Our final stop for the mini road-trip is Frias - a small medieval town in the Province of Burgos. Frias has the honor of being the smallest "city" in Spain, given this title in 1435. And it is really small - the maximum number of inhabitants this town has ever seen is 275.

The biggest draw of this town is the Frias Castle, or the Castle of the Dukes of Frias. The walls of this castle are pretty much crumbling, but visible from quite far away, because of its situation. The side with the crumbling wall was much more interesting, so we went around to a nearby hill to get a nice view of the castle.

After the cliff-side hike and pictures, we wondered into the town a little bit to walk around the other side of the wall, take a look at other side of the castle. The town is pretty well preserved other than the castle. We walked along the wall, and saw a bunch of kids hanging out and shooting the breeze. We asked one of them to take a picture of us with my camera. As soon as I gave 5d to him, one of the other guys teased "Correr! Correr!" - which means "Run! Run!" i.e. you got the camera, so make for it. All in good fun - he took the picture, and gave us back the camera.

El Día de los Reyes

We visited Frias on Jan 5th, which means it was the night before Epiphany, or as they call it in Spain - El Día de los Reyes. In Spain, most kids get their Christmas present on the morning of the 6th, in reference to the three kings bringing gold and frankincense to baby Jesus - they leave shoes ready for the kings to bring them presents as well. Most towns have a parade to commemorate the the kings's journey, and even smallest town have a parade. The three kings make the hike to church, and throw candy to the crowds, so naturally all the local kids follow. It turns out we were there at the right time to enjoy the parade.