Guadalajara Province

Like many once sizeable towns in the countryside of central Spain, suffering an inexorable decline as the youngsters drift towards the cities for work. These trendy off-road vehicles belong to the restaurant / bar owner from Madrid who opens at the weekends only to cater for the Madrid weekend lunch clientele (which of course included us - the owner is a friend of a friend).

A cold day in late winter, early spring. The light was good.

Griffon vulture on El Cancho de La Bola. A clear day - Uceda, a village in Guadalajara province can be clearly seen here in mid-distance. Normally the heat haze or Madrid smog doesn't allow me to see that far. It has been suggested that full-screen works well here.

La Sierra de La Cabrera. A fiercely hot day, Even the vultures didn't exert themselves Only the idiot Englishman!

The rock is white because that's what vulture guano does to granite over 10,000 years or more! La Sierra de La Cabrera, Madrid Province. That's it from me folks for a couple of weeks. On my return I hope to have fresh Cornwall material to show! Have a good summer!!! Apologies, I now see that I have posted this twice. Oh well ...

There were quite a few old doors here, held together with an old shoe-lace and a rubber band or three.

You can see the path below as it zig-zags on its dusty way. This is the slow and not so easy way to get to either the town of La Cabrera or the monastery. Far quicker and easier, imho, is to follow the granite to the right here and join a steeper but less used and therefore less eroded and dusty path, direct down to the monastery.

Early spring light in Pastrana, Guadalajara province.

Pastrana, Guadalajara Province. From 5 years ago and I remember it was my first trip out of Madrid after starting chemotherapy. I recall a bitterly cold day but we had a nice lunch and saw a few interesting places including this old town (I have posted some nice terracotta tile roofscape shots from here, one fairly recently). I hadn't posted it before as it is slightly unfocused (I think I can be forgiven in the circs!), but I now think it is quite in keeping with the historic feel.