The sinking bridge and novel headgear

 The Ebro gets a bit wiggly and we will end the day going upstream.  The landscape is a bit rugged and a bit raw.  We are approaching Sastago as we end the day.



The town is built on a strategic point, protected by the river and so was settled by the Iberians in the 3rd century BC.  The Moors built a small castle there.  Don Artal de Alagon was given it after Alfonso I took the place in 1133.  The Moors remained until 1610 when 170 families were expelled in one of Religious intolerances many own goals.



War visited Sastago on several occasions.  Maiding parties of 15-80 men turned up during the Carlist Wars. The bridge was blown up in 1938 - and replaced in 1942. The bridge was closed in March 2020 after a drop of 25cm was detected - and repaired.



About 1100 people live here.  This has been a steady decline from the 3000 who lived here from the 1850s to 1930s.  We’ve missed the Fiesta for San Anton - with three days of bonfires and grilled chorizo.  It has a website  https://sastago.es/  It i much fuller on the history.  It mentions crafts.



‘The Aragonese costume had a hat as a headgear, which sat on the coronary scarf or cachirulo. As in the rest of Spain, there were short-brimmed hats with a low crown, half-curved or slightly truncated. The Sástago hat was made in this town until well into the 19th century and recently there is still memory of the shape and materials of its manufacture. Currently it is only used in the Pyrenean valleys and specifically in Ansó, with various decorations according to the circumstances (a cord in the wedding hat); its use does not exclude the scarf. Puyó informs us that shepherds used these hats with such a hard crown that they made or could make soups in them. The manufacture of knives, made with mother-of-pearl handles from shells extracted from the Ebro, also made the town famous from the 18th century.’



We end the day on the town’s forecourt and by the castle like entrance to the Electron Metalurgica de Ebro .  As power stations go Netherlander Pit Swinnen says ‘Beautiful complex. You can't really get in, but it's still reasonably visible from the side’




With that we will pause and reflect.



















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