La Alberca - Home of the wandering pig

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Whilst I was in Spain participating in the Pueblo Ingles program (see past blog) we were given the opportunity to have an excursion to the nearby medieval village of La Alberca.

La Alberca was the first village in Spain to be declared a National heritage site, and thanks to this it has retained a very timeless feel. After a hot walk to the village the cool cobbled streets bordered by traditional beamed houses were a welcome relief. The roads are very narrow with no traffic which instantly transports you back to past centuries.

Despite its main income being through tourism, or perhaps because of this, the village still has many traditional shops such as a wood carvers, black smith’s, bakeries and several jamon shops. There are also a few restaurants along with souvenir shops, many selling Universidad Salamanca jumpers (not quite so traditional). There were also some market stalls selling traditional Spanish sweets like turron and roasted almonds.

As a group we explored the village looking for a series of places in which we had to take photos to complete our group challenge competition, hence we never spent longer than about 20 seconds in each place. This didn’t limit our appreciation of the village however as the village is so small that we often passed the same place on more than one occasion and we had a chance to explore at our own pace later on.

One of the things we were promised extra points for finding was a pig which has free roam of the village. We did eventually find it eating a pile of not too appetising looking orange mulch in the main plaza, yum. Quite who the pig belongs to I do not know.

I took the opportunity of being in the village to practise my Spanish, instead succeeding in leaving some very confused Spaniards in my wake. Whilst trying to ask an innocent old lady if she happened to know anyone who had fought a bull in the main square (part of our list), I first forgot the word for fight so proceeded to do an, in hindsight quite comical, mime/dance of someone fighting. I then managed to say ‘torre’ instead of ‘torro’. Hence producing something along the lines of “You know a man that (mine/dance) a tower in the square?” after which she abruptly walked away from the crazy English girl. Quite rightly so.

My second attempt of the day was almost equally unsuccessful. After asking (quite well in my opinion) how much the postcards cost, the shopkeeper pointed at some rather unattractive dresses thinking that I wanted one of them. Oh well, I’ll keep trying.

Whilst the rest of the village took a siesta we started the twenty minute walk back to our hotel in the full heat of the sun, stopping briefly to have our bags search in case of alcohol smuggling. The walk passes through some very plesent scenery as the village is surrounded by four mountain ranges: The Sierra de Kilama, the Sierra de Francia, the Sierra de Bejar and La Peña de Francia. Whilst walking we compared our souvenirs. I’d brought some turron, postcards (once I’d established that no, I did not want a dress that my great grandmother would wear), a terracotta piggy bank to remind me of the wandering pig, and finally, yes, I brought a jumper.

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