Histories: Various and maize.

 We are going to descend 25m in to a well watered series of maize fields but first, Villadangos del Paramo. We are going through the centre, but the ghost roads still entwine with us.





Villadangos del Páramo was on the edge of a flood plain until the 1940s when the lagoon was damned and the water diverted from domesticated uses. Its origins lay in pre-Roman times but it had to be repopulated in the late 9th century, Just to show it wasn’t all heroic Christian chaps with firm handshakes and jutting chins versus moors with policies as curvy as their swords, in 1111 the place was the scene of a clash between Galician supporters of Dona Urraca and the Arganonese of Alfonso - who were arguing who got to hold on to Prince Alfonso, the future 7th of that name.



A grimmer History was remembered in 2022 when the remains of 85 victims of Franco’s white terror ware exhumed. Most were from the San Marcos Concentration camp. 71 were from a mass grave in the town’s cemetery and 13 in a grave in Fojedo de Paramo.
The town has about 1200 people living in it. This is down from the 1950 peak of 1350 but up from the 1970, 940. https://www.aytovilladangosdelparamo.es/ Currently the Town Hall has not published any thing for today. Looking through the council they appear to be five Popular Party Members, two socials and a Leonese UPL member. The last is Apolinar Fernandez Franco, who is for the ‘Living Wasteland’ party. This link will take you to the candidates in the 2023 election. Apolinar says ‘Culture is necessary to give life to people.’ https://www.diariodeleon.es/articulo/elecciones-municipales/villadangos-apuesta/202305220949532337347.html



We’ve not been a supermarket recently. El Estanco gets 3.9 stars. Bill Drelling is a bit star shaming with his 1 star ‘There is a very small market at this location. Not quite a supermercado.’ Antonio reckons it is ‘ok’ 5 stars. Marce goes five stars a month ago with ‘Small town supermarket but with a wide variety of products. Good service and reasonable prices. In general, they have what the residents need for their daily lives and quite a few products that can be useful to pilgrims who pass through there on the Camino de Santiago.’
On to the maize fields then.






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