English and the World · Spain · 23 · Málaga province · A1–C2 · Free
A town split by a gorge, the bridge that took forty years to join it, one of Spain’s oldest bullrings, and the writers and film-makers who fell for it. Choose your level.
Ronda, a sunny afternoon
It’s a sunny afternoon in Ronda. We are standing on the Puente Nuevo, the famous bridge. Below us there is a very deep gorge, El Tajo, and far below, a small river is running between the rocks.
A lot of people are taking photos. A man is painting a picture of the bridge. Some birds are flying under the bridge: we are looking down at them!
The bridge is old: the builders finished it in 1793, after about forty years of work. It joins the old town and the new town.
A walk in Ronda
Near the bridge there is a bullring from 1785, one of the oldest in Spain. Today it is also a museum. Outside, there are statues of two famous visitors: the American writer Ernest Hemingway and the film director Orson Welles.
In the old town there are white houses, narrow streets, old Arab baths and churches. Right now, a guide is telling a group about the history of the town, and some children are eating ice creams in the square.
Language: the present continuous
| What | How | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Actions happening now | am / is / are + verb-ing | People are taking photos. |
| Negative | isn’t / aren’t + -ing | The birds aren’t singing. |
| Questions | Is / Are + subject + -ing? | What is the man doing? He’s painting. |
| Spelling | run → running, take → taking, fly → flying | The river is running. |
⚠️ For facts and things that are always true, use the present simple: The bridge joins the two towns.
Read the texts first. Press “Check my answers” at the end.
Choose the best answer.
1. What is under the bridge?
2. When did the builders finish the bridge?
3. Who are the statues outside the bullring?
4. What does the bridge join?
Write the verb in the present continuous.
5. A lot of people (take) photos.
6. A man (paint) a picture.
7. The river (run) between the rocks.
8. Some birds (fly) under the bridge.
Write the verb in the right form.
9. The bridge (join) the old town and the new town.
10. Right now, a guide (tell) a group about the town.
11. Look! The children (eat) ice creams.
12. Ronda (have) one of the oldest bullrings in Spain.
Go there!
How: Ronda is about two hours from Málaga by train or bus. Walk across the Puente Nuevo, look down into the gorge from the viewpoints, visit the bullring museum and the old town. Check times before you go.
Your task: find a photo of a busy place and write six sentences about what the people are doing.
A town on a cliff
Ronda stands on a rock split in two by a gorge. For centuries, the problem was simple: how do you join the two halves? The answer became one of the most photographed bridges in Spain.
Read the two texts, then do the practice.
From 1485 to today
Ronda was a Muslim town until 1485, when the Catholic Monarchs took it, seven years before Granada. Its old town still has narrow streets, Arab baths and churches built on the sites of mosques.
The town is divided by El Tajo, a gorge cut by the river Guadalevín. An earlier bridge, begun in 1735, did not last. The Puente Nuevo, designed by José Martín de Aldehuela, took about forty years to build and was finished in 1793. Its height above the river is given differently by different sources.
Aldehuela is also credited with the bullring, built for the Real Maestranza de Caballería, an order of horsemen founded in 1572. It opened in 1785 with Pedro Romero, a bullfighter from Ronda who helped to create bullfighting on foot. In the 19th century, the mountains around Ronda were famous for their bandits, and today the town has a museum about them.
A conversation
Ana: So, what are we doing on Saturday?
Tom: We’re going to visit Ronda! I’ve already bought the tickets. The train leaves Málaga at nine.
Ana: Great. What are you going to see first?
Tom: The Puente Nuevo, of course. Then I think we’ll have lunch in the old town.
Ana: Look at that sky! It’s going to be hot.
Tom: Don’t worry, I’ll bring water. And we’re meeting a guide at three for a tour of the bullring.
Ana: Perfect. I’ll buy a guidebook tonight.
Times are invented for practice: check the real timetables.
Language: talking about the future
| For… | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| A plan or intention | be going to + verb | We’re going to visit Ronda. |
| A prediction from evidence now | be going to + verb | Look at that sky! It’s going to be hot. |
| An arrangement with a time and other people | present continuous | We’re meeting a guide at three. |
| Timetables | present simple | The train leaves at nine. |
| A decision made now, an offer, an opinion | will + verb | I’ll bring water. I think we’ll have lunch there. |
Fact or not sure?
| Statement | Status | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The Puente Nuevo was finished in 1793 | Fact | All the sources agree. |
| The bridge is 98 metres high | Not sure | Sources give different figures (58, 98, “about 100” metres). |
| Aldehuela designed both the bridge and the bullring | Not sure | Usually said, but one source names another designer for the bridge, and the bullring is “attributed” to him. |
| Orson Welles is buried near Ronda | Not sure | His ashes are said to be at a local estate; sources say “buried” or “scattered”. |
Read both texts first. Press “Check my answers” at the end. You can try again as many times as you like.
Choose the best answer.
1. When did the Catholic Monarchs take Ronda?
2. What happened to the bridge begun in 1735?
3. Who was Pedro Romero?
4. What were the mountains around Ronda famous for in the 19th century?
5. What time does the train leave, in the dialogue?
6. Why is the height of the bridge “not sure”?
Write the verb in the best form.
