A DRY RUN · THE REAL PLACES

Follow the Chase

Every place in the book is real. Follow Richard’s route from the Mar Menor to Teruel – by bus, by train and mostly on foot.

Over one week in October, Richard goes from his flat on the coast to the hills of southern Aragón, with half of Spain looking for him. This page follows his route as far as Teruel. What happens after that, you’ll have to read for yourself.

Illustrated map of Richard’s route in A Dry Run: by bus and train from Los Alcázares on the Mar Menor via Murcia and Valencia to Mora de Rubielos station, then on foot via Mora de Rubielos, La Puebla de Valverde, the Sierra de Javalambre, Valacloche and Cubla to Teruel. — Click the map to see it full size.

PART ONE

The run north

From the Mar Menor to the edge of Aragón

Boats moored on the calm Mar Menor at dusk, with the lights of Los Alcázares along the shore

1 Los Alcázares and Cartagena

Richard has drifted into early retirement in Los Alcázares, a resort town on the Mar Menor, Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon. When Lucia turns up after six months with a story he doesn’t believe, he takes the bus into Cartagena to buy her a pile of maps. By the evening he is leaving his own block of flats disguised as the gas man.

Photo: Becks, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped)

Head towards Barcelona, that’s all I can say for now.
A voice on the phone, chapter 3

The baroque bell tower and façade of Murcia Cathedral above café umbrellas in Plaza Cardenal Belluga

2 Murcia

The bus to Murcia, a cash machine, and the first train north. Somewhere past Alicante, working through the maps line by line, Richard finally works out where he is meant to be going.

Photo: Vescoolz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The ornate modernista façade of Valencia’s Estació del Nord under a blue sky

3 Valencia

Richard changes trains at Valencia’s Estació del Nord, the modernist station beside the city’s bullring, and picks up some camping kit before boarding a slow regional train inland.

Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped)

A rocky shoreline and pine-covered hills around the Regajo reservoir near Jérica

4 Up onto the plateau

From Sagunto the line turns away from the sea and climbs through the hills past Segorbe, over a half-empty reservoir and up onto the high, red-soiled plateau of southern Aragón.

Photo: Enrique Íñiguez Rodríguez (Qoan), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Walking? We have cars up here you know.
Valero, chapter 3

The small yellow station building of Mora de Rubielos–Albentosa beside curving tracks and empty platforms

5 Mora de Rubielos station

The station that carries Mora de Rubielos’s name is several kilometres from the village itself, closer to Albentosa – a mistake, Richard learns, that plenty of people make. He spends his first night in a casa rural across the tracks, eating lentils and hearing about the Maquis, the guerrillas who held out in these mountains long after the Civil War.

Photo: Juan Emilio Prades Bel, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

PART TWO

Into the hills

Mora de Rubielos to Cubla, on foot

The castle of Mora de Rubielos rising above the village roofs, with hills behind

6 Mora de Rubielos

A lift into the village and a look round its huge sandstone castle, which hides behind the houses until you are almost on top of it. From here Richard joins the Camino del Cid, the long-distance trail that follows the route of Spain’s most famous knight, and heads west along it.

But you’re going the wrong way.
A shepherd, chapter 4

The houses and church tower of La Puebla de Valverde climbing a hillside

7 La Puebla de Valverde

Past the half-empty reservoir at Valbona, the path reaches La Puebla de Valverde, perched on its hillside beside the new motorway. It should be a quiet night. Then Richard switches on the morning news.

Photo: Noeliaarnaug, CC BY-SA 3.0 ES, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped)

A dusty track climbing between junipers and scrub in the Sierra de Javalambre under a blue sky

8 The Sierra de Javalambre

The Sierra de Javalambre rises to over 2,000 metres, with a ski station on its upper slopes, and winters here are among the coldest in Spain. It is also bare: a little juniper, a lot of thyme and very few places to hide from a spotter plane. Richard’s day up here is the longest in the book.

He isn’t going to leave this mountain without us seeing him.
One of the search party, chapter 5

The ruined castle above Valacloche in low evening sun, with juniper bushes in the foreground

9 Valacloche

At nightfall Richard climbs to the ruined castle above Valacloche, which looks out over all the surrounding hills. It makes for a good lookout and a cold bed.

10 Cubla

Cubla barely shows on the map: a square with a fountain, a phone on the town hall wall and a church far too big for the houses around it. Richard has been told to wait in a house near that church, between three and five in the afternoon.

PART THREE

Teruel

Red country, Mudéjar towers and a chase through the old town

Terraced fields of red earth stretching across the hills just outside Cubla

11 Cubla to Teruel

From Cubla to Teruel is less than 20 kilometres on foot, along farm tracks and narrow terraces where the grey stone gives way to red sandstone buttes and ridges – a miniature Grand Canyon that Richard, two years on the coast a couple of hours away, never knew was there.

It was tough but honest… it made you work for everything it gave back.
Chapter 7

A brick and tile Mudéjar tower in Teruel against a blue sky

12 Teruel

Teruel is a small provincial capital with outsized treasures. Its Mudéjar towers and cathedral ceiling, a blend of Christian and Islamic styles, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the old viaduct over the gorge appears in a famous Robert Capa photograph from the Civil War battle fought here in the winter of 1937–38. Richard sees rather more of the town’s streets than he planned to, at speed.

AND THEN…

The chase isn’t over

The terracotta houses of Albarracín stacked up a hillside below its medieval walls — Albarracín

The Basilica del Pilar in Zaragoza, with its towers and tiled domes, seen across the square — Zaragoza

From Teruel the chase heads into the mountains, to the walled village of Albarracín, and on towards Zaragoza on the biggest day of its year. To find out what happens there, you’ll have to read the book.

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Photos by M. Ackerman unless credited. Map: coastline from Natural Earth; rivers and place positions © OpenStreetMap contributors. The routes are approximate.