Life in Ciudad Rodrigo

Life in Ciudad Rodrigo is full of incident. Back in October I mentioned that two trains a day pass through town. One from Lisbon heading for Hendaya on the French border and another going the other way. We walked down to see the French bound train this evening. There were people at the station. We thought they were travellers but not a bit of it. Just like us they were there to see the event.

With just a couple of weeks left here before we head back to Culebrón we've suddenly begun to realise all the things we still have to do - the restaurants we haven't been in, the local food we haven't eaten, the bars we haven't drunk in, the photos we don't have, the nearby villages still to visit and lots more. One of the things that makes Ciudad Rodrigo Ciudad Rodrigo is its walls. They completely encircle the town. We walked them with our houseguests last weekend as part of our regular visitor itinerary. It was the first time we'd ever counted the gates. The six gates are Puerta de la Colada, Puerta del Conde, Puerta del Sol, Puerta de Santiago, Puerta de Amayuelas and Puerta de Santa Cruz

The King's Shropshire Light Infantry were here in town last month to lay a wreath at the tomb of Major General Robert Craufurd. He died, leading from the front, when Wellington's troops stormed Ciudad Rodrigo on 19 January 1812. When Alan Crawford was here earlier this week we went to the Portuguese town of Almeida which, like Ciudad Rodrigo, has substantial fortifications. Almeida was besieged, and taken, by the French in 1810 as they chased the British back to Torres Vedras near Lisbon. In Fuentes de Oñoro, we tried to buy bread, but in May 1811 nearly 4,000 troops died there as the French attempted to advance back into Portugal from their base in Ciudad Rodrigo. They had been back in Spain sprucing themselves up after taking a bit of a pasting flinging themselves against those defences at Torres Vedras. These various jaunts made me realise that I didn't really know much about the Peninsular War, as we Brits call it, or the War of Independence as the Spanish call it. So h...

Ciudad Rodrigo is in the midst of a filming frenzy. There are more film makers here than bearded Brits with sensible headwear. A film called Pablo de Tarso (Paul of Tarsus, the misogynist Biblical, burning bush chappie*) is being filmed around the town by a local film company throughout May. To add to the fun the state TV broadcaster, RTVE, sent a team to do a report about making that film a couple of weeks ago. So this Monday Mr Crawford and I were in town to have a coffee in the main square. We came across a film crew outside one of the local bars. The people who were being filmed were dressed up as ramblers complete with boots, sticks and rucsacks. Knowledgeably I explained that the film being shot in the town was some sort of costume drama (I didn't know it was about Paul till I checked a local website) so all I could surmise was that the film must be using flashbacks along with the historical component to tell its story. You know the sort of thing - "Down here!, here'...

A few years ago, long before we lived here, Maggie and I were driving through Andalucia desperately searching for a roadside hotel. It was growing dark. We'd driven hundreds of kilometres. We were getting desperate. Then we saw a bright neon sign that read "Club - Hotel". We'd often been surprised at the location of the Clubs in Spain, we presumed they were discos kept, thoughtfully, well out of the town centres so as not to bother the non clubbers. This hotel was one of those, miles from anywhere. I went to see if they had any rooms and I was struck by the number of young women who were sitting outside the club door, I was equally struck by the shortness of their skirts. When a young woman wearing bright red hot pants and a red curly wig took me by the hand the penny dropped. I fled. A while ago we were driving home from some do in Elche. It was a cool evening and as we drove up the dark lane, the one that connects the avenue by the train station to the northern ring...

Shocking I know but today we celebrated the return of the prostitutes to the city of Salamanca. A tradition that seems to have spread to our own little town - we did it by going down to the river and having a picnic the main element of which was a local pie stuffed full of bits of pig. Actually we ate our hornazo in the kitchen but we were by the River Águeda in spirit and we did go to stare at the picnicers a little later in the afternoon to show solidarity. Apparently, back in the 16th Century Philip II (the one who got his beard singed by Drake) decreed that the prostitutes from the town brothel in Salamanca should be shifted across the river Tormes for the whole of Lent to ensure that the menfolk remained chaste. The women were put under the care of a priest, un Padre, who became known as Padre Putas (Father Whores) - it's quite amusing in Spanish but it loses something in the translation I feel. The women were allowed back into the city on the second Monday after Easter Sunday...

