A Round Trip of Inland Spain, Part 3

3rd February, 2000

Our guide book told us to arrive at Ávila in the evening light, highlighting the walls.  We arrived a little late for this, but the picture right does give an impression of the grandeur of the town.  To some extent the walls are the prize exhibit of the town.  They were built over nine years from 1090 by captured Moores.  We parked just inside the walls and made straight for the Plaza de la Catedral.

We had learnt that the best hotel in the town was the Palacio de Valderrabanos, right opposite the Cathedral, which was reputed to outshine the local Parador.     We normally travel somewhat scruffily dressed and this may have helped secure a 30% discount.  Now all we had to do was to get the car to the hotel through the maze of one-way streets.  This is a game we have played in cities all over Europe.  We should have asked the hotel for a map but we thought we could do it by instinct and indeed we got within spitting distance before an aggressive bus coerced us into passing the only - and tiny - street that leads to the front of the hotel.  The spaces that had been there when we set off were all taken, so   we parked in the tow-away zone opposite and took our bags in.

The hotel is the former Bishop's Palace and its reception rooms are stunning.   Suits of armour flank the main corridor and display cabinets contained antiques.   Our room overlooked the Cathedral and was very comfortable.  We changed for dinner and set off for the Plaza de la Victoria.  As we did so, we were able to grab a parking spot next to the hotel entrance.

While we were sure the hotel restaurant would be of a very high standard, out of season we thought it might be a bit lonely and we chose instead a more lively establishment, El Portalón.  Once again, we were too early for dinner and had a drink in the classy bar while waiting.  At 9 o'clock we went down to the even more classy restaurant which, as a motif, had a portly manikin sitting behind a wicker screen at the bottom of the stairs.  He was most lifelike, dressed in cream dinner jacket and trousers with a straw boater, smoking a cigar and reading his paper.  As with all restaurants in Spain, they had a menu of the day which, for a modest sum, provided us with a very satisfying meal and a bottle of wine.   

4th February, 2000 - Ávila to Cuenca

We started our brief tour with a look inside the Cathedral.  From the outside it looked quite drab and above a certain line it looked as though it was finished in Breeze blocks.  The inside, however, was as rich as any and remarkable for the use of a stone mottled with red.

The pictures above right show the interior and below left is the exterior, seen from the cloisters below centre.  Off the cloisters was a museum with the now familiar 'No photography' pictogram.  One room was particularly dazzling, with the pointing of its vaulted ceiling picked out in gold leaf.  The sneaked shot, below right, doesn't do justice to it. 

To the left is shown the huge silver 'Custodia', which was once paraded through the town.  Ávila's other claim to fame is Santa Teresa, born there in 1515 and now one of the most revered saints in Spain.

Many of the other interesting sights of the city are related to her time here.   Finally, before leaving Ávila, we went back to the square where we had eaten the previous night, which we show above centre.  The restaurant is in the colonnade to the left of the town hall.  We had parked over night in the main square at Cáceres and one of the things that had disturbed our sleep was the thought that the next day might be a market day and we would awake to find our car towed away.  There, we were lucky but here we were surprised to find that the square that had been full of parked cars at 10:30 the previous night was now full of market stalls.

Segovia

We returned to our car and travelled the comparatively short distance to Segovia.  Here again, we had breathtaking views of the city as we descended the winding road with nowhere to pull off to take photographs and were soon in the sprawl of the modern city, where it was not worth photographing.   Following a hunch, we drove out on the Madrid road a little way, turned up a track and found ourselves on high ground behind the hospital from where the superb view, shown to the right, can be seen.

We followed the map and easily found the Plaza Mayor, where we found a sunny table for our lunch, opposite the ultra-Gothic cathedral, shown to the right.  As we ate we were entertained by a group in traditional dress with pipes and drums.

The entertainers were carrying a human effigy which, at a certain point in their routine, they were tossing in the air.  We had a brief look in the Cathedral and took a little illicit video, shown above far right.  We walked round the Cathedral, eventually finding the Convent Church of Corpus Cristi, shown right.   This was formerly a Synagogue and as such is one of only a handful that remain.   As we had a long run down to Cuenca, we made back to the car and set off down the motorway to Madrid.

