It was time to get out of the big city so we headed about an hour south of Madrid to the small village of Chinchon. Chinchon is designated as one of the beautiful villages of Spain.
It just happened that we passed one of the two Costco’s in Madrid so we swung in to fill up François. Today we got the cheapest diesel so far on this trip at €1.68 per liter. All the money we saved on fuel we spent inside Costco on food and stuff, which of course validated their business model.
We are sharing a small but very well equipped aire in Chinchon with a Swiss family and their dog. You enter send a text to the owner and he gives you a number of Codes you use to access electricity, the showers, and the WIFI. Once I figured out the system it was easy. When we leave in the morning we will leave our payment in a mail box. It is not all honor system as he has our license number and there is a camera so he can confirm you were here if you abscond.
We headed into town about 2 and the town was in Siesta mode. But a few of the bars on the Plaza Mayor were still open and there were a few people in each of them, so it was not entirely dead. During our travels we have come across a few towns that are not large enough to have a dedicated bull ring, but instead designed their main squares so that they can be turned into a bull ring. Chinchon had just finished converting their square into a bull ring and it was interesting to see how they did it.
After exploring the bull ring we headed up the hill to the old palace for the local lord of the region. It was another good climb, but fortunately last nights rains had brought in cooler air and knocked back some of the humidity. From the palace we had an excellent view of the city and the surrounding countryside.
The last sight for Chinchon was an old Carmelite Nunnery that had been converted into a very posh and judging by the prices in their coffee shop expensive hotel. Feeling out of place we headed back to the Plaza Mayor and enjoyed an afternoon beverage looking out at the bull ring and up at the palace. After our rest we headed back to François for the rest of the day.
