I had been travelling around Northern Spain and my next stop was Ponferrada , a city I knew nothing about except that a major river called the Sil ran through the city. I was interested in seeing this river as 50 miles to the East is a scenic area called the Canyon del Sil. North of this high canyon is a region of forest and countryside that I have read is full of abandoned villages . That morning I took the train from León . As I left León the countryside changed from open arable fields to dry sandy coloured hills /small mountains scattered with Pine and other trees. It became more densely wooded approaching Ponferrada and as we arrived at the town we crossed a bridge over a deep wooded river valley, almost a canyon, with the town on one side . I happily realised that this was going to be quite a scenic area.
I got off the train and set off on what was going to be a fairly long walk through the city to the hostel I had booked.
I walked from the station along a road that was pleasantly lined with Lime trees. Then I had to turn left and go through a tunnel under the railway line. I was now in the city proper and followed my map along the roads in the direction of the River Sil. The city roads in Ponferrada were lined on either side with buildings averaging 5 to 10 stories high, mostly apartments above with shops on the ground floor ... this is typical of city roads in Spain. I came to a busy roundabout called Plaza Luis del Olmo which has a fantastic, round, multiple-jetted fountain in the centre. I wondered why many cities in Spain can afford to have so many lovely fountains, most of which actually work ... quite a contrast to most cities in Britain . Our fountains, if we have any, are usually not functional and full of litter with the exception maybe of the ones in the tourist areas of central London .
Luis del Olmo , whom the plaza was named after, was born on January 31, 1937 in Ponferrada. He is an actor, known for Tres Días de Libertad (1996), Los Embarazados (1982) and Las Siete y Media musical (1973). He's a prestigious Spanish journalist who has worked mainly in the radio. His program "Protagonistas" was broadcast for more than 30 years.
I crossed the roundabout and continued along the Avenida el Castillo until I came to the river Sil.
My plan was to follow the riverside walk upstream to the next bridge where I would have to cross over the bridge to get to the area of city where my hostel was.
The riverside walk had trees and shrubs on either side of the path and down below to my right was the River Sil . The distance from the source of the Sil, as the crow flies, to Ponferrada is 40 miles but that doesn't take into account all the meanders. The Sil is already quite wide and deep here, even though it's waters have many miles yet to travel before they reach the confluence with the river Minho near Ourense.
On an elevated plateau of rock on the opposite bank of the river, above the stands of mature trees I could now see the Castle of Ponferrada, the Castillo de los Templarios. It is certainly a decent size castle, I took measurements using Google earth, the maximum length of the castle is 180 metres and the maximum width is 90 metres .
The Templar Castle was commissioned by King Ferdinand II in 1178 AD. It was built to protect pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago. The castle was named after the famous Knights Templar, who defended the town in the 12th century. The Knights Templar were highly skilled warriors and played a significant role in the Crusades.
I walked upstream along the riverside path , the river to my right was very clear and although quite deep I could see the bottom. It contained plenty of aquatic vegetation , streamer weeds etc. and I guessed the water quality is quite good as it mainly passes down through wooded mountain valleys, with few industrial areas.
I came to the bridge that Ponferrada is named after .. the Puente Cubelos ( Pons Ferrata ). Pons Ferrata means Iron bridge . It is a 19th century stone bridge built in the place where there was once a medieval bridge that was strengthened with iron. This bridge is on the Camino Santiago route and for hundreds of years many thousands of pilgrims have crossed the river here on their way to Santiago de Compostela to the west.
This is the bridge I had to cross to get to the area of city where my hostel was located. I had to climb quite a large flight of stone steps to get onto the high bridge . As I crossed the bridge I stopped halfway across and took in the great scenery , the castle up on my left , the dark deep river below and the main city to my right. Down in the river I spotted a large trout of about 3lb swimming against the current near the surface.
Next I spent a considerably long time finding my hostel in the maze of streets near the castle. I didn't have any internet so couldn't use Google maps. In the end I went in a bar and the bar lady used her phone and showed me where to go. I thanked her and said I'd be back for a beer later that evening.
My hostel , Albergue el Templarin , was good value just £12 for a bed in a dormitory, this hostel mainly caters for pilgrims. The receptionist, a young lady was very friendly and helpful . I put my rucksack in the locker provided and, keeping my promise, headed back to the bar I visited earlier to relax and watch the Euros football semifinal ...Spain v France . final score 2-1 to Spain . They would be playing England in the final .
