The Road from Santiago

  Along the old road we go.  The A4005 gives us trees, and trees, and scrub and trees and an absolutely huge roundabout to service a rather modest petrol station - but seeing it is all we have, let's visit. Estacion de Servicio Repsol, for such it is, has been reviewed 406 times.  It gets 4.2 stars, which, given what it can offer, seems fair.  Juliet tells us, from five years ago, what it has to offer. ‘ Easy access just off motorway. A bit of a wait to get a coffee in the small cafeteria as same member of staff covering the shop till and café. Small shady area to sit outside, only one table and 4 chairs. Covered parking for half a dozen cars. Shop well stocked with snacks, cold drinks and local artisan products’ Two years ago Christina added balance to the force. ‘No cheese or jamón 🤦‍♀️nice local oil and fresh bread though. Clean toilet but no paper. 🤦‍♀️ I feel sad that I stopped here. Please fix these things. …’  Three weeks ago Sandra said ‘ We stopped at...

Less of a walk today, a mere 5.7km. Having worked out what a Camino de Servicio we are not on one but a regular regional road - the A-4105.  In writing this I have kept straying off it and heading south then scampering back. It must be the lure of the lake - of more, later.  We are rising up - a little over 200m and we are almost 1100m above sea level. Below us is the Embalse de Francisco Abellan.  Floods in October 1973 saw people scratch their heads, stroke their beards and felt they ought to do something about it. The thing they thought was one big flood and make a reservoir. The twenty years before the construction had seen migration away from the countryside - that and a dictatorship made it easier to move people out. W ork began on….. May 1991.  It was done by January 1998.   The dam is 250m long and made, according to Wiki in Spanish, of loose materials. The dam has a wiki page in Spanish, English and Norwegian.  Who was Francisco Abellán Gómez? Well...

  I always think Spain does so much more with its population than Britain.  Maybe it is the later coming to modernity or the ambient temperature, which allows people to live outside a lot the year. We are entering Purullena. It has about 4300 people. It has bars and museums and rocks with people living in them. Of the rock people. The first mention in written sources of people living in caves appears in 1554.  By the 18th century 600 people were living in excavated. The wiki Spanish page gives up at that point and switches to ceramics and we will pass a shop selling many pretty things.   To be honest someone on Purullena needs to flesh out what wiki has a bare bones. Who can resist a nice pot.  Not I! Into Ceramicas Morillas.  Kathleen felt it was a ‘Nice ceramic outlet, better priced than on the A92. Didn't find exactly what I was looking for. There aren't as many traders in Purullena as there used to be. But still a good selection.’   Nikki was of mu...

    We are off to a cathedral - the very one that muscled out Baza.  Probably time to bury the hatchet.  It is all you could hope from a Spanish Cathedral that Gaudi hadn’t got his hands on. It is big and boxy and with lots of curly and columny bits added to it - with spikes and the occasional window. The site had a Visigoth Church on it. Then the place got turned into a Mosque. In 1489 the Armies of Ferdinand and Isabella turned up and Pope Innocent V III turned the church into a cathedral.  Seventy years later Diego de Silow was given the job of designing a new cathedral and so began. It stopped in 1574 - when they ran out of money - but began again twenty years later.  They were still working on it in 1731 - so, not a rush job.  They have a replica of Michelangelo's Pieta. Twelve hours ago Manu reckoned ‘ A beautiful cathedral, although somewhat neglected in some areas and poorly maintained on the exterior.’   Alan liked it ‘Surprising.  I...