During our week in Madrid we made two day trips out of the city. On Monday we spent the day in world heritage listed Cuenca, less than an hour away by bullet train. Cuenca’s old town centre contains a row of amazing medieval buildings fused to the cliff faces of Rio Huecar. These casas colgadas (hanging houses with wooden balconies) date from the 16th century and appear almost to have grown out of the cliff faces, so expertly are they fused to the rock.
It’s now mid Spring and the weather’s warming up. It reached 25C on Monday, a mirror image of the –25C we experienced above the Arctic Circle a few weeks ago. It was warm work climbing the steep track to the lookout on the eastern side of town, presided over by an enormous Jesus statue a bit like Rio de Janeiro’s, then to the very top of Cuenca’s old town centre itself. From both places there were excellent views of the casas colgadas.
It was mid afternoon when we walked into Plaza Mayor and we were hungry and hankering for some vegetables (like many places in the world, Spain’s cuisine seems a bit light on greens). We found a shady spot on the edge of the town square and ordered a big salad and a freshly cooked paella also packed with vegies. A pleasant hour or so followed as we watched the comings and goings in the Plaza.
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On Tuesday morning we were on another bullet train out of Madrid, this one bound for Toledo. Toledo’s an old hill fortress town, its centre many centuries old. 400 years of Muslim rule ended here in 1085 AD, and shortly afterwards Toledo was recognized by the Vatican as a seat of the Spanish church. It built a huge cathedral to match its place in the hierarchy; construction took 300 years and its interior remains astonishingly ornate. Toledo once had pretensions to be the nation’s capital but that never came to pass and the city went into decline for a few centuries. But today it’s a hive of activity once again as hordes of tourists sweep in daily to admire its aspect and architecture and ambience.
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