Above : Albergue El Templarin, the Hostel I stayed at in Ponferrada.
After studying the maps I was very keen to visit the very large, raindrop-shaped reservoir just north-east of Ponferrada called the Embalse de Bárcena. That evening whilst watching the football I also researched online what the best way would be to get to the reservoir. I would need to get a bus to the village of Cubillos del Sil, which is located just about a kilometer from the reservoir. The bus leaves twice a day from Ponferrada bus station.
The main, oval section of the Embalse de Bárcena measures 3 miles in length and 1.3 miles wide . However there is a long narrow offshoot to the north that's approx a further 3 miles long.
The Barcena dam, located on the river Sil upstream from Ponferrada , was built in 1960 , and holds 341 Hm3 of water.
Next morning I set off for the main bus station which was a fair distance from my hostal. In the end I caught a local town bus to the bus station to save a long walk.
I had quite a bit of time to spare when I got to the bus station so I walked a couple of blocks further to the large shopping mall.. the Centro Comercial El Rosal. I was having problems with my phone, the data wasn't working . I went into the Vodafone shop there and the chap got it working.
My bus left Ponferrada at 14.30 and only took about half an hour to get to Cubillos del Sil. I asked to be dropped off as near to the reservoir as possible, so the bus driver dropped me just before Cubillos and showed me which way to walk. It was a bonus having my phones data working at last, as I was able to use google maps to find my way around.
To get to the Embalse I had to follow a long, quite straight road . Houses were along one side of the road and on the other side was a fenced- off area of trees and grassland , in the distance was an enormous industrial area with large buildings and two very tall chimneys .
This is the Compostilla thermal power plant. This power station opened in 1961 or 1972 ( varying sources) and subsequently expanded until 1985. It had fairly recently closed, in June 2020, when its capacity was just over 1,000 MW (Megawatts). The huge complex occupies a total area of about 375 hectares. The plant has five thermal units: units 1 and 2 have been completely dismantled, while work is underway on the others.
Owned and operated by Spain’s biggest electric utility company Endesa. It was developed with 1.3GW installed capacity comprising five coal-fired units commissioned between 1961 and 1985.
Also close to the road I noticed a storks nest high up on a pole just visible amongst the trees. I walked along the straight road past spaced out houses on the left . It was another very hot day. I came to a roundabout and all around me was dry scrubby countryside . I could hear Spanish trance music being played from someone's garden. In the distance all around were big mountains. I felt I was in the middle of nowhere, In a place I knew nothing about , it was a weird yet good feeling.
I continued straight across the roundabout and before long the reservoir came into view . The road came to a very large gravel car park . I could see this spot is a popular picnic area at the weekends , however there was only two cars this particular week day. To the left and right of the carpark were two areas of mature pine woodland . The woodland on the left was much larger and followed along the lake shore quite some distance.The high hills next to the lake were also covered in large areas of pine forest.
I walked through the pine woods on my right till I got to the lake shore. As is my usual custom I walked along the shore and scanned the water for signs of fish. The reservoir was extremely high ... probably at it's maximum height with water spilling over onto the grass . I came to a small area of reeds and pondweed in middle of such I saw the dorsal fin and back of a small mirror carp maybe only 1 or 2 lb. It was feeding head down into the mud. Further along was a small shoul , five or six , young largemouth bass.
I headed back under the pine trees to sit on a picnic bench and chill for a while. These were mature pine trees probably 65 years old , tall with a minimum trunk girth of two feet. The bark was deeply fissured. The species was probably Pinus pinaster, the Maritime pine, common in northern Spain .
I continued along the lakeside a couple of hundred metres till I came to a square concrete building covered in graffiti which I think was the pumping house to pump water into the power station for cooling.
From here was a good view of the power station. I then walked back along an access road in the direction I came from . Pine forest was on both sides of the road. I noticed a round concrete water-storage tank high up on a bank in the woods . Upon examination it was empty. I thought to myself it would make a good little dwelling if a tarp roof was put over it . Anyone living there would be safe from wild boar etc., protected by the concrete walls.
When I got to the end of the access road I noticed, in a field of long grass , an abandoned bungalow . There are many abandoned buildings in rural Spain in the 20th century many people moved to towns and cities when it became a legal requirement for children to go to school.
