Ronda - Fascinating Fact 4 - For whom the bell tolls
As a bullfighting Mecca (see Fact I), Hemingway was inevitably drawn to Ronda. But he also used the town in one of his greatest novels. In "For Whom the Bell Tolls", set in the Spanish Civil War, one scene takes place in Plaza de España, described thus: "Six streets enter on the plaza On three sides of the plaza is the arcade and on the fourth side is the walk shaded by the trees beside the edge of the cliff with, far below, the river. It is three hundred feet down to the river." One of Hemingway's characters recounts how various fascist men and a priest from the town were taken into the square, beaten by the townsfolk, and killed. Some were thrown into the gorge.
- Fact 1 - Ronda's most famous son, Pedro Romero, changed the face of bullfighting
- Fact 2 - English painter David Bomberg lived and worked in Ronda in the 1950s, producing some of the finest landscapes of Spain
- Fact 3 - Five thousand-year-old cave paintings near Ronda are an unusual and fascinating experience
- Fact 4 - Ernest Hemingway loved bullfighting, and he loved Ronda - so much so that he used it as a setting for his novels
- Fact 5 - The mountains around Ronda were a popular hide-out for bandits in the 19th century
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