Cuenca

The morning AVE from Madrid pulls in at 09:58. By 10:15 you’re standing on the iron footbridge of San Pablo, 300 feet above the sickle-shaped gorge of the Huécar, staring at fifteenth-century timber balconies that seem bolted to the cliff face. No photograph prepares you for the moment the wind moves through the poplars and the whole structure of the Casas Colgadas—literally “hanging houses”—creaks like an old ship. Cuenca’s altitude (956 m) means the air is thinner and cooler than in the capital; even in late May you’ll be glad of a jumper.

A Knife-Edge City That Never Flattened Itself for Cars

Cuenca refused the usual Spanish compromise of bulldozing a ring road through the old quarter. Instead, the medieval core remains balanced on a limestone spine barely two streets wide. Deliveries are made with hand trolleys; residents still climb 180 steps to reach their front doors. The result is a city where distances are measured in metres of ascent rather than map kilometres. From the new-town bus station to the cathedral takes fifteen minutes on paper, but your calves will argue it’s a proper hike.

Leave wheeled luggage at the hotel on the lower ridge first—cobbles polished by eight centuries of feet are treacherous enough without a 20 kg suitcase. Most visitors bed down in one of the converted manor houses along Calle San Pedro; doubles start at €85 mid-week, rise to €140 during Easter when hooded processions squeeze through alleyways barely shoulder-wide.

Art in Empty Palaces and Gorge-Edge Choir Stalls

Inside the Casas Colgadas, the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español hangs Chillidas and Tàpies against rough stone. Former noble kitchens become white-cube galleries; a window in Gallery 3 frames the gorge like a living canvas, changing colour every hour. Entry is €3.50, free on Wednesday afternoons, but arrive before 11:00 to avoid coach parties who shuffle round in twenty-minute allotments.

Five minutes uphill, the cathedral claims to be Spain’s first Gothic building. Its façade remains half-finished after the Giraldo tower collapsed in 1902, giving the front a lopsided grin. Inside, the fifteenth-century altar retablo is so tall the masons had to sink the floor by a metre to fit it. Choir stalls carved with melon-shaped musical angels offer the best seats: lean back and you stare straight down the Huécar gorge through open stonework—vertigo guaranteed.

Walking Tracks That Start at the City Walls

Cuenca’s natural balconies are linked by a 4 km loop that you can walk in ninety minutes. Begin at the Torre de Mangana, the slim clock tower that replaced Cuenca’s Islamic fortress. Follow the signed path past the Mirador del Rey (views west to the serpented Júcar gorge) then drop through pine woods to the San Pedro walkway—a timber boardwalk bolted to the cliff. Here the city walls rise sheer above you; swallows dive between your head and the rock face.

If you have a car—or the summer shuttle running twice daily—drive 25 km east to the Ciudad Encantada. Limestone boulders, eroded into mushrooms and ship prows, sit in open forest. Entry is €5, the 3 km circuit takes an hour, and because British tour buses rarely include it you’ll share the trail with Spanish families instead of selfie sticks.

Lamb Intestines and Honey Cake for the Unadventurous

Lunch service ends at 16:00 sharp; arrive at 15:45 and the staff will already be stacking chairs. Locals eat morteruelo, a smooth pâté of hare and partridge spiced with clove and served scalding hot with toast. It tastes like a rustic French terrine and converts even the squeamish. Less approachable are zarajos—lamb intestines wrapped on vine shoots and charred. If that sounds a bridge too far, order ajoarriero: salt-cod mashed with potato and garlic, comfort food that wouldn’t be out of place in a Cornish pub.

Finish with alajú, a sticky honey-almond disc that keeps for a week—ideal for the train ride back. Wines come under the Ribera del Júcar D.O.; the local tempranillo is lighter than Rioja, designed for altitude and cold nights. A glass costs €2.80 in the vaulted cellars beneath Plaza Mayor; upstairs on the square it’s €4.50 for the same pour.

Winter Mists and Easter Drums

Between December and February the gorge fills with fog at dawn, leaving only the cathedral spire and the Casas Colgadas floating above a white sea. Temperatures drop to –5 °C and the footbridges ice over; pack treaded soles. Summer, by contrast, is fierce: 32 °C by 11:00, shade scarce in narrow lanes. April–May and late-September–October give you warm afternoons, cool nights and manageable crowds.

Easter week brings hooded processions that march to drumbeats echoing between stone walls—Unesco-listed but still unnerving after dark. Hotels triple prices and the AVE sells out; book six months ahead or avoid entirely. January and November are the quiet months when you can sit alone on the gorge railings and hear the river below, a soft metallic chime against the rock.

Getting Out Again

The last fast train to Madrid leaves at 20:47, depositing you at Atocha by 22:00 in time for a late tapas crawl. If you’ve hired a car, the A-40 motorway eastward drops through almond terraces to Valencia in two hours; the mountain section is spectacular but watch for sudden fog banks. Buses to smaller hill villages leave from the new-town terminal beside the river—buy tickets on board, cash only, and don’t expect air-conditioning. Cuenca rewards those who stay after the day-trippers board their coaches; the golden light that hits the hanging balconies at seven o’clock is worth every calf-burning step it took to reach them.