Day 1 - Madrid to Valencia

During the reception dinner, Alexandre told the tour group we would become good friends over the two weeks. He was right. Sharing our experiences with the such good people made the trip even better! We ate, we drank, we laughed, we sang, we danced, we walked and we talked our way through southern Iberia.

The first morning we boarded the bus before dawn, which comes late to Spain as its the western most country in the central EU time-zone. João drove southwest from Madrid towards Valencia, our first night’s stop.

On the way, we stopped at the town of Quenca, where we saw the “hanging” houses that protected the medieval town from the many invaders who made their way through the land. The morning stop also included coffee and pastries from a parador, a state sanctioned hotel preserving historic buildings. This parador was a former monastery atop the Huécar Gorge which protected the town on the other side.