Lunch in the capital

We went for lunch in the capital of Spain today. It's a while since we popped over for lunch and it seemed like a great opportunity for a day out, avoiding the howling gale at home, plus the option of having a calçotada : it's the season for frazzled onions served on a roof tile.

No, we didn't go to Madrid for the day ... we drove to La Vajol (pop. 85), close to the French border. For a few days in February 1939 it was the capital of Spain in the sense that it was where the republican government was, along with thousands of other refugees. It also had an internationally renowned art collection, featuring works by Velazquez, Titian and Goya among many others, and bank deposits equivalent to about 500 million dollars.

Like the refugees, the artworks stayed only briefly, hidden in a disused talc mine. Later they were shipped in 71 lorries to the League of Nations in Geneva for safekeeping. Franco complained that the Republicans had "stolen" them, and by September 1939 they had all been returned to the Prado, their original home.

It's only an hour and a half from home, and we arrived early enough to visit the disused mine a couple of kilometres out of the village. We hadn't visited it on previous trips, so it was worth going, even if the large concrete structure wasn't particularly interesting. The owner rather optimistically wants to turn it into a museum and is (or was, judging by the apparent age of the sign) seeking funds. The building isn't part of the original mine; it was built earlier in the war, specifically to house the valuables.

In the village itself we made the obligatory visit to the monument (blip -- based on a famous photograph of refugees crossing the Pyrenees). Someone has left a bunch of mimosa at the foot of it -- the 85th anniversary of the arrival of the government was just a week ago. We also stopped off at the quirky little church, sadly not open even on a Sunday. 

We lunched at La Conxita, a restaurant recommended by our mayor Serge. When the waiter told us that one serving was 12 calçots, we decided to share a single serving, and did the same with our main course of wild boar stew. That left room for a delicious crema catalana each. Extras: the calçots, and an unflattering photo of S eating one. You are provided with bib and disposable gloves, as the only way to eat them is to strip off the burnt bits with your fingers, dip the onion in the romesco sauce and then slurp from root end upwards till you reach the inedible green bit. They were delicious. 

We had booked lunch for 2 pm, which we considered early. But all the other clients were French, and when we arrived they were all onto dessert and coffee, which meant we ate most of our meal in splendid isolation. Off back down the mountain just after three; we paused to take photos of the lovely forest of cork oaks. A nice sunny drive home, but the 70 kph wind hit us again as soon as we crossed the border. Fire lit now!