From Camping Hell to Camping Heaven!!

We were up and away to Madrid by 8.30am defying the Satnav and taking the quieter roads to the motorway thereby reducing our journey by a good few miles, sometimes  it can pay to do your own navigating! We arrived at the Camping Arganda and if we weren't on a mission (and if we had somewhere else nearby to go) we would have turned around and left. The campsite was abysmal, full of scruffy static caravans, right on a busy main road and the facilities were appalling, but we wanted to cycle the Via Verde Tajuna, we have all our own facilities on board so we pitched up and stayed.

That afternoon we had time to go out and see if we could find the start of the trail and it was a good job we did as it took some finding, once again the signposting could have been much better. But once we found it, the trail was as described - well surfaced in red Tarmac and once on it, you couldn't get lost (luckily - we do seem to be quite good at getting lost!)

 So, Sunday morning we packed up our lunch and set out on our third Via Verde climbing steadily through the olive groves to the summit of a hill (and a huge cement works!?) before going down to the town of Montana. The trail then undulated along to another village where we stopped for our lunch, the only thing missing from our journey being a suitable bar for a coffee, but that's what you get when you stray away from the usual tourist track.

Although the trail continued on, we decided to head back to the campsite where we took our showers in the van rather than use their awful facilities! The worst thing about the campsite was it was the most expensive place we have stayed at 24€ a night when we would normally expect to pay 16 or 18€ for a good quality campsite! But it served it's purpose and we were able to cycle another Via Verde.

We didn't wash our dishes here.....

Or take a shower here....

The next day we headed away from the pollution smog hanging over Madrid into the mountains and the National Park de Cabaneros and the most wonderful site at Horcajo de los Montes - Mirador de Cabaneros. 

The view from the restaurant

The site boasts a bar/restaurant, a swimming pool, excellent (and sparkly clean) facilities. We leave our Via Verde mission for a while and spend a few days here out exploring the area on our bikes

Much better facilities! Sparkly!!!