Page:A Handbook for Travellers in Spain - Vol 1.djvu/236

136 a mean heat of 17° above zero, Réaumur. They are slightly unctuous to the touch, and contain petroleum and hydro-chlorates of soda and magnesia, combined with carbonic acid gas. (From these baths there is a road to Madrid; they may also be approached from Cuenca; in the summer a diligence goes daily to Sacedon.)

13 m. Priego. Here there is a large and tolerable posada. Pop. 1982. This place is beautifully situated on an eminence above the trout-stream Escabas, near which are also many montes y dehesas that abound with stags and game, especially the district near the truly sequestered Desierto, a convent founded by Charles III. Seated at the foot of the Sierra, this town combines the productions of hill and plain, and is a good quarter for the artist and sportsman. ‘The bread, mutton, and wines are excellent and cheap. Priego has a ruined castle, an old Gothic church, and a new one begun by Miguel Lopez, with a rustic belfry in the Brunelleschi style. Near it the beautiful Trabaque flows into the Guadiela, when the united clear sea-green waters wind into the Tagus through red sandstone rocks, with charming artistical bridges and mills. After passing decayed Alcocer, the country alters in character, and we quit the basin of the Guadiela, and strike across to

18$1⁄2$ m. Sacedon (Pop. 1869); it is placed in a picturesque hill-girt valley on the clear Tagus, with a well-built imposing church. The warm baths, the ancient Thermida, are much frequented in the season from June to September. The mineralogy in the vicinity is highly interesting.

The traveller can here take the diligence to Guadalajara, and thence rail to Madrid (see Rtes. 149 and 2).

Attend to the provend, and take a local guide, for the country is wild, and the roads rough and intricate, but they lead into districts the joy of the sportsman and geologist. This country, a portion of the Idubedan chain, is of a truly alpine character; the roads are rough and wild, the pine-forests tangled, the fossils and petrifactions infinite. It is the mountain alembic or source of many rivers.

5 m. Buenache de la Sierra. Pop. 248.

10$1⁄2$ m. Beamud. Pop. 583.

10 m. Tragacete. Pop. 1411. Near this village the Muela de San Juan, the highest peak of these mountains, rises some 5280 ft. (see Rte. 7).

11 m. Frias. Pop. 674.

10$1⁄2$ m. Albarracin. Pop. 2168. This city of Aben Rázin is a wild mountain town, built, with its cathedral, beneath an eminence on which the older city stood, as its walls and ruins denote. The broken Barranco of the Guadalaviar is picturesque; here the winter's snows and cold are severe. The pine-woods provide fuel for numerous ferrerias or smithies, in which the abundant iron-ores are as rudely smelted as in the days of the Celtiberians. The air is scented far and wide with the perfume of wild flowers. The honey is delicious, and Moya, with the hills near the Cabriel, are the Hymettus of Spain; from hence probably came the mel excellente hispanicum, which is lauded by Petr. Arbiter.

17$1⁄2$ m. Teruel, situated in Aragon, is the chief town of its province. Fonda de las Diligencias, in the Paseo del Ovalo, indifferent; Casino, in the Casa de Marsilla. Pop. 9482. Seen from