After a good breakfast I left Albacete and after crossing the motorway on the outskirts of the city I once again picked up the straightest road in the world. I was on this for 18 miles till I reached Casas de Juan Nunez, at which point I took a left turn. The riding had been fast, the weather was great and as I turned left I had a straight road ahead of me. But something looked or felt different and I wasn't sure what. After another two male, a slight turn to the right followed by another slight turn to the right and then suddenly I was confronted by a huge Canyon.
The road just disappeared down. Wow, I'd been riding on a plateau and suddenly 600 feet below me was a river meandering in a Canyon. And I was about to head down in there via four very tight hairpin bends. Fantastic riding, I reached the bottom and towering cliff faces stood above me. Some of them looked very insecure. There were even signs saying how unstable some of them were, slightly disconcerting as I was riding right underneath them. The first village on the river was Junquera at about 25 miles and I just followed the river downstream.
For 10 miles it was beautiful, nice and quiet wide, sweeping, meandering bends on a quiet road and then suddenly on the left up on top of the Cliff I saw a castle. Oh wow, this was as I approached Alcala del Jucar. Having swept round the bend the turn in the town presented a fantastic view. The castle sat on the top of the Canyon and the town was built into the side face of the Canyon. All white houses disappearing up the hill, right up to the castle, with two rivers below. The River Jucar I had been following and another one which joined it at a weir just underneath the bridge.
It was picture postcard beautiful. I spent a good hour there looking around taking photographs before the inevitable - for I had to get back out of the Canyon, so I headed off.
There were six or seven sharp hairpin bends to get back out of the Canyon and up onto the road on the far side. This proved to be relatively easy. The gradient never really got much above 8% and the road was nice and smooth with sweeping bends.
Soon I was up at Casas Ibanez on the main road again. Next I followed the main road for just over 10 miles at which point I turned left at Balsa de Ves on an unclassified route. Which dropped severely down on a very steep gradient and the surface of the road was quite loose gravel. It was difficult stopping the bike with the pannier weight from running away down the steepness of the gradient.
But eventually I managed to complete the descent and arrived at a smaller river, the rio cobral at the bottom with an old stone bridge and an abandoned water wheel. I crossed the water wheel into the very small village of Casas Del Rio and was very pleased to see a lovely looking bar which was open and serving food. Refreshment and a nice warm bocadillo would follow.
Now my route took me out on a similar route on the far side of town and having just descended the gravel track into town I concluded there's no way I could cycle up this road. Fortunately a good surfaced road sent me slightly back on my way, but on a gentler gradient out of town. So I followed that, it was the N330 and every kilometre there was a sign telling me the elevation of the next kilometre and the maximum gradient, which was great and after seven of such signs I was back out of the second Canyon of the day and on the main road.
Great ! downhill all the way to Valencia or so I thought. But it didn't quite work like that. The road continued to meander up and down, with some quite nasty uphill sections and then my route, as I started to pick up the suburbs of Valencia and the roads started to get busy.
The route I had routed myself on appeared to be a private road. So I had to start routing on the go. So I did probably put on a few extra miles and probably hit busier roads than I needed to.
But I did eventually find a nice quiet road at Marizanne which took me quite a long way downhill at long last into the suburbs of Valencia.
And then my next problem started, the last few days the festival of Las Fallas was on. In Valencia, every street builds its own papier Mache tower and closes the street for a party.
And at the end of the three day festival, all the sculptures are burnt. So this meant every street in Valencia was pretty much closed off as I tried to work my way to the hotel, which was unfortunately right across the centre and on the north side near the university. This was torturous. The light was going. And at about 9:00 o'clock at night, I eventually reached the hotel in very, very dim twilight.