To Madrid via Cuenca

An early start meant that we are on the road for Madrid by 9am. We will visit Cuenca on our way and see a town that is a World Heritage site thanks to the medieval city that was built on a rock pinnacle high above a river gorge. Romans, Muslims and eventually Christians occupied the city from the 5th century BC to the final re-conquest in the 12th century AD.

A coach park is conveniently position for us to park the van and walk straight up a steep road, over a narrow bridge and into the old town to explore the narrow streets and enjoy the spectacular views all from around the city walls

As we have been driving through Spain the consistently high quality of the roads and the low volumes of traffic have been surprising. This has been particularly marked today as we have driven over single and dual carriageways where we see very little traffic and the where the quality of the surface is superb. It might be expected on the motorway between Valencia and Madrid but the high standards continue when we go off piste and head for minor towns in the middle of nowhere. This makes for steady progress and a very relaxed journey with plenty of time to take in the countryside.

What countryside we are seeing, wide plains of deep red soil divided by the occasional range of hills which afford excellent views. The land is mainly planted with vines with the occasional olive grove but as we begin to get nearer to Madrid this changes and arable land takes over with the first shoots of cereal crops showing green.

As we cross another range of hills we see the distant snow-topped mountains that protect Madrid from the North and West. We drop onto the plain and Madrid comes into view. The expected rush of traffic starts and we get swept along but a Carrefour appears and so we stop to do our weekly shop before heading back to the ring road. In the melee we end up on the wrong road and make an unplanned visit to the airport – at least we can say that we have seen Madrid airport – but we don’t stop and after arriving back on the ring road we immediately find our campsite.

It proves to be a basic site in need of updating but able to charge capital city prices as it is within fifteen minutes of the metro with a thirty minute journey to the centre. As we have all we need in the van we decide to give the camp’s facilities a miss and plan our visit to the capital.