Go not gently towards that knight

Molinaseca is one of those places which had the single advantage of being a but flat inna world of mountains. Leaving it we are struggling towards the flattened place which Ponferrada lurks. Before we leave, however, we could nip off the road for the Bodega Encima and all the wine that has to offer. https://www.encimawines.com/contacto-encima-wines-vinos-del-bierzo/ Glugging wines come in between 5.40 and 13. euros. Sipping wines are from 12.4- to 30 euros.

We enter the outer part of Ponferrada. The Urbanizacion Patricia sits of the slopes to the east of the city. It has a wiki page, in Spanish only. It tells us that it was built in the 90s but has grown a lot recently. About 450 people live here, a little less than in 2012 when 530 people were here.


As we are going to spend a bit of time in Ponferrada we might as well know about its origin. The Iron Agers and Romans were here but left little evidence. The first reference is that Bishop Osmundo of Astorga built a bridge ere in 1082. Four years later the church of San Pedro was built and people began to stick to the place. In 1180, the Leonese king Fernando II granted the town its first charters, and it was later donated to the Order of the Temple by King Alfonso IX of León . During the 13th and 14th centuries , the town, already walled, began to grow and develop, with peasants, merchants and artisans appearing both within the walls and in the surrounding areas, in the shadow of the Camino , which caused rapid and sustained growth. Regarding the wall, it should be noted that it was built with four entrance gates: El Cristo, Paraisín, Las Nieves and Las Eras, with a Jewish community settling on the outskirts of the town.



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