May 9th, 2008 - Super Segovia

From Chinchilla we drove to Madrid, the capital of Spain. The weather was foul when the day started and just got worse. Having tracked down the selected campsite and discovered it to be a barbed wire and weed protected space between a frenetically busy industrial park and a major freeway, we had lunch and left. As for Madrid, any glimpses we did get were marred by rain and were few and far between to boot. Madrid has embraced the European "Cut and Cover" urban highway management scheme wholeheartedly. Practically every through road has been dropped 20 feet or so below the surface, the "Cut" part, and then roofed over with structural concrete, the "Cover" part, to render the entire arterial system into a nerve-wracking high-speed subterranean warren. We sped north, glad to be leaving the metropolis.
To reach Segovia, about 45 miles north of Madrid, the 601 highway snakes over the Siete Picos (Siete Peaks) reaching about 8,000 feet before descending again into the Castilla Y Leon region. The cloud capped mountain was part of the view from the campsite. The following day brought a lucky 5 hour break in the weather when the rain slackened to showers and we jumped on the bikes and rode to town. See more Segovioa here.