Here there are more bookstores than bars
the horizon of Farmland it unfolds before us like a living, mutating and checkered grid. At our feet, a wall protects the only town with the category of Book Village from Spain: Urueña, fifty-five kilometers northeast of Valladolid. Here there are more bookstores than bars ready to seduce any passionate about cinema, ethnography or photojournalism . And it is not the only thing that hides this town with less than two hundred inhabitants... bibliophile traveler Urueña awaits you.
There it is, on one of the few undulations of the flattened Tierra de Campos, a small town that is not afraid of numbers : With less than two hundred inhabitants, it has a newspaper, five museums and eleven bookstores.
The first thing is to climb its wall from the 12th and 13th centuries and walk along its doors and arches to let the landscape flood us, disheveled us and mark the tempo of the route (here the only obligation is to enjoy) . Its location, on a hill in the Torozos mountains, gives the traveler a view of almost 360 degrees. “ Here are some sunsets that have nothing to envy to those of any part of the world ”, says Tamara Crespo, a reporter who, after years in the trenches of the local press, now defends her job together with her partner, the photojournalist Fidel Raso, from the Primera Página bookstore _ (corrido Santo Domingo) _.
Urueña in spring
THE ONLY SPANISH BOOK VILLA
“For fifteen years he was the smallest town in Spain with a bookstore ”, Explains Jesús Alcaraván smiling (actually his last name is Martínez), “but over time people know me by the name of the bookstore, stone curlew ”) . A lover of birds and reading, a worker since the age of fourteen, Jesús left behind Madrid (where he was a bookseller but also “an infinite number of things”) and in 1992 opened the first bookstore in Urueña at number 13 Corro de San Andrés _(open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 4:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.) _.
“Over time, the bookstore has evolved and, as I say, just like there are signature restaurants, this is a author's bookstore , 90% of the books are the ones I like: popular architecture of Tierra de Campos, gastronomy of the area, ethnography or traditional music ”, He proudly tells from Alcaraván, which he named in honor of a bird in the area.
The rest of the bookstores came to Urueña in a rush from 2007 to fill its cobbled streets and make it the only Book Village in Spain; an achievement achieved thanks to the support of the Diputación de Valladolid. A category held by towns like wigtown (United Kingdom) , Tuedrestand (Norway) or Fontenoy-la-Joûte (France) .
Jesús Alcaraván, owner of the oldest bookstore in Urueña
BETWEEN PAGES OF TRAVEL, CINEMA OR WINE
We enter another microcosm. Despite being small, this bookstore is full of memories: a olivetti machine with which the journalist Tamara Crespo began to write at her grandmother's house, a Leica camera from the fifties that Raso Fidel used in his time as a correspondent photographer in Diary 16 , masks from Kenya, lamps from Morocco, bullets from Iraq, a South African hat ... The world is full of brave, honest travelers who seek and share stories, and these two people from Bilbao have been doing it for a year in their bookstore First page , specializing in journalism, photography and travel. “It is a very small town with many attractions and cultural life, It is not only worth one visit, but many! ”, recommends the journalist.
First page: the traveling corner of Urueña
Three steps away, we are greeted by a temple of cinema and music: the bookstore The Grifilm (corridor of Santo Domingo) . Pages in Spanish, English, Galician, Basque, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Arabic, Chinese... guarded by a couple who exchanged the bustling New York for the peace of Urueña , a philologist and filmmaker specializing in film preservation and a Catalan philologist and computer specialist. Its name is a tribute to Wales (Gruffydd because the first Villa in the book arose there), the griffin bird or "griffin" (a fantastic creature half eagle and half lion, guardian of paper and celluloid) and "film" (the cinema ) .
Wander aimlessly. Get lost in its streets and discover corners full of old or out-of-print books such as: The Written Corner _(Lagares, 13) _, Páramo Bookstore _(Lagares, 11) _, Wine Museum "Wine Museum" Bookstore _(Santo Domingo, 2) _...
In Librería Páramo, in addition to old books, you will find small independent publishers
JOAQUÍN DÍAZ, THE PIONEER PLAYER
The first cultural impulse that Urueña received was in 1988 thanks to the Foundation of the great ethnographer Joaquín Díaz (a scholar and researcher who has published 50 books and 80 albums dedicated to folklore, the memory of Spanish popular music). A cultural chest that keeps 26,000 books, 30,000 photographs, 15,000 vinyls, 6,000 sheets of string (popular songs and stories that were presented to the public hanging from a rope) ... Prepare to be surprised by its exquisite gramophone collection , of engravings on popular costumes or its more than one thousand one hundred instruments.
MUSEUMS WITH GOOD LYRICS
But Urueña has much more to offer the cultural traveler: a Story Museum (with a beautiful international Pop Up Book Collection, from the Victorian era to the present day on Costanilla street), the **Museum of Music – Luis Delgado Collection** _(Catahuevos, 10) _ to discover instruments such as the tar from Uzbekistan, the chonguri from Georgia or the dutar from Albania, among many others, or immerse yourself in the history of books at the Miguel Delibes e-LEA Center _(Costanilla, 12) _.
You'll also find places to let your imagination and ink run wild like the Alcuino Calligraphy & Art _(Nueva, 19) _, where they organize bookbinding and calligraphy workshops.
Alcuino Bookstore Calligraphy & Art
WHERE TO EAT
Don't leave town without making a stop at the Meson Villa de Urueña _(in the Plaza Mayor, 6) _. Try your cheese , their spoon dishes (like their delicious garlic soup) or the roast lamb . Another option is the restaurant The Wineries (Catahuevos, 6), a simple tavern to enjoy homemade food and where you will find veal cheeks, pork or rabbit tenderloin.
We relax?
Let yourself be carried away by the Castilian tranquility after watching the sunset and spend the night in House of the Blessed _(New, 4) _ or in House of Illustrious _(La Parra, 24) _: good wine, tranquility, exposed beams and fireplaces. Both offer bicycle rental service . At the foot of the wall, Pozolico Rural Hotel It is the perfect hideaway to relax in your garden or recharge your batteries with your breakfast (homemade cake, mmm...) .
House of the Illustrious in New Street, 4
HOW TO GET
Any time of the year is perfect to enjoy the colors of Tierra de Campos. If you are on a Castilian road-trip, on the A-6 heading north take the 209 detour or you can also get there by bus from Valladolid (in less than an hour).
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*This article was initially published on 04/21/2016 and updated
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Urueña, the Villa of the Book