subject: Ronda And Its Moorish Baths From Your Andalucia Villas [print this page] Ronda sits above a cliff on the mountains: a beautiful city that would make a great destination for those on their ANDALUCIA VILLAS holidays. It is a city that held much importance to the early settlers: protected on one side by the river and the mountainous cliffs while on the other a tall wall where the original main gate had been built by the Muslims. With one of Spanish oldest bullfighting rings, it is here that the version of bullfighting that is used today developed, with the matador not on horseback as was first performed.
The city is at the end of a gorge that was carved out of the rock over time. The original village once sat to the side of the gorge with its houses clinging to the cliff tops, of which just a few remain. It was in 711 or the year 92 in the Islamic calendar that the Muslims first came to Andalucia, and although Ronda was only a village it became much more than that with their rule. The 8th century saw Ronda as a crucial city dividing the north of Spain and its Christian masters from the Islamic world, the road to Islam and the North African continent.
It was a village that soon became an important walled city. The main entrance to the city was where the Arabic baths where; it is believed the baths were next to the main entrance so that people coming to the city could clean themselves and purify their souls. The baths were built underground with an aqueduct behind them. The water would have been pulled up from the rivers by donkey using one of the Islamic ancient inventions: the water wheel. Containers held on a conveyor would be dragged through the river then up to the aqueduct; the water would travel along the aqueduct to a large oven that would heat the water and then pass though underground channels through the baths.
The baths were a place of meetings or places of rest and relaxation. A person using them would pass through from the hot steam rooms to the cold wash room at least three times. Hygiene was of great importance to the Muslim world and played an integral part of their culture. The baths had large dome like buildings: the steam rooms were the first to be visited were heated from underground. Water from a fountain would be thrown onto the floor which was hot enough to turn the water into steam there by keeping the temperatures high, working in much the same way as throwing water over hot coals in a traditional sauna room.
The next room would be where you could receive a massage using oils and perfumes, before moving into another large heated room. The temparture was hot enough to be comfortable where one could enjoy the company of others or just sit and contemplate. It is a tradition that has been followed since the time of the first Islamic invaders up until the present time. If you only get the chance to visit Ronda the once when on your ANDALUCIA VILLAS then a day out at the baths is a must. There is so much more to Ronda than just its bridge.
