Plunged under waters since the 1960s, the ruins of Mansilla de la Sierra's Spanish village, in about 270 kilometers in the North of Madrid, recently resurfaced further to a prolonged drought.
Historic and worrisome, the droughts which come down on the South of Europe for several months in particular in Spain, do not stop it worrying. While the heat and the lack of precipitation lowered the levels of the hydraulic reserves in a threshold which the country had not affected since almost 10 years, the phenomenon allowed all the same a remarkable discovery.
A former village resurfaced in one of the national reservoirs, placed in the North of Spain in the valley of La Rioja, which completely emptied of its waters. Premises so had the pleasure to see again, and to discover for some, the ruins of the municipality of Mansilla de la Sierra. A village which had exactly been abandoned six decades ago to give way to the famous reservoir.
When the past re-appears waters :
In 1959, the inhabitants of the municipality had been relocalisés in a constructed village nearby before the voluntary flood. Today, it is so the past which re-appeared and in spite of decades spent under the water, the rests of the municipality are still in a remarkable state of conservation.
So, the curious can devote from now on to a charming pedestrian walk through the ruins of the old city where we still perceive some constructions of house windows of which remained almost intact. We can also observe there trees petrified as well as decks which held in spite of the conditions.
It is not the first time when the village resurfaces since its disappearance six decades ago. Really, ruins are even regularly perceived at the approach of the end of the summer. But this year, because of the marked drought, Mansilla de la Sierra appeared totally and in a very premature way.