Marbella → Ronda by car

Marbella → Ronda over the A-397

Leave Marbella westbound on the A-7 and exit at San Pedro de Alcántara, where the A-397 begins its 43 km climb to Ronda. The first stretch rises quickly through pine and cork-oak slopes, and within twenty minutes you are trading sea views for mountain ridgelines. The road is well surfaced but genuinely bendy — count on about an hour of concentrated driving, and pull into the signed lay-bys near the pass to look back over the coast towards Gibraltar and, on clear days, the mountains of Morocco. After the pass the landscape opens onto the high plateau of the Serranía de Ronda. Park in the underground car parks near the bullring and walk to the Puente Nuevo, the 18th-century bridge spanning the roughly 100-metre-deep Tajo gorge, then wander La Ciudad, the old Moorish quarter, before lunch on one of the plazas. In the afternoon, either add the half-hour loop north to Setenil de las Bodegas, whose houses are built directly under overhanging rock, or head straight back. Take the A-397 descent in daylight and use engine braking in a low gear rather than riding the brakes all the way down.

Driving note: The A-397 has around 40 km of continuous bends and no fuel stations between San Pedro and Ronda — fill up before you climb, and avoid descending after dark in winter.