Skip to main content

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.





Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The empty map of Macedonia and into Greece

Continuing south towards the Serbia / Macedonia border, the satnav warned of a lack of detail, "do you wish to continue with this route?" However we are not intrepid explorers and Macedonia comes with a few " be careful" warnings, so we decided to stay on the motorway :-) We didn't explore Serbia; it will wait for another trip. So it was on to the border. Here, passport and V5 were required again and also proof of insurance. We didn't have any of course. When we rang the UK insurance company call centres prior to the trip, most had no idea where these countries are. They don't understand non-EU. "Macedonia - can you spell that"? The nice man at the passport office was already expecting me to say that I would buy my insurance at the "Green card office" and he handed back one passport and the V5 and put mine in his pocket until I had the necessary paper for the Landy. Unfortunately in spite of the Land Rover being classed as PL...
9 comments
Read more

Remote mountains and how not to behave in them

Prior to the trip I had read somewhere that there aren’t any mountains in Portugal - at least I thought I read it. My preparations had, as usual, been focused almost totally on getting the Landy ready and Dawn, who had been doing all the other jobs was much better informed. “What? You are kidding aren’t you? Have you even looked at a map?” were some of the words she used when I told her this vital piece of information. As it became clear, there are mountains in Portugal - not massive peaks but high elevations are common and the extent of the ranges is quite large. The most remote and wild are the Serra da Peneda Gerês which rise to 1,440m but there are three others “Seras” in the Parque National da Peneda - Gerês, in which wolves roam free. First stop on they way there was the town of Guimarães, the day after “Portugal Day” and the castle and buildings were in tip-top condition. A Polish guy from Katowice who’s lived here for twenty years was selling bilberry jam in these c...
8 comments
Read more

"I'm the dog"

El Berro and  Camping Sierra Espuña  are nicely positioned for walking in these 'low' Sierras and of course the obligatory GR XYZ  long distance path crosses the village. The campsite people gave us a couple of short walk suggestions, written on A4 and translated by some English guy, Michael Ball. We waited until the end of the afternoon, so that the temperature was somewhat manageable and then picked one of the ~1 hour walks that start at the campsite. The walk is so simple that there's no description, just a small diagram that's well annotated with the type of path (wide main track / footpath), other markers (gate, incorrect route, fence). You can't go wrong, can you? Well the first part was easy. Follow the path out of the village, up a valley, through woodland, up and up. Then reach the ridge and the marked ring of stones. Don't turn right, carry on straight across. Then wander through a few trees and down to a dry riverbed, at which point you walk the (ve...
6 comments
Read more