Hello Pinmapple friends!
Here again another visit to another town in the north of Spain, again in the Cantabria region and again a beautiful town, the last one. It's not just me saying it, but Liérganes, that is its nice name, appears on the official list of beautiful towns in Spain named lospueblosmasbonitosdeespana.org, so it's fully recommended like others we have already seen and shared here on Hive: ("Stones and horses in Santillana del Mar").
Liérganes
Now we visit a special town, as well as beautiful. A charming and unique town, because in addition to a relaxed and rustic atmosphere accompanied by the Miera river that crosses it, something that I did not expect to find is born there, a legend.
We started at the beginning, upon arrival simply, calm, hardly any people and hardly any noise, almost at the first steps a slight murmur of a peaceful water channel that crossed our path and a lot of green around. The discovery tour already promised to be pleasant.
A lot of green in which the typical country houses of the area stand out, the so-called "casonas", a style that begins to be familiar after seeing so many in the different places visited. Large stone houses, with thick walls, with glass windows and large wooden balconies, which proudly display a multitude of plants and flowers, giving color and life to the sober walls, in an apparently sober place. But some also show off their stately and prestigious past with their heraldic shields carved on the wall.
Other houses have been converted into cute shops or restaurants to welcome the large number of visitors that hang around these cobbled streets during the summer, they say, because in December I saw hardly anyone. But certain Christmas decorations, such as a large tree in what must be the town square. And in the distance, a small cute dog looked at us curiously, turning at each step, as if he wanted company, as if he wanted us to follow him...
We continue walking around the streets, sometimes feeling like we are in a ghost town flooded with so much silence, only the sound of the water breaks the monotony of our steps to take us to the heart of this serene and somewhat bucolic place. To the Miera river that crosses the town, and there the legend begins.
The Legend of the Fish Man
Legend has it that in the 17th century a local man named Francisco de la Vega, swimming with some friends in the river, disappeared, nobody ever found him and they left him for dead. After five years, on the other side of the country, in the south of Spain, in the city of Cádiz, some fishermen found a man with strange features, he had scales on his body. They decided to take him to a convent where the friars cured him (and exorcised) but he only said one word: “Liérganes”.
So they investigated and they answered from the town that a man disappeared there years ago. Then a friar accompanied him again, and when family and friends arrived they immediately recognized him, although he was not like before because he barely spoke, he only said a few words. And though he was a quiet man he didn't seem to adjust, until one day he disappeared again as if he returned to his loved waters.
How is it possible that he came from the north across the river, much of the Atlantic Ocean to the south and reached that other distant coast?
That is the legend of the Fish-Man ("Hombre Pez") (more information, for example, on Wikipedia), which can be read on the information panels of a small stone house, which seems to have been a mill the old fashioned way.
Legend or myth, we will never know what happened, although many scientific explanations have been given over the years, such as that he crossed the country by land, or that those scales and marks were due to a non common disease, etc.
In any case, it remains that way, like a legend, of a place that disappears in his beloved waters and is now still there, turned into a statue of him that looks out over the Miera river, there we can sit with it and enjoy the views of the Roman bridge, of a small channel hidden among the dry leaves that we are stepping on, of the leafy nature and the sound of running water as he surely did.
And while the river water moves, we also move through other streets, aimlessly, admiring the stately homes and mansions, even others that suddenly attract attention with their colors and palm trees, as if taken from another environment.
While we keep thinking still about that story, which has a real place and that place is one of the beautiful towns called Liérganes.
This is the last travel post about my recent trip to the north of Spain, to the capital of the region Santander, and also some nice towns around like this one.
Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful and legendary day!
The text is totally mine by ©Duvinca and the photos are mine too