Spain’s Old Silver Route
By Allan Lynch
*originally published in Cruise and Travel Lifestyles Spring/Summer 2011
While the demands of business now trump Spain’s tradition of siesta in most big cities, nighthawks still continue their late, late habits. To experience many customs of old, visitors must avoid the popular tourist routes and head for less well-traveled corners like the age-old Silver Route.
Spain is a confounding country. I don’t understand how a people can eat the way the Spanish do and not get fat! The Spanish eat, eat, and eat. It is nothing to stagger out of a restaurant at midnight and see a family, with small children, starting a four-or-five-course meal.
Everyone will attribute this to the siesta, but siestas are something which by-pass most Spanish cities. Spanish business competes internationally, so they have to keep the same business hours as their competitors. Small, rural towns may be the exception. As one Madrid businesswoman told me, “People play catch up with sleep on the weekend.” Maybe. But if you have ever walked Madrid’s Grand Via at 4 am it’s as busy as Yonge Street at Christmas. And the city’s coffee shops are packed until 6 am when the subway reopens and nighthawks can go home.
When the Spanish aren’t sitting down for a full meal, they are lounging outside dunking churros, a sweet fried dough, into a stand-your-spoon-in-thick cup of dark, delicious hot chocolate or lined up at a chocolateurs whose hand-made creations would conquer anyone’s sweet tooth.
Typically, most North Americans traveling to Spain will hit the highlights of Barcelona and Madrid. And well you should. But my last trip to Spain went beyond these cities, into the countryside. I drove three hours from Madrid to Salamanca (Spanish roads are a dream) to follow the old Silver Route, the Ruta de la Plata. This route goes back 2,000 years to the Roman occupation of what would become Spain. It transported invading armies, as well as providing a safe transportation route for the looted riches of the New World to the treasury.
The route starts farther north, but I began in Salamanca and went on to Bejar, Banos de Montemayor, Plasencia, and Caceres.
It’s worth adding this to an itinerary, to get off the beaten path. This is not an unknown frontier, rather it is overlooked by those who come to Spain seeking nightlife and beaches. Nonetheless it has its own appeal. For example, no matter how rural you are in Spain, there is nightlife. The Spanish are too gregarious to linger in front of a television. So starting in the university city of Salamanca you can find blocks of restaurants, cafes and bars on the Grand Via, Bordadores Street and San Justo area to give you a feel for how the Spanish live and socialize outside the major tourist areas.
What surprised me about this region is its diversity. It has history, culture and its own cuisine (you might want to skip Chanfaina, a lamb offal stew, but do go for the Torta del Casar, pronounced TOR-tah del kah-SAR, which is intense creamy sheep cheese great as a warm dip). There are also plenty of outdoor options so you don’t waste the sun. I had never considered exploring anything beyond castles and cathedrals. My schedule didn’t allow me time to golf, but I did hike part of a pilgrim route, spend a few hours in the Roman baths in the Banos de Montemayor, and explore the National Park of Monfragüe.
This 18,000 hectare park is great for bird watching, an activity I don’t normally engage in, but I discovered a weird fascination with storks, which seem to roost everywhere in Spain. Their 500-pound nests, which seem to be on top of every castle, cathedral and convent, are putting a lot of pressure on these historic buildings. In the park I climbed to the parapets of a hilltop 9th-century Moorish castle to be at eye-level with black storks and imperial eagles. As fascinating as it was to watch them float on the air currents, it was equally interesting looking down on cork and chestnut forests. These dark trees grow evenly spaced from each other, so from this height look like a slow-moving, orderly cattle drive across the glassy, green plain.
Then there are the eccentric human discoveries of this region. In Bejar we came across a plumber with the local council covered in moss. This is a local homage to early residents who disguised themselves as moss-covered swamp monsters to frighten off Moorish invaders. To commemorate the victory, Bejar hosts an annual Corpus Christi procession of Moss Men.
Then we wandered into a typical, very untouristy tavern, whose walls were plastered with curling photos and posters of bullfighters. The Spanish live on pork and no part of the pig goes unused. We saw that in this pub. A glass case on the bar contained a choice of pickled, breaded, stewed and fried pig’s snout. We just drank.
The final stop, Caceres, is where I found another example of curious costumes. In the low-vaulted crypt of the Iglesia de San Francisco Javier – look for a sign reading: el centro de divulgacion de la semana santa de caceres -– are items used in religious festivals which culminate in massive parades through the city. Models of the parade are on display, as well as the hooded costumes worn by the faithful. For North Americans these costumes are staggeringly ominous. They look like KKK outfits, but in colorful fabrics, as if they were summer frocks for bigots, but of course, these are devoid of the ugly associations of racism.
Caceres is littered with palaces and convents. This small city has over 50 palaces. It seems everyone was a noble. The streets in some of the older neighborhoods are so well preserved that it’s not unusual to find a movie being filmed there. The architecture of the palaces also gives a hint to Spain’s turbulent history. In addition to being invaded by Celts, Romans, Visigoths and Moors, it has had several civil wars – or wars between ruling families and kingdoms – as well the more recent one lead by General Franco in the 20th century.
This area wears all the scars of an earlier war between two Queens. In England, the winner usually beheaded the opponent. In this situation, as punishment, the conqueror made every family who supported her rival remove the top level of their castles as well as the crenellations (those jagged-toothed top battlements that archers would hide behind). So in Caceres it’s easy to see which families were on the winning side – they have the taller, still-fortified palaces.
As you wander the lanes, streets and plazas of Caceres it’s not unusual to find impromptu entertainment in the form of buskers in the plazas frequented by visitors. In the Plaza Santa Maria two young men played folk music, hoping that a wall of traveling art students, who were busy sketching the church, would part with a few Euros. Around the corner in Plaza Caldereros, I found a young university-aged man, his dirty blonde hair pulled into a small ponytail, performing flamenco. Spanish guitars must have extra strength built into them to take the passionate pounding flamenco requires. And the sound of the song seems to have a basis in the Moorish tradition calling the faithful to prayer. These are perfect, authentic, serendipitous experiences to add to a travel memory.
While the Ruta de la Plata probably wouldn’t be the reason most travelers go to Spain, it is a justifiable addition to an itinerary.
