Berlanga de Duero: "It seems that, at some time, God rained stones"
ADVICE FOR BEFORE THE TRIP Before going to **Berlanga de Duero** you have to go through the Galapagos Islands. In Ecuador. In that puddle called the Pacific Ocean. It's a silly rodeo but you can afford it because you're a versatile and powerful traveler. The reason for this is to experience the same thing that the most sugar-coated neighbor in town experienced, Friar Tomas de Berlanga , when in the 16th century he discovered the Galapagos Islands, he studied them a little and, seeing them, he said that of "It seems that, at some time, God rained stones" because that looked like a dump. The landscapes of Berlanga de Duero have nothing to do with the Galapagos, that's obvious. Here there is a lot of dry land that now in winter is sad and bare and that's why it's cool. You can take the opportunity to ignore the work of Machado or Bécquer who got rid of praise with Soria (we are in Soria, okay?) but they tiptoed through here. You can afford it, don't worry.
THE FIRST TIME Enter the former collegiate Santa María del Mercado de Berlanga but don't be a redneck. Don't let the size of the columns astound you like the average tourist. You, who have practically slept inside St. Peter's in Rome, are not daunted by these minutiae. Think out loud. Very loudly. Let everyone hear your insightful reflections on the history of the temple. Let them know that it was built in four years ; that several Romanesque hermitages were demolished in order to have carved stone and that it was necessary to ask the Pope for permission because dismantling a hermitage is serious business. Dismantling half a dozen must have been the trick. If there are no shocked faces in the audience, turn to the heavy artillery: during those four years the village crops were not harvested , but the food was brought from outside. The data may be nonsense but you can always hide behind the fact that an expert guide has said it or that you have consulted it in the Madoz Geographical-Statistical-Historical Dictionary (1850), which is a reference work. Wikipedia is only for the poor in spirit . Remember it.
THE REPTILES OF THE CHURCH Pay someone (children and the elderly are easily manipulated and hardly arouse suspicion) to ask you what a semi-rotten crocodile paints on one of the walls of the former collegiate church . You answer him delighted, you tell him that Fray Tomás brought it from Panama , where he captured it with his own hands and transported it (it is not known how) to here. After the death of the bug, they dissected it because there were no crocodiles in Spain in the 16th century, it had to be exhibited and a church is the perfect place for it . Then, after the talk and the applause of the audience, you can distribute the “Fray Tomás lizard” pastries that you have bought in any supermarket or pastry shop in town. They're made with so much butter that if it weren't for the crumb, it would look like you were eating a lump of delicious butterfat.
There is a lot of dry land here, but that's cool
WHAT A GOOD VASALL... El Cid, that man. Well that, what Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar passed through here . That Berlanga de Duero is on the so-called Camino del Cid but you already know that because as a child you practically learned the Cantar by heart and you even know the exact name of the author but you don't say it out of modesty. It is worth reminding your companions of the greatness of his figure and comparing it with the castle of Berlanga, which is one of the largest in Spain (if you say that it is the largest in the world with sufficient authority, perhaps no one will reproach you ) .
For you, the essence of good gastronomy from Soria lies in its purity. in its primitiveness. What you like is eating raw boletus in the same oak grove where you picked it up, or tasting deer meat when the animal's blood has not yet cooled. Still, sometimes you have to compromise and socialize. At Casa Vallecas they make good Soriana cuisine. Of the authentic. The one that repeats a bit and leaves some 'paluego' . Strong, go. Lots of mushrooms, lots of game, some truffles (in February they should celebrate the annual conference) and with a dash of tolerable modernity. In short, this is authentic. Not as much as you, but acceptably authentic.
Berlanga Castle, one of the largest in Spain
DISMANTLING THE CUBIST Picasso was a nobody, a plagiarist and a cheeky man. You know that and maybe someone else. When they argue with you, ask them what the hell they were doing in 1906, when the man from Malaga was throwing up 'Las Señoritas de Avignon'. Since they won't know, what you have to do is take them by the hand to the hermitage of San Baudelio and show them the frescoes of the oxen that the painter brazenly plagiarized (He effusively underlines the 'blatantly') when laying the foundations of Cubism. And point. If someone has the courage to refute you, you can launch a phenomenal soliloquy about painted greyhounds or that camel that no one knows how it got there.
THE THEFT OF THE JOJOYA
Saint Baudelio is an unfathomable mystery. Well, it's not, but it's always nice to say it. You are one of those who defends that theory and who proclaims that in Spain there is no hermitage more insipid on the outside that, however, hides such an amazing panorama inside. What you love is the hidden camera at the top of the central pillar, the access to the hermit cave or the small forest of columns that looks like a provincial branch of the Cordoba mosque. That and the fact that in the twenties some yankees came and bought various paintings for four pesos. If you want to know almost everything about this sordid business, buy the book "The Great Hoarder" , by José Miguel Merino de Cáceres and María José Martínez Ruiz. It is important to adopt the look and tone of voice (but not the hairstyle) of Iker Jiménez when talking about all this.
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San Baudelio Highway
Santa María del Mercado de Berlanga, the former collegiate church