Last August, crossing the extensive fields of Gómara, full of brokenness, history, tradition and hungry not only for water, but also for tourism that generally passes by towards the lands of Aragon and the legendary peaks of the haunted Moncayo, I decided to cut my way, towards Soria capital, turning towards Almenar and Peroniel del Campo, being aware that I was stepping on the land of pilgrims, where many centuries before, even the Castilian Ballads placed part of a legend, that of the Seven Infants of Lara , which together with the Odyssey, by Homer, made me shudder with pleasure, when I was just a child.

But it was not the legend of the Seven Infants of Lara, nor that other one, that of the Virgen de la Llana and the miracle of the captive of Peroniel, which motivated, at first, my decision to return to Almenar, years after certain friends, including the then mayor of Peroniel, had not only made me invaluable guides when I walked alone what could well be considered 'the mysterious paths of magical Soria', but also a name, Leonor, eternally associated with to the figure of one of my most esteemed poets: Antonio Machado.

Coincidence or not, the truth is that he had obtained a reservation at the Hotel Leonor de Soria, which, until relatively modern times, had been the official Parador of the capital, until the construction of a more modern building, at the top of the mountain range whose bed has been laboriously carving the melancholic river Duero over the centuries and to which it was given the name, how could it be otherwise, of Parador Nacional Antonio Machado, a detail that does not fail to remind me of the laconic phrase that appears on the tombstone of her grave, located in the cemetery that is attached to the Gothic church of the Virgen del Espino: 'To Leonor, Antonio'.

Leonor, to give you an idea, was the first wife of the poet Antonio Machado, who, of course, was highly criticized at the time -we are talking about the beginning of the 20th century, so you can already guess how strict they were in this matter. of relationships- because he married a still pubescent Leonor, who had barely turned sixteen, whom he met when he joined the Institute that today also bears his name as a teacher, while he was staying with the parents of an Leonor, who to be exact, had been born here, in Almenar.

Do you see this beautiful landscape, which immediately brings to mind evocations of the mythical archetypes that haunted the mind of Vincent Van Gogh, in which, too, these same sunflowers appeared that later became the stars of his starry night?

Take a look at the medieval structure, which in the form of a castle or fortress sulkily survives the passing of the centuries and watches like a hawk, not only over the badly wounded fields of the land of Gómara, but over a town, Almenar, which although it sees Throughout his restless youth, he still proudly preserves his original medieval banners that he crosses every spring, back in the flowery May, with the banners of Peroniel del Campo, in a beautiful ceremony called 'Twinning'.

Well, in this castle, nowadays private property and closed to any foreign gaze, Leonor Álvarez was born, the first and much-loved wife of the poet Antonio Machado, who died in the prime of life and to whom he, among someone else dedicated, with all the sadness of his aching heart, one of his most painful poems: the one entitled 'To a wounded elm tree'.

Along with the castle and the memory of its most illustrious neighbour, the highlight of Almenar -even more than the church itself, a hybrid of styles that cannot really be described- is the imposing baroque hermitage dedicated to the figure of the Virgin of the Llana, whose image, enthroned, although in the Gothic style, is highly venerated, both by the residents and by the pilgrims who stop here to take, as a souvenir and protection, a splinter from the famous chest in which she freed a neighbor from Peroniel who had been captured by the Muslims and who was kept chained and locked in the chest night and day.

Land, therefore, also of flowery and distant legends of those bloody episodes that took place in these places in a Middle Age of conquests and reconquests, Almenar, like many other surrounding towns, looks with a certain nostalgia to the past, without losing sight of a present, in which the lack of opportunities pushes its youth towards the most torrid paths: those of life.

Even so, it still retains a good part of its ancestral essence, as can be seen in a rural architecture that combines the old with the modern, in an attempt not to miss the train of times, which seem to fly rather than run.

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Some medieval coats of arms of Almenar