Guadalajara

Something very funny happens in Spain. With an area of some 500000 Km2 and a population of roughly 46 million, Spain has a population density of 92/Km2. Yet there's a big patch almost in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula that has the lowest population density in Europe, 1.63/Km2. That's even less than the population density of Lapland or Siberia. In fact, this area that comprises the north of Castilla-La Mancha and much of Aragón is now known in the Spanish media as the Spanish Siberia. Once a lively region, now many villages are dying out, as people have been leaving the Spanish countryside looking for a better life in the cities since the 1960s.

Milmarcos, on the province of Guadalajara and just over the border with Zaragoza, is one of those villages who saw the people leave and masse and never return. Its population once reached 5000 inhabitants and now it doesn't outnumber the fingers in both hands. Things improve in the summer, when people come over for the holidays and the local religious celebrations. I spent many a summer there during my childhood, as my family on my father's side comes from that tiny village.

I last went to Milmarcos nearly seven years ago and not much had changed. Everything was just as I remember and the only novelty in the village was a bus stop that had been placed on the back of the main church. Apparently, a bus passes by every morning and afternoon, Monday to Friday during the school months to pick up the only children of the village and drive him to a bigger village where there is still a school.Read more