Palm Sunday in Spain

Palm Sunday in Spain
Sunday March 29, 2015

We awoke early this morning to see if we could get a glimpse of the Spanish getting together for Palm Sunday in Spain.  This town of only a couple hundred residents, had already swollen just for the Palm Sunday.  Our hosts Nadine and Oscar said that most people have the entire week off from work between Palm Sunday and Easter, so they come to the village to relax.  There were certainly more cars in the area, but even on an early Sunday morning, it appeared like it was almost deserted.  As the day warmed up and the sun took hold, the streets started to become more alive.

View from Haro lookout

Cathy and I went for a short drive into Haro to see what was going on there.  It too appeared more deserted at 8:00 AM than we could have imagined.  We went up to the Church area, and saw a few people strolling to mass dressed in their Sunday best, but it was just a handful.  We circled the city looking for a place to park and walk, but nothing was really speaking to us as a place to walk.  The sun and clouds were in a struggle for dominance, with the clouds winning out so far.

We remembered a small town on the way into Haro where there was a marketplace setting up off to the side.  We made our way back there and then struck out on a hike around that town to see if we could find some treasures.

View of Sajazarra from vineyards

Even in this small town you would see references to the influence of the wine industry.  There were a few statues that were around town that were bunches of grapes that were of stone or concrete.  In the children's playground there was a huge wooden wine presses that would mark the Wine Route of the region.  There were also a couple of the men out cleaning their tractors and taking them down the small streets to the village's edge to start tilling the land.  The snow this past week probably put them off working anything in the fields.  In fact, on closer inspection of the fields, there were some people working the vines and pruning them back before the end of the month when it should be completed for the Spring.  It wasn't an official reason, but we were told it was kind of an unwritten rule.  Think of wearing white after Labor Day.

We stumbled on the Sunday fair that was still being pieced together.  There were whole families of what appeared to be travelling market people, or Rona families.  We really didn't see anything that interested us as the market was geared to clothes and children's articles.  We did see a small store open that we inspected to see if they had tape for our 18 bottles of wine we were going to pack for our return.  The woman didn't have any in her store, but she did run out after us as and gave us a roll of tape that she found in one of their drawers.  She wouldn't accept any money for it because it was already partially used.  These acts of random kindness were just really impressive.

View of Cellorigo from Hermitage of Santa Maria

We made our way back out to Sajazarra to enjoy the day - we would pack at our leisure and use up the rest of the food that we had purchased and leave a few non-perishables behind for the next guests and a bottle of wine for our hosts.  We saw the church and people going there with their fronds for Palm Sunday, and then they made their way back out of the church and around the corner to the Asador Ochavo for a large family lunch.  We hiked out into the vineyards and up to the lookout spot where the 13th Century Hermitage of Santa Maria de Cillas sits as an outpost for the town between the mountains and the village.

Hotel Villa de Abalos
Tapas on Palm Sunday

Sundays there were Tapas at Hotel Villa de Abalos (www.hotelvilladeabalos.com), so we went back over to enjoy them.  Plam Sunday had them busy with people exiting church and stopping by for Tapas before they headed back to their own family feasts.  Jose Luis and his wife Merche and their daughter were there working the Wine Bar and we enjoyed several of their fresh fish tapas.  While you may think that their tapas would be too fishy, the Spanish fish isn't as bold as what we tend to have here in the States.  Certainly, the sardines are not as salty as what we are used to having and the anchovies are much better in our opinion.  The tortilla was always great and the new favorite that we had was the brie with walnuts and avocados on a toasted baguette.  There was also an aoili sauce that held it all together and in place.  Tapas were less than a couple of bucks each, and they could be shared.  We of course had the Tempora delight, which was the tempora Shirmp on top of a tempora Calamari, on top of a tempora tuna stuffed tempora egg on a toasted baguette with a wooden skewer to hold it together.

We wound up our night with loading directions and preparing for our departure.  We drank our last bottle of wine from Riberio de Sacra and enjoyed a tuna and tomato salad with eggs.

Tomorrow we head to Madrid, and the weather couldn't be better.