Note 47 — II TRAVELLING IN SPAIN

Some of the secondary roads of Andalucía are excellent, and motorable, though narrow. But between the roads of most provinces there is little to choose. No wonder that there is in Spain a saint invoked as the protector of “way-farers and the dying.” Ford remarked that while the rest of Spain calls the Milky Way “the road to Santiago,” the Gallegans themselves know better, and call it “the road to Jerusalem.” The roads from small towns to their stations, at charge of the municipios, are notably bad, and amaze the newly arrived foreigner. But, indeed, the roads in the immediate neighbourhood of such important industrial cities as Valencia and Barcelona are often in a deplorable state, and it is no infrequent sight to see carts of fruit or vegetables stuck fast in deep ruts of mud.