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Times
5 days ago
- Times
Spain's least touristy town has a new stay — go before everyone else
Not all of Spain is sizzling in a heatwave. My high-summer visit to the small town of Molina de Aragon, between Madrid and Zaragoza in the province of Guadalajara, is positively temperate — in the high 20s during the day and with cooler nights. It's part of Spain's so-called ice triangle, which also includes the towns of Teruel and Calamocha. All sit at an average altitude of 1,000m and are known for cold winters and moderate summers. There's plenty more to recommend Molina too. The centuries-old town is full of history and has a brand new parador. The 99th in Spain's chain of state-run hotels opened in May and is unusual in that, rather than being in a historic building, it offers panoramic views of one: Molina's splendid 12th-century castillo, which lies opposite, across the steep Gallo its hillside castle, extensive old town and pretty Romanesque bridge, it must be one of Spain's least-touristy towns: there's one bar — La Granja on Plaza San Pedro — and a few shops selling overalls or ironmongery to locals. That's it; not a souvenir or overpriced cocktail in sight. Thanks probably to the low visitor numbers, my husband and I find that everyone — from customers in that low-key bar to the woman in the castle ticket office — is pleased to see us, interested to know where we're from and keen to help out when our poor Spanish lets us down. The ethos of the paradors has three main aims: to bring historic buildings back to life, give poorer areas an economic boost and showcase the 'other' Spain, away from beach resorts and well-known cities. Molina's new-build addition, designed by the Colombian-born architect Andres Perea Ortega, was conceived in response to devastating wildfires in the area in 2005 in which 11 people died and 13,000 hectares of forest were destroyed. It has taken 20 years to come to fruition, but today the hotel's clean modern lines curve round Molina's western side like a protective arm. It's built of local stone and the architects' favourite 'weathering steel' with a protective rust-like patina in warm dark brown. The east side is mostly glass, for those castle views, and the grounds are planted with rosemary, lavender and cypress trees. • Discover our full guide to Spain The interior is equally modern, with brilliantly curated artworks — paintings plus ceramic, metal and glass sculptures — and fairly frigid air con. Our room has a balcony overlooking the castle, a sleek stone-and-glass bathroom and the biggest bed we have slept in, a good seven feet across. Our fellow guests — we are the only foreigners — are mostly couples, although there are some grandparents with school-age grandkids. The food in the restaurant, which is also open to non-residents, is very good. A set dinner accompanied by live music (Tuesdays and Sundays) offers delicious jamon iberico, mango gazpacho with smoked eel, cod Bilbao-style (with garlic, vinegar and mild chilli) and margarita sorbet served with a straw. • Read our full guide to Spain hotels Over dinner, as darkness falls, the castle and the older Torre de Aragon watchtower above it is beautifully illuminated. The next morning we head over the river and up through the old town for a closer look. With its square, flag-topped towers and miles of battlements, the castle looks like the model for every toy fort ever made (entry £4). It comes as no surprise that El Cid was based here for a time. The vast site, which we share with just five other people, is wonderfully unmanicured, with long grass and straggly wildflowers covering the steeply rising ground inside the perimeter walls. Skylarks are singing their hearts out as we toil up the slope toward the walled plaza de armas (parade ground), four of whose original eight towers still stand. This area alone is in itself as big as many UK castles. We walk round as many of the battlements as possible, until I scare myself half to death scrambling down the pitch-dark steep and crumbly steps of one of the towers. English Heritage health and safety officials would have a fit at all the cracked stones, missing banisters and general dilapidation, but on the whole we enjoy the absence of 'mind your head' and 'danger steep drop' signs. The town and castle aside, nature lovers can easily fill days in Molina exploring the nearby Unesco-listed Molina-Alto Tajo Geopark, with its cliffs, canyons and jaw-dropping rock formations of the kind you would expect in Arizona or Utah. Here the Iberian peninsula's mighty Tagus River (which empties into the Atlantic from Lisbon, 600 miles away) is in its infancy, flowing clear through a network of wooded gorges. We drive a few minutes west from Molina and a wall of bulbous red sandstone pinnacles soon rears up, some with young trees perched on their tops. We meet the local geologist and guide José Antonio Martínez Perruca by the Virgen de la Hoz church, which sits at the bottom of one such formation, and start to climb the twisting rocky trail behind. Soon we're in the midst of the towers, peering into chasms and eyeballing the small mountain goats that browse almost-vertical rock faces for tasty lumps of moss. A griffon vulture, here from north Africa for the breeding season, is riding the thermals high above. Martínez tells us this geology was formed not by the action of the Tagus and its tributaries but 200 million years ago, in the Triassic period, when the supercontinent of Pangea was breaking up into Africa, the Americas and Europe. It's a perfect day, with cool breezes and bright sun, as we wander back down the steep slopes, yet we see not another soul. Martínez would love the area to find a larger audience. 