Our plan was to visit two or three Land Rovers in the area around Guadalajara and to stop in Alcala de Henares on the way there. Alcala de Henares is well known for its university, one of the oldest in the world. It is also the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, who wrote the very famous novel El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha.
The city is beautiful. The old buildings, cute central plaza, and column lined streets are wonderful to explore. We had a quiet and peaceful stroll through the city.
In the Calle Mayor, we found a restaurant and got some lunch. We had only an hour left before we needed to leave the city, and there would be little time to eat later on. When we emerged from our gluttonous meal of chopitos and boquerones, we found ourselves right across the street from the birth place of Cervantes. Naturally, we got a photo with Don Quijote and Sancho Panza.
Honestly, we think that our adaptation of Sancho and Quijote are a little better. No shame whatsoever.
(Halloween, 2014)
And, of course, we can never mention Quijote and Sancho without singing this song.
We left Alcala at 18:00 and drove through the countryside to see a Santana in Pozo de Guadalajara. The owner met us at a gas station in the center of the village, and we checked out the rig.
This vehicle was in better condition than the last, but was still not looking so sharp. The tires were in great condition, and the body was in fairly good shape, but there was a fairly strong leak from the engine. This vehicle showed evidence of the same moss growth as the last car, and the vehicle had been painted sloppily by the owner.
We all hopped in and went out to the farmlands to drive it around on the dirt roads. It drove smoothly and changed gears well, but was very sluggish. This was not too surprising, as these vehicles are not known for their speed. The brakes were also incredibly ineffective, meaning most slowing of the vehicle had to be done by changing gears.
It was fun to drive the Santana around, but our final impression of this particular vehicle was not the best.
After an hour or so in Pozo, we continued on to see the next Santana. Driving through Guadalajara, the route to the next country village was complicated. We actually passed the turnoff to
the village the first time, because the sign was not clear. The village was called Alarilla, but since the sign was old it looked like "ALAPILLA". I am to blame partly for missing the turn, since Spanish is not my native language. A Spaniard would probably have recognized the missing leg of the 'R'.
As the sun began to set, we arrived to a cute village clinging to an odd bell shaped hill. The owner of the car was waiting for us in the street and greeted us warmly. It was immediately clear that this vehicle was in far better condition than the other two we had seen.
The body of the car was in beautiful condition. The bulkhead was basically rust-free. The interior was very well kept. The windows were well sealed - no moss! - and the tires were in good condition.
It is even nicer that the vehicle was a three door with bench seats in the back. One issue with many of the available Santanas is that they are five doors with bucket seats. We would need to take out the bucket seats to make the back more livable. With this vehicle we would have to do much less work to make our living space.
We started up the engine and drove around some country roads. This engine was much stronger and it drove much faster than the rig in Pozo. The engine in this vehicle had been changed out recently for a Perkins diesel 4.203 engine. This 4 cylinder engine was powerful and anything but sluggish. There was even an additional fifth gear for highways.
This vehicle caught our attention. It had a new engine, a new gearbox, better fuel economy, was well kept, and the body was perfect for living in. The price was also of interest. On the cheaper side, but clearly in better shape that most we would see for more money.
We spent the rest of the evening with the owner. He was a kind and open man. After our ride we went to his shop so he could show us some spare parts he had. He also showed us his Santana Anibal - the most recent Santana 4x4.
The way we were welcomed by this man gave us confidence in the vehicle. We were invited into his home, introduced to his old aunts, and spent over an hour talking about hunting, the U.S., and driving through Africa. They offered us drinks and food, and we were very comfortable with them. It really says a lot about the owner.
We said our goodbyes around 22:30, and drove out of the village. There was a third vehicle in the area we wanted to see, but it was clearly too late. We called the owner anyway, but he was not available to meet up at that time. (If you don't know about Spain, you might think it was way too late to call. But it really isn't unreasonable, because people eat and are awake much later here.) Knowing that we would get up early the next day, we rushed back to Madrid for a few hours of sleep.
The next day, Tuesday, we decided to get up early and do something fun. We still had the car till 14:00, and it seemed a good use of the car to drive somewhere new. We discussed going to Aranjuez to see the palace, or possibly Llescas to see another car, but we decided to go to El Pardo in the end.
El Pardo is a forested area in the north of Madrid where kings would go to hunt in the winter. The palace there is small, but elegant. It seems there is not a lot of tourism to this palace. The properties do not appear as a point of interest on any tourist websites we have seen.
It is also likely that few Spaniards visit. During the decades when Francisco Franco governed the country, he lived in the palace. Any animosity that might exist towards Franco has definitely reduced interest in visiting his former residence, even if it has a more historical significance than that.
These days the palace is reserved for visiting heads of state. There are a series of more modern rooms where presidents and prime ministers can stay while they do their business in Madrid.
The palace has some small gardens surrounding it, but nothing like many other palaces. The main purpose of the properties was for hunting by the royal family. It was a place to visit in the winter, so the gardens are simple.
There are three open courtyards aligned symmetrically in the center of the palace. They are all covered now, to protect them from the weather. The only photos I could get of the interior were in this first courtyard.
During the tour we visited only part of the palace. It was interesting that the guide noticed Javier's visual disability and actually gave him permission to touch the furniture. For the most part, he refrained from doing so.
Most rooms of the palace have ceilings painted with intricate frescoes and walls lined with beautiful tapestries. Many of the tapestries are reproductions of paintings by famous artists such as Goya. Much of the art is themed around hunting, and the walls of many rooms are adorned with images of different bird species. I loved the rooms with birds.
Near the center of the building we visited the rooms where Franco lived. There were three rooms in particular: his bedroom, his rumpus room, and his bathroom. The rumpus room - for lack of a better description - was adorned with a couple recliners, the palace's first television, and glass cabinets containing all his different uniforms. The fact that they displayed the bathroom was kind of funny. It was a modern bathroom; Franco had the bathroom remodeled a couple years before his death. One British woman on the tour looked in and said, "It's just a modern bathroom really." To this I responded, "But it's the bathroom of the Generalissimo!" Why they display the bathroom is beyond me. Maybe it's for comic relief? For us it became a joke: "We saw the bathroom where Franco pooped!"
A few blocks from the palace is a small building called La Casita del Principe. I could not take any photos inside. This is a shame, because the interior of this otherwise unspectacular building was breathtaking. All of the original embroidered wallpaper and exquisite furniture was in almost perfect condition. Every surface was bright colors and delicate patterns. The preserved condition of the walls and upholstery in the Casita is due to it being closed up for most of its existence. The building was built by Carlos III for use by his son Carlos IV for parties. The place was used infrequently, so it did not deteriorate.
After our journey to El Pardo, we returned the car and took the bus back to the apartment. We were absolutely exhausted from the past two days of running around on little sleep, so we crashed the moment we got home.
