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  • Day 13

    Hill fort

    September 18, 2021 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    This is my fourth time on the Primitivo. Every time I have wanted to visit the Bronze Age hill fort about 5 km beyond the typical stopping point. So this year since I’m sleeping only in private rooms, I saw my chance! There’s a little casa rural right there near the excavations! So I made my reservations, walked on through Grandas, and got to Castro only to learn that the hill fort is closed for renovations!!!

    Oh well, the museum was open and it was great. Showing how the hill fort went from Bronze Age to Iron Age to Roman. That seems like such an abrupt change that is hard to get your head around. But this Castro was “Romanized” and has a small villa.

    When I left the museum, I saw an “elderly woman” (aka someone about my age) who was sitting out on a bench. We started to talk, and she told me that she was the owner of the land where the Castro was discovered. She was growing wheat on the land and one day her brother found a spoon there. An ancient spoon it turned out. From there about a half hour of stories about how the archaeologists worked on her land and they eventually sold it in the early 1990s for 2,000,000 pesetas. I love these encounters, ending with the señora telling me that life is a gift and it’s short. Don’t we know it.
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