Tarancon
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Tarancon

Tarancon

Castilian crossroads town between Madrid and Valencia, with modest monuments around a renewed Plaza Mayor.

Tarancón is a small town in the province of Cuenca, on the main road between Madrid and Valencia. It has served as a crossroads for centuries, and the old centre retains a handful of modest monuments — the 16th-century Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, the surviving Puerta de Alarcos from the medieval wall, the Convento de la Concepción, and the Palace of the Duke of Riánsares. At the centre is the recently repaved Plaza Mayor, with its cafés and town hall; on the southern edge of town stands the late nineteenth-century Plaza de Toros. It is a quiet, workaday Castilian town, more a stopping point than a destination in itself.

Guide

Day Trips

Tarancón's location on the Madrid–Valencia motorway makes it a natural base for day trips in several directions. Cuenca, with its UNESCO-listed old town and the famous casas colgadas hanging over the gorge, is about an hour away by car. Madrid is just over an hour west on the A-3 — close enough for a day in the Prado and a late lunch back at home. The vineyards around Mondéjar and the Roman site of Segóbriga, near Saelices, are both within a half-hour drive for those with a car.

Guide

Eating Out

Tarancón's location on the Madrid–Valencia highway has supported a long tradition of casas de comidas and roadhouse-style restaurants — usually serving good versions of inland Castilian classics: roast lamb (cordero asado), gachas manchegas, morteruelo, pisto, queso manchego with Tarancón's local wine. The town does not have a celebrated dining scene, but several of the places on the main street are reliable for a hearty Castilian lunch.

Guide

Getting There

Tarancón sits on the A-3 motorway between Madrid and Valencia, about 80 kilometres south-east of Madrid and 270 km north-west of Valencia. By car the trip from Madrid takes a little over an hour.

The town is also served by frequent ALSA buses on the Madrid–Valencia and Madrid–Albacete lines, with the bus station a short walk from the centre. There is no longer a passenger rail service; the old station closed when the AVE high-speed line bypassed the town. If you are travelling between Madrid and Cuenca or Valencia and want a coffee stop, Tarancón is the sensible place to do it.

Guide

Things to Do

Tarancón is the sort of working Castilian market town you stop in for an hour rather than make a destination of — but that hour is rewarded. The 16th-century parish church, the bullring, the renovated Plaza Mayor and the modest Palace of the Duke of Riánsares are all within five minutes' walk of each other.

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