Maragatería

This week I have vacation. Today is my mental health day. This time, however, my husband convinced me to spend the night, as well. So I am ensconced in a lovely rural pension in the tiny town of Santa Colomba de Somoza in the Maragatería, León.

There is an area in the province of León, roughly stretching from Ponferrada to Astorga, that is know as the Maragatería because that is where the Maragatos traditionally lived. These lands are rough and unyielding, so the people that settled here dedicated themselves to being the original truck drivers and transport specialists from the Middle Ages to around the nineteenth century, when the train tracks were finally laid down to Galicia.

Every house here has a large portal that originally led to the stables. In them were kept various horses and mules, along with the other farm animals. Those helped them transport their goods from one point of Spain to the other. The most known route, though, led from Betanzos next to A Coruña, to Madrid. The Maragatos would gather snow during the winter in deep wells. They would buy fish in Betanzos and, well-packed in the snow, transport it to Madrid. It took them twelve days to make the trip. The snow kept the fish fresh, even in summer. 

The towns and villages around here are lovely, and the Way of Santiago also passes through here. Coming down from Ponferrada I must have passed hundreds of pilgrims walking along or biking. Seeing as how my car sometimes

wanted to shift down to second on some of the hills, those who bike command my respect. The town where I'm staying is just off the path, though, and there are fewer tourists, especially since it's the middle of the week and still the month of June. The proprietesse told me this evening that this Friday they're expecting twenty people for dinner at their restaurant. But today, I was by myself enjoying excellent food. 

I visited a little lake they told me of, less than a kilometer away. Originally it was made by the Romans. They diverted springs to a small depression, and used the water to wash gold they collected in the area. The lake remained until

a sheep farmer disturbed the groundwater by digging a well. Then it dried up. But this winter it rained and snowed enough to collect water again. By the end of the summer, though, it will probably become a simple depression again. It was warm walking there in the sun, but the path was perfumed by wild lavender, heather, and hibiscus. And there were oak trees, not a pine or eucalyptus in sight. Heavenly.

I visited the nearest small city, Astorga. Tomorrow I hope to learn more about the Civil War prison here where my grandfather served some time for being a Republican. This afternoon, though, I visited the cathedral and the bishop's palace. In 1889, the bishop of Astorga decided to reconstruct the palace, which had burnt down a few years earlier, and he asked his friend, Antoni Gaudí to

design it. He did, and created a neogothic fairy palace next to the cathedral. Through twists of fate it was never occupied by a bishop, though. Now it's a museum and on the same ticket as the entrance to the cathedral and its museum. It's quite different and beautiful. It's being restored in areas, though, so not all the rooms are visitable. Still, it's worth going inside. 

I got my usual sun headache, though, and couldn't really visit the rest of the town. However, I had a good strawberry gelato, served by an Italian. Forty years ago it was rare to be able to buy fruit in small towns like this one (everyone had their own orchard). Now you can find food from other parts of the world served by someone from where that food came from.

Tomorrow is another day, and now it's time to rest.