Spark Tripping

For my next daytrip out of Madrid, I wanted to do something different. Cuenca is a 'secret' town in Castile La Mancha, the place renowned for being the home of the fictional Don Quixote de La Mancha. The locals pronounce it as "Wen-ka" not "Choo-en-cha". I decide to visit for the following reasons Barely any tourists know about it (it's off the grid) It features the famous (to locals) Casas Colgadas or "Hanging Houses". Cuenca can be reached by high-speed rail in slightly under an hour so train tickets were purchased online for the grand price of EUR56.30 for a return trip for Saturday 29 July at 8.40am. The Atocha train station is a bit confusing, but it hardly has a fraction of the traffic that Tokyo station has.  After you pass through a security screening (bags only), it's off to the boarding gates. The Renfe trains are super modern machines! Cuenca is on the way to Valencia. The train departed e

The closest metro to where I live at the moment is Anton Martin which is a 5 min walk away. The area around this station is quite interesting as there are plenty of shops and people. So on Saturday morning, I woke up around 10am and went out looking for breakfast. As I walked around, I noticed that there is plenty of fresh food for sale. Like crazy numbers of shop selling fresh everything. As I was looking at an 'interesting' poster, I suddenly realized that there was a hidden Mercado or Market here. A Mercado is an indoor market. I had found the famous Mercado Anton Martin which the locals depend on for their supply of fresh produce. store specializing in selling only cereal from all over the world I thought about scratching my "lucky charms" itch but held back  mini-library pickled stuff I'll come back another day to try this Japanese store. I saw 2 of the staff and they were most definitely Japan