Back on the road again

Knock Knock, Who’s There?  Theodore!  Theodore who?  Theodore wasn’t open, so I knocked!

On the first house I lived in one of my favourite things I bought for the house was a cast iron door knocker of a cat happily sitting on top of a dog kennel.  This door knocker made me smile every time I arrived home.  The door knocker moved with me to a couple of houses but eventually it got left behind somewhere.  I’ve not had a door knocker that has made me so happy since and on our flat we don’t have one at all [electric intercoms don’t give me the same pleasure but they are practical].  Nevertheless I have retained my interest in handsome door knockers.

All over Spain we found plenty of door knockers worth stopping and admiring on their magnificent doorways.  On our latest trip I first started to give door furniture a thought while we were in the charming town of Aínsa.  Look carefully at one of the photographs above and you will see a door knocker in the shape of a pair of testicles.  Having this sort of fertility symbol nailed to your front door is apparently traditional in Spain.

After Aínsa I started to notice all sorts of decorative door knockers.  Some were fierce and unwelcoming or perhaps protective.  In the hill village of Pedraza I spotted a dragon, in Burgos I noticed a somewhat fierce dog [nothing like the cute one I had owned] and the magnificent door knocker with three snakes was in Albarracin.

As well as protective or bringing good fortune, these decorative and ornate door knockers are an outward display of wealth and status.  Attached to a front door they are often the first thing your visitors will note and are a visible indication of taste or your financial standing.  My cute cat and dog door knocker must have said oodles about me.

I’ll finish with another Knock Knock joke!

Spain is beautiful … this goes without saying.  One of the things that added to the allure during our trip this year through September, October and November was the autumn colours.  They were stunning!  We spent a lot of time in Aragón and around Madrid and in so many places we visited I would stop and exclaim at the variety of the colours as the trees turned from green to shades of yellow, bronze, orange and russet.

I think of myself as a spring-soul rather than an autumn-animal so this excitement by what I generally think of as an ending, rather than the new beginning of spring, was a bit of a revelation.  Did all that sunshine turn my head or am I changing as I reach my own autumn years?

We visited so many dazzling places but a few stand out for the autumn colours.  Torla and the Ordesa National Park is an area we had previously visited many years ago in high summer.  Our trip here in early October had a different vibe.  The crowds were less, many of the campsites were closed, the nights were chilly and the Ordesa Valley had an autumnal feel with the leaves on the trees just beginning to turn.  Of course, the days were warm and sunny and it was perfect hiking weather.

We spent a few days cycling along the Val del Zafán Via Verde near Valderrobres, a route on an old railway line that runs around 105 km from Alcañiz to Tortosa.  While the pine trees and olive trees remain green, the leaves on the vines, beech, plane and sweet chestnut trees were turning golden.  The landscape, dotted with stone houses and barns, was a rainbow of colours and this made for glorious cycle rides.

Albarracin is famed for being Spain’s prettiest town and it is certainly gorgeous.  In the autumn it is spectacular as the colours of the red sandstone boulders among the dark green pine trees are complemented by the brilliant yellow of the deciduous trees.  A walk along the river around the town is worth exploring at any time of year but in autumn the turning trees change it in to a passage along a radiant corridor.

We spent a few days in the lovely town of Aranjuez and every day we walked in the gardens of the Royal Palace.  These gardens are full of trees that give welcome shade in the summer but it was the arcades of plane trees, heavy with russet coloured leaves, that were the star during our October visit.  Kicking dry leaves as you walk brings out the inner child in everyone.

Burgos is a city that is made for walking and the city centre has tree-lined pedestrian routes.  Most popular is the Paseo del Espolón where, once again, plane trees provide the shade.  Following the river, this paseo is made for strolling and in autumn sunshine the colours of the leaves is an added bonus.  We were here on a sunny Sunday and Burgos residents of all ages were out sharing a family walk.

Spring will continue to be my favourite season but I think I am learning to enjoy the back-end of the year too.

Looking over hundreds of olive trees, fringed by fragrant thyme and rosemary, it was hard for me to cast my mind back to the bloody scenes in February 1937.  We were south of Madrid at the site of the Battle of Jarama and between 1937 and the end of the Spanish Civil War around 15,000 people from the Nationalist and Republican sides lost their lives here.

We had driven our much loved campervan along more gravel tracks during our seven weeks in Spain than the ‘van had been on for all of it’s previous three and a half years and every time we were searching out something relating to the Spanish Civil War.  Off-road driving was starting to become the norm and the blue of the ‘van was disappearing until a layer of dust.

It was a sunny but breezy Sunday morning when we bounced down the tracks above Morata de Tajuna looking for an insignificant memorial to the International Brigades who had fought in the battle for Madrid.  It was a Sunday morning and on the tarmac roads we had passed hundreds of cyclists in large groups and on their own, all out for a ride, this is clearly a Spanish thing.

After parking up we stood looking at the slightly disappointing memorial of rocks and rusting tins and other debris.  This isn’t the stunning clenched fist memorial in the photograph and I was struggling to take much from it as we tried to read the faded plaque.  I guessed it related to the Spanish Civil War but couldn’t be sure.  Then a knight in shining armour / cyclist pulled up and said, ‘I guess you are from the British van’ in excellent English.  Remarking on his fantastic grasp of our native tongue he explained his mixed European heritage and that he had lived in the UK for around 15-years but now lived near to this hill of olive groves.  He explained that cycling around the area every week he became interested in the history and had done some research.

He told we were standing on Suicide Hill and the Republican 15th Brigade, including the British Battalion [not all of them were from Britain], were killed in huge numbers over three days of fierce fighting here in February 1937.  A few of the 500 – 600 men in the British Battalion had seen previous combat but many had never fired their weapons and ill equipped, unprepared and newly trained, these volunteers faced an attack from Franco’s elite Nationalist Army of 40,000 experienced troops that were well armed, had some air support and tanks.  The Nationalists had control of most of the main roads to Madrid and had a clear objective to cut the Madrid to Valencia road, thus circling and isolating Madrid and forcing its surrender.

The numbers and certainly names of the soldiers who died here are mostly unknown.  It is estimated 600 British soldiers fought for the Republicans at Jarama and many died on the first day of fighting.   Remarkably, although so many lost their lives, courage and conviction enabled the Republicans to more or less hold their positions and after three days of desperate fighting the two armies dug in here until the last days of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.  The name Suicide Hill started to make sense.

Our guide told us that on his regular cycle rides he passes the remnants of old trenches among these olive groves and bullet holes are still visible on the tree trunks.  This is a landscape still scarred by the war but does not receive the huge numbers of visitors seen at the World War One battle areas.  After sharing the history of Suicide Hill, he pointed us in the direction of the stunning memorial in the photograph and recommended the small and moving museum in Morata de Tajuna at Mesón El Cid and open at the weekends 12.00 – 14.00.  If you’re passing I recommend you take a look.

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