La Sierra de Francia

As I may have said before, been travelling faster than I can blog, so this entry is a little out of date, but it deals with a trip I took to an area in Castille, south of Salamanca, called La Sierra de Francia.

The name, like many other place-names in Spain, comes from the sad historical fact that the Iberian peninsula has been overrun by so many different other civilizations (the celts, the Goths, the Berbers, the Romans, Napoleon, etc…) that yes, there are even some French areas.

The highlight of the region is a tiny town called Alberca, a pueblo with lots of narrow streets, and curiously, lots of Tudor-looking architecture like this…



Alberca, we were told by our tour guides, seems like it´s ¨frozen in time¨, with lots of viejos sitting around waiting for you to come chat with them, some of the finest chorizo and jamon Serrano on the continent, and a communal pig called El Cerdo de San Antonio who is allowed walk around the town as he pleases for a year, unimpeded by the rules that normally bar pigs from entering any home, restaurant, or post office they please. At the end of the year of freedom, Fat Anthony is slaughtered and eaten with much theatre (these Spaniards are so predictable…) and a big parade featuring who else but the Virgin Mary, in statue form.

So I made it my goal to find El Cerdo de San Antonio and get a photo of myself either (a) hugging and kissing him or (b) dangling a piece of ham in front of his nose.



Turns out, all the viejos are pretty ornery, El Cerdo de San Antonio either doesn´t exist or wasn´t feeling up to the weater, and chorizo, even the muy rico kind from Alberca, is disgusting.

I did, however, find the biggest wine skin I´ve ever seen, mad out of an entire pig carcass, tanned black. Imagine drinking something in the neighbourhood of 25 bottles of wine out of an ENTIRE pigskin! I tried to buy it but it cost almost €100. Here´s a picture of me sticking my finger in its cauterized naughty bits…



A few more pictures of Alberca. Dave and Evan…



And of course an art shot of the plaza...



Much nicer than Alberca, however, was the Peña de Francia, a huge mountain convent near the pueblo. After a nerve-wracking busride up a very narrow mountain road, we arrived and it looked like this...



And this...



And here´s my friend Daniel looking out over the view...



And climbing on the rocks...



More climbing...



And here´s the all-white Virgin who appeared in the 15th century, because, as we all know, seeing visions of the Virgin is the thing to do in Spain...



Miguel de Unamuno, Salamanca´s foremost man of letters, wrote this poem about her:

Madre Blanca de Castilla
Que a Francia le dio un Rey santo
Maternidad castellana
De corazón todo blanco

Nuestra Señora la Virgen
Madre de Dios soberano
La de la Peña de Francia
En el corazón serrano

De España, sobre las Hurdes
De Extremadura barranco;
Maternidad castellana
Que está de piedad sangrando.

Peña de Francia desnuda
Ay corazón descarinado,
Madre Blanca de Castilla
Dióle a francia Luis el Santo.

(translation will be provided on request, if anyone´s interested enough to leave a comment to that effect.)

And here´s an art shot of this spindly image of Santiago Director of the Dept. Of Homeland Security, looking out over the valley...



And finally, as we were leaving, I got this sweet shot of a guy in traditional garb beating a drum and blowing a flute outside the chapel as the priest was opening the doors for a wedding party that was on its way up to the top (we saw them from the bus on the way down)...



That´s all! Coming up, a two or three part post about Portugal, and then pictures from San Sebastian and Granada. Blog or die! ...and keep those comments coming.

Love,
Robbie

At La Peña de Francia,