The Road from Santiago

  We are going up the valley and the higher we get, the narrower the field at its foot becomes. We will wiggle alongside the Arroyo de San Andres and end up 108m higher than when we started. We are hedging for Irueste, which is over the stream and up the other side of things away from the road. Let’s go straight to the GSH Dictionary to see how things were in 1845. IRUESTE: village with town hall in the province of Guadalajara (4 leagues), situated at the foot of a slope with exposure to the North, it enjoys good ventilation and a healthy climate , with no known special diseases: it has 60 houses , the town hall, a primary school attended by 20 students, in charge of a teacher endowed with 800 reales; a parish church (La Purísima Concepción), served by a priest whose position is permanent and of royal appointment, after a competition. The land, mostly flat and typical of the Alcarria region, is of good quality; it is watered by a small, unnamed stream. Roads : those leading to...

  Given the nature of my early trips to Spain, in February half terms, the land had a bleached feeling to it. If we were getting all anthropomorphising it was as if the life force had retreated into the earth, leaving brittle straws of grass and naked branches. I remember the same crossing from valley top to valet top in South Wales in my youth. We are going up a valley that reminds me of my early visits. Fields in the valley floor and then scrub as the slopes take the land away.  Ahead of us is Romanones. They got a count so let's talk about him. Alvaro de Figueroa was the son of Ignacio Figueroa y Mendieta, a millionaire whose dad had owned a fortune from mining companies, and Ana de Torres y Romo, daughter of the Marquis of Villamejor. He got a law degree in Madrid [1885] and began his accent to power by joining the Congress of Deputies in 1888 for the Liberals.  Think Whig Party rather than the party of David Steele.  He seems to have been an argumentative chap w...