Innocents abroad in yellow Spain

When we were in Zumaia last November Gill had an interesting conversation with the campsite receptionist about where Basques prefer to go on holiday in Spain. She was very clear about this, 'Not yellow Spain, only green Spain, there is nothing in the yellow but hot. In the green we ski in the winter and go to the beach in the summer, or to our other house near Jaça for the winds. Green not yellow'.

In deference to the perky young woman's assertions we adjusted our own nomenclature. What we previously referred to as 'the beige bit' - the swathe of inland Spain's high plateau that consists of endless straw coloured fields - we began to call 'yellow'. 

However recent events have complicated the issue. Supporters of the four Catalan politicians jailed for organising last year's 'unconstitional' independence referendum have taken to using yellow ribbons and flags as symbols of solidarity. These have become contentious. National police demanded Barcelona supporters remove their yellow shirts before they were allowed. In Sevilla's stadium. In August about 80 masked vigilantes dressed in white boiler suits descended in the small hours on the staunchly pro-independence Catalan town of La Bisbal d’Empordà and proceeded to remove all traces of yellow fabric from the place. The issue even hit the news in the UK. Last season Pep Guardiola, Manchester City's Catalan manager was instructed by the F.A. not to wear a yellow ribbon on his shirt as it constituted a political symbol and breached the football authority's managerial guidelines. 

All of this to the outsider as faintly absurd and results in an odd dissonance between Spain's physical and political landscapes. Though Catalonia is not officially part of 'green Spain', a term reserved for the regions bordering the Atlantic, nevertheless the area inland from the Costa Brava is comparatively verdant. However, politically it has become yellow. Conversely, Castillian Spain, which is by and large, away from the sierras, distinctly yellow, could be regarded as the Country's greenest region due to the fact its plains are covered in wind and solar farms. In deference to issues I do not understand, so cannot really judge, I think we should revert to calling the country's sun burned middle 'beige Spain'.

In which case, days of beige beckon as we head south from Burgos towards Portugal. We are heading first to Salamanca, a drive of about 150 miles down the A62. As beige kilometres ticked by a question occurred to us. As we said a few posts back, driving across France's northeast 'wheat belt' soon has us complaining that the place is inordinately vast. Yet we sit happily for hours crossing the equally monotonous plains of Castillian Spain. Why?

Part of the reason might be the roads themselves. French RN roads are not always dual carriageway, sometime in the 1990s junctions were replaced by 'rondpoints', the smallest hamlet has aggressive traffic calming and strictly enforced 50kph speed limits. You make slow progress across Champagne's prairies and driving can be nerve jangling due to French drivers' penchant for 'le Clarkson' an Anglo-gallic version of Russian roulette using a hot hatch, a blind bend and an oncoming British tourist.

Many of Spain's main roads have been upgraded to motorways. Inland often there is little traffic on them unless you are near a large town. So the plains of Spain may reach beyond the horizon but you progress quickly. Just south of Burgos I set the cruise control at 60mph and even laden as we are the van hummed along for hours getting around 30mpg. It's enjoyable stress free driving. The landscape may be beige, but the cloudscapes are magnificent; occasionally in the distance blue sierras appear out of the heat haze; buzzards and eagles swoop and circle above you: it's truly road trip heaven.

It was just before five when we pulled up outside Hotel Regio in St. Marta de Tormes, on the outskirts of Salamanca. It's quite a swish hotel with a practical but workaday campsite in its grounds. This is the third time we have used it, inexpensive at €17 per night ACSI rate, and easy to reach Salamanca's beautiful city centre. Quarter to the hour, all day, the bus duly turns up at the shelter in the hotel's car park, the fare - €1.40 each.

After a relaxed morning it was well past noon before we arrived in the city centre. First stop, Correos, we had promised to mail Lindt chocolate to our youngest. The postage cost more than the bars, but hey, she is stuck in Croydon job-hunting while we gad about; it's a small gesture. 

