Watercolors of Castilla

Possibly there has not been a writer in Spain who has managed to capture, with the profound elegance that comes from his own experience and not the cackling of the lounge singer, unable to go beyond his own window, the true spirit of Castile, which Miguel Delibes .

Arguably, Miguel Delibes went to Castilla, what Miguel de Cervantes to La Mancha or even, curling the loop of infinite probabilities, what Miguel Ángel himself to the Sistine Chapel: his Alma Mater.

You cannot talk about Castilla without living Castilla and the only way to live Castilla is to get lost in Castilla, glide through its infinite and intricate paths, like a drop of blood that goes directly to your heart, which is nothing other than your spirit. .

And that spirit, as old as this country, to which the nostalgic old people still refer with the affectionate name of bull skin, undoubtedly influenced by the fame of its arrogant bravery, is an inexhaustible source of pleasant flavors and aromas, which it is its towns, its people and its landscapes, which act on the traveler's soul with the forcefulness of the ancient filters of love, forever yielding their hearts.

From this heart of Castile, from these towns and watercolor landscapes, that were the farrowing of heroes whose exploits were sung to the four winds in jarchas and romanceros, the most unforgettable characters of cinema and universal literature also emerged.

Along these roads and in these villages, which the pilgrim used to frequent and frequent in the past, the echo of the 'beautiful milana' to which the humble Azarías sang, that of the Holy Innocents in Delibes' novel, masterfully interpreted in the cinema by Francisco Rabal; and still, the echo caused by Mr. Cayo when Spain began to embrace the dream of democracy, recalling forty years of dictatorial ostracism, is also remembered with a certain dose of popular acquiescence.

In their gutters, next to those mountains where hares and rabbits dig tunnels by the side of the rockrose and thyme, accustomed to the bellowing of the deer and the dominance of the wolf and the wild boar, the ghosts of those who disappeared in that other still Spain that has always frozen our hearts.

To lose oneself, then, in these watercolors of Castile, is to lose oneself irretrievably in history; a History that seems distant to us, but that at the same time and paradoxical as it may seem, its siren song attracts us, since the soles of our boots collect dust from their paths, which are basically their genes, to that we never forget who we are and of course where we come from.

NOTICE: Both the text and the accompanying photographs are my exclusive intellectual property.