Ciudad Encantada, Segóbriga, Uclés and Belmonte without your own car: how to link Cuenca province's big sights in one day

What is the Ciudad Encantada and how do you get there?

The Ciudad Encantada is a landscape of limestone rocks shaped by erosion over millions of years — the Tormo Alto, the Ships, the Dog, the Man's Face — in the Serranía de Cuenca, inside the capital's municipal boundary but half an hour away along the Valdecabras road, which climbs through pine forest. It has been a Natural Site of National Interest since 1929, is visited along a signposted trail of an hour and a half with a paid ticket, and in winter the road can have ice or snow. There is no regular public transport there: Cuenca's city bus does not go up and no intercity line passes.

From the province's towns it is a long trip almost always combined with the city: from Tarancón it is 109 km and about 87 min; from Motilla del Palancar, 96 km. The province page marks the season: from spring to autumn, especially on long weekends and weekends, it gets most of its visitors, and it is best to go with the return booked, because at the Ciudad Encantada car park there are no taxis and no guaranteed signal to call one.

Segóbriga and Uclés: the A-3 pair?

The Segóbriga Archaeological Park, in the municipality of Saelices a step from the A-3, holds the remains of a Roman city that lived off lapis specularis, the crystallised gypsum exported to Rome for windows: theatre, amphitheatre, forum, baths and a Visigothic basilica, with an interpretation centre and a paid ticket run by the regional government. It lies on the way between Tarancón and Motilla, 78 km from Cuenca and 28 km from Tarancón, and is easy to combine with Uclés on the same day, as the province page says.

Uclés monastery, known as the Escorial of La Mancha, was the mother house of the Order of Santiago and stands above the village, a few kilometres from Tarancón and Segóbriga: baroque façade, Herrerian cloister and a church where the order's knights lay. It hosts guided visits, cultural events and a hostel, and has no practical public transport connection, although it is 16 km from Tarancón and 70 km from Cuenca. Segóbriga in the morning and Uclés after lunch is the classic combination, with the driver waiting or returning at the agreed time.

Belmonte and the Mota del Cuervo windmills?

Belmonte castle, from the fifteenth century, was built by Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, and restored in the nineteenth by the Empress Eugénie de Montijo; it overlooks the town where Fray Luis de León was born, in the Cuenca part of La Mancha near Mota del Cuervo. It is one of the best-preserved castles in Castile, with a paid visit and, in spring and autumn, the medieval combat tournament that packs it with spectators. It is far from the capital and from any station: from Cuenca it is 97 km and from Mota del Cuervo 23 km, and, as the province page says, it is almost always visited by car.

A step away is Mota del Cuervo, with its ridge of windmills, the most visited in the province together with those of Campo de Criptana across the border with Ciudad Real, and Las Pedroñeras, the purple garlic capital. For anyone coming from Madrid, Belmonte and Mota are an hour and a half away along the A-3 and N-301, and the combination of Belmonte, the Mota windmills and a return via Uclés and Segóbriga is a full day that only makes sense with a car that waits. From Tarancón, Belmonte is 62 km away.

How do you organise one day, or two, with a driver?

The province is large and the four sites are in three different areas, so the sensible thing is not to cram them all into one day. A Serranía day: Cuenca's old town and the Hanging Houses in the morning, the Ciudad Encantada after lunch and back to the city, with the driver waiting at the site's car park. An A-3 day: Segóbriga at opening time, Uclés with a guided visit at midday and, if there is time, Belmonte and the Mota windmills in the afternoon, ending in Tarancón, Cuenca or the AVE station depending on where you started. Each leg has its route page with the "from" fare and the calculator gives the exact price of the full round with its stops.

For anyone arriving by AVE at Fernando Zóbel from Madrid or Valencia, the driver collects at the station with the train number and does the full day, dropping back at the station or the hotel. The opening hours of the Ciudad Encantada, Segóbriga, Uclés and Belmonte are published by their managers and change between winter and summer; some close one day a week out of season, so check them before fixing the order of the stops.

What public transport is there really?

Very little, and none of it designed for visiting. Intercity lines link the villages with Cuenca or Madrid on weekday timetables: there are buses to Saelices and Uclés, to Belmonte and Mota del Cuervo, but with one or two departures a day that arrive in the afternoon and return in the morning, the opposite of what a visitor needs, and at weekends the service shrinks or disappears. Nothing reaches the Ciudad Encantada. The province page is clear: the big sights are spread over a wide area with no public transport between them.

What does work is combining train and car: AVE to Cuenca and a driver for the Serranía; or, from Madrid, a direct car along the A-3 to Segóbriga and Uclés, which are closer to the Spanish capital than to the provincial one. The round is booked with the time of each opening and the return at the same time as the outbound trip, because neither Saelices nor Uclés nor Belmonte has a taxi rank to sort out the return on the spot.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Ciudad Encantada · horarios, entradas y acceso (consulted on 27 October 2026)
• Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha · Parque Arqueológico de Segóbriga: horarios y visita (consulted on 27 October 2026)
• Monasterio de Uclés · visitas y horarios (consulted on 27 October 2026)
• Castillo de Belmonte · visitas, horarios y torneo de combate medieval (consulted on 27 October 2026)
• Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha · transporte interurbano de viajeros por carretera (consulted on 27 October 2026)