Next, where for lunch? We walked through Salamanca's magnificent main square towards the university area. The first time we came here in March 2015 we found a really good small tapas bar. As the name indicated 'La Andaluza, lo cost' it produced great small plates at rock bottom prices - pitched we surmised at the student market. Perhaps the tapas prices were too low cost, when we found the place it had re-opened under another name selling sandwiches. 

Instead we headed to a somewhere Sarah had recommended - 'Vinodiario' - 'you must try the chickpeas,'' she WhatsApped from Lisbon. It was a ten minute walk, beyond main road where the bus had dropped us, in a part of the city we had not visited before. Though the restaurant had just opened, all the tables had reserved notices on them. The waiter consulted a notebook, removed a reserved tag from a table by the door and invited us to sit down. This is what we had:

It all had to be photographed so Lisbon could be updated simultaneously on the progress of our lunch.

One of the things we had promised ourselves was a return visit to Salamanca's Valor café for hot chocolate and churros. Though we had eaten a light lunch, we still were not quite ready for churros. We took a stoll to Salamanca's famous Roman bridge, walked through the woods on the river bank for a while, then cut back through the heart of the old city, passing the Cathedral and clutch of seventeen century edifaces that surround it.

I stopped to take photos of the sculpture and plateresque latticework that decorates the buildings. I reflected that I am very ambivalent about Roman Catholicism, especially the version of it found in Spain and southern Italy. I recognise that it is a communal religion, its God is merciful, sins can be forgiven through the confessional, saints might intercede on your behalf. The church authorities were canny enough to allow local saints to act like the pagan deities they superseded. The Romeria we witnessed in Bolneuvo was a very jolly affair, a pagan feast with a short mass thrown in just to keep things notionally orthodox. 

Scaled-up from the locale, as a political force within Spain's long autocratic and absolutist history,  the Catholicism reflected in Salamanca's Counter Reformation era monuments is darker and more disturbing. To a humanist, it really is difficult to see the difference between the work of the Inquisition and the Stasi or KGB. Each were agents of repression and defenders of totalitarianism. Salamanca's Baroque masterpieces are magnificent, the craftsmanship exquisite, however if you respect rationalism, freedom of thought and scientific endeavour, the assertion of faith that the buildings represent seems chilling.

At the moment Gill is reading a Dan Brown thriller, "Origin'. It is set in modern Spain, but its backstory concerns how the historic rift between conservative, royalist and Catholic elements and more liberal, secular and modernising tendencies still shape contemporary events. 

'What is a Carlist,' Gill asked glancing up from her Kindle. I could not really help apart from a vague notion that it had something to do with the monarchy and there had been Carlist wars in the nineteenth century. Wikipedia instantly catapulted us from ignorance to bewilderment by providing a long winded and intricately detailed account of the movement. It involves political shenanigans around a dispute about who is the rightful heir to the Spanish throne, the Carlists claiming that the progeny of Don Carlos an early 19th century king are the rightful heirs. The question is which one, for there is a long list of possible contenders. Add to this that Carlism itself is really a collection of factions whose political allegiances vary from region to region, and the fact that its ideas are inexorably linked with Franco's fascist regime, then without having a good grasp about Spanish history and being fluent in the language, then developing anything more than a facile understanding of the culture of the places we visit is nigh impossible.

So we content ourselves with being 'innocents abroad', we enjoy the food, appreciate beautiful places and landscapes, and bask in the south's sunnier climate, but as for understanding the nuances of the culture, we have as much chance as a couple from Cadiz on a London city break grasping the intricacies of Brexit.

With this in mind we headed for the Valor café, safe in the knowledge that though we lack the cultural understanding to appreciate the influence of Carlism on Spain's political life, we were well equipped to fully appreciate other key aspects of the culture - we ordered chocolate and churros.

The resulting sugar hit effectively anaesthetised us from any sense of inadequacy concerning our lack of language skills and our ignorance about Spanish history. There is nothing like a massive calorie overdose to provoke a mysterious sense bliss, all worries dissipate..... what's with all this mindfulness business...an occasional lapse into mindlessness can be equally beneficial...dumdeedumdee dumb.