Alarcon.

Alarcon it´s a town located 87 kilometers away from Cuenca. It´s enviroment and architecture make it a beautifull place to visit.

I went to alarcon on the 3rd and final day of the trip. Due to the heat, crappy food and lack of sleep, i was feeling a bit sick and didn´t have all the motivation i should have had, that translates on a lack of pictures. At least until i got to the biggest surprise in the trip, but more on that later...

This is the view from the road of the Town of Alarcon.

Actually, there are some elements in this picture that maybe you reconogice, but i will tell you of those later.

Really beautiful place. Cuenca had the disavantage of being part of a modern city, and being infested of tourists, but Alarcon really has a beautiful enviroment, the water in the dam was nicely clear, and notice how there are several survilance towers surrounding the city. The place is calm and the air smells clean, which is a luxury the people in cities don´t have nowdays.

This part was edited after watching the second OVA.

This tower is part of the entrance of Alarcon, and it´s one of the arcs that the road goes down on the access to Alarcon. When i went there back in august, i couldn´t imagine that this spot was gonna be the place where some of the most awesome scenes of the series were gonna happen. So it´s a shame that i didn´t take proper pictures of this place. The only ones i got were taken for my own storage.

It´s a shame i can´t show you how much the aminated version is accurate to the real tower, because watching it in the pictures, it´s just like real life, a perfect depiction of it.

You can drive all the way to the base of the tower, but you risk to ruin the undercarriage, because it´s a quite broken field. Once again, a Kubelwagen really works here.

Also, Kanata´s driving once again proofs that women should be banned from driving forever.

Just joking ladies.

Feels awesome to know that i discovered this place all by miself, climbed the same stairs Kanata does, or even sat at the same spot Rio does.

 I noticed that some scenes of the ending are also taken from here.

Another view of Alarcon, and 2 of the 3 doors that give access to the town.

IMHO, that the SnW producers did to create Seize, was taking mostly Cuenca and mixing it with Alarcon, keeping the walls of this, and after watching the OVA feels like that.

Alarcon is a fortified city like Cuenca, and also like Cuenca, it´s surrounded by 2 rivers.

Remember this from episode 1? There are 3 doors like this one to close the access to the town.

The road does a tight right hand corner before reaching the city doors, just like in the anime. I can´t help to think that someone in the SnW team did a "Dorifto" joke while they were there, and they decided to include it in the anime. Get´s more evident when you think that the man who dubbed Krauss is the same who gave the voice to Takumi´s dad in Initial D.

As i mentioned, i was feeling a bit sick that morning, and because i didn´t recocnogice anything in Alarcon that was used in SnW, i didn´t bother taking pictures, as it looked pretty much like any spanish town does. I did miss taking some pictures from the Parador of Alarcon, as there was another parador in this town, and i have the feeling that it may appear in the second OVA too.

I did catch this corner that appears in a shot of the ending. Looks like they have used several spots from Alarcon exclusively in the ending.

After walking through the town, i decided to go check the dam and the bridge you can chech in the first pictures, because i had the feeling that they were the ones that appear in the series, and i happened to be right.

First the dam.

 And now the bridge.

Actually, this bridge is used several times, both in the ending and in the actual series. This shot is used in the ending (Rio hug) and in the episode 7.

This is where Felicia and Rio talk in episode 7. which makes this the place where the Obon Festival takes part. sadly it doesn´t look so good, but the river water flow was very calm, so you could put a boat with a candle and it would float for a while...

Also Kanata is seen down here in the ending (Determined face! moment)

OK. Sadly we are close to the end. I have shown you all the places and findings i have done in my trip. But there´s still a last place we have to see, and it´s a very special one, my favourite place in the whole trip...