ARÉVALO

Pilgrim through the streets he was looking for the lost history and the long past. All our yesterdays are there. This town is like a vision of the greatness of Spain, its tolerance, our Catholicism, the way we look at things, the joy of Castilla, the stamina of the castellanos. Poor squires dissolute, ladies, priests, charterers, ruffians . Soldiers in leave mutilated militias of the Flanders wars. They all ran the gantlet. In the middle of the square there was a ram rock as high as a big pine. The scaffold was ready for two thieves, a murderer and the violator of two nuns and the came an abbot with a very spectacular miter. We saw the shields the logogriphs of medieval times speaking to the modern man in a stone language od sculpted mace and clubs, sinister bar, cauldrons, rood-trees, tufts, lambrequins eagles and helmets. They were the insignia of the fabulous seven local families: the Tagles, the Ceballos, the Verdugos, the Velascos, Quiñones, Barredas, Gils.

Arevalo is the city of the seven lineages (alcurnia viva y perenne, heraldry) under the shadow of a big castle. It is the runfla or cameo depicting a chronicled retable of heroes and myths. In between Arevalo in the middle of Castile is a covetable place for people in train, assembly of knavish and rogues, bojiganga of comics of the league.

You ought to look at the place laying in the heart of Las Morañas with Castilian eyes and let your sight swim in the crystal pure light of the glorious morning at nearly 830 metros of altitude, and drink up to the brim the beauty of the landscape, the walled citadel is surrounded by wheat fields which escort the green valleys of poplars and birches of two rivers: Adaja end Arevalillo.

There, both confluence in a nuptial embrace describing on the map a crossbow ark. Before the fluvial wedding they pay homage to the roman walls in circle kissing the angular stones or licking the posterns where in the days of the roman conquest was posted the sentry of the guards. Thus these two tributaries of River Duero give reverence to the soldiers of the Legio Septima Gemina.

Part of the division had its headquarters encircling the village in a promontory or knoll called Castra Regimenta not far from the church of la Lugareja.

Every Tuesday Joaquin packed the boxes of his books in a van and taking the M50 headed to Arevalo. In his regular visits discovered something different, learned something new, came across a new monument, and met a new friend. Every trip was like a discovery.