But first, a look around Cuenca
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| The campsite is north of Cuenca and we drove down the valley/gorge of the Rio Jucar to the town |
The original town was built on a rocky promontory between the Rio Jucar and the Rio Huecar - though it has spilled over down the hill since! We drove over a bridge and turned left up into the old town, planning to park in the square by the cathedral but unfortunately it was railed off for some event or other! Not to be thwarted, we carried on though narrow winding streets until we popped out at the top end (feeling a bit like Mole when he "scrabbled and scrooged"); a large, half empty car park bore sinister notices about towing away of unauthorised vehicles (complete with picture of a break-down truck) but out through the top gateway we finally found somewhere to leave Belinda (the campervan) while we explored.
Belinda had a lovely view which she relaxed before the day's journey, complete with a board showing what was what. The cathedral, which we were aiming for, is the tower in the centre. The famous "casas colgadas" - hanging houses on the cliffs - above the little bridge on the left.
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| The gate at the top of the town. Jan on her way to find a coffee! |
An eye catching metal crucifix on the wall of a church we passed.
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Narrow, winding streets, balconies on upper
Stories and rejas on ground floor windows |
The lovely old doors caught my eye, some grander than others but all very ornamental
We had come into the town early to leave plenty of travel time, but the timing worked well: cafes were just opening as we reached the Plaza Mayor!
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| One thing I noticed was the "almost Irish" multicoloured houses! |
The cathedral has an odd west front, a high wall pierced by dummy windows on left and right that don't actually light the inside of the building. It had an almost "Dodge City" feel about it!
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| The west front of Cuenca's cathedral |
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| An intriguing glimpse of the "back" of the west front. |
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Lovely detail in the carving by the cathedral steps
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Finding our way back up to Belinda via more back streets I was intrigued to see some half timbered upper stories - not all solid stone then - and also that some buildings used solid rock as part of their walls.
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Solid rock on the right and someone's floor
above! |
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| Space at a premium? Lanes run under upper stories |
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| Unexpected half timbering |
On to find those Romans!
Cuenca means "basin" in Spanish and indeed, this is apparent in the sedimentary rocks in the area - layer cake topography with horizontal beds of rock dissected by a young drainage pattern. You see this really well flying across Spain, but it's also visible on the ground. These sediments were deposited in ephemeral lakes which dried out from time to time leaving salt deposits, notably gypsum. The Romans exploited the huge selenite crystals found in some of these deposits: selenite is a colourless, transparent variety of gypsum which grows in flat, sheetlike crystals. They called it "lapis specularis" or "Hispania glass" and used it to glaze window openings. And it was mined around here! So, off to Torrejoncillo where it looked as though there could be a selenite mine!
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| Well, there was a mine, and it is being adapted for tourism.... but not today! |
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| It had been open, but we turned up just one month too late this time! |
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| Plenty of information on a board, it is obviously getting there |
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| And Jan found some fragments of selenite |
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Later in the day we saw this specimen of "Roman vintage" hispania glass in a display...
but that's the next instalment of the story |
The two old bats find the Romans
By the time we got here it was midday so these two mad old bats (or possibly mad dogs) carried on regardless, got our (concession rate - Spain is very good to pensioners!) tickets and had a look around the displays before going off to the excavations.
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| Mosaic in the display area |
It was pleasantly cool looking around the displays of finds etc - I particularly liked the "dahlia" pattern on a black and white mosaic.
Then we headed out into the high 30s summer heat of Cuenca Province!
And found that the actual site was around 1 km walk away....
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| Halfway to Segobriga andwilting from the heat! |
Fortunately there was a shady area and a machine selling cold bottled water about halfway along the pleasant, but poorly shaded (be nice when the trees have grown a bit more) track.
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| Segobriga amphitheatre |
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| Segobriga Theatre |
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| Columns perhaps part of the original proscenium |
The remains aren't perhaps as impressive as others we've seen (e.g. Merida) but they do have the advantage of being in the middle of "mamba" country (miles and miles of b***** all) rather than underneath an existing town.
There seems to be continuing excavation (sooner them than me on a hot day like this, but they were just knocking off, perhaps until evening!) so no doubt more to see in future
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| The amphitheatre |
After looking around we eventually made it back to the relative cool of the van where we took a break before driving down via Manzanares and Valdepenas to that evening's campsite - the delightfully named Camping Despenaperros at Santa Elena. We'd used this site before as it is only a couple of hour's drive from La Paz and is handy to get us on our way when we are driving north to the ferry. We'd always been sorry that every time in the past we'd arrived too late to enjoy the cool, hilltop setting and very pleased we were able to remedy this!
Sitting eating our meal, and enjoying a glass of wine we were entertained by a flock of Azure-winged magpies, and a friendly Hoopoe on an almost deserted campsite.
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| Under the pines at Camping Despenaperros |
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