Cycle Touring in Spain: Day 35 El Escorial to Segovia

Between El Escorial and Segovia there is a high mountain range, the Sierra de Guaderrama. There seem to be four possibilities for crossing this, all of which involve an initial cycle of 25km and ascent of 300m to Cercedilla.
1) The road to the Puerto de Navacerrada, a climb of 800m on a fairly busy road.
2) A reportedly beautiful route involving at least 10km of dirt track to the Puerto de Fuenfria, also 800m climb.
3) A narrow guage railway from Cercedilla to the Puerto de Navacerrada.
4) A train through a tunnel under the sierra all the way to Segovia.

The last two days have involved about 1800m of ascent on dirt tracks and much as option 2 appealed, the temptation of option 3 was too great. Mephistopheles had won again.
So, after brewing up coffee and eating a breakfast of bread and honey on our lovely grassy campsite, we headed off on rough tracks towards Cercedilla.

A friendly mountain biker from Madrid helped us across an awkward ford. The tracks around here are really better suited to mountain bikes than laden touring bikes.

The train was perfect, full of cyclists (all mountain bikes), including three young lads of about 14 who had obviously rushed out of school at lunchtime and were heading up for an afternoon riding on the mountain trails. They were great fun and seemed very interested in our trip around Spain.

We had a steep little climb from the station to the actual col at 1800m, then a long descent through lovely forest. We stopped off at San Idelfonso, a palace and gardens from Bourbon times, set in the hills and with a huge number of fountains which would look spectacular when working. It was a haven of peace and we found it much more human and attractive than the very austere and cold El Escorial which we had visited yesterday.