← Maratón de Toledo·2 nights

Cuenca: The Hanging Houses

Two nights in a medieval city built on a rock between two gorges, where houses hang over the cliff edge and hold a museum of Spanish abstract art, with a bus to the top to spare the legs.

Duration2 nights
TransitAvant to Madrid, then high-speed train to Cuenca, about 2 hours in all
DepartsToledo railway station

After the Maratón de Toledo: Cuenca

The Route: Toledo → Madrid Atocha → Cuenca → Madrid → Madrid-Barajas Airport Logistics: Trains via Madrid in both directions. City bus up to the old town; taxis for the steepest parts. Marathon Month: November Duration: 2 nights

Toledo ──(about 33 mins Avant)──> Madrid ──(about 1 hr high-speed train)──> Cuenca Fernando Zóbel
                                                                                  │
            Madrid-Barajas Airport (MAD) ◄──(about 1 hr train to Madrid, then Cercanías)──┘

The Maratón de Toledo is run through one of Spain's two great hilltop cities. Cuenca is the other. Like Toledo it sits on a rock above rivers, but the gorges here are deeper, and its houses were built out over the edge of the cliff.

November in Cuenca is cold. The city stands at about 1,000 m, mornings can be close to freezing and afternoons usually reach the low teens. The poplars along the rivers turn yellow through the month. Pack warm clothes.

There is no direct train from Toledo. Take the Avant to Madrid Atocha, about 33 minutes, then a high-speed train from Madrid to Cuenca Fernando Zóbel station, about an hour. Book both on renfe.com. The high-speed station is outside the city; a bus runs into the centre and on up to the old town.

Nights One and Two: Cuenca

Cuenca's old town was built by the Moors and taken by Alfonso VIII of Castile in 1177, on a narrow ridge between the gorges of the rivers Júcar and Huécar. UNESCO lists it as a World Heritage Site.

For legs a day or two after a marathon, the key fact is height. The old town is steep from bottom to top. City buses 1 and 2 run from the new town up to the Plaza Mayor and beyond; use them. Once on the ridge, the Plaza Mayor, the Gothic cathedral and the streets between them are gentler.

The Casas Colgadas, the Hanging Houses, stand on the cliff above the Huécar gorge, their wooden balconies over the drop. Inside one of them, the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español holds a collection of Spanish abstract art of the 1950s and 1960s, founded by the painter Fernando Zóbel, after whom the station is named. The galleries are small and indoor, with views through the windows into the gorge.

The Puente de San Pablo, an iron footbridge across the Huécar, gives the classic view of the Hanging Houses. It is level but high, about 60 m above the river, and some find it unnerving.

Where to stay. The Parador de Cuenca occupies the sixteenth-century convent of San Pablo across the gorge from the Hanging Houses, reached over the footbridge or by road. The Posada de San José is a small hotel in a seventeenth-century house in the old town, with rooms looking over the Huécar gorge.

Where to eat. Cuenca's cooking is built for the cold: morteruelo, a spiced game pâté, and zarajos, lamb intestines wound round vine shoots and grilled. The Mesón Casas Colgadas, inside the Hanging Houses, serves them with a view of the gorge.

Getting to Madrid-Barajas Airport

Take the high-speed train back to Madrid, about an hour, then Cercanías line C1 from Atocha or Chamartín to Madrid-Barajas Airport (MAD), or the Airport Express bus from Atocha. Allow three hours from Cuenca to the terminal.