Day 63: Cuenca

Moving fairly quickly now as there's a bunch more World Heritage sites and places we want to get to in Spain before heading for the UK in early May. So with that in mind, we left Aranjuez in the morning and drove the hour or so eastwards to Cuenca, where another site awaited us!

Cuenca is an old Moorish fortress built on a rocky outcrop, surrounded by gorges on three sides. Gradually over the years a town built up around it, but due to the terrain and lack of space it became a very vertical town, with houses even built out over the cliffs! These days most of the town is lower down the hill on a flat plain, but the old section is world heritage listed.

We arrived at the base of the gorge and found a park, then commenced the long walk uphill. We were underneath a large iron bridge which had some great views spanning the gorge and up to the town, so we walked up to that and then across and back, stopping a couple of times to do filming.

Into the town proper where we checked out the main sites - a cathedral, some chapels and the old fortress, though very little actually remains of the old fortress. It was mostly destroyed during the Napoleonic wars sadly, and the reconstruction these days was a prison during the Spanish Civil War and is now government offices I think. Likewise the cathedral, although one of the oldest Gothic style cathedrals in Spain, the belltower completely collapsed in 1902 and destroyed the facade with it. The facade was rebuilt, but we decided against going inside (it was a bit pricey and of course, dogs not permitted).

Had a good look from various viewpoints as well, since the sheer cliffs on three sides meant great views of the surrounding areas. Finished filming what we needed to, grabbed a lunch of local soup from a restaurant before heading to our accommodation - a ranch style hotel about 10 minutes drive from town. Room was newly refurbished and quite nice, though the walls were very thin and a noisy young family were next door. I turned the TV up super loud to block them out, and they soon went out for dinner anyway. We had dinner in, an extravagant feast of baguette, cheese, jamon iberico and Milka.Read more