Sebby Family: Ronda2 – Friday

We visited 3 museums on our 2nd day. One too many as you’ll see. All 3 we more or less stumbled into in the old town (on our side of the bridge). The first turned out to be quite interesting with all sorts of historical artifacts. Sewing machines, Typewriters, Pistols. Really, it was interesting. Especially the pistols. You could definitely see how these early pistols were hit and miss as to whether they’d blow up in your face or successfully fire. In the basement were objects of the Spanish Inquisition. Theo was misbehaving so we threw him in this cage…

I wasn’t thinking about it too much, but a lot of it was quite gruesome. With manequins depicting the victims. The descriptions, in English, were often quite graphic as well. Ask about the skull crusher, supposedly still in use for interrogations? Maeve was fine until she’d asked what the thing was that she’d posed for a photo in, like one of those photo stands where you stick your head in the hole and become the beautiful princess. It dawned on me at the time that maybe I should check that the blade was completely secure before I let her do it, but it didn’t dawn on me that maybe I shouldn’t let the 4 year old do it at all. And I certainly shouldn’t have explained it’s full function to her. Not my brightest moment as a dad. After that she started getting upset and I scooped her up and took her onto the next room assuming it had to be better than these torture devices. It turned out to be witchcraft and Grimm’s fairie tale’s type beasts and was equally startling as the Spanish Inquisition room. OK, time to leave the basement. Hopefully all will be forgotten by Siesta and bedtime!! Tomorrow will be a better dad day, I hope.

We then visited the wine museum, which gave us and the kids a good low down on the process of wine making. I was fascinated to hear there are approx 8,000 varieties of grape vines, but only approx 50 varieties that make the best wine.

We may have benefitted from the language barrier as there were 4 spiggets available for the wine tasting for the adults at the end of the museum. Kate had heard 2 white and 2 red. OK, we’ll try each one and compare. After finishing my 3rd Kate noticed a poorly translated sign apparently attempting to explain that we should only have one glass. Oops. Oh well, I could taste it was certainly not their best.

The final museum of the morning was the hunter’s museum. We were hoping for local fauna and maybe some early history of the hunting tribes of the area. But we got stuffed big game after stuffed big game. Maybe OK to see a few moose or buck hanging on a wall in a shack up north, but all of them abutting each other one after another was a bit nauseating. They also had photos of many of the hunters posing with their kill. At the exit I noticed advertisements for big game hunting in Africa, so I believe it was more of an advertisement than a museum. Still, it was impressive to see all the horned animals and the stunning variety of their twisting horns. Seemingly always twisting symmetrically. Janie also took a little tumble on the slippery marble stairs as she attempted to let a couple pass. Yet another reason we should’ve skipped that museum. We were getting hungry so we found a grocery that took visa and bought some fruit and nuts. Theo later said that we didn’t need to buy the oranges we’d bought, as we could’ve simply picked them. We found a park to eat at and across the road were orange trees. Zeke approached a cleaning lady standing there and asked permission, ‘Permisso Pone una naranja’. She said yes, but attempted to warn us. ‘fuerte’. Kate said sour. We tried anyway just for the experience. Yes, sour. Edible, but not pleasant. It was beginning to get too warm, so we headed back for Siesta.

In the afternoon, we awoke and took the quick 4 minute walk to the bull fighting ring and the bull fighting tour. The kind man selling tickets told the kids to slide under the gate as Kate and I purchased the audio tour. Kate listened as it told us the history of bull fighting. Then lead us through the picadero arena where the horse men trained. We learned that each bull fight had eight bulls, 3 of which were extras, and the most experienced bull fighters got to choose their bull first. Later we found there were actually 9 rooms for 9 bulls, so not certain what the extra room was for. The ring was definitely still in use as the kids noticed several gore marks on the walls. Theo pretended goring the walls with his horn.,

The kids were all nervous as we stood outside the closed doors that held the bulls, they said they were nervous the bulls might be back there. We then followed the path of the bull into the ring. It was very interesting to learn the format of the fight. And fun to pretend to be the bull. We all had a chance to be both the bull and the matador. Either Theo was a natural or Jane’s a natural at taking photos, but I think his matador was the best of all, and I make a passable bull.