Last House on the Right
(1/200, f10, iso-200, 17mm)
The surrounding landscape of the medieval village La Vereda in the mountains Northeast of Madrid.
This village is part of the so called ´Black architecture´ for which this region is known.
Once totally abandoned and very difficult to reach it is now carefully renovated.
This rugged area and its villages is one of my favorite finds in the proximity of Madrid…
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I think the access is still very difficult. How long did you have to climb? Is it a morning shot? It’s very atmospheric, Ron. I like it.
Hi Paula, it was pretty early morning, and actually my Jeep did the climbing for more than an hour on offroads North of Madrid! And it was probably around 10am I would say! Thanks for having a look at this older one, always nice to come back to, hope all is well, how is your arm at the moment?
Good thing you had a jeep for this one :). My arm is ok, thank you, Ron, but my knee is still recovering.
oh, sorry, thought it was your arm mostly, what happened with your knee?
Yeah, do miss that Jeep, well more where it got me, but would have been useless here in KL!
I bet. I have been having a knee problem that started all of a sudden in August. I still can’t climb stairs and much less go down. It’s been a long time as you can see. This is why I have been absent from my blog for months. It’s chondromalacia patella, but my cartilage is not in a very bad shape at all, and I am seeing spinal manipulator for months. It takes time, sometimes years – I can tell you that it is very frustrating and sometimes depressing, but there are worse things in life.
There are always worser things in life, but this sucks big time and happening to you! Good thing there is no damage, so full recovery is possible then, even though it takes a long frustrating time?
Well, there is a slight cartilage deterioration on both knees, but docs says it is a normal process in someone over 40, but this thing usually happens to young athletes. I blame my Pilates reformer class for this. You know, Ron, I am one of the most impatient persons on Earth about anything especially recovery and when health is concerned I am a great hypochondriac and awful pessimist, but I know this will go away. Thank you for caring.
Haha, sounds familiar to me, it goes against enjoying every day to be looking so far ahead! Wish you well
Très jolie couleurs et beau paysage !
a wonderful vista
Thanks, Ange, and sorry for late reply, must have missed this one while moving!
All the best to you (and nice to visit your blog again, great stuff)
Greetings, Ron.
Great photo of a beautiful landscape! // Maria 🙂
Beautiful, beautiful light…
Lush. You always manage to bring out the textures in these landscape shots. Great work.
lovely, i want to go there
Just ask directions if you need any 😉
Sorry for late reply but thanks for stopping by, still appreciated
Warm greetings from Kuala Lumpur (nowadays)
Ron
That is a great photo of a fantastic landscape ! // Maria 🙂
Amazing… 🙂
What a truly gorgeous place!
I look at this and think “sumptuous”-beautiful-what a sight this must have been!
Wonderful shot with superb lighting. Love the swathe of light running diagonally through the frame.
Hi David, sorry for being so late in replying, thanks for the compliment nonetheless and it was a magical half sunny day, with rays coming thru the clouds now and then and not a bad place to wait around til it happened as I wanted 😉
Hope all is great, greetz, Ron.
Very gorgeous. Why ‘black’ architecture? Did they use black stones?
Oh sorry once again for such a late reply, the earth is made of blackened stone there, so that´s what they used for making their houses int hat area as well; lots of areas around Spain the houses and churches and all have the color of the earth, from red, to yellow to black!
Hope all is still well, greetings and thanks, Ron.
Looks a fantastic place to explore, how far from Madrid is it?
Jim
Oh it certainly was amazing, Jim, you do need a 4×4, especially when it has been raining, but then around one and half hour to get to this area, absolutely worth exploring, some great canyons, mountains and forests there, also in autumn!
Sorry for late reply, hope this still reaches you and ask away if I can help more…
Greetings, Ron.
What a beautiful place to live!! Such beautiful views!
Hola Janaline, and sorry for the late reply, guess while leaving that beautiful country I missed some replies 😉
But definitely an amazing place to have lived!
Happy travels, greetings, Ron
Amazing… what a photo!
Muchas gracias!
Saludos, Ron
Beautiful photograph….I’ve yet to get to this particular area in my Spanish travels…Obviously I need to fix that asap.
Hi Stuart, thanks for the compliment, the whole of the Sierra de Guadarrama and this part with its black villages is very interestin, the further you go off the beaten track the more rewarding it gets in my opinion…
Hope all is good!
Cheers, Ron.
I think that’s true the world over…..Un-beaten tracks are pretty much always the way to go.
🙂
Yep, you´re right, was just thinking about the hard 4×4 road to get there. And sometimes if places are that beautiful (and therefor famous) you have to take some crowd with it, i suppose 😉
Have a good day!
I went to a waterfall a couple of days ago,(photos awaiting downloading)….Like you I needed a four by four to get anywhere near it, yet still I had to frame my pics to avoid other bodies….When something is really worth seeing it’s hard to get one on one time…can be frustrating!
Here’s hoping we both drop lucky every now and again.
Yep, hope we do get other humans out of the way when necessary 😉
Looking forward to seeing em!
Cheers, Ron.
Fabulously desolate and atmospheric… Great image 🙂
Thanks, Sue, still great to read your compliment after all these month (sorry for that!)…
🙂
What a wonderfully stark and barren nest though the colors of your Spain are so rich, those greens and ochres and olives. Orwell reportedly plopped himself down in such a place but on the freezing Scottish coast to write, in severe hardshippery, the stark and barren 1984. Cold and wet with choking coal fires, smoking heavily through TB, suffering for his art. I hope a writer lives here in your hideaway, but not miserably. And despite Orwell’s austerity it always sounded to me like the ideal setting for taking pen to paper as this place you found looks to be.
Oh yeah, what a place to retreat that would be for a writer or any kind of artist, i would say, the bleak landscape could be a great inspiration!
Although in spring it definitely comes to life (this place is treated with very strong seasons) the dark rocks will keep on giving it its bleak edge!
For me nature and places like these make me feel the unimportance of our lifes and therefor the importance of the essentials; these places will exist long after we left, but maybe a piece of art would make it part of some artist´s legacy like Orwell´s…
Thanks for your kind and interesting words, Barbara!
Ron
What an amazing photograph !
Thanks for the compliment and your continued support, really appreciate that!
hope all is great, greetings, Ron.
Nice to see you toooooo Ron!
🙂
Mooie sfeer en prachtig licht, Ron! Adios.
Thanks, was een prima halfbewolkte dag om die contrasten op de heuvels te krijgen, mooi gebied ook, zo dichtbij Madrid,
Hasta luego, Ron.
Desolate in that Spanish atmospheric way, but irresistibly entrancing.
Hola Alli, thanks for your enthousiasm, these places definitely are, glad to know some of it is transported to the viewer, the grandeur is hard to capture sometimes…
Greetings, Ron.
Beautiful! Bravo!
Ha, thanks so much, greetz, Ron.
A wonderfully sweeping view you’ve given us of the locale. This is what I like to see on travels vs the big cities.
Hi Angeline, great to hear you like the rugged nature too, cities are nice to live in but without outdoors nearby it would be worse, this is only an hour from buzzling Madrid, but pretty far offroad, although the Spanish don´t care too much to go there with normal cars 🙂
Adios, Ron.
your landscape shots are always epic 😉
Hola, the landscapes of Spain are also way more epic than I ever expected!
Thanks, Ron.