Everywhere, on every street, outside every bar, in every public space people are tidying up, sweeping, mopping, hammering and carrying things away.  Lots of the bars that have been open for days on end from early morning till early the other sort of early morning are now firmly shuttered and I imagine that the staff are fast asleep exhausted after days with hardly any sleep. The shops are open again and the streets are much quieter with the tourists pointing their cameras at the Cathedral, Castle, Walls and other monumental buildings just like any other day. Everyday fare. It's all, very definitely, over.

Things seemed to be going smoothly, half a dozen fighting bulls and the same number of oxen had run into town without too much incident. Then the bulls had been let loose in the plaza, one by one, for the lads to have a go at the "capea" where they show their skill in either capework or simply in baiting and avoiding the bulls. The bulls were due to go out of the town but, in the cattle crush that leads the bulls from the holding pens to the main square, a frightened bull bolting from the square and heading for the safety of the pens collided with another charging out into the square. So far as we could tell one beast died instantly in the collision We'd seen enough bulls by mid-day so we headed off to the mountains. By the time we got back to Ciudad Rodrigo the town was emptying. There were some car parking spaces available, the mass movement of people that has been the hallmark of the last few days had stopped and people were saying goodbye to old friends. The town is r...

Bulls running through the streets and young men taunting them are so normal here at the moment that it's easy pretend it's all OK. We went out to watch the running this morning. A couple of bulls gave the lads in the Registro, the little plaza just outside the walls, a bit of a run for their money. It was all quite amusing in a sort of humiliating way. At one point a black bull put its horn underneath one of the guard rails and lifted it and the four or five people sitting on it about 10cm off the ground. Only later did I realise that the effort had pulled the horn clean out of its head and the horn was dangling, held on by bits of bloodied shreds of skin or tendons or something. Horrible.

I was going to pick my mum up from the airport and I heard about the Ciudad Rodrigo Carnaval on the national radio news. Apparently dozens of people had been injured when the bulls had done what we've seen them do several times over the last couple of days, turn around and head off in the opposite direction.  The news said that a 51 year old man had been transferred to Salamanca Hospital in critical condition and that with the mobile operating theatre and all the Intensive Care Units in the town completely overwhelmed the bullfight for this afternoon had been cancelled. When I got back Maggie said she had heard that the Headteacher of the school she works in had been injured. A bit og Googling and it turns out that he's the man they have taken to Salamanca.

You think you have a good spot. The bulls come and an electric thrill passes through the crowd. Everywhere people are running, shouting, scrambling up fences. You see very little but you were definitely there; a part of what was going on. Today the horses, or more strictly, the horsemen ride the bulls into town. They wield lances and gallop down the street penning the bulls in. They've been brought across open country and once the bulls are inside the fences, the agujas, the horsemen seem to relax. Certainly a number trotted gently back down the road, heading out of town just seconds before a cantankerous red fighting bull turned back for the countryside sending the crowd scurrying hither and thither.

We went in to see the Carretones, I thought it was going to be calves running into town but instead it was pretend bulls on wheels. It made me laugh a lot. For the first real bull running of the day all we saw was a lot of people fleeing and glimpses of the bulls through the fences. One bull was being really awkward and kept coming and going, causing all sorts of commotion. He had us penned in for at least half an hour. By devious routes we got to the place I work which has views over the main square. The same bull was now in the square being as awkward as ever. Several time the mansos, the meek bulls, were sent in to try and guide the big fellow out - that's what you have in the photo. Stubborn rather than brave I heard a Spaniard say. Later, after eating our way through some traditional empanadas and hornazo, we went on a round of the bars. The town is just heaving with people and life. With my head beginning to pound just a bit we stood around waiting for the fancy dress parade....

The shops along the bull run are boarded up, the safety fences are in place, the sand is down in the main square and the stands are complete. This afternoon the bands marched into town, people showed off their "club" colours or fancy dress costumes for the first time, the bell that warns us when the bulls are loose was uncovered and we have even had the (non fighting) bulls run through the town. The mansos, as they are called look like oxen and they have damned big horns. Their job is to learn the route so they can guide the fighting bulls along the course over the next few days. Actually, we had a bit of a do with the mansos. Normally they run into town, trot around the square a bit and then run back to their pens. Today they changed their minds half way home and turned back into town. We had just set off into the street when, all of a sudden, people were scurrying hither and thither and the town bell began ringing faster. I was slower than Maggie to get behind the fence and...

is that they've been there and done that. There have been things going on all week related to the Carnaval de Toros, the event that officially runs from this Friday evening until next Tuesday. For instance, as an example, a group of blokes, dressed in cloaks and playing lutes passed beneath our window yesterday evening on their way home from some little ceremony. Not something we got a lot of in Huddersfield. Maggie and I haven't been involved in anything Carnaval related so far this year so, when Maggie said that we were going to abandon the telly and go to see the official opening of the casetas (the temporary headquarters of the peñas- see blog of 12 Feb, A buzz in the air ), I was about as enthusiastic as we old folk get. It started well; Maggie bumped into someone whose brother was a member of a peña so we were invited into one of the casetas - we got free beer and snacklets. By the time we made our excuses and left all the peñas were giving away free food and drink. But w...

