The Road from Santiago

  To be honest it is a day to enjoy upland scrub and the ingenuity of chaps who can engineer their way through it. On the other had, if you wanted perky villages and slender castles then you will be gravely disappointed. I began this as a piece of whimsy, an excuse to discover and the hope that social media may be constructively put to providing harmless diversion. About four years ago we were in Normandy and I was looking to buy Norman Cider to celebrate.   Without reviews let us do a bit of self reflection. At the time of writing 76 people belong to this Facebook Group.  Most of whom are real people. To the Blog, Same content but with amusing titles.  Apparently 33,600 views have been made but not a single comment. If nothing else the bots are happy although if AI is learning from all this it is more A than I. One can never be sure what attracts people but the most viewed entry was from 30th December 2023. It was entitled ‘In which a Roman Bridge and a funeral...

  Well.  Wrong turn yesterday if we are to take the cross country route I planned.  Back we go, seeing as the Embalse de Entrepenas is in our way. Lets do dams.  The origin of this expanse of water was 1929, when the plans to damn the RIver Tagus was made. A plan went to the Ministry of Public Works in 1931.  The whole thing was launched in 1936 and sunk by the Civil War. Post War the plan was revived in 1941, and then begun in 1946. In January 1956 and on 14th July 1958 it was ceremonially opened. The reservoir covers 3213 squared hectares, contained by a 87m high dam. It creates 37 mw of power  and was responsible for the closure of some sections of the Tajuna railway. We will stroll passed the during to Duron, pretending we meant to do that, and look in on the Finca de Gaia.  The web link doesn’t work but a month ago Oscar said  ‘ Thanks to my girlfriend, we managed to get a room to see the eclipse (it was nearly impossible). It was two unforge...

  We are going down today.  About 300 metres in all, and will end next to a reservoir - but we will leave that until tomorrow. Down, down, down passed the Ermita de San Roque. It is one of those tiny little wayside chapels that you can imagine travelers sheltering in during a storm, a level 1 cleric being given it as their first cure of souls or the place someone had really upset the local bishop was sent to consider their life choices. Budia may be a veritable fleshpot of steamy vice, but we will only get second hand reports of it as we are passing by in it, as the road doesn’t go through it. The honest scribblers best chum, the GSD comes ever to hand. BUDIA: town with town hall in the province of Guadalajara (6 leagues), : situated at the foot of a hill called Cuesta Cabeza, and surrounded by others that protect it from the winds, particularly from the North and East; it enjoys a pleasant temperature and healthy climate , and its most common diseases are tertian fevers: th...