Cuenca, Spain, Christmas 2009

wow you got at least some pics in between the rain.
thanks for sharing that bridge would scare any one crossing it

This is really something else thanks for adding these to growsonyou what to go.

Jikes, that is a high bridge & those Buildings nestled on the side?? not for me, gorgeous though. Are they in the Earth Quack zone???does not look like it as it is still standing after all those years. Neat blog.

Lovely blog! I feel as though I've been there! Glad you enjoyed your visit. :o)

Oh, I have enjoyed this Balcony......I had a look on Google about Cuenca yesterday. Those precarious houses built into the rocks, they are incredible! And the bridge, are you able to drive your car across? Do you get strong winds whistling down through the gorge....the way the pines have grown? Heavy rock and stony ground and yet small seeds survive and weather the environment....great blog....looking forward to seeing the clematis....is that with the creamy white flowers, we used to have this type on our land, and the Ivies of course.....do you have wild Asparagus growing too, that was great to eat but the bane of my garden!

Very interesting. Never mind there was no sun. The houses clinging on to that cliff were very impressive. It's as if they were growing out of the very rock itself.

Fascinating... added to GoYpedia Balconies.

Gulp!! Brilliant blog but I’m going to have to go and lay down now I’m scared of heights !

Fantastic!~ don't think I would be venturing out on those balconies~saw a video on utube looks fantastic~ although I am not happy with narrow roads with sheer drops at the side!....

Nor me, Arlene - I'm scared of heights. Not sure if I would be able to cross the bridge. Lovely old buildings - what a view they must have!

Thanks everyone for your comments! So glad you didn't find it boring! I was afraid I was "harping" on too much! In a couple of days I'll make a 2nd part to finish.

One of the things that struck me was how barren the centre of the city was! I suppose I didn't notice while I lived there. There is very little in the way of vegetable life, no gardens, hardly any trees, no balconies full of plants. :-(

When I got back here I almost suffered from agoraphobia everything was sooo far apart & FLAT!!! It brought back to me that I felt exactly the same when I moved back here nearly 9 years ago! I got over it within a few days but I liked Cuenca so much I considered it my 2nd(?) home!!! In fact that should be my 1st home as I lived more years in Cuenca than in any place in the UK! I spent the 1st 15 years of my existence in London, but I spent 19 years in Cuenca in one stint! I have lived in Cuenca on other occasions for a few years each time as well as a few years in Madrid. I've also spent a few years on different occasions in Huntingdon, though these last 9 years are the longest period I've lived here.

The old city is quite a contrast really as I will show you in my next blog. Yet Cuenca has many parks & the modern ones are full of grass, very expensive to water twice a day - even with automated watering systems! I wasn't able to visit any of the parks while we were there due to the constant rain that kept us "bottled" up in our son's flat most of the time.

Looks a fascinating place and the history made it so interesting, that is a real feat of engineneering, enjoyed it very much thanks Balcony

Very interesting and informative blog, do not know the area, impressed with the bridge although it looks very flimsy compared to the lovely bridges in France.It is never boring to visit other countries, so, thanks for the visit.

lovely blog balcony,very interesting ,i have not heard of cuenca before so thank you for letting us have a visit, even if i did have to grip the arms of my chair looking at some photos lol..

Yes, DD, I do know the area - a little. I lived there for more than 20 years! I assure you there is nothing flimsy about that bridge - it's probably stronger than the original stone one! I knew of a painting of the stone bridge but I don't know if it still exists.

Joanella, Glad I could inform you of Cuenca, it's a really lovely old city though with plenty of modern hustle & bustle, especially in the modern city. There are huge housing developments all over the city. There are enormous super giant supermarkets there. A thriving university sector & an immense hospital. A new high speed railway is being built there & in a couple of years Cuenca will have a super modern state-of-the-art railway station. It already has a super duper dual carriageway motorway that puts to shame the back streets we call motorways here!

Don't anybody go getting the idea that Cuenca is just a quaint old little city lost in the heartland of Spain. It's a very modern flourishing European city!

If I'd been able to get out & about while we were there over Christmas I would have taken many photos of the modern city. The modern & the ancient are about as alike as chalk & cheese!

