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The Uncertain Future of the Progressive Ruin

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  It seems like the sort of day where most of the excitement is happening just off the road- and that excitement is fairly limited. We will see farms old [and abandoned] and new and some stuff. One such excitement is the Castillo de Guadalerzas.  It gets 3.9 stars from a hungry public, which seems a bit harsh for a ruin. Dimitri probably says why ‘ Nice view but you cannot reach it. On private land’.  Fran is equally gloomy. ‘ Its future is uncertain; it's completely abandoned. Even so, its exterior structure is well preserved. Access requires crossing private property. Beware of cattle. ‘  Jose says ‘ Guadalerzas Castle, a castle located about 18 kilometers from Los Yebenez, a defensive castle that was used as a hospital for centuries, dates back to the 12th century, it was built on the ruins of a Muslim fortress, it is currently in progressive ruin, it can be visited although it is on private land. ‘  This didn’t seem to stop a group of chaps on motorbikes. ...
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Peak Toledo, with a tiny Archbishop's realm

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  Today the  road is straight. Today the road is unpopulated.  Today is a five things sort of a day.  We will theme it on Toledo Province.  Toledo Province has 208 municipalities.  The smallest one is El Puente del Arzobispo. It is less than a kilometre square and is the home to 1143 people. It is on the border with Extremadura; has a heliport and was famous for green pottery.  The town was founded by the Archbishop of Toledo, Pedro Tenorio, in the second half of the 14th century .   The present President of the Provincial Council is PP  Ma Concepcion Cedillo Tardio.  https://transparencia.diputoledo.es/t/representantes/1183   She may be seen on youtube should you wish it.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTBiW9d7lxk   The Spanish Wiki says this.  Good luck.  In the vicinity of the town of Mazarambroz , there is a significant mylonitic deformation zone associated with the wall that separates the Toledo migmatiti...
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The man who mistook a hill for an onion

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  It is a day where we seem to be climbing and we do, but only 50m, and pass nothing, well almost nothing - but more of that later. We are in Toledo Province, which has 775,000 people living in it. This makes it the 22nd most populous province of Spain and accounts for 1.5% of the total population.  But first, a restaurant.  The Restaurante la Serrana is temporarily closed, according to Google. The images are from May 2024 and it seems up and running then.  It is woman owned and LGBTQI+ friendly and a year ago Mila said ‘ What a nice place on the road! We went in for coffee and we were pleasantly surprised with how clean and tidy everything was. Can't give a full 5 stars because we didn't stay to eat. However, the staff was attentive and the place was very inviting, especially because of the cleanliness. That's not always easy to find when you are out on the road. We will go back to eat someday soon! ‘  Manuel added around the same time ‘ I stumbled upon it by ...
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Be warned about bilious and inflammatory gastric ailments

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  We are in downtown Fuente el Fresno.  They haven’t even bypassed the town so let's have a mooch. Fuente el Fresno has the usual array of Roman roads, Bronze Age bits and Neolithic knickknacks.  The Medieval village was set up by the Order of Calatrava as a dependent out settlement of Malagon.  Ferdinand III granted it town status in the early 13th century and in the 18th Ferdinand VI granted them independence from their southern neighbour.  Our friend the GSH Dictionary has a thing to say. FUENTE DEL FRESNO  situated at the foot of a mountain range that runs from SE to N and from NW to S, surrounded by hills, it has a temperate climate ; the winds are from the WSW and NNE, and people suffer from bilious and inflammatory gastric ailments: it has 300 houses , which form paved and very laborious streets, a hillside square, and at the entrances to the town there are roads to facilitate the passage of horses and carriages: there is a town hall, a jail, a pr...
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In the land of excellent sheep cheese

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  Yesterday was very townie. Today we will visit places. Tomorrow we will get back to towns. The Tienda Quesos Don Apolonio is what it says on the label. A cheese shop. In the name of Don Apolonio.  Moreover, it is an LGBTQ+ friendly cheese shop. Karmentxu sums it all up and did so three months ago. ‘ They have all kinds of cheeses, as well as wines, sweets, honey, cured meats, canned fish and seafood, and gluten-free, sugar-free, and lactose-free products. Excellent parking and long opening hours. 100% recommended. ‘  They have a website.  https://quesosdonapolonio.es/   The Queso Manchego Mercedes comes in at 21.50 euros a kilo. The Restaurante Bufet El Cordel is next on our journey.  It gets 4.3 stars from 1407 reviews and yesterday Maria gave five stars.  A week ago Jesus felt four stars was enough but felt ‘ A wide variety of very well-prepared food, but the place is very noisy due to the crowds on weekends. All-you-can-eat buffet on weekends is...
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Bypassed but occasionally subjected to History

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  We really ought to be going through Malagon but after the initial Google Plonk I can’t get us to divert without doing laps of the place - so we are just going to have to talk about the place from a distance. This is a place where almost 8000 people live - and good on them. The Spanish Wiki page spends most of its time bemoaning you haven’t a lot of evidence of early stuff; a smattering of Neolithics, a bit of Bell Beaker - which compares badly with all the remains to be found near Toledo. Apparently the Romans had a road, a funerary and a butcher's shop. I’m sure they had some more.  Some Visigoth graves have been found but we are not being overwhelmed with archaeology. Generally speaking this bit of Muslim Spain was not heavily urbanised. Small towns thrived where old cities dwindled.  This region became the front line between Kingdom of Castile and Emirate of Cordoba and so did not do well till after the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa - when Northern domination was est...
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