October 14, 2014.

Today we went back to the time of dinosaurs then fast forwarded to the days of early Christians, then back to Roman times, and finished by spending the night in a medieval castle.

The necropolis we were searching for was called Cuyocabras in our book (Backroads of Spain) and we got a bit lost trying to trace the route from the town of Quintanar de la Sierra. We carried on until we had definitely gone too far, and on the way back I saw a sign for some dinosaur footprints.

Dinosaur footprints

A shot of the dinosaur footprints meandering  across the stones. I could see them but Al commented that both the scientists and I “had a great imagination…” 
A model of the dinosaur that made the Huellas de Dinosaurio, the ‘Dinosaur Footprints’, that were embedded in the stone.

Necropolis La Revenga

Backtracking further we discovered that the necropolis was actually called La Revenga, and was a Paleo-Christian Necropolis dating back to the 10th century.

We finally found a sign pointing to the necropolis after a long walk which Al described as “a lovely stroll through a field of cow shit…”One of the tombs in the early Christian Necropolis, Spain. Again Al was sceptical, wondering what the archeologists were smoking that day. Googling it I found that somewhere on the site there were a lot more impressive tombs. But it was the first day of our trip where the rain came down steadily and it was a relief to get back into the car and out of the wet.

Clunia, a Roman Ruin

We carried on to Clunia, a Roman ruin that existed from pre-Roman times until about the 3rd century AD. Despite the rain the Roman town was fascinating. This is the amphitheatre in the rain.

Castillo de Curiel, a renovated medieval castle

It never stopped raining so we headed straight for our destination that night, the Castillo de Curiel, a renovated medieval castle converted into a hotel, and highly recommended by some fellow travellers as ‘cheap’ for what you got. Again a longer post will appear.Map of our ‘time travelling’ in Spain afternoon, from walking in the footprints of dinosaurs to spending the night in a medieval castle.

• More of Nancy Merrill’s Photo a Week Challenge: History.
• More on our 2015 trip to Northern Spain.