Castillo de Buen Amor 10-12 May 2023
dear travel diary
Getting here took longer than anticipated. The first part was very pleasant. We were served a delicious breakfast on the train to Madrid as it sped through the countryside at 260KPH. Then we had to cross Madrid by metro to get our next train north to Valladolid. There we picked up a hire car. When I booked there were no automatic cars available so I had to settle for a manual. Inexplicably the car we were given was an automatic much to our relief as I did enough stalling in the car in Italy. It's a little mini cooper which is tricked out with all sorts of electronic gizmos, none of which I understand. I still haven't quite worked out the signal indicators.
The Spanish roads are a lot wider and better surfaced than in Italy and the drivers less suicidal. We started off on a motorway, moved to a secondary road, then to a little country road and finally to a very bumpy road which led to the castle. It took an hour and a half to get here and Gill was beginning to despair that we would ever find our destination. The road ended abruptly with a huge gate barring our path and I had to press a bell in the wall to gain admittance. The gate was eerily opened by an unseen hand and we drove up a long tree lined drive to the castle itself.
We tried not to look too seriously impressed as we were shown to our room which has its very own roof top access to one of the towers. It's the tower at the front on the right and we have table chairs and sunbeds to enjoy our little private medieval tower. I've put a short video of our tower top retreat below.
We have had a long day so I will write more tomorrow
Fit for a bishop's mistress
The castle where we are staying is not actually called the Castillo de Buen Amour but the definitely more prosaic Castillo de Villanueva de Canedo. Although dating back to the 11th Century the current name references its role in the 15th Century as the love nest of the Bishop of Avila, Alonso Ulloa de Fonseca Quijada. I was less surprised that the bishop had a mistress than by the fact he had the funds to purchase such an extravagant residence for his lover, Dona Teresa de las Cuevas. I have failed to unearth any history of these two love birds but will continue digging.
I'm quite surprised that the internet hasn't got a lot more information on the amorous bishop. Any senior cleric who has the nerve to purchase a huge castle so he can "liaise' with his mistress has got to have an interesting story to tell.
Apparently he purchased the castle so that his mistress and the resulting four children would not be the cause of gossip and scandal as he went about his bishopy duties in Avila.
I was curious to find out where the Bishop lived in Avila and, blow me down, it turns out that Episcopal Palace was turned into a hotel where we stayed when we visited Spain in 2019.What are the chances?
Alonso de Fonseca y Ulloa
our accommodation
