with the accompaniment of a guitar and keyboard player-singer - the big TV on loud, and about 20 other bar-goers chatting away. We won - but nobody much concentrated on the bridge. It was far from an ideal place to play. We then had a few more drinks in the bar and had an early night.