The timeless, unsung trails of Castilla y León deliver living history via heritage cities, golden plains, hearty cuisine and lush vineyards…
By Doug Wallace
Though Spain is well-known for its ham, I fall hard for a completely different pork specialty – cochinillo, Castilian suckling pig ––and at lunch no less. Clearly, the people of Castilla y León know how to live.
We’re tucking into a three-course (at least) feast at fifth-generation, family-run restaurant Méson de Cándido in the small city of Segovia, an hour northwest of Madrid. A hush comes over the lunch crowd as said pig is wheeled out on a platter to the middle of the room. The tradition of carving it with the edge of a plate to demonstrate its tenderness is carried out by Alberto Cándido, whose son Cándido López now oversees this gastronomic landmark. Alberto performs a short recitation and carves the meat before smashing the earthenware plate on the floor to much applause. As the pork melts in my mouth, I wonder how many broken plates have been swept up since the 1930s, when the restaurant opened.
Our lunch turns out to be the first of many pleasant traditions and surprises in the autonomous community of Castilla y León, Spain’s largest region. Though overlooked by many visitors to the country, it has plenty to brag about, including an untouristy ambience. In contrast to the perhaps more extroverted and celebratory cultures of southern and eastern Spain, this sparsely populated region has a more tranquil vibe – being mostly farmland with a dash of wine-country opulence thrown in. History here runs extremely deep, back to Roman times.
Castilla y León was central to the intellectual and cultural flourishing of Spain during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and it is the cradle of the Spanish language, the linguistic heartland where modern Spanish was born and refined. As such, historic landmarks are extremely old, including the many castles that give the region its name. Medieval fortresses are everywhere, but we also discover architecture from a variety of eras, including a high concentration of Romanesque and Gothic architecture, reflected in the churches and monasteries. It’s like a living museum in places, the dozen UNESCO World Heritage Sites encapsulating the very essence of Spain’s historical and cultural evolution. The charm and the food and the fun is the icing on the cake.
Alongside its delicious food, the draw of Segovia is the Roman aqueduct that looms large in the middle of town. It was built in the middle of the first century – and, coming from Canada, I find something that’s this old and still standing to be almost unfathomable. One of the most well-preserved aqueduct bridges in Europe, built of unmortared granite, it is truly an engineering marvel. At first, as we walk alongside it from our hotel, it is only about chest height, but it then steadily gets higher and higher as our walk takes us downhill to the Plazas de Medina del Campo.
The 16th-century Segovia Cathedral is no slouch either when it comes to architectural mastery. With its three tall vaults, it’s one of Spain’s finest late-Gothic structures. Ditto the fairy tale-like, 12th-century Alcázar of Segovia, which apparently (and rather obviously) made an impression on a young Walt Disney. This castle served as both a palace and a fortress, replete with moat and drawbridge. Interior rooms and halls are decked out in the finery of their time, murals and carvings included to mirror historical accuracy. Regular preservation and conservation repairs keep the limestone turrets and towers in shape, so the castle doesn’t look a day over 800.
About a 90-minute drive north, the city of Valladolid, once the capital of Spain in the 16th century, still exudes a stately air as a former royal seat and administrative hub. This is the town where Christopher Columbus died, so you know there are more than a few stories to hear.
But first, lunch. It appears there’s a national tapas competition going on, and we manage to get in on some of the action. We join the crowd at Los Zagales, an iconic eatery off the Plaza Major, a past winner of the competition and a current contender. When the dishes start arriving, they are primarily food disguised as something else: a stuffed sardine tartare looks like a cigar, with sesame powder serving as ashes; a squid sandwich is wrapped in a clear bag that we can also eat; a red lollipop is really a quail terrine. Such delicious craziness deserves the accolades.
When we finally push back from the table, we can barely squeeze into the car. Luckily, our next stop is only 45 minutes down the road – the Castilla Termal Monesterio de Valbuena, a former 12-century monastery that is now a five-star hotel and spa. Once again, painstaking restoration has breathed new life into a historical gem. Located on the Golden Mile of the Ribera del Duero wine region (which produces some of Spain’s finest reds), the hotel is also home base to The Ages of Man Foundation, a cultural project dedicated to preserving the religious heritage of Castilla y León. The spa here is sprawling and splendid, complete with muscle-relieving hydrotherapy pools and cascading jets. A private spa and water circuit for couples or small groups is quiet and seductive, replicating the look of the centuries-older parts of the complex. We easily while away a few hours taking the waters all by ourselves.
Our last stop on this northern adventure is the university town of Salamanca, Spain’s answer to Oxford. The school is one of the oldest in Europe, founded in 1218. Students and tourists mill about the maze of narrow streets, the latter exploring various parts of the university’s museum. This includes an ornate library filled with a carefully preserved collection of priceless volumes reflecting centuries of academic development, and a classroom from the 16th century, left as is with an original wooden lectern, benches and desks. We get an almost palpable sense of how austere and serious scholarly pursuits were during that era.
Handily for visitors, the university is just a few metres from Salamanca’s Old and New cathedrals, adjacent to each other, the “new” one being only about 500 years old. We take the higher route, climbing dozens of stairs to wander among the towers’ pinnacles and gargoyles, the city stretched out below. The sandstone buildings practically glitter in the sunlight.
Our tour guide points out a hidden university pub that he says we should pop into later. On our way to Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor – a Baroque masterpiece – he shows us a video of his son, who is a bullfighter. The gesture is one of pride, and another example of how cultural traditions in Castilla y León carry on as they always have.
DOUG WALLACE is an international travel and lifestyle writer, photographer and custom-content authority, principal of Wallace Media and editor-publisher of TravelRight.Today. He can be found beside buffet tables, on massage tables and table-hopping around the world.
POST A COMMENT