The Road from Santiago

  In the words of Arlo Guthrie, let's begin this ‘walk down the road trip.’  The A-431 offers us rises and falls and the occasional looking tower.  This tower turns out to be the Ermita de Nuestra Señora de Villadiego.  It is a hermitage with a blog http://virgendevilladiego.blogspot.com/ although it doesn’t appear to have been updated since 2015.  Ciasico was moved by this Mudejar.  ‘ If you'd like to learn more, keep reading: The Hermitage of Our Lady of Villadiego is a Mudéjar-style building, although today, after its 1996 renovation, nothing remains of its original form. The hermitage originated from the medieval tower of Villadiego, dating from the late 13th or early 14th century. Built in the Mudéjar style, it has an octagonal floor plan and is crowned with battlements. Its interior has two floors covered with vaults; the lower one is semi-spherical, and the upper one is groin vaulted. Attached to the tower is the hermitage building, also Mudéjar in ...

  We are wandering along the road, between two railway lines, a bit distant from us, with rivers and drainage ditches.  There is not enough for a full day and too much for five things - so we will have three and some reviews. We are going to La Mancha and we will do Don Quixote in depth but let’s do Cervantes other book - Novelas ejemplares. Exemplary Novels was written between 1590 and 1612 and published in Madrid in 1613.  The author begins with a modest little foreword ‘ My genius and my inclination prompt me to this kind of writing; the more so as I consider (and with truth) that I am the first who has written novels in the Spanish language, though many have hitherto appeared among us, all of them translated from foreign authors. But these are my own, neither imitated nor stolen from anyone; my genius has engendered them, my pen has brought them forth, and they are growing up in the arms of the press ‘ I will quote wiki and move on ‘ The novellas are usually grouped ...

  And so we head towards civilisation and by that I mean somewhere Google reviews have reached - which is much the same thing if you squint. First to the Venta El Alamo.  Can we call this a roadhouse? It must be the Spanish equivalent. It is one of those places with a tiled floor, solid wooden furniture and big windows to show how sunny it is out of the shade.   The menu [from February] includes Bacalao frito con pisto comes in three sizes and ranges in price from 5 to 10 euros. Menu del dia will be included in the photo. The reviews [276] are moding to five and meaning to 3.7. Mostly fours and fives but the ones drag it down.  I think it is time to go for four and two among the recent reviews. The last two reviews, 2 weeks and 4 weeks ago are four stars. Jose said ‘Good Breakfast’ and Loli said ‘ Everything is great and the treatment is good. ’   Seven months ago Jose - a different one - gave a single star.  Judge for yourself. ‘ It's a disgrace. The ...

  It is another day of sweeping landscapes, much given to agriculture, a quick revisit to the canal and, well, five things about Spain. The Spanish built two dreadnought battleships of the Espana class - being the Alfonso XIII - later the Espana - and Jaime I. The ships were 16,500 tons loaded, had 8 inch and 20 4 inch guns and a crew of 854.  The Espana was in commission from 1913 to 1937 - when it was sunk by a Fascist mine off Santander.  The Jaime I  was launched in 1914.  In June 1937 she was sunk by an accidental internal explosion, was refloated and then, on mature consideration, broken up for scrap. Real Club Recreativo de Huelva are accounted the oldest football team in Spain. British employees of the Rio Tinto Company begun to have kick abouts and things developed into the formation of the club in December 1889.  The club have not, it is fair to say, a shooting star of the Spanish permanent. They made the Primera in 1978-9 and 2002-3. They had the...