The hotel offered a basic breakfast of tostada and hot drink for 6 euros from 08:30 so we went for that before setting off on the via verde. A section of track has been preserved to commemorate the station and pine forest’s roles in the 1965 film Doctor Zhivago.
The via verde needed total concentration with only a narrow corridor of fine gravel on either side and steep drops off the trackbed. Dismayed at how few kilometres we’d covered by 11:30, we left the trail to take some empty rural roads to Abejar, undulating but still quicker and more relaxing, a lovely route through the forest. Here we picknicked in the shade at an abandoned house and looked round in vain for a water fountain.
We decided on a fast run along the shoulder of the N234, which wasn’t too busy, and rejoined the trail at Ocenilla for the last 15km into Soria. We still had to push up to the city and thread our way to our apartment. The temperature had reached 30°C by then, uncomfortably hot for cycling. There was a Dia supermarket nearby, we shopped, cooked and ate.