Sunday 27 March

Madrid 12C Valencia 21C

Mostly overcast, a little rain, windy

Arrrgh....6am, not happy!!!! We got up anyway and were away by 8am. Our first stop, the royal palace in Aranjuez is only about an hour away. It is the Spring residence of the Spanish monarchs from the reign of Philip II onwards, was remodeled and extended in the 18th century by Philip V, Ferdindnd VI and Charles III. Further projects undertaken by the Crown in the 19th century transformed its gardens into one of the richest and most evocative places of all the royal estates. The palace houses many works of art and the various decorative styles range from the 18th century rococo to neoclassicism and to 19th century historicism and eclecticism. Quite a mixture. We spent a couple of hours here and continued travelling southeast to the old town of Cuenca, which stands high above the precipices of the rivers Jucar and Huecar. It's famous for it's "hanging houses" that are suspended over the Huecar ravine. It was awesome and made me giddy looking up at them. The cathedral in the town centre was really beautiful although we couldn't go inside 'cause it was closed because of "siesta" (between 2 & 5). We had lunch at Restaurante Los Arcos of consomme plus bread and tortilla which is a potato dish. Really yummy and the cost was 6 euro for the 2 of us. Good deal! The weather is really cold, windy plus a little rain. We then journeyed on to Valencia where we'll stay for 2 nights. The countryside through which we travelled is lined with olive and almond trees and grape vines. Coming into Valencia, orange trees were added to the mix. Spain is sleepy on Sundays, the villages were empty and for the most part we had the roads to ourselves, even Valencia, which is the 3rd largest city in Spain, didn't seem overly busy. Could be a different story tomorrow with the start of the working week. We did an orientation tour of the city taking in such sights as the towers Torres de Quart built between 1444 & 1460, Valencia Cathedral, the post office building, the North station, the bull ring (Plaza de Toros), the old course of the Turia (a river which was diverted and turned into sports and leisure areas for nearly 10k's), the Concert Hall, and the City of Arts and Sciences. We finished the day with a group dinner then Mum and l went out to look at a fountain that was lit up but that's all the exploring we've done. Plenty of time tomorrow.