We decided to do the river walk this morning. It’s called the Paseo fluvial del Guadalaviar and skirts the edge of the town, passing an old medieval mill (Molino del Rey) along the way and giving alternative views back to the city. It was a beautiful walk, steep in parts and leading to a great viewpoint. After that it led us back down to the river, across a bridge and then along some narrow wooden platforms attached to the rock face. It was very tranquil as all you could hear was bird song and the sound of the river.
It was great to see the city from a good vantage point on the other side of the river. Albarracín was declared a national monument because of the stunning architecture. It dates back to the ninth century Muslim castle. The place was very strategically important so it went through various phases from Muslim Taifa kingdom to Christian settlement. The town has many religious buildings and primarily small houses some of which are up to 6 stories tall. The few large properties that are in the town belonged to the wealthy families that had made their money from migratory cattle herding.
Whilst strolling around the streets at the end of the walk we met the first English couple so far this trip. We got chatting to them and it turned out they had been going on van trips for 16 years, were in their mid 70s and currently on a six week van trip around Spain. Couple goals!! We stopped for coffee and cake in the Plaza Mayor – by this time there were quite a few tour groups around.
The primary focus of most of the tour groups was the architectural styles, the ecclesiastical buildings and some of the few more luxurious houses that belonged to the gentry. These all had to be accessed via official tours. We had decided not to do one of these as we had put today aside for a country walk . We had our own stroll around the town, found some further beautiful viewpoints, including one from the Plaza Mayor, and walked to the Casa de La Julianeta – this is one of the well-known houses which most typifies the style of construction in the city. It also provides one of the iconic images of the city given its location just inside one of the traditional access gates, El Portal de Molina.
We chose a restaurant ( La Peculiar) and popped our head round the door at 1:30 to reserve a table for two ‘o’ clock. It was listed as the most popular restaurant in the city so we were surprised to find it entirely empty at that time. We decided to use the half-hour to good effect by walking up to the top of the city walls, getting some stunning photos and back down. When we got back, the place was absolutely rammed, so we were glad that we had booked!!
We had another set menu and it was fantastic value. I tried meatballs (albóndigas) in a stew and Dave had some beautiful lamb. We had almost finished our meal when a young English couple who we had met earlier sat down on the next table. They were using Google translate to great effect to translate the whole menu. Today was the day that we have spoken the most English of the whole trip, having literally met no other English tourists until yesterday!! As we head further north we expect to meet more – we have particularly liked it when we find ourselves in a place where all that we can hear all around us is Spanish. 😃
We walked back to the campsite and had a siesta. Having built up a very good step count already today, we use the evening for planning the next stage of our trip. We decided on a reroute. Rather than go to Pamplona next, we decided to book another night here because we felt like countryside and coast for the last few days of our trip.
We went to the campsite bar for a quick snack at about 8:30pm (after our massive lunch) and then wandered up to the top of the campsite to see if we could catch a bit of the sunset. We were not disappointed, although I had to stand on tip toes to reach over the fence to take the photos.
Good night John Boy.
