A Jar of Gold

 We are heading for Espinosa de los Monteros.  It is one of those ‘last towns before…’ sort of places.  The Romans settled here, as did the Visigoths.  We might skip forward a bit to 10/11th November 1808.  About 21,000 French under General Victor took on 23000 Spaniards under General Blake.  Following a day of pointless attacks Victor got his act together and beat the home side.




Espinosa peaked, in terms of population, in 1910, with 4000 souls.  The steady decline was temporarily reversed in 1981 but contains today, where only 1670 are left.  Having said that the place has much to recommend it, museums, windy lanes, new builds and so on.

The Panaderia El Cruce is the place on our mooch.  Amaya reports ‘El Cruce Bakery. Very small. They sell Api Espinosa honey for €11.30 per kilo. Very good. Payment in cash.’ Javier added ‘We have always bought bread here, since the first day we tried it and it is great.’  Borja had a different view.  ‘I'm from a town and you thought I was a tourist, I went to Espinosa and bought bread from them, a xica said there are two bars left, these are here, but the older lady said wait, I got the bread from the previous day at least and I put it on my back, I know it from The young xica told me that there were no more left, so whatever you don't want for yourself, don't give to others, give it to the cows or the pigs, she is very smart, the bread is very hard.’







We pass so near the Belgian Connection Academy we had to visit.   It has two five star reviews which do not elaborate on its five starryness.






Enjoy the tiny roads.  We come back to the BU 526 and the Mantequeria Las Nieves cheese shop. https://www.mantequerialasnieves.es/  From 1987 ‘Jar of Gold , 1st. Spanish Cheese Competition, Union of Spanish Tasters.’ to ‘- 2006 - Gold Medal in the 6th National Cheese Competition "Premios Cincho".’ these people know their cheese.







We are out of town soon and over the railway and onwards to destiny!





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