Taxi Málaga Airport → Ronda

Prices by vehicle

Single journey, VAT included, on toll-free roads; the AP-46 tunnel at Las Pedrizas is optional and settled separately if you want it. A return is exactly twice this figure. Starting at the train station or the cruise port changes nothing in the price.

Drop-off

Hotels around the bullring, Plaza del Socorro and the parador by the bridge are reached by car to the entrance. The old town across the Puente Nuevo, La Ciudad, has narrow streets with restricted traffic in parts, and the driver will take you as far as the rules and the width allow, usually to within a couple of minutes' walk. Luggage is carried to the door of the hotel or the start of a pedestrian lane.

Inside the Terminal 3 arrivals hall at Málaga Airport, where the driver stands with a board showing your name.

What awaits you

• Puente Nuevo over the 100-metre Tajo gorge
• The 18th-century bullring and its museum
• Old town, Arab baths and the Mondragón palace

The valley road: Ardales and the reservoirs

Ronda is 105 km from the airport and the drive takes about 90 minutes, longer than the distance suggests because half of it is on ordinary mountain roads. We leave on the A-357 up the Guadalhorce valley, pass the Ardales turning and continue on the A-367, which crosses the Guadalteba reservoir on a causeway and then climbs through olive groves and holm oaks past Cuevas del Becerro and Arriate before dropping into Ronda from the north-east. Nothing on the route is a toll road. It is a quiet drive with wide views, and the driver knows the bends.

The alternative is to follow the coast west and take the A-397 up from the sea, a famous mountain road but a longer journey from the airport, so it is not our default. If you are coming off a cruise or the train, the inland route is the same: from the port or María Zambrano we join the A-357 at the western edge of Málaga.

Two towns joined by a bridge

The Tajo is a gorge about 100 metres deep cut by the Guadalevín river straight through the middle of Ronda. On the south side is La Ciudad, the old Moorish town: the Arab baths, the Mondragón palace, the Casa del Rey Moro with its water mine down to the river, and the walls and gates. On the north side is El Mercadillo, the newer quarter, with the bullring of 1785, the Alameda gardens, the parador on the cliff edge and the shopping street of Carrera Espinel. The Puente Nuevo joins the two; the older Puente Viejo and the Arab bridge sit lower in the gorge. Most hotels are in El Mercadillo, most of the atmosphere is in La Ciudad, and the walk between them is five minutes.

Feria, Semana Santa and the crowds of day-trippers

Ronda is the most visited town of inland Andalucía, and it shows between eleven and five, when the day-trip coaches from the coast are parked at the bullring. Staying the night is the answer: the bridge at dusk and at breakfast time belongs to the residents and the few who slept there. The Feria de Pedro Romero in early September, with the Goyesca bullfight, and Semana Santa fill hotels months ahead and close streets to traffic, so book the transfer early for those dates and expect the driver to stop a little further from the door. Autumn and winter are cold at 740 metres, and the gorge sometimes fills with fog on winter mornings.

Areas we cover in Ronda

Local tips for your arrival

• Ask for a room with a gorge view if the hotel has one; the parador and several small hotels on the cliff side do.
• The Casa del Rey Moro water mine is over 200 steps down to the river and the same back up; skip it with small children.
• Ronda's train station on Avenida de Andalucía links to Antequera and on to Granada or Madrid; check times with the operator.
• Wineries around Ronda open for visits; most need a booking and a car, so ask your hotel to arrange a tour rather than counting on walking.

Back to Málaga from Ronda

Return pick-ups are at the hotel entrance, or at the nearest point the driver could reach on arrival if you are in a restricted lane. The road to the airport takes 90 minutes, so with the two hours the airlines request, or two and a half in summer and for non-Schengen flights, a 13:00 departure means leaving Ronda at about 9:15. Winter mornings can be foggy on the plateau and the driver allows for it. The same transfer at the same price takes you to the María Zambrano station for a train or to the cruise port to rejoin a ship; for cruise passengers we agree the pick-up time with the all-aboard hour in mind.

From the train station or the cruise port

The fixed price to Ronda is the same from Málaga-María Zambrano train station and from the cruise port. Choose your origin in the form; the driver meets you at the platform exit or outside the cruise terminal.

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