Chapter 2

The beginnings of the Douro

Ballad of the Infant Douro

We join the first stretches of the Douro. Between pine forests, beech groves and oak woods, villages appear along the riverbanks: Duruelo de la Sierra, Covaleda, Salduero, Vinuesa, La Muedra, Garray… A young Douro about which the poet Gerardo Diego asked himself:

How many years, months, days?
The Douro is only hours old
when it flows past Salduero.
There on high, Urbión glows.
Snow in May and in January.
It laughs and weeps, weeps and laughs.
How many drops does the Douro contain?

Gerardo Diego
Balada del Duero infante [Ballad of the infant Douro] (Fragment)
La Cotorra magazine, 1922.

Hans Praesent

Views of the course of the Douro River in the province of Soria

1913. Journey to Spain series, 1913

Hans Praesent

The course of the Douro, with Frentes Peak in the background

1913. Journey to Spain series, 1913

There are nearly 900 kilometres ahead still to come. Five provinces in Castile León, stretching across 572 kilometres (Soria, Burgos, Valladolid, Zamora and Salamanca), 112 kilometres of international border and over 200 in Portugal. The river is always there, a source of inspiration for poets and artists. For archaeologists too, who have come from far and wide, photographers too, such as the German Otto Wunderlich, who left to posterity a landscape at dusk, with felled tree trunks sprawled around in Covaleda.

Vinuesa, Duruelo de la Sierra and Covaleda are villages with a logging tradition because of the large amount of land given over to pine woods.

Otto Wunderlich

Covaleda, landscape at dusk

1928-1936

Wunderlich archive, IPCE, Culture & Sport Ministry.

Otto Wunderlich

Covaleda, landscape at dusk

1928-1936

Wunderlich archive, IPCE, Culture & Sport Ministry.

"Vinuesa, the village that makes a living from its pine woods"

Estampa, 20-09-1933

Gonzalo Miguel Ojeda (Photo-Club)

Bridge over the Douro River in Covaleda de la Sierra

1924

Burgos regional government archive

Douro notebook

The writer Julio Llamazares spent the night in Covaleda, together with the photographer Ángel Segura Valle, who he nicknamed Modoso. That was the name he used in his Cuaderno de Duero [Douro Notebook], about a trip he made in the spring of 1984 along the Douro as far as Peñafiel, in Valladolid. His notes are not just a sign of human beings’ need to write about what they see. They are travel notebooks … Sometimes, «books I won’t get around to writing», in the words of the author. They give an account of our surroundings and the people there. Of the landscape of the soul, as Unamuno said.

«The snow has disappeared from the rooftops of Covaleda, but water gushes out in huge spurts from the gutters. Water for the Douro. The sky is very cloudy, violent and black. In the background, the great mass of Urbión, completely covered in snow. Snow for the Douro. It is going to be impossible for several days to climb up to its source».

Julio Llamazares
Cuaderno del Duero [Douro Notebook]
1999. León. Edilesa Pub.

Amador Carrascosa

View of the Douro River. Soria

c. 1958

AHPSo 3426

The archaeologist Hans Praesent has left us as a reminder this photograph of Garray, the last village before reaching the city of Soria and the anteroom to the archaeological remains of a universal myth: Numancia.

Hans Praesent

View of Garray, with its bridge over the Douro River

2^nd October 1913. Journey to Spain series, 1913

A balloon over Numancia

Rioja de Pablo

Transporting the hot air balloon Príncipe de Asturias to the Numancia area

1910

AHPSo 14512

«Yesterday the hot air balloon Príncipe de Asturias was unable to fly over the ruins of Numancia, because of the strong prevailing wind». So begins the telegraph sent to the newspaper El Mundo on 21^st November 1910. «This morning —it continues— at half past eight, the chief engineer Sr. Ortiz went up in it to an altitude of 300 metres, taking three magnificent photographs, despite the wind».

The hot air balloon had to be tethered by soldiers to the banks of the Douro until the wind died down, when it could go up again. Soon afterwards, as reported in El Imparcial newspaper (23-11-1910), the gas filling the balloon was transferred to Urano, which floated free towards Zamora.

Thanks to the research conducted by the academic Adolfo Roldán Villén, we know that the balloons were yellow.

Isidro Fernández Fuertes

Portrait of José Ortiz Echagüe (right) with Emili Herrera Linares

La esfera, 21^st February 1914

Historical Press Virtual Library

Mr. Ortiz, the engineer, was none other than the pilot, photographer and master of Spanish pictorialism José Ortiz Echagüe. The aerial views he took were very useful for the work that the German historian and archaeologist, Adolf Schulten, had been doing on the site since 1905.

"Ballooning tests in Soria"

Blanco y Negro, 1910

«In order to excavate the site where the heroic Numancia once stood, Mr. Schulten has travelled from Guettingen University, Germany, together with another gentleman; this morning they left for Garray (the village located on the hill where Numancia used to be) to carry out the work needed. It is almost certain that the trip that H.M. King Alfonso will make on the 24^th or 25^th of this month will coincide with their stay. I will report on events by telegraph. — Correspondent reporter»

From Soria (From our private service).
“Excavaciones importantes. El viaje del rey [Important excavations. The King’s trip]”.
El Universo
17^th August 1905

A. Carrascosa

Adolf Schulten during the excavations in Numancia

Garray, Soria. 1910 c.

AHPSo 2359

Fernando Villar

Adolf Schulten in El Castillejo Roman camp with the family of Aurelio González de Gregorio, the man who inspired the Soria agrarian movement

Numancia, Garray, September 1906

AHPSo 3294 & 3296

Homage to the Numantine heroes

1905 was a decisive year for the future of Numancia and its commemoration. Not only because the archaeological site was set up (working between 1905-1912 and in 1927), but also because a monument was erected that even today withstands the passage of time. It is the obelisk in honour of the Numantine heroes, an eternal symbol of resistance against the invader. Alfonso XIII unveiled it. The names of the Numantine leaders Ambon, Leucon, Litennon, Megara and Retógenes engraved there will be remembered for ever

Monument erected to Numancia by His Excellency Benito Aceña, senator for Soria

La Ilustración española y americana, 15^th September 1905

Monument erected to Numancia

La Hormiga de oro, 4^th April 1905.

Hans Praesent

Numancia. Obelisk

1^st September 1913

Deutsche Fotothek

Hans Praesent

Felipe Lubias in the ruins of Numancia

21^st September 1913

Deutsche Fotothek

The Numantine Museum

At around the time that archaeological work began, the Numantine Museum was built. Juan Cabré, a well-known Spanish archaeologist, documented these events in photographs. His pictures, conserved in the Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute (IPCE in Spanish), have important historical value. The ceramics are illustrated with scenes from everyday life, reliefs, bronze buckles, warriors in combat… And enveloping everything, the wealth of the Douro River which at that time was navigable all the way from its basin and as far as Numancia.