The Road from Santiago

  Yes, i went past the turning so we are going to have to go back and under the main road.  Today is going to be one of those days when we are going along the track beside the motorised road but with a difference. This one has a sign, a speed limit [20km] and a name - Camino de Servicio.  Now class, I want you to learn that because that is what we will call them from now on.  We will also pass a sign that says ‘Vado Inundable’  This means Floodable ford.  We are going to cross a dry river bed.  Now I want you all to keep a look out for it.   We won’t actually get to see much until the end of the hike.  Inland a bit is the Puente del Grado.  Given Grado is a town in Asturias on a more or less 20o slope and a long, long, street out of town I am not sure f the connection.  It is another girder railway bridge.  Rainer wrote ‘ A curious site, the 1884 railway bridge now in the middle of nowhere. A monument to the sad abandonmen...

  We are turning back on ourselves because I missed the turning. It will mean we won’t go to the Hotel Villa de Gor.  Come on, that does sound like a Hammer House film; probably in Hammer’s waning period.  Before we do that, yesterday we went past an oddment, there is a picture, and I thought I better tell you about it. On top of a former railway bridge pillar is a statue of Jesus. Vlad has described it for us .’The structure on which the Sacred Heart of Jesus sits is the support for the previous bridge over the Río Chico on the old railway line from Guadix to Lorca. Today, that bridge is located in Dúrcal and is known as the Tin Plate Bridge, the only cantilever bridge in Spain belonging to the Eifel school. It was removed due to fears that it wouldn't support the weight of the railways due to the unstable terrain. Passengers on foot were made to disembark on the other side of the bridge over t he Gor River, and the route was later changed. This was the reason for its sa...

  Today feels like we are revisiting all those February half term trips to Spain. A wide sweeping and essential bleached landscape.   We will begin retracing our steps.  The new road will not allow us and we need to get off the old rail line, nip back, and cross the road and head to Gor. Yes, I know, I have vague ideas that this is some sort of 70s Swords and Sourcery thing. If memory serves, the cover should have some improbably muscular man, you know, the sort you get by working out, not actually doing an honest day's building.  Draped over him is a sultry something with the sort of cleavage which will make buying bras a bit taxing. Well I had to look it up.  The 1976 cover of Tarnsman of Gor is all I remembered, if not slightly more kink.  I looked it up on wiki, not having read any of these tomes. Apparently it was all that and more suitable for 16 year boys who call themselves ‘Lone Wolf’ and hope their mum doesn’t catch them. Well, that was Gor a...