Visit date: May 6, 2016, at approximately 8:00 p.m. (overnight)
The last parador of this trip. It might have been the most opulent.
Third time at the Parador
Finally, this is the last night of this trip. We came back from Barcelona in Catalonia to Castile at once. After viewing the Miro Museum, we went on almost non-stop at once.
The last hotel I chose was also a parador, located in a small town called Siguenza. The location is right around here, halfway between Zaragoza and Madrid.
It took more than 4 hours from Barcelona with a break.
Parador converted from an old castle
By the way, we had two candidates for the last place to stay. Siguenza and Alcalá de Henares, both cities had paradors. However, the parador in Alcalá de Henares is a modern building, while the one in Sigüenza is a renovated old castle. So we chose Siguenza.
What a rainbow on that old castle when we arrived!
Then we arrived at the old medieval town. The castle is at the top of the hill so it was unlikely that we would get lost. Parking? You could park all you wanted in front of the castle lol.
This is the entrance.
This castle in Siguença probably has its roots in the Reconquista, the struggle against the Islamic powers. However, after the Reconquista, the castle was neglected for a long time and was almost in ruins in the 20th century.
I booked a little luxury plan because there was not much difference in price, so the room was relatively large and the interior decoration was also a feeling of celebrity.
The courtyard is very nice. It was very cold because of the bad weather and the surprisingly high altitude of the land of Castile. I would have liked to spend some time here.
In addition, it seems to be possible to visit the inside for a fee even if you are not a guest of the Parador. Unfortunately, we could not see it because we arrived before 20:00 because the viewing time was until 18:00.
However, there were a number of those on the accommodation side of things, and I think that was enough to satisfy us.
Re-experience Castilian cuisine in a restaurant
After all, you want to eat local food on your last night. But if you stay at the Parador, there is always a restaurant attached that serves local cuisine. If you are a guest, you can enter without reservation.
First, the wine. It seems to arrive by default if you order the course mentioned below, but since it was the last one, we decided to order something of better quality than that.
Local products, of course. It seems that they almost always have local products, or rather, original products of this parador. It was the same at the Parador in Lerma where I stayed at the beginning of this trip. This area belongs to the province of Guadalajara, and the wine we were served at this parador was from Guadalajara.
This is for a blend of Temprariño, Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. It was kind of a lot of my favorite cepage lol.
As for the meal, we decided on a standard course meal (Menu de la tierra).
The first appetizer was a local cheese platter (Quesos regionales). Wow! It’s quite a large portion, but no problem.
For the main course, I was worried about many things, but I chose a veal dish (Cabrito asado al mode traditional, I thought it was probably a veal dish). It was full of volume.
It may sound a bit cruel, but grilled veal, suckling pig and lamb are the traditional Castilian dishes. I was able to have all of them in this trip. Personally, I was particularly impressed by the suckling pig dish. I think it’s because it’s not so familiar in Japan. I hope that Spanish restaurants in Japan will serve not only paella and ahijos but also these traditional dishes.
After a sumptuous meal, we went to our room. I was able to spend a comfortable night.
さあ、遂に帰る日が来ます。しかし、その前にもう一つ世界遺産に立ち寄って行く予定です。（続く）
