Our Summer Not in Montpellier, III

Sunflowers! We saw endless fields of sunflowers!

This is the third of several blogs about our summer travels.

You can find the first one here, and the second here.

 

Oh, but it’s been hot in Montpellier of late! A real canicule, a heat wave where the nights are almost as hot as the days. It’s getting better; today is cooler (just!) but very humid. Let’s return to the cool hills and fields of Northern Spain…

Once out of Bilbao,  we were on our way, to

          Quintanilla-Montecabezas

…a tiny village out in the countryside. Paula’s goal in planning this trip was to escape the heat and avoid crowds. She was attracted to the area known as Las Merindades, which is near the city of… well, nowhere, really! That’s what made it so attractive. Her research turned up a lodging called Dreams in the tiny village of Quintanilla-Montecabezas.

And it was a dream! Our hosts were lovely, and had a beautiful house and yard, complete with swimming pool. We passed a very fine week there, slept well, and had great dreams!

Entrance to the Airbnb Dreams.

Our room is on the left.

Quite literally, the end of the road. Nothing but fields out there!

We spent our time exploring the sunflower-filled—and very uncrowded—countryside. This is in the Castile region… Isabella country.  (It was her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469 that united the two adjoining regions and started the county that we call Spain today.)

 

This church was at the edge of town; first thing we saw a we arrived,
last thing we passed on our way out.

And several kilometers along, we come to civilization... well, more buildings, anyway.

Every afternoon, after our explorations, we would follow the well-paved but very narrow road up the hill, between the sunflower fields and forest, a few kilometers to where it ended in this tiny place of less than a dozen homes. On Sunday we took a day off from the tough job of exploring, and just hung out around the pool.

The pool; a great place to spend a relaxing Sunday.

And where did we go on our trips out? Well, we drove past many many fields of sunflowers, their, er, sunny faces turned inquisitively towards us (well, so long as the sun was behind us!). It left us wondering, Are these fields a response to the troubles in Ukraine, where sunflowers are (were?) a staple of the economy? Well, no, but kind of.

More sunflowers!

Sunflowers have been grown for oil and animal feed in many regions of Spain for a long time, so it’s not new. But as Ukraine got more involved in the international market, demand for Spain’s sunflowers dropped. Needless to say, demand is back up now, but Spain has been growing these flowers for many decades.

Wine County: Spain has many wine regions. We saw no vineyards here but we knew there were wineries nearby, and one day we set out to find them. At one point we passed through a series of short tunnels through steep cliffs, and there, on the other side, were vineyards!

 

OK, so this is the old highway, now a hiking trail.
But the real highway tunnels are just over there...

Vineyards set in the midst of a stunning landscape!
(With the also stunning Ysios Winery)

Dramatic entrance to the Ysios Winery.

At the top of our list to visit was a particular bodega known for its spectacular architecture, the Bodegas Ysios (the Ysios Winery). Its striking sinusoidal roofline mirrors and is emphasized by the jagged mountains in the background. It was quite stunning!

Another view of that fabulous roof line.

Looking out the entrance of Bodegas Ysios to the hilltop village of Laguardia. 

We followed that with a visit to the nearby hill town of Laguardia. It was charming, with its narrow streets and old stone buildings. Lunch was a bit of a let-down, consisting of several pintxos (a Basque word pronounced pinchos). We want to think of these as tapas of the kind we’ve enjoyed so much in Sevilla, but they are nowhere near that good. A pintxos is mostly a morsel of food—cheese, ham, fish, or even some delicious concoction of several of those in an excellent sauce—on a piece of bread. It can be simple, or quite good… except for the bread. (Yeah, we gotta say, once we leave France the bread—and pastries!—get very disappointing).

 

The narrow streets of Laguardia. Just as in our hometown of Montpellier,
the narrow curving streets serve a defensive function--and provide shade.

A flower-laden bicycle in the curving narrow streets of Laguardia.
Even here in Spain it's a decorative element!

Undaunted by our less-than-ideal lunch (and I will quickly inject here that we had a number of memorably good meals while on this trip… this just wasn’t one of them!) we headed to another winery known for its architecture, the Bodega Marques de Riscal. While this one was less dramatic than Ysios, it is unique, appearing as a package from a distance; a present waiting to be opened.

 

Bodega Marques de Riscal

There was a third winery we were interested in, the Bodegas Navajas, one in which we actually wanted to buy some wine. But our hosts pre-empted that need! When Paula added an extra night in Bilbao, something had to give, so she sliced off our scheduled first night at Dreams. Rather than a cash refund, our hostess offered a case of wine: six bottles of red, six of white. We were quick to accept her offer! (And spent the rest of our trip with boxes of wine tucked behind the seats… an advantage of having a car.)

A hiking bridge over the river.

At one tourist information office (always our first stop when we arrive at a new town) we found a map and description of a couple of dozen water features in the area: waterfalls, springs, pools… we had time to visit only a few of them, and mid-summer is not when you find the highest water flow, but they were cool and refreshing, even just to see! 

We didn't stop here to swim, but it sure looks good! (I especially like the inflatable unicorn.)

Along the way we stopped to visit St. Barnaby's Hermitage (Cueva ermita de San Bernabé), located in a cave. While we were assured that the cave was extensive and quite spectacular, our tour was brief and consisted mainly of the chapel, which has been exquisitely decorated—if that’s the right word—with paintings of the various tortures to which St Barnaby was subjected.

Inside the Cueva ermita de San Bernabe.

Extensive paintings on the cave walls, depicting the trials of Saint Barnaby.

While hardly ancient, these paintings were done in the 18th century.

The outside of the cave was impressive, as were the surroundings, with steep cliffs above and green meadows below.

The outside of ermita de San Bernabé

We  had heard of a music festival in the area, in the town of Frias. Curious as to what that might be like, we stopped in to check it out on the way back to our place of Dreams. Not much was happening while we were there; I expect things were chill during the day and the real action was at night. But it was another pleasant hill-top town, this one with a fortified castle.

Accommodations for the music festival.

Parroquia San Vicente Mártir (Parish of St. Vincent the Martyr)

One advantage of a hill-top town: fantastic views! From San Vicente in Frias.

This cute pizza stand was closed when we came by, but I'll bet it was hopping at night!

Pica Peñamellera seen in the distance from the road;
a hint of what was to come in the Picos de Europa.

With some regret to leave of our place of Dreams, and our very lovely hosts, we took to the road.  We had more to see: mainly, the town of Las Arenas and the Picos de Europa mountains. But we’ve come to the end of the page, so we’ll have to save that for the next posting!

On the road again... and sunny sunflower fields under a threating sky.