We stayed at the Hotel Jakue which comprises an Albergue, a “Glamping” area and an actual hotel.
Back to being in the countryside the view from my room was nice and far ranging. The hotel was about 1km outside the town so that needed to be completed before we could walk through the narrow street and across the Romanesque Bridge (over the Agra River). The Queen’s Bridge, which gives the town its name, was built by order of a Queen, but it is not known which one! In 1931 the bridge was declared a historical monument.
We walked past the Convent of the Commanderies of The Holy Spirit, built in 1754 to replace a 13th-century Convent, where apparently the nuns make sweets and cakes for sale. Some wandering along paths with crops (Barley this time) on one side and hedgerows on the other. Nightingales were making a racket, the range of their songs makes it sound like multiple different birds. Then we hit a steep hill (up 124m in 1.2km) which certainly got the heart pumping at this early stage of the day. It was good to look back and see all the wind turbines on the Alto del Perdon from yesterday’s walk.
We continued on the path, through a couple of small towns, past small groves of olive trees and small groves of almond trees. Some fields had both barley and wheat planted -this is typically to boost yield stability, enhance resistance to drought or pests, and optimize soil/water/light use through complementary growth patterns—barley emerges faster while wheat grows taller later. This also improves bread quality by blending barley’s resilience with wheat’s gluten. We then walked through Cirauqui, a town with lots of steep roads leading to the church at the top – this was the highest point of the day.
Carrying on we enjoyed the views as we crossed a few medieval bridges, looked back at where we had come from and passed by our first winery – Bodegas Tandem. Poppies were blooming everywhere, bringing the hedgerows into colourful life.
We walked through the villages of Lorca and Villatuerta before coming to the outskirts of Estrella and passing a drinking water fountain called Fuente de Los Peregrinos and then alongside the river Ega for a while (the water was very muddy no doubt due to the recent rainstorms). Luckily for us today we escaped any bad weather before we finally reached our hotel and checked in.