7. The train (leave) Málaga at nine. (a timetable)
8. We (meet) a guide at three. (an arrangement)
9. “I’m thirsty.” “Wait, I (bring) you some water.” (an offer)
10. Look at those black clouds! It (rain).
11. We’ve decided: we (visit) the bullring museum. (a plan)
12. I think you love Ronda. (an opinion)
Choose the best answer.
13. The phone rings. “I ___ answer it!”
14. Which is an arrangement?
15. Which is correct?
16. Which is correct?
Where do these words come from?
17. Tajo, the name of the gorge, comes from the Spanish verb tajar. What does it mean?
18. Bridge is an old Germanic word. Which language is it related to?
19. Matador, used in English, comes from Spanish matar. What does matar mean?
A day in Ronda
Route: the Puente Nuevo and its viewpoints → the old town (the Arab baths, the church of Santa María) → the bullring and its museum → the Alameda del Tajo gardens for the view at sunset. Check train and bus times from Málaga before you go.
Your task: plan a day trip with a partner, in a dialogue of 10–12 lines, using all five ways of talking about the future.
From 1485 to 1793
When the Catholic Monarchs took Ronda in 1485, they could not have known that the town’s greatest monument was to be built three centuries later, across the gorge that had made the Muslim town so hard to capture. El Tajo, cut by the river Guadalevín, splits the rock on which Ronda stands, and the town’s growth beyond the old walls would eventually depend on crossing it.
A first attempt, begun in 1735, ended in failure. The bridge that replaced it, the Puente Nuevo, was to take some forty years; designed, by most accounts, by José Martín de Aldehuela, it was finished in 1793. Its builders were about to give the town not only a road but an image: the view of three great arches rising from the gorge would become one of the most reproduced in Spain. Sources disagree about its exact height, and even, in one case, about its designer, a reminder that the most famous monuments are not always the best documented.
From 1785 to today
Eight years before the bridge was finished, the Real Maestranza de Caballería, an order of horsemen founded in 1572, opened its bullring, attributed to the same architect. On the opening afternoon in 1785 the young Pedro Romero fought, a man who would go on to transform bullfighting on foot and who, legend says, was to kill thousands of bulls without ever being seriously injured. In the 20th century, another Ronda dynasty, the Ordóñez family, drew admirers such as Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles, whose ashes were to rest, by his own wish, on the Ordóñez family’s estate outside the town.
Bullfighting remains a divided subject. Its defenders see it as an art and a living tradition, part of Spain’s cultural heritage, with Ronda’s Goyesca, held every September in period costume, as one of its most celebrated events. Its critics regard it as cruelty to animals that has no place in a modern society, and several regions and towns have restricted or banned it. Ronda, which helped to create the modern spectacle, sits at the centre of that argument.
Language: the future in the past
| What we do | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| A future fact, seen from the past (destiny) | was / were to + verb | The bridge was to take forty years. |
| A later development, as a narrator | would (+ go on to) + verb | Romero would go on to transform bullfighting. |
| Something about to happen in the past | was / were about to + verb | The builders were about to give the town an image. |
| A past plan that may not have happened | was / were going to + verb | They were going to build it in ten years. |
| A destiny that did not happen | was to have + past participle | The first bridge was to have lasted for centuries. |
Evidence and debate
| Claim | What we can say |
|---|---|
| The bridge is 98 metres high | Sources give 58, 98 or “about 100” metres: they may be measuring different things. |
| Romero killed 5,600 bulls and was never seriously injured | A traditional figure, repeated by many sources; hard to verify. |
| Welles’s ashes are on the Ordóñez estate | Widely reported; sources differ on whether they were buried or scattered. |
Debate: Should bullfighting be protected as cultural heritage, or banned as cruelty to animals? Present the strongest case for both sides before giving your own view.
Read both texts first. Press “Check my answers” at the end.
Choose the best answer.
1. What is the irony in the first sentence?
2. “Not only a road but an image.” What does the writer mean?
3. What point does the writer make about famous monuments?
4. How does the writer treat Romero’s record?
5. How does Text 2 present the debate on bullfighting?
6. What is the Goyesca?
Write the missing word or words.
7. The Puente Nuevo take forty years to build. (destiny, seen from the past)
8. Romero would transform bullfighting on foot.
9. The builders were finish when the money ran out. (very soon)
10. The first bridge was to (last) for centuries, but it failed.
11. Hemingway first watched the Ordóñez family fight in the 1920s; he return to Spain many times.
12. The town was build a road around the gorge, but chose a bridge instead.
Choose the best answer.
13. Which sentence shows that something did NOT happen?
14. Which is typical of a historian’s narrative style?
15. Which is correct?
16. (Writing in 1793) “This bridge will last for centuries.” (Writing today) “The builders believed the bridge ___ for centuries.”
Where do these words come from?
17. Arena meant “sand” in Latin. What is the Spanish name for the sand of a bullring?
18. Cavalry and Spanish caballería come from Latin caballus. What was a caballus?
19. Aficionado, used in English for a devoted fan, comes from Spanish afición. From which Latin word?
A day in Ronda
Visit: the Puente Nuevo, from above and, by the path into the gorge, from below; the Arab baths and the old town; the bullring and museum; the bandit museum; the Alameda del Tajo at sunset.
Write (220–260 words): a short history of a building or place you know, told as a narrative, with at least five examples of the future in the past.