The Road from Santiago

  We are heading towards Los Palacios y Villafranca. It has over 38,000 inhabitants, making it a reasonably sized town. The place had a small Arab Castle in it when Ferdinand III of Castile took the place in the 13th century. It became less militarised there after Pedro the Cruel ordered the building of a palace on the remains of the old castle in the 14th century and used the place as a hunting lodge. In the 15th century the Dukes of Arcos took the place over and developed the settlement. The town bumbled along at around 5000 people from 1860 to 1900, then doubled over the next forty years. It trebled from 11000 to 33000 by 2001 and continued up to the present level in the 2020s.  In 2007 it was a PSOE stronghold but the United Left took the greatest share of the vote in 2011 and have dominated since. In 2023 they got 49.23% of the vote., the PP 29.51% and the PSOE 14.54%. First thing we meet is a town swimming pool. This Piscina is a 12.30 - 7 sort of place, 12-8 at weekends...

  We are heading, mostly north west, but first we are going to the ghost village of El Torbiscal. In the 1940s it was decided to develop the area and in the next decade the architect Antonio Delgado Roig. Delgado Roig was born in  Seville in 1902. Apart from architecture he was a bit keen on Sevillian regionalism - although the Civil War put that to an end. El Torbiscal was a model community, designed at the heart of a thousand hectares of dryland and 1600 hectares of irrigated lands.  The village was designed for 200 permanent employees, with space for 200 more as needed. The village had a school, medical service, company store, swimming pool and centres of entertainment.   At its height wheat, barely, corn, sugar beets and cotton were grown, along with beef and dairy cattle. The rise of the village was matched with its dramatic fall. In 2000 120 people lived there. A year later forty had left.  In the next ten years a further 66 left, leaving only 14 in 2011....

  Tomorrow may prove interesting, today is almost 5km of roadway, the images being from February this year - yes, just four months ago.  So, today will be a five things sort of a day. The oldest King of Spain was Juan Carlos I - who was 76 when he gave up the gig in 2014.  Joseph I was also 76 when he died but may not entirely be considered a top contender being French and only have done the gig for a few years.  Joanna was 75 when she died, in 1555 and Isabella was 73. Here is a list of Spanish monarchs and their amusing epithets. Joanna the Mad Charles II the Bewitched Louis the Beloved, the Liberal. Philip V the spirited Ferdinand VII the desired, the felon Joseph I the intruder, the bottle Isabella II the one with the sad destinies. Reports vary, but it is suggested the Spanish encountered the potatoes - which some of them called earth truffles, around 1537.  José de Acosta, who was in the Andes from 1569 to 1585,  noted the sun-drying and noted that th...

  The only way is up! Baby! Well, a gradual saunter which will mean we end up 50m above sea level as we add towards Las Cabezas de San Juan. So, lets have the inevitable biopic. Las Cabezas de San Juan has a light house and is in Puerto Rico….. Ah, wrong one.  I love a good translation and the one that says this is St John’s Hillocks does not really convey the magnificence of it all.  16,000 people live here and one of its favourite sons was Carlos Marchena, defensive midfielder and winner of two World Cups and two European Championships.  Depressingly, that is all English Wiki tells us.  https://www.lascabezasdesanjuan.es/es/    History wise it has Carthaginians, who built towers, Romans, who built whatever they wanted and Arabs, who called the place Atalayas de Montufar. The current name owes its origins to the Knights of St John.   We are a bit early. The patronal festive period is next week. St John’s day, the 24th June, has the ‘Burning of Ju...

  It is a lovely day. You can almost feel the potential of heat lurking in the low places ready to sinuously saunter out and make three o'clock unbearable.  We have nothing to visit so let us go five random things. Forgot Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII tried to so you are in good company. If you want Spanish Queens go to Eleanor of Castile.  Born in 1241, the 13 year old Eleanor married Edward I in 1254.  History moves its eye around and once lingered on the fact she went with Edward on the 9th Crusade and had crosses built where her coffin rested after she died. Today her sharp property transactions and profiting from the exploitation of Jewish people has nudged its way forward.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_of_Castile   The Semici is one of the oldest film festivals and is based in Valladolid.  Founded in 1956 they managed to find loopholes in state censorship to show films otherwise banned in Franco’s Spain. For example, ‘A Clockwork Orang...