Spain

Nate Maddux and Mary Schwarz (Minneapolis) introduced the locals of Ronda, one of Spain’s southern “pueblos blancos”, to The Rake over a glass of sherry and some tapas…seen here perched above the town’s old arabic bridge spanning the 300 foot-deep Tajo Gorge.

The Andalusian town, about an hour north of the Mediterranean, was one of the last to fall during the Reconquista. It was taken from the muslims in 1485 AD, shortly before the king and queen expelled everyone but the Christians (and in doing so, much of the intellectual capital) from the peninsula.

“Ronda was the inspiration for Hemingway’s violent tenth chapter in ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’…the views from the cliff walls are pretty inspirational for something like that. Dizzying. ”