Ronda

Take a break from sizzling on the crowded Costa del Sol beaches for a self-guided driving tour along the Route of the Pueblos Blancos. This string of cliff-top whitewashed villages stretches from the Moorish town of Arcos de la Frontera through the Sierra de Grazalema to Ronda, a maze of medieval streets perched dizzyingly above a 500-foot gorge (in the newer part of town sits Spain's most renowned bullfighting ring, birthplace of the modern corrida, or bullfight).