I like to think that I usually have some idea of what's going on and why but today it took a fair bit of Googling to find out what was happening within metres of where I work. I was teaching; the building I work in is on the main town square, and suddenly we could hear the sound of pipes and drums. I joined the youngsters at the window to see what was going on. Lots of women wearing traditional frocks accompanied by a drum and pipe band were crossing the square and heading for the Town Hall. I asked what they were up to and they told me it was just a "Charra" out for the fun of it. Trying to get a definition of a charra proved beyond their capability in both Spanish and English but we settled on a traditional music group. As a result of the Googling I'm not sure whether the word comes from Charro - the name given to the local landscape and hence all things traditional around here or whether it's from the name of one of the traditional instruments. In either case ...

Well, here I am teaching English, or more accurately between classes. In my last class, the one with a group of 12 year olds, I asked them a couple of settling in questions as always. Keen to be topical I asked them about San Blas (see last post) and they were surprisingly disparaging. "All it is is an excuse to get drunk, it used to be something nice for all the family to do but now it's just a bunch of young people getting legless, most of them can't even walk home when it's finished and the Red Cross has to take a mobile unit there to look after them!" Mirobrigense by the way means someone from Ciudad Rodrigo. It's based on the old Roman name for the town.

On the 3rd February the good Christian folk of Ciudad Rodrigo go on a romeria,  or procession, to the half derelict monastery in Sanjuanejo to get little coloured ribbons to tie around their necks.  The ribbons are blessed in the name of San Blas who, according to tradition, will protect the wearers from sore throats provided that they keep them on till Ash Wednesday when they should pop back to the monastery and recite The Lord's Prayer as they burn their temporary necklaces. Not to be sceptical about the religious significance of this or anything but I think that the ending of the press release gives the game away; "The pilgrims usually give good account of themselves before the hearty open air picnic of local sausages."  And what will I be doing as ribbons and sausages are handed out? Teaching English to people who would much prefer to be eating sausage that's what!

It's hardly the motorway closing, chaos causing snow that has been so common in Northern Spain this winter but it is, definitely, snow on this Monday morning in Ciudad Rodrigo. The picture is taken from our living room. The building is the Santa Clara Convent where, so far as I know, the nuns live a life without modern conveniences like electricity. One of their hobbies is ringing the convent bell. They sell biscuits and keep sheep too. The sheep go baaah-baaah which isn't a noise usually associated with an urban environment so that it rather took me aback the first time I heard it drifting through the flat.

I don't know if you have heard the singer Tom Waits (if you haven't you should) but his voice is so gravelly he sounds like he smokes 50 Woodbine a day. One time, when I saw him in concert, a young woman walked up to the stage and hurled a bunch of flowers at his feet: "Thank ya babe", he growled. And he didn't sound stupid. Tonight a man yelled "Bravo!" and he didn't sound stupid either. The word exploded from his lips; if I'd been the performer on the receiving end of the acclaim I would have been overjoyed. We were watching an amateur choir from the teacher training college at the University of Salamanca who had battled through the snow to get to Ciudad Rodrigo. They performed songs from a dozen or so zarzuelas. A Zarzuela is a type of music, a bit like light opera, where the spoken acting, songs and dances (often rooted in folk traditions) are used to move the story along. We'd gone because we were off work for the town's patron saint...

Franco liked to build dams. He had one build in the next province up from us, in Zamora, in a place called Ribadelago which he opened in 1956. In 1959 it burst and killed 144 of the 549 inhabitants of the village in its shadow in a little under 15 minutes. They recovered just 28 of the bodies. The disaster wasn't exactly hushed up but it was certainly played down by the Government of the day. An Enquiry blamed the failiure on poor materials, poor construction and irresponsibility of the engineering team. I noticed a small piece in the local paper that said some 500,000€ had been earmarked to improve the dam on the Agueda, the river that flows through Ciudad Rodrigo. If that one were to go it may cause us some problems. We drove up to have a look. It was built in 1931 and it looks sturdy enough.