Missing Maranchón

The idea was to ride my Bullet up to the unsuspecting town of Maranchón, birthplace of my friend Pedro García, and take a surprise pic in front of his old house or something like that. So I planned my route, scribbled it out professionally on a napkin and took off on the bright Sunday morning, leaving Javi in peace to do get some work done at home.
Unsuspectingly and unexpectedly, my first directions fell through as I found that Exit 53 on the N-II freeway was blocked off due to construction work. So on I went and exited to Brihuega, where I had a walk around to check out the old town.

Brihuega (Castilla-La Mancha)

I just bought some great cheese here.

 There was a butcher's shop open, with a curious poster in English announcing an award-winning local cheese from the Cheeses of the World competition, so I went in and bought some. Very nice. It will go great tonight with a glass of that red wine from Almansa.

Good stop for motorcycles

There were several bikers at the outdoor terraza (above) where I parked the Balita Roja, but they were on big fast Japanese bikes in colors matching their leathers, and paid no heed to an old fart like me on a crazy old bike like mine.
So I tucked into a media ración de ensaladilla all for myself:

Ensaladilla rusa: basically an excellently done potato salad

Time to wing it from here. I wended my way out of Brihuega and into the wilds towards the young Tajuña and along skimpy back roads through Budia and Durón, where I stopped for lunch. They had paella just made, so I had that.

Paella de marisco

The restaurant is also great for bikers. It has a lot of place to park, it has an outdoor dining area and a barbeque grill they light every weekend "unless it's snowing really really hard" (said the owner). Worth a return for the grilled lamb chops.

I had to forgo on the wine since I was driving and had no time for a siesta.

Back on the road, I headed south through the Alcarria region, to Sacedón and then to Buendía and on south before turning off onto an amazing back road to head back west to the region of Madrid.

La Balita on the corner of Nowhere and Nowhere

Vistas with Balita

The way home lies ahead

The way I came

In the end I had a nice ride and still got home by 5pm or so. But it would be more fun to do with one or two others. Next time I'll let people know. Readers?