Sierra de Francia

We spent a day touring three of the nearby villages of the Sierra de Francia, which is in south western Castilla y León. This area was malaria-ridden until the mid 20C so is a ‘late developer’. 

Packing the Landy so we can move, takes 20 mins so it isn’t difficult. A few hills and twisty turns and we were at La Alberca, where we timed it perfectly for coffee in the square.

These are definitely tourist towns but almost everyone is from Espaiñ. They are incredibly beautiful places in that they are old, with stone and timbered supports and the walls in between are filled with clay and horsehair. Those that haven’t been restored and there are many, are usually in a bad state of repair and many of these ‘gems’ are ‘se vendre’ but I haven’t checked any prices.

The restored ones look good but I would hardly know where to start, as each dwelling is dependant on those around for structure and stability. Some of the bigger wooden beams look impossible to replace without committing to a full tear-down.

We arrived in Santa Martin del Castañar towards the end of a local eco-produce presentation and had a chat with a stall-holder. She explained how nice her mustard greens are and she’s working to establish a market garden and veg box business. She went on to say that she’s from a place an hour away. I didn’t know how to explain that selling to tourists and thus to people who clearly don’t want a regular supply, is perhaps focusing on the wrong audience but she was very nice and so we bought some and she’s correct, it does taste good.

We also bought eggs from another stall, which were presented in a rather funky box, as we have now run out of those from our usual supplier in the UK, the famed northern egg producer / supplier MCH.

These eco eggs are numbered and for a while it appeared that each has an individual ID. That would make my egg #370880000073 which is a plausibly long number but it’s doubtful that every egg is identified uniquely!

The piano and violin players provided some style around the whole affair but this was soon forgotten as we pushed into the queue at the bar opposite to get a spot of lunch.

Our Spanish being weak meant that we used the old method of  pointing at  something which looks good. We chose a mix which because of the tiny bones, we think was pig tail. Very tasty it was though and washed down with a small dark ale.

We had approached this village along a moderately difficult gravel track and had reached a car park on the village outskirts. To leave though, Google Maps suggested a drive directly through the centre, where we had just been walking and I was apprehensive as it is very narrow.

In fact we didn’t even get that far, as the parasols outside another bar encroached too far and were too low. I needed to make a careful Y minus as they say in CNC machining, in order to extract ourselves.

The last village of the tour was Mogarraz, which has great views to the snowy tops towards Madrid.  Here, the villagers emigrated en-masse to South America to get away from the mozzies. Copies of their identity card photos were created and are displayed on the walls of the properties. It’s a little macabre, yet a poignant reminder of social mobility.