Cuenca Hanging Houses Long Day
A 361 km loop
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Why this ride
Built for flow, views and useful stops rather than navigation busywork. 361 km round from Madrid - plan on about 6 h 34 of riding. On the way it passes Mondéjar and Cuenca. The highest point is about 1,350 m.
Roadbook
- Madrid
start
Madrid sits higher than any other capital in the European Union, around six hundred and fifty metres above the sea, on a dry plateau with the Sierra de Guadarrama as a blue-white wall to the north. That height explains the light, which is hard and clear, and the winters, which can be sharp, and the habit of the place, which is to stay up very late. The city was a modest town until 1561, when Philip II moved his court here, more or less because it was in the middle of Spain, and it has been the capital ever since. Everything grand about the centre, the palace, the Plaza Mayor and the Prado, grew out of that decision.
The Royal Palace, on the western edge of the old town, is a vast block of white stone and granite begun in the 1730s on the site of a burned fortress, and the square in front looks across a gardened slope toward the Casa de Campo, a former royal hunting ground that is now an enormous park. Walk a few minutes east and the Plaza Mayor, with its red arcades, is the place for a coffee and a bocadillo de calamares, the fried squid sandwich that is the city's cheerful signature. The Retiro park and the Prado museum lie farther along, and a day in them is a good use of a rest day.
Riding out of the capital is easier than it looks. The M-30 ring road and the radial motorways are fast and well signed, and the traffic, though thick, moves. Low-emission zones restrict older vehicles in the centre, so check the current rules and do not assume a bike is exempt. Once past the northern suburbs the land rises toward the sierra and the roads begin to bend, through holm oak and granite boulders, with mountain passes like Navacerrada and Cotos within an hour or so. Weekends are crowded with other riders, so weekdays or early starts help.
Fuel is no concern in a city of three million, and the centre has bars on every corner. Madrileños eat late, with lunch around two and dinner after nine, and the best cheap breakfast is chocolate con churros, thick hot chocolate with fried dough, at one of the old churrerías. In summer the afternoon heat is fierce, and the streets are empty between three and six, then fill again as the shadows lengthen. The smell of the city is hot pavement, coffee and, after a thunderstorm, wet dust.
- Mondéjar
fuel
Mondéjar sits on the edge of the Alcarria, a region of limestone plateaus, deep valleys, olive groves and honey east of Madrid, which Camilo José Cela made famous in his 1948 travel book Viaje a la Alcarria. The landscape has changed little since then: wide skies, fields of cereals and lavender, small villages of stone houses, and the sense of being much further from the capital than you actually are.
The village itself is quiet, with an arcaded main square and a large parish church. On its edge stand the ruins of the convent of San Antonio, an early example of Renaissance architecture in Castile, now roofless and overgrown but still elegant, with its arches standing against the sky. Mondéjar also has its own wine designation, producing mostly red and white wines from local vineyards, and you can buy a bottle in the village for the evening.
The riding in the Alcarria is a pleasure. The roads are mostly quiet, with a mix of long straights across the plateaus and winding descents into the valleys, where rivers like the Tajuña and the Tagus have carved deep gorges. The surface is usually good, though it can be patchy on the smaller roads. Not far to the north-east, Pastrana is a beautiful old town where the Princess of Éboli, a famous figure of the court of Philip II, was confined for the last years of her life. To the west, Nuevo Baztán is an unusual planned village built in the early eighteenth century by the architect José Benito de Churriguera for a wealthy banker.
Mondéjar is a small place, so services are limited; if you need fuel, it is safest to fill up in one of the larger towns in the area. There are bars and restaurants serving simple Castilian food, and a coffee on the square is always possible. Summers here are very hot and dry, with temperatures often above thirty-five degrees, so ride early and carry water. Spring, when the fields are green and the lavender is flowering, and autumn, when the light softens, are the best times.
- Cuenca
food
Cuenca seems to grow straight out of the rock. The old town stands on a narrow limestone ridge between two deep gorges, carved by the Júcar and Huécar rivers, and its houses cling to the cliff edges as if they might slip off at any moment. The most famous of them, the Casas Colgadas, or hanging houses, have wooden balconies that project over the void of the Huécar gorge, and they are one of the most photographed sights in Spain. The whole old town is a World Heritage Site.
The best way to see the hanging houses is from the San Pablo bridge, an iron footbridge that crosses the gorge to a former convent, now a Parador hotel. Walking across it, with the river far below and the houses on the cliff opposite, is a slightly dizzying experience. Inside one of the hanging houses, the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art has a collection of works by artists who gathered in Cuenca in the 1960s. The cathedral, one of the earliest Gothic cathedrals in Spain, stands on the main square at the top of the town.
Cuenca's food is hearty and rustic, suited to its harsh winters. Morteruelo, a rich pâté of game and liver, is a local speciality, and zarajos, lamb intestines wrapped around vine shoots and grilled, are an acquired taste. For dessert, alajú, a sweet of honey, almonds and breadcrumbs, has Moorish roots. The restaurants in the old town and the newer town below serve all of this and more.
For riders, the real treasure lies to the north. The road up the Júcar gorge, towards the Serranía de Cuenca, winds through spectacular limestone scenery, with cliffs, pinnacles and pine forests, and about thirty kilometres from the city, the Ciudad Encantada is a natural park of strangely eroded rock formations. The roads are quiet and well surfaced, with plenty of curves, and the scenery is outstanding. Fuel and services are available in Cuenca, but they become scarce in the mountains, so fill up before heading out. Summers are hot, winters cold, and spring and autumn are ideal.
- Madrid finish