 Setenil de las Bodegas is a place I visited on my return from my visit to Ronda. Both cities were two destinations I reached during my stay in Seville, a trip I took in October 2019 with my ex-travel partner and lover. As I wrote in the post about Ronda, it was the only destination I reached by car because by doing so I was able to also visit Sentenil. If I remember correctly, I discovered Sentenil de las Bodegas thanks to an image I saw on Pinterest, later investigating the place I discovered that it was near Ronda. From the beginning, therefore, I had planned to visit Setenil when I finally managed to see the city of Ronda, a city I had always wanted to see. What distinguished Setenil was that giant rock right above the houses, there is a characteristic image of a street where the mountain seems to rest on a row of houses. To be honest, I never studied Setenil carefully, for me it was just a characteristic place to visit right because it was near Ronda. The distance from it was in fact only 25 minutes by car, and that was exactly the time it took us to reach it together with my ex-partner, through hilly roads where in some stretches there were pleasant landscape views. I had no idea about the urban planning of Sentenil and once I got there, I noticed that the town was a complex of white houses that developed on a hill. I thought it would be a good idea to take the central road with the car and start going up thinking that I would reach some part of the historic center. The higher we went, the narrower the road became while the inhabitants who were outside the houses looked at us strangely. I was driving a Fiat 500, a small car and once I arrived in a small square, I managed to make a complex maneuver to take the only possible road. This road took me and my partner to the end of the route, where there was a tiny square and an opening that looked out onto the void. In short, we had arrived at a dead end and I managed to make a U-turn only thanks to my skills and the small size of the car. Obviously I took it as a joke and once I went back I realized that I had to park the car and go on foot. We parked in a square in front of the hill that led to the historic center that we had previously driven through. There I noticed that the famous part of Setenil was actually in the lower side right next to where we had parked. After briefly walking around a few streets, we set off on Calle Cuevas del Sol, a street that was downstream where on one side there were white houses covered by the mountain and on the other the parapet that overlooked the river. Most of the houses on the ground floor hosted restaurants and bars, both had most of the seats outside. The setting was very suggestive with lots of tables, chairs and umbrellas right under the mountain. In some places, the rock it was completely protruding out, even six or seven meters. It was a mystery how the mountain could have created a sort of straight roof that in that case also served as a cover for the street. However, the unpleasant thing was that even there, in that small and unique street, there were cars parked and even worse, some of those houses were garages with a no-parking sign. I already addressed the topic of historic centers in the post on Ronda; a conflict between the people who live there and move around by car and the tourists who have to juggle between them. Unfortunately in Setenil it was even worse; there were mainly commercial activities there, not homes, so I don't understand why there were cars in that narrow and characteristic street that overlooked the river. Continuing along the street, we reached a point that via some steps led to the upper part of Sentil, the one we had previously toured by car. We explored that part that was really characteristic. Without the bulk of the car in fact we were able to walk along those narrow streets where the houses were all white and with an irregular design. Houses with strange angles, balconies that protruded without any apparent logic and external decorations with a totally personal imprint. The walking tour on Calle Cuevas del Sol and the upper part of Setenil lasted about half an hour, however I was unable to find that typical place I had seen first on Pinterest and had made me discover the town. Today I have a vague idea of where it can be found but I am not one hundred percent sure. That visit to Sentenil, had been sufficient because it came after the most important visit which for me was Ronda. I remember that even not being able to find the particular glimpse with the rock that literally covered the street and the house, I was satisfied anyway. This was the mood with which I left Setenil de las Bodegas, I was satisfied and the city had managed to hide itself well and in a certain sense to protect its most famous part. The last beautiful thing of that day was the hill road that took us towards the state road that reached Seville; a narrow road without protections that wound through the hills offering enchanting views at every curve.     Calle Cuevas del Sol            A.M.
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