When we came to Pampeluna itself, we found it so indeed; and to me, that had been always used to a hot climate, and to countries where I could scarce bear any clothes on, the cold was insufferable; nor, indeed, was it more painful than surprising to come but ten days before out of
Old Castile, where the weather was not only warm but very hot, and immediately to feel a wind from the Pyrenean Mountains so very keen, so severely cold, as to be intolerable and to endanger benumbing and perishing of our fingers and toes.
THE DEAL: The Classical cities of
Old Castile tour costs from PS570pp including six nights' B&B (two nights in each city), rail travel, maps and route notes.
Hurtley convincingly argues that Starkie's infatuation with Spain, especially
Old Castile, was a paean for the dignified social order in Ireland, which had collapsed amid the chaos of 1916-23.
It was constituted in 1983 and it comprises the historical regions of Leon and
Old Castile; it is the largest autonomous community in Spain, covering an area of nearly 95,000 square kilometres with an official 2011 population of around 2.5 million.
with the
old Castile, olive oil, que viva Shango upon the plantains.
Atmospherics are top notch, with lensing creating a claustrophobic air more normally associated with the mean streets of New York than with
old Castile. Threaded through the action is a bitter view of rural Spanish life rarely matched since Mario Camus' '80s brutal backwoods classic "The Holy Innocents."