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| New bike cover installed |
We’d been in Barcelona and while there, bought an electric bike each. When trying to buy a cover for them so they could sit on the back of our motorhome, Vanni, we were told that we had to go to Zaragoza to pick them up.
So, we drove to Zaragoza, eventually finding the camping shop and purchased a sturdy cover.
We fitted it parked in a barren, and blindingly hot car park, then absolutely exhausted, we looked for the only camp ground in Zaragoza.
We eventually found one, after an interesting drive around the suburbs and city.
We cycled into Zaragoza the next morning, and focused on the city’s historic centre.
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| Marg at Zaragoza
Basilica del Pilar (UNESCO), Spain |
There were some important landmarks that we managed to find, including the Basílica del Pilar, La Seo Cathedral, and the Aljafería Palace.
Together with several other historic buildings, they form part of the Mudéjar Architecture of Aragon which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
As we walked around, the heat increased. But we survived with a brief stop in MacDonald’s for free wifi and air conditioning, before cycling back to camp.
The next day, we faced a 4.5 hour drive through desert-like terrain. On the drive we passed convoys of trucks (sometimes up to 12 in a convoy), and saw hundreds (literally) of power-generating windmills.
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| Oidor Church in Alcalá
de Henares (UNESCO), Spain |
A few hours later, we drove through the interesting city of Alcalá de Henares. This city dates back to Roman times, and later, became the world's first planned University City.
It is also the city where Miguel de Cervantes, the writer of Don Quixote, was born.
The historic centre of Alcalá de Henares is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Although interesting, we didn’t linger here, as we wanted to get on to Madrid.
We eventually arrived in Madrid, the capital and largest city of Spain. With a population of around 3.3 million, it is the 3rd largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin.
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Marg at the Royal
Palace, Madrid, Spain
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It is home to the Spanish Parliament, administrative government, and the Palacio Real - the Palace of the Spanish Royal Family.
We drove through this large city, before finding a camp ground for the night.
Unfortunately, that camp had received poor reviews, but while the facilities looked old, we decided to stay because it was close to the metro, and had lovely shady trees. That night it was very cold under the trees – perhaps the trees were not a good idea!
The next day, a short walk took us to the metro, and half an hour later we were in the centre of Madrid on the Grand Via.
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| Leigh with Madrid's Don Quixote statue |
We walked up to the Plaza de España, which had a fabulous statue of the Man of La Mancha Don Quixote, and his faithful Sanchez.
Then gradually we worked our way around the streets. We saw some beautiful buildings, quaint alleyways, and great parks and plazas.
Our first thoughts coming into Madrid city were negative, as there seemed to be a lot of graffiti, and bad smells on every corner. However, as it opened up its beauty to us, the grand buildings, wide treed boulevards, and great restaurant scene helped to change our overall opinion.
Over the day, we walked and metro-ed for many kilometres seeing many sights.
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Palacio de Cibeles
(Madrid Town Hall), Madrid, Spain
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Favourites were the Palacio de Cibeles, Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, Mercado de San Miguel, and Catedral de la Almudena.
We finished our day outside a little café in a gay area drinking sangria, nibbling tapas, and people watching.
We were hot and tired when we got back to camp, and contrary to our earlier thoughts about the many trees at the camp, were quite pleased about the shade.
After a few days in Madrid, we drove around 45 minutes west, to El Escorial, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
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| Royal Monastery (UNESCO), El Escorial, Spain |
The Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, is the largest monastery in Spain. We almost missed seeing it as our focus was the village. Then we realised that it was up the hill.
In the end, we didn't walk the extra kilometres to see it but satisfied ourselves with a drive by.
Meantime, back in the township, they had a market and we bought pickled something – a kind of flower, some huge olives stuffed with herring, some pork crackly and fresh bread – yummm! We enjoyed these later, they made an excellent dinner.
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| Leigh in front of
the town walls, Ávila (UNESCO), Spain |
We then drove on to Ávila, another UNESCO World Heritage site. Ávila is completely enclosed by an amazing fortified wall dating back to the 11th century.
The wall is around 3 metres thick with an average height of 12 metres, and with 9 gates.
The town is sometimes called the Town of Stones and Saints because it has such a high number of Romanesque and Gothic churches.
We walked around the wall and the town, and saw many churches and other ancient buildings.
Driving further south, we arrived in Toledo, another walled city and UNESCO site.
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| Tourist train into the old walled city of Toledo (UNESCO), Spain |
We got to Toledo quite late and ended up getting the little tourist train around the old town.
However, there seemed to be a few issues as the train wouldn’t start.
A little annoyed, we queued up with everyone else, to get our money back. Then suddenly it started, so we jumped on and enjoyed the ride.
We were taken all around the old city, out one of the city gates, over a bridge and right around the other side of town.
The train was open and airy, and we had a welcome breeze to offset the very hot 36 degree heat.
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| Leigh with the UNESCO city of Toledo behind |
On the way, we had a fantastic view of the castle, churches and historic buildings.
It turned out to be a wonderful way to see the place as it was still extremely hot and we were very tired. But we found Toledo to be buzzy and a very lovely old town.
At the end, at 6 pm, we still had to find a place to camp for the night.
Then we spotted few campervans in a car park by the river, navigated our way down there, and snuggled up in the middle of the other vans. We were free-camping but felt quite safe. We had a lovely quiet night’s sleep, with a great view back up to the old city, which was lit up for the night.
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| Leigh in Aranjuez (UNESCO), Spain |
The next day, we headed around 40 minutes east of Toledo, to Aranjuez. This has been an estate of the Spanish Crown since 1560, and up to 1752, only the royalty and nobility were allowed to dwell in the town.
Today, Aranjuez contains some wonderful reminders of those times, and collectively, they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We visited some of the main sites, including the royal Church of San Antonio, the beautiful Casa del Labrador, and the Palacio Real - the Royal Palace used as the summer home of the Bourbons.
Our next stop was Cuenca, but we got lost getting there.
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| The hanging houses of Cuenca (UNESCO), Spain |
When we did arrive, we climbed a very steep hill to view some amazing “hanging houses” that are built into, and hang over, the huge rocks in the area.
We were not happy though, as we'd had a little disagreement with two bus drivers who jealously guarded a bus parking spot. Eventually we found a safe parking spot, but when we returned later, we saw that they had allowed another campervan into the bus parking area – frustrating!
Cuenca has two distinct settlements: the "new" city and the “old” one. The old one is divided by the Huécar River, and the hanging houses that we wanted to see, are built over a rock above the Huécar River gorge.
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| Marg at Cuenca's Casa Colgades (UNESCO) |
These amazing 14th century structures, called Casas Colgades, are the only remaining buildings of this type, which used to be common in this city. They are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We found these structures absolutely fascinating and spent some time there, seeing other ancient buildings as well, including the Dominican Monastery, the Gothic cathedral and other religious buildings.
Back on the road and our GPS, which is an obscure German brand called A-rival, normally tells us exactly how many kilometres we must travel before out next manoeuvre.
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| Colourful scenery and road near Cuenca, Spain |
However, on this leg of our trip, she (it has female voice) solemnly told us that we had to stay on this road for ... “quite a while” which really gave us a giggle.
Since getting a new SD card this GPS system has been behaving itself, but every so often she has a hissy fit and tells us to get off at such and such a corner, which we do, only to discover we had done a loop and could have stayed on the original road.
We now look closely at road directions, and if necessary, politely tell her that we are NOT going there!
We have a longish drive ahead, as we are heading for Valencia on Spain's Mediterranean coast
This blog describes
part of our 6 month motorhome trip around western Europe, which began in
Prague.