I went and had a close up look at the house which was locked and had been recently given new doors and boarded up to improve the appearance. It was empty inside. I then noticed another similar abandoned house set way back in the same field. I went and looked at that house , it was less secured and youth had been in and drawn graffiti all over the walls.
After looking at the ababndoned houses I thought it might be interesting to look at an abandoned train station nearby . I found two train hangars and had a snoop around them .. I decided they might be useful if I ever needed a place to sleep rough.
I next started to walk past the roundabout mentioned previously into the actual village of Cubillos del Sil .
I came to some traditional old Leonese buildings on the outside of the village ... see photos below.
The roofing tiles are particularly interesting as they are made of slates in different shapes and sizes. But also the stone walls are an assortment of different coloured and different shaped stones , some are round river stones, probably taken from alluvial soils near the river Sil, others are more angular , maybe quarried from the nearby mountains.
I sat down on a bench near the old houses and a local old timer came around the corner and we started chatting in Spanish. He's lived here all his life and used to work in the power station.
My bus was due to arrive in the village at a certain time that evening , I had a beer in one of the bars then waited at the bus stop in the village for my bus. After maybe an hour of waiting it became clear that the bus wasn't going to turn up . This was probably due to the fact that, unbeknownst to me, the approach road was closed due to there being a big show on in the village later that night , the bus had probably been diverted an alternative route that I was unaware of.
So now I was stuck for the night in Cubillos del Sil , a fairly remote village, I was on a budget and didn't want to pay for a taxi back to Ponferrada. I went back into the bar and asked the landlord whether it was safe to walk back to Ponferrada alongside the lake and river Sil, he said it would be dangerous in the dark mainly due to jabali ( wild boar) roaming the wooded area I would be walking through, it was also a long walk .
I decided that if I couldn't think of any alternative by the end of the evening then i would stay in the train hangars I had looked at earlier.
Meanwhile I thought I might as well go and look at the show which was now underway in a big grassy area in the middle of the village.
There was a large stage with lots of lighting and maybe 20 singers /dancers covering well known songs of the last three decades, some in Spanish some in English .
The village green started filling up with many locals as the night progressed with especially lots of teenagers , I expect quite a lot of the people came from Ponferrada nearby. There were market stalls around the green selling, sweets, burgers etc I bought myself a jumbo hot dog
The performers were in colourful modern costumes and danced and sang well, getting the audience to participate.
I stayed watching the show till around midnight then made my way out of the village to the abandoned train hangars. Thankfully I had my head torch with me. There was a piece of ply wood near the back of one of the hangers and a blanket caked in areas with dry mud. It looked liked someone else had slept here quite a while ago.
I was a bit nervous / over-paranoid about wild animals coming into the hangars ( wild boar, rats etc.) whilst I sleeping. There were lots of small bits of railway sleeper scattered through the hangar so I collected them and lit a small fire near where I was going to sleep. I then settled down onto the plywood, using the blanket as a mattress and my coat as a blanket. I drifted off to sleep for a while then woke after some time and added wood the fire. Then I went back to sleep for the rest of the night.
I woke at about 6 or 7 am after not a bad night's sleep, considering. The birds were singing and it was a lovely morning in the Spanish countryside. I went for a walk and found more abandoned station buildings including the main train station. If I were to follow the paths of the old tracks towards the mountains I would come to a series of tunnels which emerge out at intervals alongside the reservoir. Hopefully I will visit again ( next time maybe with fishing gear) and will explore these tunnels and the forest around them , and also do a bit of fishing for trout, carp and bass.
The bus turned up in the morning and I got back to my hostel in Ponferrada . The girl who works there was wondering where I had gone for the night being as I had booked for the hostel. I told her what happened and she looked surprised and a bit sorry for me . Recently I was looking at my booking history on booking.com and noticed that they never charged me for the night I got stuck in Cubillos, so wow thanks to that hostel I'll definitely come back there God willing. Later that day I got a coach west to Oviedo in Galicia and that may appear in another chapter or a different book.
So ends my adventure to Ponferrada, Cubillos del Sil and the Barcena reservoir. As I already said I hope to visit this region again soon and hopefully do some trout fishing. There's a chap on YouTube who's channel is called "Old School Hisma" who fishes in the rivers and lakes of this region, some of these rivers are beautiful set in deep wooded canyons , and full of trout , inspiring me to come back.
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