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In the company of Midshipmen

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  Prepare for a very, very long walk. I got carried away. To be fair , most of it is unreviewed so may as well not exist.  We will peak at 1374m [30m above Ben Nevis]  above sea level and ground at 830m [Cramalt Craig - 868th in the rate of British Mountains.] First we will pass the ruins of the SET Aliaga Thermal Plant. It is all brooding and creates nice pictures. Better do some anniversaries on this 3rd day of November. In 1450 Alfonso the Magnanimous - which is a heck of a name - founded a college in Barcelona, the predecessor of the University of Barcelona. 1536: Juana I aka Joan the Mad orders officials in Nueva Cadiz [Venezuela] samples of the petroleum oil they have discovered. On the same day Charles V moved the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru from Jauja to Lima. Welcome to Barrio La Canadilla. It is a small collection of houses. It gets a google mark a single five star review.  Jose comes to our aid. ‘ La Cañadilla is a small hamlet situated at an altitu...
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Stop for a moment, traveler.’

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  When Google plonking this from a great height I thought, rough terrain. Won’t be much we will personally stride out towards tomorrow.  How wrong I was, especially as this is a narrow pass on the east-west mule track. We aren’t even going to bother with Cobatillas as we skimper past it. The first suburb to Aliaga is a very compact, modern houses laid out on a tight grid.  We are moving up the narrow road and not going to the El castillo de Aliaga o de la Encomienda but we are going to reference it because it is fab.  Built in 1118 by Alfonso I of Aragon, it fell to the Amoravids in 1134. Alfonso II took it back and gave it to the Knights of St John. It had its moment, again, during the Carlist Wars. The rebels fortified the place in 1840 and it was besieged by the forces of Isabella II.  Badly damaged, it was abandoned until the 1970s, when some consolidation work took place. Aliaga has been occupied since Celtiberian times.  In the 19th century it was th...
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Humanist currents in a healthy climate

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  Today is a day of bypassing a lot of places as we head out east. We won’t do them all in detail but you might get a snippet or two. Our first hilltop town is Cuevas de Almunden.  It had a town wall and a still has a Baroque church. Its coat of arms proclaims ‘Liberty, Progress, Administration.’ I think this is a very liberal call to arms.  We will overthrow the tyrants, but let's not get carried away.  Currently 119 people live there. Once several hundred did.  The current council https://www.cuevasdealmuden.es/ seems to be in the hands of the Chunta Argonesista. The party , according to wiki ‘ They co nsider themselves influenced by the experiences of the socialist movement, the movements for social and national emancipation, and ecopacifist , feminist, and humanist currents . They have been vocal in their opposition to any transfer of water from the Ebro Ri v er to other basins. ’  The mayor is Jose Luis Gresa  Juste. Some highlights from the GS...
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