Traditions

It’s so ‘fairy story’ here, biblical might be a better description. A castle on a hill, the young shepherd with his flock, the hunters and a small village, Riba de Santiusta. That’s where we spent the night, a little further north as we moved towards the final week.

We had approached the hamlet, again using park4night which took us a few km off the main road, into an area of very slightly higher ground and then suddenly, there was another castle. We are used to this now but still, it was a rather wonderful sight.

The hamlet was apparently deserted and we found the spot at one end, next to a water tap hydrant and a tiny 16C bridge.

In true Enid Blyton fashion we scrambled up the hill, to explore the ruined castle but found it had a huge iron gate barring our entry. We had to be content with scrambling around on the rocks and looking down to the hamlet.

Below in the field we heard the bells of a well behaved flock of sheep, happily munching grass and not straying into neighbouring fields. This was the work of a shepherd and his dog who were both sitting close-by, idling away the afternoon.

Eventually they moved towards the bridge and it was a perfect scene. The farmer, who had arrived in a pickup along a stony track, was handed a small lamb by the shepherd. It was much too tender to walk in the flock, as they squeezed together to cross the bridge. He carried it and led the flock from the front, over the bridge and onto the castle slopes.

They walked slowly up the hill and I think the flock was lodged in the castle overnight. The next morning they were brought down and onto another field for the day.

The river was full of frogs which made a deafening sound most of the time, not just at dusk. It was fun to hear them.

The village claims to be on the route taken by Don Quixote, it’s a little like most places in England have claims that they housed Mary Queen of Scots. In earlier times it was a crossing point of some importance, between two plateaus.

It was hard to see what, if anything happens here today. In Spain it is even harder than in France to work out if there’s people in the houses.

We saw no-one until the next morning at about 8am, two elderly ladies walked past us and along the river. One had a small spade and an hour or so later they returned, with lots of kitchen garden greenery.

It was not a busy place.