Nowhere off the beaten track.

I suppose in the EU there are no unbeaten tracks, though I do know a few streets in Stoke on Trent unvisited by outsiders for years, but these anthropological black holes are anomalies. In general terms, between Google Earth, Tripadvisor and the Guardian Travel pull-out, Europe has been well and truly viewed, reviewed and evaluated.

All that being said, occasionally circumstances collude to make somewhere feel barely discovered, even though you realise from the information board in the village square, that despite its apparent emptiness, you are still following some pre-determined and well defined tourist trail.

But that contradiction, the odd mix of modernity and decay, the ambiguous juxtaposition of high end Merc. convertibles parked a few  metres from a shepherd leading his clanging flock and a dark brown donkey down a cobbled road made our stay in the small Castilian village of Ampudia truly memorable. 

On the All the Aires map, number 95 is situated a score or so kilometres  west of the Vallidolid to Palencia Autovia. Crossing the broad Castillian plain on smaller roads the distance seems longer as you drive  through depopulated, crumbling villages of mud-stone. Distances are exaggerated by the endless sky and the white line of Cantabrian mountains that ring the northern horizon. Luckily we barely met  another vehicle, especially as the road from Torremormojón to Ampudia deteriorated into a potholed single track with deep ditches on either side.

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You see Ampudia's box-like castle long before you reach the village, then suddenly you are driving down a long main street of timber arcaded houses. The only place I have seen a similar style was in the Corbieres - in Mirapoix for example. The aire was well signed next to the village sports ground, the service point well made, but the tap was missing. As we waited while we drained Maisy's grey water we had a chat to a Hungarian couple who were heading home after over-wintering on the Algarve. A third van arrived, a small British camper van. Bob and Mel had driven all the way from Roquetas de Mar, over 500 miles. In one day they had covered territory which has taken us more than six weeks to meander through. They had a static caravan on the coast near Almeria and used the camper van for short trips and to scoot from their chalet in Bedfordshire to Spain, using the Santander ferry route.

We headed off to explore the castle and the village. The main donjon had been restored, but you could not visit it. The square keep was impressive in itself, but clearly from the ruined fragments of curtain wall and tumbled down towers,  the castle must have had a substantial bailey too. There were strange bee-hived shaped stone huts dotted about the place. They must have some former purpose - storage or some sort of kiln - it was difficult to tell. From the mound  the castle sits on you  get a an extensive view northwards toward the snowy mountains. It felt remote and peaceful - a sense of empty timelessness.

This was true of the village too. The ancient streets had been carefully restored, but not a soul stirred in them. It was like walking through an abandoned film set. Yet this was an illusion. One bar  advertised a club and discotheque. A row of Mercedes sports cars were parked outside. Yet a shepherd with his flock and donkey wandered past, a scene that could have been enacted at any time since the castle's heyday, except for the herdsman's Adidas track suit and day-glow trainers. The entire place had this double- edged quality; on the low hills to the east of  Ampudia a dozen or more wind-turbines spun slowly. Spain seems to embrace both modernity and the past with equal vigour, without any sense that they may be incompatible. I can't see huge windmills gracing the hill tops of the Cotswolds above Upper Slaughter!

Towards evening the setting sun illuminated a nearby hill. Briefly the garish green grass  resembled the opening titles of the Tellytubbies, thankfully Tinkywinky did not put in an appearance, and by the time I had found a camera the illusion had gone. I was left with a less surreal, but rather nice shot shot of a violet sky and the hill and trees in silhouette.

As I stood on my own outside the van watching the stars come out, it was difficult to comprehend that it was only yesterday that we stood in Salamanca Playa Mayor's watching its cafe life's convivial theatre of the absurd. We are heading home; I am going to miss this itinerant existence.

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