'Our problem,' he says, 'is that people driving up from Madrid, across Spain's central plateau, have no idea these natural treasures exist.' The next day we motor half an hour south to the village of Chequilla, stopping on the way at a thrilling viewpoint over the Cabrillas gorge. Tiny Chequilla, population 14, seems to be on friendly terms with all this striking geology; its houses, garages and church huddle beneath the sandstone monoliths as if they are so many benevolent guardians. We are puzzled by signs to a plaza de toros — surely this place is too small to have its own bullring — but discover as we walk that this is a natural arena in the middle of Chequilla's ciudad encantada, an 'enchanted city' of rocky outcrops, clefts and towers on the village's southern edge. In August the space is used for an annual bull run, part of the Santo Cristo de la Fortaleza festival. Photographs show spectators watching from the flat tops of surrounding rock formations. Today, though, it is quiet; ours is the only car in the village car park, and the sole bar is firmly closed. On the way back to Madrid, we spend a night at a more classic parador, in the slightly larger town of Sigüenza. It's housed in a castle that was converted into a bishop's palace in the 12th century and has been operating as a parador since 1976. There are British voices in the breakfast room (formerly the bishop's throne room) and even a handful of artisanal gift shops near the surprisingly large cathedral. It's comfortable, palatial (naturally) and its chef offers a delicious seven-course tasting menu, but we're glad to have had a taste of less-trodden Spain in ancient Molina's very cool new parador. This article contains affiliate links that will earn us revenue Liz Boulter was a guest of Parador de Molina de Aragon, which has B&B doubles from £140 ( Fly to Madrid
Voice of America
07-02-2025
- Health
- Voice of America
Live poultry markets ordered shut in New York because of avian flu outbreak
All live poultry markets in New York City and some of its suburbs were ordered Friday to close for a week after the detection of seven cases of avian flu, which has also hit farms nationwide. Governor Kathy Hochul said that there was no immediate threat to public health and that the temporary closure of bird markets in the city and its Westchester County and Long Island suburbs came out of an abundance of caution. No cases of avian flu have been detected among humans in New York, officials said. The birds infected with the virus were found during routine inspections of live bird markets in the New York City boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the virus poses low risk to the general public. The agency said there have been 67 confirmed cases of bird flu in humans in the U.S., with illnesses mild and mostly detected among farmworkers who were exposed to sick poultry or sick dairy cows. The first bird flu death in the U.S. was reported last month in Louisiana, with health officials saying the person was older than 65, had underlying medical problems and had been in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock. In New York, live bird markets where the virus was detected have to dispose of all poultry in a sanitary manner, according to the state's order. Other bird markets that do not have cases will have to sell off remaining poultry within three days, clean and disinfect their operations, and then remain closed for at least five days and be inspected by state officials before reopening. Ahead of the mandatory disposal order for markets with no cases, employees at La Granja, a halal-certified poultry market in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood, raced to sell the remaining inventory: around 200 live chickens of different varieties, along with turkeys, quail, ducks, roosters, pigeons and rabbits. Any remaining animals would be slaughtered and given to employees and longtime customers, according to Jose Fernandez, the owner. "We're going to lose money, for now," he said. "But the law is the law. They know what they're doing." The H5N1 strain of bird flu has been spreading among wild birds, poultry, cows and other animals. Officials have urged people who come into contact with sick or dead birds to wear respiratory and eye protection and gloves when handling poultry. More than 156 million birds nationwide have been affected by the outbreak, many at large farming operations that have had to slaughter their entire flocks. Despite growing attention on the avian flu, New York City's poultry markets appeared to be doing brisk business Friday. Outside the Wallabout Poultry market in Brooklyn, a line of customers took numbers and picked their chickens, which employees snatched from crowded cages, weighing them upside down, before taking them to a back room to be slaughtered. "I'm not worried about any bird flu," said Stan Tara, 42, of Brooklyn, as he purchased a large chicken for $22.50. "It's the same as you buy from the supermarket. A little more expensive, but at least it's fresh." Some animal rights groups, meanwhile, questioned the purpose of a state order that allowed the markets to continue selling fowl, rather than shutting them down immediately. "The public is going into markets where no one knows if there are outbreaks of avian flu, then taking home dead birds that may or may not be infected," said Edita Birnkrant, executive director of NYCLASS, which has long raised alarms about conditions within the city's roughly 70 live animal markets. "It's ludicrous." U.S. egg prices are likely to remain high past Easter and well into 2025, largely because of avian flu, according to CoBank, a Denver-based provider of loans and other financial services to the agriculture sector. The highly contagious virus has affected nearly 100 million egg-laying hens in the U.S. since 2022. But CoBank said other factors are also causing supply constraints and driving up prices, such as skyrocketing consumer demand for eggs in recent years. Fast-growing breakfast and brunch chains are also eating up supplies.
