Tour description

Cuenqueando is a tourist agency from Cuenca that knows perfectly this marvelous spanish province and therefore is expert in its tourist sites.

That's why we offer you this excursion from Madrid to Cuenca, a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and to the gorgeus nature place knows as Enchanted City, so that you can get to know the natural and cultural heritage that Cuenca has to offer you.
This excursion to Cuenca and the Enchanted City from Madrid will allow you to get to know these two essential attractions, but it will also let you discover the reality of the rural Spain. On the routes we will cross some of the most depopulated and unknown places in Europe. There you will have the chance of of getting a view of Spain different from that the big cities of the country give to you.

ITINERARY

• Passenger pick-up 8:30
• Stop at Devil’s Window viewpoint
• Guided visit to the Enchanted City
• Panoramic tour of Júcar river’s gorge
• Free time for lunch in Cuenca city
• Guided visit of Cuenca’s medieval district
• 20:00 Arrival to Madrid

We will leave Madrid escorted by our tour guide towards The Enchanted City. In our way we will have a short stop in Finca La Estacada Wine Tourism Complex where we will have time to visit the restroom or to have some coffee.

Next to our destination we will stop again at Devil’s Window, iconic lookout over Júcar River’s gorges, where we will try to spot the impressive Griffon Vulture flying over our heads.

At the Enchanted City we will take a walking tour with our guide, who will enlighten us with all the information and anecdotes surrounding this magical stroll.

When our visit is finished the bus will pick us up to take us to Cuenca’s Castle District, where you will find various restaurants where you can have lunch on you own. On owr way there, we will enjoy the stunning panoramic views over Valdecabras Valley and Júcar River Gorge upon arrival in the city of Cuenca.

Once we have had our lunch we will start an easy walking tour, always downslope, that will take us through the most emblematic spots and monuments of the Medieval center, by the cathedral’s gate, under the Hanging Houses and across San Pablo’s Bridge until the auditorium, where they will pick us up again to go back to Madrid, where our guide will drop you of at 20:00h at Plaza Conde de Casal.

 THE ENCHANTED CITY

 The name might be misleading, don’t expect finding neither tall buildings nor old monuments, because this place is preserved to show you the marvels of Cuenca’s natural environment. Júcar River, on its way through Uña and Villalba de la Sierra, creates a huge and impressive canyon. It is here, at an altitude of almost 1.500m, where nature has treated itself with one of those whims that fill the traveler with astonishment: The Enchanted City.

 The Enchanted City is a natural spot declared Natural Site of National Interest. Nowadays it finds itself inside the borders of the Natural Park of Cuenca’s Mountain Ranges (PNSC), included among the specially protected areas due to its exceptional geomorphologic value, of international relevance.

 The amazement it provokes has brought numerous film creators who found inspiration in this astonishing cinema scenery, embellished by the silence of the mountains.  A movie-deserving landscape on which amazing artists such as Sophia Loren, Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Oliver Stone or Arnold Schwarzenegger have set foot.

 Here, the karst modelling has created whimsiful shapes in the rock that will amaze the visitor. These worlwide known geological phenomena are shapes sculpted by means of water, wind and ice erosion. A submarine landscape hidden in the jurassic Sea of Thetis, the Mediterranean Sea’s ancestor. Its paths invite you to stroll around intriguing rocky shapes reminicing human figures, objects or animals with a difficult to understand precision, building an delirious city, a city that seems to be asleep through some mysterious spell.

CUENCA CITY

The City of Cuenca, declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO, is one of the cities in Spain with a largest historical richess, both material and intangible.

The city/landscape Cuenca is a town built on a stripe of land surrounded by Júcar and Huécar rivers’ gorges, providing and unmatchable natural landscape to an urban design stopped in time. These gorges enclose a huge historical heritage located in between two cliffs, it is a city surrounded by thousands of years of natural geological formations, carved by both rivers bit by bit creating stone structures that make the observer shrink.

 The Heritage Cuenca City is a town that opens itself for the visitor as a perfect fusion between modern art and tradition. It is a must for the traveller to explore it’s historical center, getting lost through the maze of charming narrow streets, hosting both important pieces of religious heritage, such as churches, convents and seminaries where you can perceive this worship tradition so rooted in this city, and also important museums such as the Abstract Art Museum, the Antonio Pérez Foundation or the Cathedral’s Secret Museum, a nice example of regional sacred art guarding important artworks from the Romanesque period until the current day, where paintings by Martín Gómez el Viejo and El Greco are among the most precious. A city of contrast, where modernity and tradition coexist.

 The most impressive building in the city is Our Lady of Grace’s Cathedral, the first one in Spain built entirely in Gothic Style, built by Alfonso VIII’s comission. Inside, the effect of light through the stained glass takes the visitor on a mystical tour that never ceases to astonish them by admiring a structure that goes from the XIIth century to Baroque style in its last chapels.

 Regarding the Hanging Cuenca, everyone knows about its Hanging Houses, good example of popular architechture from Cuenca where its balconies invite us to just admire the void, becoming the authentic icon of the city. Just as from Saint Martin’s Skyscrapers, first buildings in the world of more tan ten floors. San Pablo’s Bridge, designed by Eiffel’s workshop, turns into a walk for the bold and an adventure for the height-scared, but it leaves everyone with the same feeling of finding themselves in one of the highlights of the city. San Pablo’s Bridge, designed by Eiffel’s workshop, turns into a walk for the bold and an adventure for the height-scared, but it leaves everyone with the same feeling of finding themselves in one of the highlights of the city. We feel the same by sitting at the Castle District from where the visitor can perceive the city at their feet, since its lookouts look directly over a free fall to the gorges that seem to lean out to the most inscrutable depth.

 We must not forget the Taste Cuenca, this city is also defined by its unique flavours, its succulent meals and its traditional dishes. It is mandatory to not leave the city have you not tried before its morteruelo, its ajoarriero, some gachas or a lamb roast, and daring —before even knowing what it is made of— to eat one zarajo. All the formerly mentioned should be paired with local wine and finished with the local sweet made with almonds and honey, alajú, and with some envigorizing resolí.

All of these Cuencas, the Heritage Cuenca City, the City/Landscape Cuenca, the Hanging Cuenca, the Taste Cuenca, the Holy Cuenca… take the visitor deep into endless feelings, emotions, memories… making all who admires it to fall head over heles before its beauty. Without hesitation: Cuenca is one of a kind!

Tour duration

Offered languages

We started the tour...

Calle ferraz 22. (Partner Agency Viajes Gran Vía)

Included in this tour

• Transport
• Ecotourism specialist guide
• Entrance to Enchanted City
• Turistic guide on Monumental Cuenca

Additional information

General Conditions

Valid reservation offer till 12/31/2018

Departures every day, under petition.

Possibility to modify the excursion at the request of the client

The driver will pick you up at the meeting point. The guide will be waiting at the destination.

Reservations up to 1 day before, subject to availability

Specified price for group of 40 pax.

Departure from 4 adults

Children under 3 years old, enter for free if they don’t use a place.

Maximum 2 children under 10 years per adult, the third and subsequent will pay adult price.

Reservations paying 30% of the amount up to 7 days before departure. In the 7 days prior to departure paying 100% of the amount. 30% during the previous 5 days-

Cancellation charges: 10% up to 5 days before the date of the excursión, 30% during the previous 5 days. There will be no right of return in case the traveler does not show up at the departure of the trip.

The order of activities can be altered, as well as the restaurants we went to, for the needs of the trip's own logistics