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A friend and I day-tripped to Ponferrada last weekend. It’s over the border from Galicia in Castilla y Leon, but only around a 2-hour train ride from Ourense.
The small city itself is along the most popular Camino de Santiago route, the French Route, and when we were there, I was surprised by the numbers of pilgrims. When I say ‘pilgrims’, you might imagine dirty people dressed in rags and leathery, almost-disintegrated shoes, but today’s pilgrims tend to be a cleaner-looking set, generally white, middle-aged people with traveling backpacks and walking sticks. Ponferrada seems to be heavily-reliant on the pilgrim-tourist trade, but not overly so. What was concerning is that we encountered more locals who seemed to be down-and-out.
Ponferrada’s main attraction is a castle built by the Knights Templar. I’m still not entirely clear on who they were, but when the castle was built, it was to serve as a station from which they could protect pilgrims. We paid 6 euros each to get in, and it was worth it. Most of it has been restored really well. Right now, they also have copies (facsimiles) of old books on display, and man were they
beautiful. There was a guy with great English working in the castle library who we chatted with for a bit as well. If you happen to be in Ponferrada, I’d definitely check out the castle.
After the castle, we had lunch in a plaza in the old city, which has been renovated. It’s very clean and new-looking, and so different from Galician style. Overall, it was nice, but I felt that the modernity took away some of its character. The areas outside the old city had a wide variety of architectural styles, some of which we declared the ugliest buildings in Spain. The whole city in general had a similar vibe to Astorga and Leon, a nearby Leonese town and city, respectively. More buildings were built with bricks or painted in pastels than in Galicia. All three have mostly flat streets with only a few curvy, hilly alleys. If I had to choose my favorite of the three, Leon, hands-down.
We had some other possible side-trips set up as ideas, but lacking good transportation and being unsure about the weather (was it going to rain or not?), we just stayed in Ponferrada. The nearby
area of Las Medulas is still on my list. It’s this area that the Romans gold-mined by essentially destroying the mountainsides, which exposed the orange dirt underneath. It’s really striking as a landscape and to learn about how they did it. But . . . the best way to get there is with a car. There is a bus that goes between Ponferrada and Carucedo, which is 3 km from the park, but there are no buses on Sundays, and only one on Saturdays at 2pm.
Another option was to do the Camino over to the cute village of Molinaseca and taxi back. It’s about 8 km away, and it would be a cool way to get a taste of the Camino. After visiting the tourist office to get their expert advice on the day trips, we decided just to stick around Ponferrada a couple more hours until our train back.
Taking advantage of the lack of rain, we walked along a river path. It was alright, but not as nice as Ourense’s multiple scenic paths. We came across a couple of horses randomly roped right next to the trail, and thought it was
strange, but as we walked further from the city center, we found that we were next to a Roma (Gypsy/Gitano) neighborhood. Actually, earlier in the week I had also stumbled across one in Ourense, and both times I was struck by the seeming poverty. The houses are constructed of found materials, and the roads are just dirt. I don’t know if there is electricity or not. Apparently they don’t own the land, so the city governments consider them to be squatting illegally. I don’t have a lot of information about Romas in Spain, but from what I’ve seen up here in the northwest and in Andalucia, they continue to be excluded from ‘Spanish’ society.
We also went to the train museum. It was a train museum (I’m assuming you get the point). Ponferrada, like nearby Monforte de Lemos, was a train hub, and especially important in the transport and production of coal. There is a video from the ‘60s (?) playing inside one of the cars which shows the coal-production/train transport process, and it was just riveting (the music helped).
Overall, I’d give Ponferrada a half-day, with a couple of hours at the castle
and a stroll around the old city. Don’t expect to see the iron bridge for which the city was named a long time ago—it no longer exists. With a car, I would definitely check out Las Medulas as well. Then move on to Leon, Oviedo, or Ourense!
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Bob Carlsen
Thanks for the information about Ponferrada...
as I will be walking through it, and spending the night there, on my pilgrimage in September. I will definitely visit the Templar Castle.