Day 6: Madrid to Cuenca - on the road
Disclaimer: All voyages in this blog are being taken safely in the comfort of our imaginations - based on our plans and intentions for travel in 2020. What is reality after all?
So this is where the trip really begins!
We taxi-ed to the car pick-up place, near the airport - in the basement parking of a block hotel:
After completing the paperwork and collecting our brand new Renault, we drove off ... just as if this car was the one we had at home (except everything in mirror image). Well, it was ... was what we had previously, and at home ... once:
Since we would have had to wait a little time until we could get into our booked accommodation in Cuenca if we drove directly there, we took a loop slightly northwards past Guadalajara. We were warned that there was not a lot to see here, and we didn't want to leave the car with luggage, so satisfied ourselves with a drive past some old walls and towers:
From there, down the road, past a mirador (lookout) over a reservoir:
and to a small village called Alcocer, where we'd decided to stop for lunch in a little Bar/Restaurant called Casa Goyo - which provided street parking immediately in front, where we could see the car:
It was a cute small restaurant, very friendly, and renowned for its copious amounts of food:
Nothing else to see in the village, so we crawled back into the car after lunch and resumed our drive to Cuenca.
We'd been here before, so with the help of the GPS and muscle memory (ha!) we eventually found our way up the zig zagging drive into the old town, on a ridge between two rivers:
Up and up:
The houses eventually open out through the arcaded town hall, into the Plaza Mayor, with the Cathedral at the far end:
We were now close, and driving up the main street to the parking lot, we glimpsed our accommodation down a small lane:
But there's nowhere to park there (though there's a commercial undercover park in a nearby building), so we kept going right to the top of the town (not that far actually) and out through the gate in the old castle walls:
The large free car park is just beyond, with great views back over the gorge.
We walked the luggage back down into the old town, and to the Posada San Jose in a back street, right on the edge of the cliff:
We'd stayed here twice before and really enjoyed it, so had booked in again, for a good sized room:
with a view of the Posada from its garden:
And later, as darkness fell, a great view from our room over the gorge (Hoz del Huécar):
We're here for a few days, including Pat's birthday, so we look forward to re-exploring the town.
So this is where the trip really begins!
We taxi-ed to the car pick-up place, near the airport - in the basement parking of a block hotel:
After completing the paperwork and collecting our brand new Renault, we drove off ... just as if this car was the one we had at home (except everything in mirror image). Well, it was ... was what we had previously, and at home ... once:
Since we would have had to wait a little time until we could get into our booked accommodation in Cuenca if we drove directly there, we took a loop slightly northwards past Guadalajara. We were warned that there was not a lot to see here, and we didn't want to leave the car with luggage, so satisfied ourselves with a drive past some old walls and towers:
From there, down the road, past a mirador (lookout) over a reservoir:
and to a small village called Alcocer, where we'd decided to stop for lunch in a little Bar/Restaurant called Casa Goyo - which provided street parking immediately in front, where we could see the car:
It was a cute small restaurant, very friendly, and renowned for its copious amounts of food:
Nothing else to see in the village, so we crawled back into the car after lunch and resumed our drive to Cuenca.
We'd been here before, so with the help of the GPS and muscle memory (ha!) we eventually found our way up the zig zagging drive into the old town, on a ridge between two rivers:
Up and up:
The houses eventually open out through the arcaded town hall, into the Plaza Mayor, with the Cathedral at the far end:
We were now close, and driving up the main street to the parking lot, we glimpsed our accommodation down a small lane:
But there's nowhere to park there (though there's a commercial undercover park in a nearby building), so we kept going right to the top of the town (not that far actually) and out through the gate in the old castle walls:
The large free car park is just beyond, with great views back over the gorge.
We walked the luggage back down into the old town, and to the Posada San Jose in a back street, right on the edge of the cliff:
We'd stayed here twice before and really enjoyed it, so had booked in again, for a good sized room:
with a view of the Posada from its garden:
And later, as darkness fell, a great view from our room over the gorge (Hoz del Huécar):
We're here for a few days, including Pat's birthday, so we look forward to re-exploring the town.
This is just the trip I want to really do! Cuenca is a bit of magic and the coffee is good here too.
ReplyDeleteCuenca is new to me, but I'm already in love with it! Those coloured buildings! Sigh...another one for the one-day list. I'm going to really enjoy your trip! thank you for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteCuenca is a gem. Back in 1988, it was an unplanned discovery and where we started the fantasy of buying a small place as a second home, somewhere on the Iberian Peninsular. This never eventuated although some years later we had settled on a small town in the Alentejo region of Portugal, called Castelo de Vide and had travelled there to check out properties. That's a whole other story as to what happened next.
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