The balmy weather that greeted us on our arrival in Bilbao and kindly rode with us to Zaragoza has parted company and a chilly morning in single digits Celsius greets our departure from Zaragoza. We successfully negotiate the two levels of underground car park and are soon heading heading south, well rugged up with winter thermals and winter gloves to keep us warm. The heated grips still work, yeah. Unfortunately the dexterity required to operate cameras is sacrificed, so fewer of Anne’s great riding photos will populate this blog entry.

A coffee stop reminds us that you can still get your favourite tipple; beer, spirits etc at the motorway cafes, this has not changed since we rode here in 2012. What has changed is the number of people that speak english, usually the younger generation but not always. We even met one woman with a Manchurian accent from her time in the UK. It does make life easier for us, especially me.

We leave the highway and onto the smaller roads we prefer as we head for a planned lunchtime stop at Albarracín. As we approach, the ever darkening skies portend heavy rain later in the day. Our final destination is only 100km away but the twists and turns en route it will take us two hours. A snap decision, we do not want to ride wet and cold on mountain twisties, Albarracín will have to wait for another day. Through the tunnel under Albarracín we go. As we wend our way up and down over various passes towards Cuenca, the temperature drops as we cross each pass at one point the sign says 1685 m which I take to be metres above sea level, over 5,500 ft. We avoid most of the rain (although we did stop to don our waterproof jackets) and arrive some two hours later as predicted. I would not want to ride any faster thanks. Although cold, what a fantastic ride, through ever changing scenery, perfect curves and very little traffic.

While we are staying away from the old town at a hotel with off street parking, we head towards the centre of town to look at a couple of restaurants Anne has identified as having gluten free options and are open from 8pm. At the first, the sign of a painter with his brushes and paint locking the doors just before 8pm is an indication you cannot rely on what you read on the internet, similarly the locked gate at the second restaurant means we will rely on old fashioned looking in windows to chose our dining place.

We enter Mesón Darling a quiet looking cafe. We get the menu and Anne reads out the options, “tail”, “trotter”, “ear”… “Anything from the middle” I ask. I really am not that adventurous on eating all the extremities of animals, tasty as they may be. We do get a couple of good options and as we eat the place fills with locals eating drinking and talking, the cafe really is part of the social fabric of Spanish society.

Cuenca old city is a thin finger of land rising upwards as we trudge up from the bottom. There is a bus service to the top, but you cannot enjoy all the sights in the same way from the window of a bus, so we walk up. The photos say it better that I can but we really enjoyed our time here.

While we have adapted slowly to the eating habits in Spain, we have enthusiastically embraced the depth and variety of Tapas, but our stomachs have not fully adjusted to the later eating times. Each place we visit to eat from city restaurants to country cafes, we find we are able to navigate the respective menus and get “sin queso” “sin gluten” options. We are impressed with the friendliness of the staff and always get a free small plate of something from the kitchen even of we are only having a drink.

Apart from the cool weather and occasional rain which we have managed to miss most of we are having a very enjoyable time in Spain. Tomorrow we continue further south having seen and done so much in less than a week.

– Anthony

P.S. Can you add your initials or name to any comment so we can identify who they are from. Thanks