Extremadura

We eventually reached the campsite just outside the Monfragüe National Park where we came a few years ago. Lovely relaxed campsite with good facilities and a restaurant. On our first day we went for a walk in the national park alongside the beautiful river Tajo.

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Dehesa

The countryside in Extremadura is known as the “dehesa “. It makes very good pasture for sheep, goats and cows. Its main trees are holm oaks and cork trees.

Transhumance

Part of our walk in the Monfragüe National Park was along a “cañada” (drovers’ trail). These drovers’ trails criss-cross parts of Spain and date back to the time when “ Transhumancia” (Transhumance)” was common. This is the practice of driving herds of cattle many hundreds of miles from their winter pastures to their summer pastures and back again. For more information about transhumance and how it is being adopted again, see this BBC article https://www.jamon.com/pig-raising.html

Cycling

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Spain has 126 via verdes spread throughout the country. Cycle paths, mainly on old railway lines and the campsite is just next door to one. We went off on it the following day, but rather than follow the route we turned off to the nearby town of Malpartida de Plascencia and there we discovered the town square just right for coffee, and in addition various sculptures.

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Valerie’s adventure to Monfragüe Station

After Judy and I finished cycling along the via verde from Malpartida de Plasencia, I decided to continue on to Monfragüe station since I had read online that there were some interesting buildings to see there. When I got there I did see quite a few big buildings which all seemed empty, then I heard talking and laughter and wondered if there was a café so I wheeled my bike round the corner and found a whole group of people sitting at a long table, drinking coffee and eating cakes.

As I like practising my Spanish, I said hello and asked if it was someone’s birthday. They said it was and I was immediately invited to join them for a coffee. They sat me down next to the birthday boy, Antonio, and brought me a wonderful cream cake to eat with my coffee.

Antonio told me that he had been born there 22 years previously (I think there was a bit of poetic licence here – possibly add a further 50). It turned out that they were all cousins and they had all been born there. In its heyday Monfragüe station was an entire village of about 1000 people who all worked for the Spanish railway company, RENFE, because Monfragüe was a major hub. The trains from Salamanca to Cáceres and from Madrid to Cáceres went through there. It had its own church, school and doctor, all paid for by RENFE. However now only a very few trains go through there. With the demise of the steam train, and a new railway line was built.

Some of the cousins still live in the area, but many now live in other parts of Spain or even further afield – Antonio lives in San Diego, California, and another of the cousins lives in Miami. Whenever they can, they all meet up at the station for a family reunion. They were sitting outside what was the village school and inside on the walls they had put up lots of black and white photographs of family members over the past 50 years, including lots of class photos of the school children.

As I made my goodbyes they had just put on some music and two of the cousins were singing into microphones while others started dancing. It looked like the party was going to go on for quite a while still.

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