Walked into the town of Priego this morning ..it’s a nice place, very busy and almost like a city. To say they’re just dots on our map, some of these places are huge when we get there. The thing that we came to see, and that makes this town different, is its spectacular fountains – La Fuente del Rey. Baroque in style with three pools on different levels and 199 water spouts, it’s been declared a national monument. Today, it was a big disappointment, more dribble than fountain, so it didn’t really look anything like it should.
The rest of the town had a couple of interesting churches, a nice square and a small castle.
Back on the road at midday, we made the short journey to Alcalá La Real, this time to see the huge Fortaleza de la Mota – a massive medieval fortress on a hilltop.
We could see this place from miles away, but it’s not until you get inside that you realise the scale of it.
After coming up through the city gates there’s a bewildering amount of stuff to see, some of it restored or recreated, but much of it is the remains of the original city.
The little chemists had a load of excavated bottles on display and in the cellar of every house there were half buried terracotta wine containers – Guy would never know when to stop!
Stone cannon balls and a trebuchet were set up for defence, along with watch towers in every direction so they could receive advance warning of any would-be invaders. The views all around were incredible, right over to the snow capped Sierra Nevada.
On finding a spiral staircase that went both up and down, we went separate ways and I climbed up to outside, Guy went underground. Then my phone rang, “Can you see a glass circle?’ I could, and went and stood on it. I could just about make out Guy’s shadow miles below, but he could see me quite clearly and took a photo – it was so weird.
We’d been told there’d be a film in the church at 4:30 ..a little odd, I thought and not really interested. But, on entering the church, there was so much lighting and equipment set up we decided it might be worth the wait. It wasn’t!
I was frozen and it was such a strange experience watching a film in a church where all the graves are exposed (empty thankfully 😅). Didn’t mind the historical recreation but when they started showing all the things we’d just walked around I decided it was time for a sharp exit!
Not allowed to stay overnight in the car park so we’ve moved on again to Montefrío…another hilltop town with a castle, ready to do it all again tomorrow! 🤣