I wonder, would it be true and fair to describe Spain as the home of ‘fiestas’?

Each town, each community, often has more than one day set aside each year to celebrate one thing, or another.

Perhaps none has a celebration quite as distinctive as that held in Salamanca each year. Hot on the heels of the solemn processions and religous observance over Easter comes Lunes de Agua.

Literally ‘water Monday’, the (half) day fiesta which begins in the middle of the afternoon, on the Monday which follows Easter Monday, brings everyone in the family (young and old) together to celebrate the day on which, by long-standing tradition (dating back to the reign of Felipe II) the prostitutes of this ancient University city, banished during Semana Santa from its beautiful streets and plazas, were repatriated (with pomp and circumstance) from the far side of the river Tormes by boat. The…

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
– The Road not taken, Robert Frost

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An expedition along the Ruta de la Plata which traces the path of a still visible Roman road known as the Via de la plata.

Along the road which winds its way from Mérida to Astorga, we had a close encounter with a frisky bull and a less than adequate fence, (two) group(s) of brightly clad bikers, a couple of donkeys, some bees and some very friendly locals in a bar in Peñacaballera.

The incident with the bull involved a degree of clear, present and imminent danger and I felt stopping to take a portrait shot would perhaps have been inadvisable. The bull which features below was…