Spain, Day Twenty-Four

For my first full day back in Spain, we had another classroom day trip. This one was to Cuenca, Spain, which a very remote town about two hours south east of Madrid that has a population of 3,000 people. Surprisingly enough, this is still a pretty heavy tourist location, despite its size. Our first stop on our excursion was to the Ciudad Encatada, which you may have guessed is going to be our palabra(s) del dia. This phrase breaks down into two words, ciudad meaning city and then encatada which means enchanted. So there you have it, The Enchanted City. It actually wasn't even a city. It was a park. But not like a city park with lots of grass and people lounging and walking with their dogs. It was like a mini-sized geographical park with lots of rock formations. This was actually the highlight of the day for me. The rock formations (about 15 in total) were dispersed on a loop and had been given names based on what they looked like, most of which were animals. My favorite was "The Seal," which is pictured below. Can you see it?

I think the head is supposed to be the big blob at the top and then there is maybe a ball sitting right next to it?

After about an hour in the park, we hopped back on the bus and headed over to the actual city of Cuenca, where we lunched in a nearby park (a grassy one with lots of people) before heading up the mountain to view the ancient part of the city. The neat thing about Cuenca is that is super old and still standing. Most of the buildings ranged from 200-500 years old here and they were all built up on a cliff that was right off the mountain. I bet living there makes for a really great view all the time but I just don't know if I could live in such a small town. There just isn't much to do in that area. There are about forty churches and a few restaurants but I feel like I would get so bored just looking out my window all the time at the nice view. Not for me. Here are some neat pics I took of the nice view though.

I couldn't believe how clear the water in the river was. I think our guide told us that they treat it.

Another pretty spectacular view from the top of the mountain

Since this trip was so far from Madrid, we didn't make it back until about 8 p.m., and needless to say, we were exhausted from hiking all over the mountain all day. We quickly ate dinner and then went to bed early. We certainly needed as much sleep as we could get, since our energy levels were pretty low after an adventurous weekend in Rome and then a really long day trip to Cuenca.