Alarcón with the Royal Enfield Amigos

There's a groups of us who met online at the fororoyalenfield.es forum and have become pretty good friends over the past few years. Meeting up for our yearly event isn't enough. Last year we convinced Juan and Bruno and Rafa to invite us to the reinauguration of their txoko en Villarreal (there a post here about that), for instance. This year Juan, Bruno and I travelled on Semana Bruno before going to the event--it was probably the best ride and the best riding companions I've had since Pedro G's visits from Brazil. Last Holy Week we descended on Jesús and his wife and family in Córdoba to see the processions, and it was so much fun. Javi came on that trip and loved it (we went by AVE fast train).

So the idea came up not to wait too long and to meet up in some middle ground for a weekend, which turned out to be the ancient medieval walled town and castle of Alarcón, off the N-III highway between Madrid and Valencia.
Javi got a bad cold and backed out at the last minute, so Flexit and I rode our old BMWs on Friday afternoon, leaving the A3 motorway at the town of Honrubia, which happens to be his last name.

We rode into Alarcón, in the late afternoon, the perfect time to see it glow in the sun. Amazing place!

On Saturday I finally got to meet Lawrence Duffy, from England, who has a place in Castalla, in Alicante, Spain and was heading back to England (slowly) by bike that weekend. So we met up and he spent the weekend with us. He fit right in, very pleasant, easy going, nice and speaks Spanish. And his Pan-European is a fantastic bike to tour around in. I'm looking forward to seeing Lol again. 

Everyone rode the bike they felt like riding to Alarcón. Only Bruno decided to ride his Royal Enfield!

We took a side trip up to the Roman ruins of the town of Valeria. Not much left there to see but the countryside was interesting and the roads were nice and curvy.

Mostly though we ate. Several times a day, as much as we could. These guys have an appetite to rival mine!

 The humble porrón found its way to our table. I couldn't resist.

I've borrowed a bunch of Jesús Luque's photos (below). I hope he doesn't mind!

 Juan gave up on the Roman ruins after about 3 minutes. He found a much better place to spend the time!

 It also turns out that it may have been Jesús's last voyage on his Goldwing, since he has too many motorcycles and the Goldwing takes him too long to keep fixed and in perfect condition.