Iter Facere

Wednesday July 11- Anso to Torla

What a good day. We said good-bye to Hostal Kimboa - a wonderful place. As I said earlier, the food was very simply prepared, but excellent, and the people couldn’t be nicer. We drove to Jaca to look at the Citadel. Neither Kathy or I was particularly looking forward to the visit, but Sean was eager and had put up with a lot of monasteries so we owed him at least one. It turned out great. The citadel is still an active military post, the headquarters of the 64th Galicia High Mountain Regiment, the oldest in Spain. The guided tour was in Spanish, but there was an excellent English guide that we were given. The citadel is the best preserved 17th century fortress extant. The worst job in the fortress was the guy who had to detonate the powder magazine if the fortress was about to fall. Also in the citadel was a military miniatures museum, which sounds corny and is corny and is also quite neat. It had representations of various military environments from the Egyptians to modern Spanish soldiers in Afghanistan. We in the US certainly don’t perceive how major the European NATO deployments to Bosnia, Albania and Afghanistan are to people here.
Next we headed to Sabinanigo, which I thought was an interesting place. The man in the Turismo set me straight, its a ciudad nuevo and is dull. But the Ruta de la Serrablo is worth looking for. In the early middle ages, a Muslim political dominance in this area inspired a Romanesque/Mozarabic architecture, and the ruta takes you from on tiny 11th century church to another. Really quite fun, its too bad you can’t enter the churchs, as they’re all closed up during the week. Tiny little things, maybe 20 feet square, with small bell towers and transepts that have the markings of the style. The last one we saw, in Larrede was the most interesting , with a high bell tower with Moorish arches. Cool. Having completed la Ruta, we headed up the Gallego Valley towards Panticosa. We turned off to cross the river on the dam. I hate dams. They combine height, water, and my inability to understand the physics that keeps them up. Crossing a dam in a car creeps me out. Then we got the great idea to stop and walk out on the dam for a view. I hate dams. Panicosa was a disappointment. Great views. Many new apartments and condos being built. (Actually the amount of construction in this area is amazing. I assume its for second homes, because I don’t think that many people live here). Panicosa is all new construction, with all of the soul of an American planned community. The aesthetics are slightly better though. Oddly, in a resort town like Panicosa, we couldn’t find a place to get a drink. We ended up in dumpy bar, with pre-made donuts and poor coffee, all expensive. You’d think the town would support a nice cafe.
Then to Torla. The drive was along the front range of the mountains, very pretty. We stopped at a spot to gawk at the wildflowers All of the mountains have banks of yellow flowers, always on the south facing slope. Very appealing.
Torla is a very pretty tourist town. It looks great, but when you get close you notice that it was all built recently to look old. It does look great though, tucked up against the mountains. And being a tourist towns has some service advantages, like Restaurante El Duende, were we had a wonderful dinner. Sean and Kathy started with an enormous platter of prawns in garlic. I had the white asparagus and jamon. Sean had roast lamb and potatoes. Lamb is always served well-done here, which takes some getting used to for us, but it wasn’t hard getting used to this. Well-done, but nicely flavored with garlic and salt. Sean wouldn’t share. Kathy and I each had vension with raspberry sauce. Muy bueno. Along with a nice wine from Somontano, Vina del Vero Grand Vuy Riserva, We’ll go back tomorrow.

posted by Jim @ 7:42 AM