Sleeping in a Castle - no damsel in distress!

Today we got up and left the apartment pretty early.  We paid 87 Euros for the 3 days of parking!  Yikes!  City living has its expenses.  Mark got out of the city amazingly easily - naturally, much of it was due to Barbara's navigation!

We only drove for a few hours south, but got a bit lost at a turnoff at a village called Honrubio. We stopped there for a few minutes as they were having a market day.  Nancy bought some sunglasses for 10 E.  We ended up back on the highway at a nice restaurant reststop where 3 of us had pork on skewers and Nancy bought some souvenir plates.  We also got directions and went back to Honrubio, but, this time took the right road to Alarcon.

Wow!  Alarcon was magical!  It is an amazing castle built in the 14th century on the spot where a Moorish castle, built in the 8th century previously stood; reputedly it was the spot where the Visigoth, Alaric, established a castle in his son's name.  The castle sits high above a ravine.  The paradore was the best one yet - only 14 rooms.  Mark and I have a corner room overlooking the gorge. The room is called the Constanza de Aragon, the daughter of Jaime II of Aragon.  She died in 1327.  From our window, we can see a tower, "Alarconcillos", a very old star observatory.

We all got the key for the ramparts and walked along the wall. Later,we walked around the small town and by an old Spanish cemetery to overlook the gorge.  Scary heights!

We had a drink in the beautiful castle's bar and had a 9 p.m. dinner in a restaurant in a plaza near the castle.  It was called Don Julio's.  It is amazing that kids are with their parents eating out so late.   (We are becoming very Spanish in our hours of eating, too, and did not return to 'our' castle until past 11.