As mentioned in my previous blog post, Kelly Bryan and I have been visiting some nearby locations to Madrid which we can travel to for free on our Abono student travel card to photograph for our documentary project. One of the next places we chose to go to was Chinchón, we took this opportunity when us and the girls decided to take a day trip there anyway. Therefore, Kelly and I decided to experience the place with the others and see when we get there if it was worth photographing for our project and it did not disappoint!
It took approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes (2 metros and a bus) to get to the town, which is located southeast of Madrid in central Spain; known for its medieval Plaza Mayor with wooden balconies and its 15th century castle remains.
We spent our day wandering through the town, admiring the beautiful buildings and architecture – especially the boldly coloured ones and the quirky, short and old ones. There was a lot of gorgeous blossom trees which is something I have noticed I’ve often seen in the Spanish countryside, but it was particularly nice to see them up close this time, rather than how I usually see them - a few hundred feet away from a bus window.
Our first tourist attraction to see was the Plaza Mayor and its famous wooden green balconies. It was very pretty and it had a good view of the famous church tower too.
After this, we wandered up to Chinchón’s castle ruins, the walk up there was pretty alone with a lovely green space and views of the town. Although we were unable to go inside the castle, we were able to gawp at the large, 15th century-old building and its incredible views. The scenes encompassed: many fields, some which had allotments in them, rolling hills, blossom trees, mountains, some of which still with snow on them and many trees planted in very neat and aesthetically pleasing straight lines. We sat at the top of the hill where the castle is located for several hours and had a small picnic whilst playing cards and enjoying the sun; it was really beautiful and peaceful up there.
After this, we moved up to slightly higher ground to get an even better view of the countryside and castle and to take it all in one last time before retreating back through the town for a casual drink in the sun before catching our bus home.
Although, there was not loads to do and just half a day was enough time to spend there, I thought it was a very pretty and picturesque historical town. It had a very peaceful and quaint feel to it, additionally, Kelly and I felt that it had the true ‘Spanish countryside’ feel and aesthetic; which is something we appreciate being able to experience on our Erasmus year as well as the urbanity of central Madrid. Consequently, we felt that it was definitely worth photographing for our project due to this and its amazing countryside views from the castle. So, after we had wandered around with the girls, we went back to our favourite places to photograph before we headed home and so here’s another digital sneak peak of just one of the images we captured (as the 35mm colour film ones are not yet developed):
