Note 333 — Chapter XXIV

Bembibre lies on the southern confines of the district of El Vierzo, one of the most interesting and least explored parts of the Peninsula, the Switzerland of Leon, a district of Alpine passes, trout streams, pleasant meadows, and groves of chestnuts and walnuts. Bembibre, pop. 500, lies with its old castle on the trout-streams Noceda and Boeza, amid green meadows, gardens, and vineyards, whose wines were far more fatal to Moore’s soldiers than the French sabres. So much for Bembibre—bene bibere. Ponferrada (Interamnium Flavium), which is not entered, rises to the left on the confluence of the Sil and Boeza. The bridge (Pons-ferrata) was built in the eleventh century, for the passage of pilgrims to Compostella, who took the direct route along the Sil by Val de Orras and Orense. The town afterwards belonged to the Templars, and was protected by the miraculous image of the Virgin, which was found in an oak, and hence is called Nuestra Señora de la Encina; it is still the Patroness of the Vierzo (Murray’s Handbook of Spain, 1st edit. p. 595).