Monday April 24.
Stage Two; Valdefrancos to Montes de Valdueza.
I took advantage of the regional bank holiday of Castilla y León to continue the Aquilianos dress rehearsal. (These Mickey Mouse holidays are what make this country great). Parked the car in front of the church of Valdefrancos. There seemed to be nobody about but smoke drifted upwards from a couple of chimneys. The route to Montes de Valdueza is only 6 or 7 kms but it’s all uphill, unlike yesterday’s stage which had a couple of half decent descents. Just as well it’s short as I’ll have to retrace my steps to get back to the car this time.
The first section continues along the River Oza until San Clemente, a small linear village which is very similar to Valdefrancos. The path is narrow, with dense riverside vegetation and flanked by clusters of primroses. Then there’s a short section of road before a new path heads off amongst the chestnut trees on the right. This is a steep climb which zig-zags upwards until the river becomes a distant murmur on the valley floor. The path is clearly marked by the furrows that centuries of cart transport cut into the rocky floor before the road was eventually built (relatively recently). Soon I’m walking again. The vegetation becomes sparser and consists mainly of scrub and evergreen holm oak. Then a flattish section re-activates my legs and the first houses of Montes de Valdueza appear as spots in the distance. The altitude is now over 1000m which is just about the maximum for villages in El Bierzo.
Montes de Valdueza is a place where you end up asking yourself why anybody should have wanted to live up here in the first place. It’s so isolated and inaccessible. The path which I `d just followed was sometimes barely more than a rocky ledge yet it was once their only link to the outside world. Maybe “they” were hiding from somebody. Before the Moors swept through most of Spain Bierzo already had several monastic communities and hermitages. Little is known about them but Saint Fructuoso supposedly founded the local monastery of San Pedro de Montes as early as the 7th century when what we now call Spain was a Visigoth kingdom. Since then, the monastery has been rebuilt several times and was eventually abandoned in the mid-19th century. If you know where to look you'll find that just one last remnant of Visigoth past has miraculously survived. Just before the village a hermitage stands alone although it looks more like a shack or an abandoned barn. Close inspection will reveal a rare Visigoth stone engraving encrusted below alpha and omega symbols just above the door. This was almost certainly removed from the original location, the monastery of San Pedro in the village a couple of hundred yards away. At least that’s what they tell me. It’s the sort of thing that might have been nicked years ago and sold off at Sotheby’s. But it’s still there, unmarked and forgotten, a reminder of that murky era between Romans and Islam.
It’s hot and I’m thirsty. Time for a quick visit to the village fountain. There’s only one fellow about and he’s working his allotment with the radio on at full blast. It’s all a bit eerie and I feel like I’m intruding. I walk under an arch and alongside the crumbling, roofless old monastery, a melancholic ruin from some pre-raphaelite painting, left sadly to its fate. Wonder if they’ll ever get round to restoring it before it’s too late. A fitting place to end my second stage.
Went back the way I’d come at a more leisurely pace taking photos and running sections of descent. Just outside Valdefrancos I bumped into a wiry old mountain goat trotting along with a couple of sticks. It’s Domingo, one of the Aquilianos hardcore. He’s in his mid-50s and is still a regular top ten finisher. Exchanged pleasantries but he’s in a hurry. They’re out training on the hills already….
Approx. distance; 7 kms.
Time taken; 49 minutes.
Total ascent; 380m
Total descent; hardly any.
Travesía Integral de los Montes Aquiianos
