A day in Cuenca

We traveled by high speed AVE train to Cuenca today. It has a high tech new station for the high speed trains  which is clad in painted steel that has had a pattern cut into the panels.

And here is why the  258km journey only takes 50 minutes.

Yes that does say 302 kilometres per hour. The station is brand spanking new and as with all Spanish rail stations there is security to go through for your luggage, similar to an airport.

The old town of Cuenca is built on a steep sided spur that drops on either side to deep gorges and boy do I mean steep. My legs won't recover for days I am sure. It is most famous for it's14th Century beamed "hanging houses" which used to serve as a summer residence for the royal family.

Many of the other houses are built on cliff tops as well, although it is only a couple that actually overhand them.

Of course being built in such an area means that you have the perfect foundation stones already in place. Nothing short of an earthquake is going to move these buildings.

For the second time we found a neat trick when you are exploring steep hillside towns. If you see an entrance to an underground parking area, check it out.

We found that in Cuenca as in Toledo that when you walk into the tunnel, there is a lift from the parking levels that saves you countless flights of steep steps. In this case we took the lift up eight levels, which sure beats walking. Mind you we had to walk about one kilometre up steep flights of steps to get to the car park in the first place!