Will look forward to seeing more pictures on your return journey?

it is funny how abroad they seem to mix old & new together & it seems to work ,in malta i saw many old buildings with new buildings built on the top of them ,even though the older ones underneath were not in good condition..sounds like a lot going on in cuenca i will have a look at it on net when i have time..:o)

My computer went off a few days ago & I'm now without my computer & having to use my wife´s!

I tried everything I could to get it going again but nothing worked. I thought I had backups but when I put them in I got a message saying it was corrupt, even though it passed the verification process after being made. The backup was only made last November of all my computer - a disc image, as it is called.

I am now making my way back to places like this but many of my photos are now inaccessible, locked in the other computer. Some, those that are on my mobile phone, I can recover & I've already transferred many to this computer, others are waiting to see if the computer can be fixed or until I can move the 2nd hard drive to this computer.

It make take longer therefore to make the 2nd blog of Christmas in Cuenca. :-( I still have to find where the photos of the Ivy I had promised reside. I think they must still be on my mobile but with well over 1,000 photos to search through it's not going to be easy!

Oh dear what a shame, I do hope you find them, it is so distressing to lose your pics, at the moment mine are backed up on my ipod and all my music, as photos and music amount to 8,000 I would be devastated, I am looking at some portable hard drives, very reasonable now and they are so small (Amazon are brilliant have so many to chose from) so good luck....

~ my son has backed a lot of stuff onto a hard drive called "my disk"~ photos etc which you don't want to lose ~but hindsight usually comes too late Balcony~ I hope you can retrieve your photos!

what a shame balcony hope you can get them back,i have no back up for mine at all i wouldnt know where to start...

I have them all stored on the 2nd hard drive, so there is no danger they will be lost! I now need to transfer the HD to this computer. It's not something I have done before. I've opened up both our computers & have installed one or two things but I'm not very technically minded & I'm always frightened I will do something to mess up the computer.

Apart from the hard disc I need to install some memory modules but I'm not sure if the ones from my old computer are compatible with this one. The memory on this computer is terrible, only 250Mb! Most computer now come with at least 1Gb of memory many with 2, 3 or even 4Gb!

~Balcony we have 16gb on our imac at the moment~ you need a mac!

Arlene I agree, love mine, I have an iMac the best computer I have ever owned......

I'm not referring to hard disc storage but to the memory. This computer has over 70 Gb of storage space & is only half full.

Being unemployed I have no money to buy a new computer so I'm using my wife's old computer. She has a laptop which she uses most of the time. This computer has been "spare" for the last two years.

The 2nd hard disc in my computer has more than twice as much storage. I have been using it as a back up for 3 or 4 years & it it is coming close to being full. I want to move that Hard disc to this computer but this computer is very low on memory. The problem is I don't know if the memory in my old computer is compatible with the memory in this computer. If it were I could increase the memory to nearly 1Gb. That would make the computer more reliable & a lot faster.

I was searching today for some of the photos I took of Cuenca, especially those of the ivy in the streets of Cuenca. But they were taken with my digital camera & now they are on the old computer. The photos taken with the mobile phone are on this computer as well as on my old one as I hadn't deleted them from the phone & was able to copy them here. So it looks as though the 2nd part of this blog will be longer in coming than I anticipated!

We can hang on........I understand what you mean about the memory, you could google the compatibility problem, I would have to take mine to the Apple Store, very difficult to get into as it is an all in one.

I know what memory modules this computer uses but I don't know what memory modules my old computer uses & now I have no way of finding out either! Unless it is actually written on them & the only way to find out is to take them out of the old computer. Different motherboards take different memory modules if the old ones are not compatible with this computer's motherboard then I won't be able to use them. :-(

wow the mind boggles balcony,i feel a migraine coming on lol :o))

I know what you mean Jo I do not believe in tinkering with my computer, my next door neighbour takes his apart all the time, (he is 83!!!) he got me interested in them in the first place, Mac's are not made to be taken apart, they would not make any money if they could be tinkered with...lol
All the best Balcony...

my son is always tinkering with his ~upgrading and things but i wouldnt let him mess with my laptop,i agree with you about not making money,83 he does ok then doesnt he, brilliant....

Yes he does at the moment he is running Windows &. Linux and Vista,all on the same PC amazing!!! he and I have lots of chat about all the latest techie stuff, my hubby is not interested in computers.