Chinchilla

We both had a lay in this morning and woke up at 7:45am. We had a very peaceful night in the beautiful airè at Genave.
Just after 9am we went for a walk into the town. A few shops were open and we brought some freshly baked bread for breakfast, had a Wander around the streets and went to see the bullring and then went back to Wanda to have Jam on fresh bread for breakfast.
At 10:30am we were ready to leave and on the way out we stopped at the service point to empty the toilet and grey waste and fill up the fresh water. Today was going to be a busy day of driving. Wanda needed LPG and diesel at some point and we also needed fresh food for the cupboards so we plotted the Sat Nav and headed for the city of Albecete 70 miles away, following the N322 all the way through winding roads and a canyon like landscape.
Just after 1pm we were at the edge of the city and our first stop was Lidl, and it was a big one so we managed to get all of our shopping and some junk food to fill out junk food cupboard and from there we went to a Decathlon store just a mile down the road to replace my inner tubes that I had used and I found a new type of tyre lever and a decent puncture repair kit.
Then it was to our final destination of the day and our park up for the night in the city of chinchilla and on route we found a garage that did LPG so we filled Wanda and her gas tanks.
We arrived in Chinchilla de Monte-Aragon at 3:20pm and it was easy to get to the area de auto caravans and after we parked up the first thing we did was make a cup of tea and check google to see what this town had to offer and at first glance it looked promising as there was a huge castle on the hill.
Chinchilla de Montearagón preserves the beauty of its medieval layout and is declared as a Historic-Artistic Site and its streets are lined with stone mansions emblazoned with coats of arms, testimony to the ancient noblemen who inhabited it years ago. It has a castle and a fortress in a strategic position on the hilltop and the castle had Iberian and Roman bases and even an Arab origin, but the one we see today on the hill is from the 15th century and remains, after numerous reforms, in excellent condition, Crowning the rock and bordering the old town, the walls vary in height and open eyes to its interior from different doorways.
We both knew nothing would be open now as it was siesta time for the Spanish so Ellie looked up the local tourist information point and that said it would open again at 5pm until 8pm so we waited around and left Wanda at 5:10pm to have a look around.
We walked up the hill away from the airè and through an archway left from when Chinchilla was a walled city and into the main town square called the Plaza de La Mancha. Here we had the huge church of Santa Maria Del Salvador, but it was closed. Next to it was the Palace de Nuñez Cortès also closed, and next to that was the tourist information centre. That was also closed. We rechecked google for the opening hours and checked the signs on the door and everything said it should have been open from 5pm until 8pm. We will try again in the morning.
Feeling a little p’eed off we went for a walk around the streets anyway and it looks like a fascinating town. It’s full of cobbled streets and archways, history is oozing out if every doorway and all we want to do is find out when things are open or if they open.
Disappointed but excited at the same time to see what might be open tomorrow we went back to Wanda, watching the sun set on the way and turning the big white clouds into pink clouds that made it look like the sky was full of candy floss.Read more