The Road from Santiago

  We are heading off to Brazatortas and why not.   The English wiki page does not need a summary because it is this ‘ Brazatortas is a municipality in Ciudad Real , Castile-La Mancha , Spain . In 2021, it had a population of 998. The Spanish page is more extensive and notes, by 2025, the population was 1,007 - which means we can treat the place with much more seriousness. Our old friend, The mid nineteenth century  ‘Geographical-Statistical-Historical Dictionary’ has things to say:   situated among mountains, it has a cold climate , westerly winds prevail, and catarrhals, rheumatism, and epilepsy are common. It has 200 houses with no other building than the church, dedicated to Saint Ildefonso, annexed to the parish of Puertollano, and the hamlet of Viñuela is attached to it  At 1 km from all points, and comprises the valley of its name, of good quality, separated from that of Alcudia by one of its many mountain ranges covered with scrub and crags; a small ...

  We are rising 140m today. See the road. See the road signs. See the hills ahead. See and absence of things which have been reviewed. So, it is a five things day. Let us talk about Don Quixote and his interpretations. The first known film version of the Don is a French silent film called ‘A dventures of the Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote .’ Apparently the original 1903 film was 15 minutes was too long and art house and so it was reduced to 8 minutes in the 1908 rerelease. Monsignor Quixote is a 1985 film based on the 1982 Graham Greene novel.  Alec Guiness plays a Catholic Priest and Leo McKern, his Communist ex-mayor chum, who travel across post-Franco Spain. The 1933 version is the first talkie. It was an Anglo-French production starring opera bass Feodor Chaliapin. It is reported that Nelson Films lost £100,000 on the film, which led to their collapse. John Lithgow and Bob Hoskins played the leads in the 2000 TV release.  John Mortimer wrote the screenplay and Peter Ya...

  Yes, there are some ancient Roman remains near the road but no details about what they are and so it is a ‘What do we know about La Mancha’ day. In terms of land, Castilla-La Mancha is the third biggest regions of Spain, accounting for 15.7% of the entire land. It is 9th in the case of population, with a little over 2 million inhabitants but on 16th in terms of the Human Development Index. Currently the Cortes of La Mancha is held by the PSOE - who have 17 seats, against the PP’s 12 and Vox’s 4. Albacete return 6 seats; Ciudad Real, 8; Cuenca, 5; Guadalajara, 5; and Toledo, 9.   Pablo Bellido is el presidente. He was born in April 1976 and was Mayor of Azuqueca de Henares from 2007 to 2015. Like many rural areas, the region grew in population till the 1950s. It fell, especially in the 60s and only began to stabilise in the late 1980s. Albacete is the greatest of its cities, Guadalajara second and Toledo third. Only 12 of the cities are above 30,000 people in number. Castilla...

  We are starting along the N-420 in the mist of November 2024. It will pass and we be in the summer sun of the same year soon.  The N-420 begins 36km east of Cordoba and runs 803km to Tarragona.  It is another Five Things sort of a day, but in honour of Cervantes I will take my inspiration from his life, albeit in a barely related sort of way. Cervantes was born in 1547.  That was the year of the Expedition to Mostaganem [me neither]. Count Martín Alonso Fernández de Córdoba Montemayor y Velasco , Viceroy of Navarra and Governor of Oran set out to take Mostaganem [NW Algerian coast]. Having fired 100 cannon shot at the place and learnt only 42 Ottoman troops were in the place he ordered a breach in the walls be assailed.  While successful at first, the defenders rallied and threw back the Spaniards. A relief force arrived and the Spanish withdrew. Cervantes died in Madrid in 1616. It only became the capital of Spain in 1561, its central position being its main ...