Having grown up with the not unreasonable idea that Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is one of the key books of the 20th century, I had meant to do my homework on the Spanish Civil War before coming to this area – but I did not. The guide at Albarracín’s cathedral mentioned casually that the war had almost destroyed the town, culturally and economically. This morning, not far out on our drive back to the coast, I noticed a marker that led to a moving and brutally frank iron memorial.

Here under a high cliff on Sept 16 1936, just as the war was beginning, the Francoists executed twelve local men, all from the same small village. All are buried here in a mass grave.

The previous day, in one of Albarracín’s cemeteries, I’d come across this:

It was unclear whether the brothers Pedro and Ignacio Martinez were inocentes victimas of the Francoists or the Republicans. 90 years on, a raw wound still.