Monday 12th October
Happy Christopher Columbus day! Today is a Public holiday celebrating the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Lots of people out and about and enjoying their day off.
Before we came to Spain I did some preparatory reading to make myself familiar with the story of Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes. Today we travelled through La Mancha Country and Ewan had worked out a trail where we would see lots of old windmills. These feature heavily in Don Quixote as he imagines they are giants and attacks them (unsuccessfully! ) with his long wooden staff.
We saw many in rows along the tops of hills, not unlike the locations of the more recent wind turbines. They apart to be static and no longer in use, but every town seems to have a statue of Don Quixote so it seems they have been preserved to prolong the myth. Probably their original function of milling grain has been well and truly superseded by modern methods.
In one town there was a number of them clustered together and you can get very close to them. Very popular with visitors.
We traveled through flat, dry, brown, rocky countryside initially until gradually it became more hilly and green. All along the way there were acres of untethered grapevines, and of course, the inevitable olive trees.
Our destination, Cuenca, is famous for old houses that cling perilously to the tops of deep gorges. Some of them have been hanging over the edge for some centuries!
After we located our hotel - a converted 17th century monastery which is definitely on terra firma - we found some food in the local Plaza and headed off to find the best views of the famous houses.
Ewan had done a great job of booking a hotel which was not far as the crow flies from the houses. But it required a lot of climbing down multiple sets of stairs to get to one of the rivers that surrounds the houses, and then to climb up again to cross a bridge which spanned the gorge. Our knees and sore legs were protesting but we were determined to be good tourists, even though it started to drizzle with rain!
There are some great Museums here and a couple which have contemporary art, but as it is a Public holiday nothing was open. Damn!
Just as we were returning to the hotel a huge bus with a bicycle trailer managed to squeeze itself into the main square, and without killing any tourists snapping selfies of themselves in front of the Cathedral. Truly remarkable!
We had a chat to one of the cyclists and they are cycling from Valencia to Paris to promote environmental causes. Ewan was suitably impressed.
Tomorrow is our last day of travelling as we will reach Valencia - and all those oranges! The hire car will be returned and we will spend the last couple of days enjoying ourselves in Valencia before flying home on Thursday.
Hard to believe we have been away for 9 weeks!
Your satisfied correspondent
Dianne
No comments:
Post a Comment