The Road from Santiago

  We are heading through the next valley to the sea - down 92m and up 82m.   More importantly, we are going to a cheese shop. Quesería San Antonio gets 4.7 stars from 75 people.  It is woman owned and has a website.  https://queseriasanantonio.com/   A presentation pack of three cheeses - de mezcla semicurado, de cabra con romero, de vaca con Pimentón de la Vera.  It will set you back 40 euros. On the way out of town is Casa Caty.  It is proudly Spanish in its cuisine and gets 4.1 stars.  Three months a go Andras was enchanted.  ‘Very authentic place! You might be a bit hesitant based on the outside. But very nice inside and local food. Tapas and lunch for no money. The tortillas and the albondigas are highly recommended! Would come back in a heartbeat!’  Others have been less kind. Let’s enjoy the walk and wonder what is next.   What is next is Hotel Leon Dormido.  It is a one star hotel that gets 3.8 of them from 705 rev...

  I write this to justify and give form to my desire to run down rabbit holes and gaze at small cafes and tiny ethnographic museums. I also hope to give you, wonderful 76 people on Facebook, something  to read which will not cause any upset - a rare thing these days,  I set the blog up for Sarah, who wasn’t on Facebook, and probably doesn’t read this, but I tend to overcommit and so it goes on.  https://theroadtosantiargoandback.blogspot.com/   Now, the blog is different in that it has less photos and I get to think up titles.  I usually pick something from a reviews, such as ‘The trees throw branches and fat seeds that hinder the elderly people’ or quotation ‘Incompetent, despotic and short-sighted’  Some are a summary of the thing - such as ‘Thirty Percent Cannibalism.’  The thing is.  Occasionally, people read them. Usually a person has read my blog when I check back over a fortnight, sometimes not.  Ten days ago three people read...

  Update on Brewer’s Luck.  Not thrown the book out and declared I will never read it again so give it a go.  Is that a bit three stars.  That is unfair.  It has interest and characters who are interesting - and not entirely out of central casting.. Maybe too much happened in the one book. I will probably buy the next one and give the first another go. Trouble is, I am comparing with Hornblower - who I probably read at the right time. We are going down hill - a quarter of a kilometre.  We will pass the Moli de Bolulla - of which Olesia said ‘The mill is destroyed and fenced off, there is no access to it.’   On to Bolulla itself.  Guarding its entrance is LGBTQ+ friendly Bar L’ Era.  It gets 4.6 stars.  Yesterday Anna gave it four stars.  ‘It's a family restaurant. Homemade food and local produce. They served us a salad with old-fashioned tomatoes. Everything was delicious. The croquettes were homemade and the roast chicken was ...

  We are dropping down 250m - but will pop in to Tarbena. Tarbena is one of those ‘stuck on to the hill’ sort of places, with narrow roads, cafes improbably clinging onto roadsides and a route which follows ways which you feel would be interesting for the novice motorist. Tarbena has the usual Neolithics and beyond populace.  The Cid seems to have popped in.   Wiki adds ‘ In April 1245, the Arab leader al-Azraq and Prince Alfonso of Aragon signed the "Pact of Pouet" by which the Arab declared himself a vassal of King James I, immediately handing over the castles of Pop and Tárbena to him, while retaining the remaining castles for a specified period: Margalida, Cariola, Castell de Castells, Gallinera, Alcalá and Perpuxent. Tárbena actively participated in the al-Azraq revolt (1248-58). Once the rebellion was suppressed, James I handed over the castle, valley, fortifications and villages of Tárbena to the Mudejar Mohamed 'Amr ibn Isahq. The support given by ibn Isahq to the...