Day 34 -Tablas Damieles to Cuenca

Was hoping for a bright morning filled with birdsong but I guess it’s not surprising that beside a lagoon you wake in mist. Didn’t take too long for the sun to break through though  and the birds started when the mist fell. 

We popped up to the visitor centre to use the facilities before we hit the road. I was a bit concerned that the pull to walk those paths again would be too great but it faded fast when two coach loads of very loud tourists descended.

Damieles itself didn’t seem that attractive surrounded by large factories but the landscape around it was, largely rows of vines which appeared to be showing more signs of spring growth than they had 24 hours earlier. 

It was really warming up. The start of the journey continued this pattern of vine covered fields and then industrial units for some time. The plains seeming to stretch out forever with the tall terracotta irrigation pots often the only man made structures. 

As we joined the A4 there seemed to be so slight hills in the distance and it was here we saw our first windmills of the day. 

It wasn’t too much longer before we reached Consuegra, our first stop. We tried to follow Google maps through its narrow streets, with occasional streets signs to the windmills disagreeing. We parked at the bottom of the hill ( which appeared to have vans staying in it; noted for future trips) but realised that it would be easy enough to continue higher up the road and parked next to the first windmill, which housed the tourist info. 

The row of windmills is quite a site stretching along the ridge with the heavily restored Castille part way along. We spent s lot of time wandering between the windmills , visited the castle (€7) and going inside the functioning windmill (€1.50) which although we didn’t see it move ourselves was easy to imagine when we watched their video whilst standing next to the mechanism.

 

It was a glorious afternoon, the sun was a warm 23/24 degrees and there was a cool breeze. There were butterflies everywhere including swallowtails and crested larks singing…. Happy Days!

The arrival of a bus load of Asian tourists with drone cameras was our cue to move on. So we headed back to the carpark at the bottom of the hill which had a picnic area and had late lunch in the sun. 

The road from Consuegra soon became very flat and straight again with fruit trees overtaking vines in frequency. But it wasn’t too long before windmills were back on the ridges. Our second stop at Campo de Criptana wasn’t much further and had the same narrow access through an old town as we’d had earlier. The windmills themselves had a different layout though , stretched across a small sierra. In honesty this would have been a lot more impressive if we not already seen some today but the weather was still great and it was interesting to look out over the surrounding countryside. 

From here the N420 had serious Roadtripping vibes. Great dead straight stretches that seemed to run forever.

As we curved around Belmonte we noticed an impressive castle of the hill and strayed ‘off plan’ to drive up to it. It was a whopper! Six sided and appeared to be very impressively restored, gave Warwick castle vibes with falconry and reenactments but it was too late to visit so it was outside only for us on this occasion. 

Still an hour from Cuenca. The landscape was becoming less distinctive and even a bit like England (but with better weather!) .

We got to Cuenca as the sun was setting… the side we entered was not promising… pretty ugly in fact! We drove into the city aiming to use the motor home parking but it was full and far from ideal so we've moved out of town to a spot by the river in a gorge. There are lots of other vans here including a lot of full timers, although there’s a small chance they may move us on as rumour has it they are trying to stop its use. Fingers crossed they don’t! Cuenca has not impressed so far- hopefully tomorrow will change that.

Mileage: 1948

Steps today: 10,942

Overnight: Paseo del Jucar, Cuenca , free ( no services)