One thing I love about visiting Europe is the historic castles, churhes, and buildings which exist among the modern cities. During a trip to Spain I stopped to have lunch at the hilltop town of Alarcón to see the 8th-century Moorish fortress converted to a Parador. However what impressed me the most was the amazing view of the hilltop town. This quickly became the theme of my trip and I found two other towns Jorquera and Chinchilla de Monte-Aragón which were near enough for me to photograph.

The second hilltop town I visited was Jorquera located further down the Rio Jucar. I spent a long evening waiting for the sun to set behind the town of Jorquera but when it did I was unhappy with how it washed out the Church of Santa Maria de la Asuncion. Therefore I made a composite of the golden sunset light on the grassy foreground and a second photo of the town further to the left to move the sun off of the town.

Chinchilla de Monte-Aragón was the third city I photographed from a nearby hill at sunset and again the next morning. The evening sunset colors were richly layered and went on long after the sun went down silhouetting the Chinchilla de Montearagón Castle. A bonus that evening was the music from several bands & drums that played all evening long.