As we had spent a long weekend in Madrid some years ago, we skirted it and headed for the Valencia motorway.  The drive around Madrid's ring road was hair-raising.   Spanish drivers fall into two groups:  the painfully slow and the suicidally fast.  Needless to say, their 'white van man' belongs to the latter.  We left the Valencia road at Tarancón, just inside Valencia province, and followed the N400 to Cuenca, arriving just before dark. 

The old town is built on precipitously high ground at the junction of the rivers Júcar and Huécar.  With some difficulty, we managed to find our way to it and began what felt like an unending climb towards the Plaza Mayor.  In fact, we had started at the wrong end and when a workman closed a road we were forced down a street so narrow that we could not pass without using both pavements.  Eventually we found the Plaza Mayor but the surface had been entirely removed and a state of chaos reigned.  We continued upwards, almost to the old town wall and gate, where we were able to park, close to what our guide book told us was the best hotel in town.  Encouraged by our previous night's negotiation, we tried again.  This time we got a good reduction from the published rate but for a very small - though entirely complete - room.  The view from the window was remarkable. 

We had one small problem.  The parking was 'pay and display', with a two hour limit.  Usually, this is enough both at night and in the morning before we leave.   In Cuenca, however, on Fridays, Saturdays and holidays the regulations apply until 10 p.m.!  We had parked just after 7 p.m. and our ticket expired just after 9 p.m.    We had the dilemma of whether to move the car up the hill, out of the town where it was free, put another hour's ticket on, or what the heck.  The only thing that is worse than getting a ticket for overstaying is to get one for 'meter feeding', though we were not sure whether in Spain it would be an offence.  We wouldn't usually worry, except that as we walked up to look at the cliff sides, we saw the parking warden at work and he was issuing fines as if his life depended upon it.  We presumed that he had got his quota for the day and, as it was getting very cold, we couldn't see him going back up the steep hill after 9 o'clock in hope of more victims.  After we had changed and  walked down to the Plaza Mayor, we found the warden in conversation with the local policeman and felt reassured that he would not go back.  

We ate in a restaurant at the far corner opposite the Cathedral in the square.   This time, it was upstairs from the bar, quite classy, finished with light knotty pine.  Again we had the excellent value menu of the day.   The walk back up the hill to our hotel for the second time of the evening was exhausting and we were relieved to find that the warden had not made a return visit. 

5th February, 2000 - Cuenca

Below left is the view from just outside the town wall, looking at the cliff-top houses of Cuenca.  The old town is a narrow sloping triangle with its point at the confluence of the rivers.   Not only are there steep cliffs on the two long sides of the triangle, but the short side is only a few tens of meters wide at the point where they built the city wall and gate.  While it may have been a tedious place to live in, because of the steepness of its streets, it must have been easy to defend.

Above centre we show the Plaza Mayor with all its roadworks.  The Cathedral is on the left of the picture and shown again in the picture above right. 

We headed south to pick up the Valencia motorway, just after Motilla.  As we approached Valencia the traffic became thicker and predominantly of the suicidally quick.   The city is the third largest in Spain and as we hacked through the outskirts to the centre it looked the part.  We did not even think of street parking, but headed straight for the underground car park in Plaza de Zaragoza, shown below left.  We made our way, past the horse-drawn carriages and the Cathedral, to the Plaza de la Virgen, shown centre below, where a huge bronze figure reclined in the fountain. 

As we walked by the Chapel of Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados, we noticed that the doors were open and, with other curious visitors, we filed in to catch the end of a service or choir practice and could see the remarkably ornate interior for just a few moments before they turned the lights out.

Flying bridges connected the Cathedral to the Bishop's Palace, shown below left, as well as to the Chapel.  We could not resist including the rather rude figure, below centre, that hangs to the right of the Cathedral's rear door.

Though we did not visit it, there is a Cathedral Museum which has a gold and agate cup claimed to be the Holy Grail.  Eventually, we made our way to the Torres Serranas, the massive gateway which is almost all that remains of what must have been impressive defensive walls. 

We had a late lunch on our way back to the car park and left Valencia early in order to find a supermarket for our return to camp.  We found a big supermarket on the coast road and stocked up.  The coast road to Alicante is very busy and at Dénia we took to the motorway for a swift return to the camp.  Here we found that we had chosen the right week to be away as the roadways had all been resurfaced and the campers were bitching that they had either been marooned on their pitches or couldn't get to them.

Last updated:  18/03/01