Bread and Gardens

 We are following the N-420.  Occasionally we can see where the old road lies - an echo of the newly widened and straightened path gouged out of the cliff side.

Sometimes you get to a town where the valley opens and allows for a town to grow up in a useful sort of a way.  Valdeltormo is one of those Spanish towns which seem to get more for their money.  I suppose English towns are so conveniently near other centres that they don’t need the occasional useful shop.  Valdeltormo has 306 inhabitants and has moved away from the main road to occupy a wider space.

This is one of those sites which have attracted people for an awful long time.  Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age pottery mixes with Roman and Medieval,  By 1168 the place was definitely in the hands of Alfonso II of Aragon. In 1495 it had 36 households. By 1575, the community was centered around the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Assumption, which governed the town, appointing the most important officials among its members, who were all the residents, in annual general assemblies that met for a brotherhood meal in the market, below the town hall, which was the headquarters of its brotherhood.  Politics would be more interesting if it was always food based.

In 1580, there was a communally owned oil mill in Valdeltormo, which was leased by the prior and the brotherhood's foremen to the highest bidder. In 1584, the brotherhood owned a house in the town. In 1766, the Calatrava command received from Valdeltormo a tenth of the harvest of all types of grain, 15% of the grape harvest, a tenth of the goat and sheep livestock, and the same percentage of the hemp and olives. Of the pigs, one suckling pig from the first litter was kept each year.

Let’s face it. The early modern was not kind to the town. Okay, this is a bit of concentrating the misery. The Catalan War of Secession in 1643 saw both sides loot and burn the place.  Much the same happened during the War of Spanish Succession.  In 1713, the population had dropped to just 58 residents. However, it was at the end of the century, after a long period of peace and economic growth, according to the Floridablanca census of 1787, that the municipality began to recover, and the population grew to 473 residents: 1 chaplain, 1 beneficiary, 1 sacristan, 2 students, 69 farmers, 34 day laborers, 11 artisans, and 12 servants.  All this meant more people could deal with the heavy rains of 1805 lead to vast areas of stagnant water and subsequent outbreaks of disease. The Napoleonic Wars didn;t help and then the Carlist Wars added to the misery.

Time to cheer up.  We have arrived on Easter Monday.  Wiki says ‘People organize into groups, go to the garden to spend the day, and the little ones eat the Easter bread.’

Into the town. Let us enter Francisco Rufino Gil Mata’s shop.  http://gilmata.es/  I urge you to look at the website for their rather splendid shutters.  Proecmat S.C - productos Ecologicos del Matarrana  https://www.proecmat.com/ will transport its olives and pates to you free if you buy over 70 euros of the things,  The place gets 4.9 stars from 16 reviews.  Gem wrote ‘Family business, where they take care of the product and its preparation. Friendly and helpful’

Time for a drink.  Bar Braseria La Vall gets 4.2 stars  Neil wrote ‘If you like brassaria then you will enjoy this.  Good service and food at a reasonable price’  Manuel opined ‘The truth is that we ate well on the road...although only this one lady did well, we ordered two menus and charged us another two dollars for the children, those details are appreciated. Everything was very good, maybe it was a little hot...but it's August stuff! The grilled meat is very delicious.’

Let us end at the end at the Panaderia Albesa.  It is open from 8.30 to 8.30.   David was impressed.  ‘We are from Zaragoza and we always stop in Valdeltormo. The best bakery in the area and La Vall restaurant, the best in Matarraña’

With that  we will end.