Retirement trip - Day 17

 Had a short ride today to the town of Alcalá de Henares where I was meeting some friends. As I hadn't visited Guadalajara town centre yesterday I went to have a look. Not a lot there but there were a few interesting buildings.

As I was leaving Guadalajara, I saw a jetwash station and as the bike had got really filthy over the last too weeks I treated it to a clean.

It's coin operated but I had no idea how much to pay for a bike wash so put in 3 Euros. This was far too much as I could have got away with 1 Euro.

Llantas Insectos = Tyres and insects. This was a solution that dissolved dead insects off of the front of the bike. Lavado = wash, Aclarado = rinse, and Osmosis = rinse with demineralised water. 

This turned out to be the most powerful jetwash I'd ever used. There is no trigger on the lance so you have to hold onto it when you select a setting. (I know this after an amusing - for others- incident in a similar place in France some years ago!) It's so powerful that you have to be careful when pointing it at the chain and wheel hubs in case the water gets past the seals and removes the grease, and was worried that it would remove stickers! Bike was now suitable clean and I could see through the windscreen (noticed it wasn't very clear in the last video).

I soon arrived in Alcalá de Henares and as I had a couple of hours until my meeting, I went for a wander around the very attractive town centre. I then met with my friends Maureen and Sara at there house where we had a lovely lunch and caught up with each other. (We hadn't met for over 10 years)

That evening Maureen had to go out so I went back to the now much busier town centre and took some photos.

What the local Policia use. As they don't go out of town they don't really have any need for anything bigger.

Writer Miguel de Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Heneras and outside his former house (now a museum) are sculptures of his most famous characters, Don Quixote and Sancha Panza.

Storks nest on top of high buildings.

Saw this band playing in a square. They were young so you can forgive them not being very good, everyone has to start somewhere.

Another stork

Christopher Columbus to English speakers

This was next to a bar where a lot of custom bikes were meeting