The villages

Since we've been back in Ciudad Rodrigo Maggie and I have been comparing and contrasting the two places where we live. We've decided that neither area is better or worse than the other - they're just different. 

On of the plus side, for Salamanca, must be some of the country villages. I really like the way that the older houses seem to be completely at one with their environment. Sometimes the built stone walls incorporate some crop out of rock - often groups of houses and buildings just grow up a hillside - it's as though the buildings are an extension of the natural rock. Mind you when I went looking for a photo to put here to prove my point I found that all the houses that looked like that were generally derelict.

And then, I must mention the efforts of someone to keep all the villages as twee as any tourist could want. There's a photo somewhere in one of the posts of a chap riding a donkey, today a bloke obligingly walked his sheep through the village almost as if it was what he did every day!

Again though, a postscript, as we walked back to the car a chap talked to us, well to Maggie really, "What are you up to, just having a stroll around? - there's nothing to look at here!" and I just had a look at an Internet forum for this village - Ahigal de los Aceiteros - and it's full of people complaining about the village dying and about the mayor being a nasty piece of work for having the stork's nest removed from the church. Reality and day trippers views I suppose. 

So I added the tractor picture to show that there's romance in the new too.