I am writing this from an internet café in the north of Burgos province, just where Castile gives way to the Basque country. The weather is mild and relatively sunny as I start the process of research and renewal that is the prelude to each season of walks.
For me Burgos province is at its best in the winter. It does winter well being one of the few parts of Spain that understands that the country is not hot all of the year and carpets, soup (hot soup) and hearty stews can be a good thing. The local Burgos saying has it that the weather is ‘nine months of winter and three months of hell’ and although this is, inevitably, an exaggeration it is, like so many of these sayings, easily quotable. (The other more recondite version of the same ‘dicho’ has it that summer in Burgos starts on Saint Somebody’s day and ends on Saint Somebody Else’s day. If you bother to look up these in a calendar you will find that they are a mere 24 hours apart).
For lunch today I had white bean and chorizo stew followed by lamb casserole. People who had walked in from the forest after a long morning logging needed it – I just enjoyed the fact that it was made for them. I did finish the meal with healthful fresh cherries which were exceptional although I have no idea where they had come from.
I am here on a research trip looking at a part of Spain that has always appealed – Las Merindades in the most northerly part of Castile. Just over the hills to the north is Cantabria and to the East lies the Basque country. I am interested to see that tonight being a football night – so many are – most of the population support the nearest city with a top flight team, Bilbao, a Basque side with a strong political dimension to its existence. They are the only team in Spain who will only pick local lads. You have to be born a Basque to play for Athletic de Bilbao. This instead of a Castilian side or the ubiquitous Real Madrid, supported by hundreds wherever you go. With the Basque troubles so close at hand I would have imagined that this would be a part of the world that would prefer to side with the central authority in Madrid but as with so many of the Basque country’s near neighbours loyalties are mixed. Many people close to the frontier have family that straddles the border and the Cantabrians and many Castilians are not at all as politically monochrome as one might suspect.
It is the Spanish cup quarter finals tonight which inevitably remind me of my time in Seville as a student. In 1977 the first ever Copa del Rey (King’s Cup – after 40 years without a King under Franco) was won by the Seville team Betis. The fan base of Betis was drawn from the ‘wrong’ side of the river in Seville where I was living and it was a major success for this poor man’s team. Incidentally they beat Bilbao in that final where every Betis goal (and there were plenty as the game went to penalties) was roared in by 98% of the population of the area of Los Remedios where I was. The streets filled with noise and after the game a procession of cars blowing horns and offering free drinks made their slow procession through the town until dawn broke – with little sleep taken or indeed possible.
Tomorrow I will make my way higher into the mountains that separate central Spain from the north, Atlantic, coast and thank goodness all the time that the early January snow has melted in the balmy 12 degree temperatures.
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