The Hill
07-02-2025
- Health
- The Hill
Live poultry markets ordered shut in New York City due to avian flu outbreak
NEW YORK (AP) — All live poultry markets in New York City and some of its suburbs were ordered Friday to close for a week after the detection of seven cases of avian flu, which has also hit farms nationwide, led to the slaughter of millions of birds and driven up egg prices. Gov. Kathy Hochul said there is no immediate threat to public health and that the temporary closure of bird markets in the city and its Westchester County and Long Island suburbs comes out of an abundance of caution. No cases of avian flu have been detected among humans in New York, officials said. The order came after birds infected with the virus were found during routine inspections of live bird markets in the New York City boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the virus poses low risk to the general public. The agency said there have been 67 confirmed cases of bird flu in humans in the U.S., with illnesses mild and mostly detected among farmworkers who were exposed to sick poultry or daily cows. The first bird flu death in the U.S. was reported last month in Louisiana, with health officials saying the person was older than 65, had underlying medical problems and had been in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock. In New York, live bird markets where the virus was detected have to dispose of all poultry in a sanitary manner, according to the state's order. Other bird markets that do not have cases will have to sell off remaining poultry within three days, clean and disinfect and then remain closed for at least five days and be inspected by state officials before reopening. Ahead of the mandatory disposal order for markets with no cases, employees at La Granja, a halal-certified poultry market in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood, raced to sell the remainder of the inventory: around 200 live chickens of different varieties, along with turkeys, quail, ducks, roosters, pigeons and rabbits. Any remaining animals would be slaughtered and given away to employees and longtime customers, according to Jose Fernandez, the owner. 'We're going to lose money, for now,' he said. 'But the law is the law. They know what they're doing.' The H5N1 strain of bird flu has been spreading among wild birds, poultry, cows and other animals. Officials have urged people who come into contact with sick or dead birds to wear respiratory and eye protection and gloves when handling poultry. More than 156 million birds nationwide have been affected by the outbreak, many at large farming operations that have had to slaughter their entire flocks. Despite growing attention on the avian flu, New York City's poultry markets appeared to be doing brisk business Friday. Outside the Wallabout Poultry market in Brooklyn, a line of customers took numbers and picked their chickens, which employees snatched from crowded cages, weighing them upside down, before bringing them to a backroom to be slaughtered. 'I'm not worried about any bird flu,' said Stan Tara, a 42-year-old Brooklyn resident, as he purchased a large chicken for $22.50. 'It's the same as you buy from the supermarket. A little more expensive, but at least it's fresh.' U.S. egg prices are likely to remain high past Easter and well into 2025, largely because of avian flu, according to CoBank, a Denver-based provider of loans and other financial services to the agriculture sector. The highly contagious virus has affected nearly 100 million egg-laying hens in the U.S. since 2022. But CoBank said other factors are also causing supply constraints and driving up prices, such as skyrocketing consumer demand for eggs in recent years. Fast-growing breakfast and brunch chains like First Watch are also eating up supplies.
