el viento que agita la cebada
Chamartín Station. Adeu Madrid; off we go: here are some pictures from the long walk.
JADRAQUE, over which the Castillo del Cid looks, was a charming, one-horse town in which a charming, near-incomprehensible grumpy
old man gave me fantastically incorrect directions, leading to my going fantastically off-route, but pleasantly-so;
I ended up following the river Henares, and the railroad that follows along it.
I did have time to toss off a quick sketch of the scenery before moving onwards, tho.
The caserio is abandoned, but the land is still tended-to.
Decades upon decades ago, there seems to have been an unpaved but traversable automobile crossing hereabouts, but tho the signs
still stand (I'd like to think from the pre-War period), the routes were long-ago swallowed by weeds and shrubbery.
Indeed, I largely walked either directly on the tracks, teetering on the rails, or in the pleasant,
tho complicated upon the soles of the feet, rock-strewn green areas on the sides.
Castilla-La Mancha, from what I saw, is the land of long-abandoned, ruined edify, lying about in graceful decay;
indeed, most of the villages are dying, and places where people have long since ceased to dwell dot the landscape in
every-which direction. I didn't have time to explore this one up close (I was lost enough as it was),but from this side of the
river it seemed to be a large, forgotten caserio - tho, like the one featured a couple pictures back, the lands about it seemed
to be somewhat tended-to. It's curious to imagine the circumstances that would lead to someone leaving great houses in
which their families have probably lived for centuries; the roof had fallen in in certain stretches of this one, but the walls
still seemed to be nicely white-washed; they cover them in white cal (lime mortar), and this can apparently survive for ages.
After a few hours, I came upon road again, and discovered (1) that I had been walking upon the old Madrid-Barcelona train route
(I believe long-since ceded to the old regional trains, the new one's now making the cross country routes on sleek, high-speed rails),
and (2) according to the road signs, I was violently off-route. Taking a left, by road this time, after a very long time I eventually
came, again, to Jadraque, from which I now correctly resumed my travel, after the very, very long diversion.
The sunset was incredibly beautiful, and tho the hills blocked out much of the reception, at certain bends
and in some of the villages I got enough of a signal to catch the Spain-Moscow semi-finals on my radio.
There was a charmingly subdued festival going on in this village when I strolled through.
I settled in a wheat field that night (and, indeed, many others); sunset.
And then dawn.
All of this was private hunting ground. Also, I ran out of water here. This was ironic because I was next to the spring / plant
where they treat and bottle Font Vela Mineral Water; this was inconvenient because access to the plant was strictly pro-
hibited, and I was still 15 miles from the nearest town. Alas, I did alot of overheated, thirsty walking. Oh well.
Apparently, I'd been following the old route of the ingenious hidalgo.
The medieval town of Sigüenza, Castilla - La Mancha.
Seen here: an old, enormous (it covered the side of a building) francoist plaque featuring the Yugo y el Haz de Flechas
of the Falangist (Spanish fascist) Party, dominating political force during the first part of the Franco dictatorship.
The romantic-gothic cathedral of Santa María de Sigüenza, built between the XIIth and XIVth centuries.
Nuns! There were actually tons of members of the clergy hanging about the town, for some reason.
Photographs are strictly prohibited within the cathedral.
The tomb of Fadrique of Portugal.
Groin vault.
(Ha, groin!)
Central Apse.
&tc.
La Casa del Doncel, begun in the XIIth century, expanded during the XVth and XVIth, home to the noble Vázquez de Arce y Sosa family,
residence to the marquesses of Bedmar, and lately owned by the University of Alcalá de Henares.
And another sketch.
I'm more than a little in love with the quiet elegance of forgotten, provincial stations.
Were I not doing now, and were I someone somewhat different, capable of country reclusion, I think what I'd
probably most want to do is be a provincial train conductor, species that still exists (signaling, whistling to mark when
the trains arrive and when they should leave) in rural Spain [seen here] and Germany, if I remember correctly.
Randomly, a Woolly Mammoth roams the castilla-manchegan countryside, to the left of the Sigüenza-Soria line.
Land of Don Quixote, indeed.
Oso alzare gli occhi
sulle cime secche degli alberi:
non vedo il Signore, ma il suo lume
che brilla sempre immenso.
Di tutte le cose che so
ne sento nel cuore solo una:
sono giovane, vivo, abbandonato,
col corpo che si consuma.
Resto un momento sull'erba
della riva, tra gli alberi nudi,
poi cammino, e vado sotto le nuvole,
e vivo con la mia gioventù.
- Pasolini