The second in our series of travalogues written by Sir Jeremy Blackham KCB, former Royal Navy officer who served as Deputy Commander-in-Chief Fleet, as he journeys through the Iberian peninsula. Jeremy speaks multiple languages with a particular fascination for the spanish dialects and is a keen supporter of languages and classics at Bradfield;

'Santo Domingo makes a lovely re-introduction to Spain but after four nights, it was off to Soria for the fourth time in five years, to stay in a lovely very central flat belonging to Spanish friends, made some years ago, but still very much kept up with. It is a lovely drive, first along the broad valley of the Rioja wine growing region towards the biggest town of Rioja - Logrono. Many of the grapes are already picked but the vintage is a time of celebration and of course, anxiety about the quality of the vintage, sadly I shall no longer be around to see, or rather to taste, the best of this year's vintage.

Shortly before reaching the town of Logrono, a smaller road branches off to go across the mountains to Soria, and a dramatic road it is too - deep river gorges, with great cliffs towering above the road and, as always in this part of Spain with vultures wheeling and swooping off the cliff tops.  Of course, there are villages perched on the mountain sides, usually with fierce streams running down through them, a coffee stop in one of them was interesting because it was impossible (for me at least) to work out what dialect they were speaking.  Fortunately, they all also speak a heavily accented form of Castilian, so rather simple conversations are practical.

Soria is what it always is - a small provincial capital that feels many miles further from Madrid than it actually is.  The people always seem at ease.  They are fiercely proud of their town, and it is being beautifully restored, and has a large a very beautiful park right in the centre, where just now the roses are in full bloom.  There are always festivals and events going on - this time it was a half marathon, running past the flat I am in, not long after I got into it and the annua; festival of the patron saint, San Saturio (which I was once there for and which is a great party) starts tomorrow.  The old town lies on both sides of a ravine, running down to the river Duero which hereabouts is very beautiful with poplar lined banks, and is immediately outside the old town wall, so the scenery changes from town to full countryside, literally with the crossing of a bridge.  It is a mighty river, over 600 miles long, which produces some very fine wines on its way down to Portugal, where it becomes the Douro and enters the sea at Porto.  Here it is simply quiet and beautiful.

The great attraction of the town for me is that it is haunted by my favourite Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, who lived here for five years, married his very young wife, Leonor and lost her to TB within less than three years, when she was but 18.  He left Soria a few days later and never returned.  Nor ever re-married.  She has a very simple grave (and the more poignant and loving just because it is simple) in the cemetery on the hilltop, above the church in which they were married, and for me is a place of pilgrimage whenever I come to Soria (this is my fourth visit).  All over the town, there are bronze and very life-like statues of Machado in various poses, and the entrance to the church in which they were married is "guarded" by a pretty bronze statue of Leonor, who was only 15 when she was married (he was 34!).  I attach one of my favourites of his poems, with my own clumsy translation.  Soria is almost a monument to Machado, although he was in fact a Sevillano, born in Seville and, post Soria, lived in Murcia and finally Segovia.  But here he is venerated all over the town.

For the rest, it is a charming, very definitely solidly a traditional Spanish town - more obviously Spanish today than many other more glamourous towns.  Perhaps this is because it has very few foreign tourists; I always feel at ease here and I cannot imagine not coming here regularly, and having friends here to do things with makes it all the more delightful.  I had a lovely lunch down beside the Duero (where Machado, whom several of my friends also love, used often to walk and write about, amongst other things, the river Duero).  Three hours of lunch with no English speaker other than myself was a bit of a trial, but I survived it reasonably honourably, I think!   And the food and wine were outstanding.  I had invited them all as my guests because they have all been good to me during my visits to Soria, and I doubt that I shall go there again,

From here on it is into the unknown for a while, first stop briefly in Tarazona on the river Ebro which has a large Mudejar style cathedral, and then 36 hours in the small ancient town of Ejea de los Cabelleros. I drive in two stages to the Catalan town of Lleida, inland from the Mediterranean coast to the south of Barcelona.

It is a simply sumptuous drive.  The first part from Soria, goes across the meseta, with huge views and the occasional tiny village or farm for about 50 miles to the very attractive mediaeval town of Tarazona.  Tarazona is a welcoming town with a very open modern centre, including a vast cathedral, built on top of both a Moorish mosque and a Roman temple.  The Romans and the Moors both ruled most of Spain for around 600 years each (with a couple of hundred years of gothic rule in between them, so it is a wonderful museum of both Roman and Moorish architecture, art and language.  Indeed Spain only became what we know as Spain in the late 15th century and around Tarazona, many towns, villages and rivers have Arabic names.  Tarazona also boasts an ancient Juderia (a Jewish quarter) winding like a maze up the hill across the river from the modern centre - as well as a cafe with marvellous and fresh cooked tortilla.

From there to an overnight stop in Ejea de los Cabelleros the road goes through one of my favourite parts of Spain, the Bardenas Reales.  This is a vast area of genuine desert, one of several in Spain where once again the countryside is vast and totally empty for miles - only 20-25% of Spain is really populated with any density at all.  There are views and a freshness and quietness in area like the Bardenas which are quite a solace to the soul.  I spent a couple of nights in Ejea, which is an agricultural industrial town of little beauty but quite interesting in its own way.  From there the drive down to Lleida is wonderful.  On the right hand side the countryside stretches to mountains 40 or 50 miles away, with just a few, usually rather beautiful villages.  On the left, the Pyrenees mountains, huge and impressive stretching from the Atlantis to the Mediterranean.  It is hard to do justice to these views - they need to be seen to be believed and admired.  There is so much space in Spain (except of course on the beaches of the Costa Brava and the Costa del Sol!! 

Lleida is an interesting place.  For a start it is the most Catalan town in Spain and the language of the street is principally Catalan.  I can read this reasonably well but I cannot speak it or understand it when it is spoken.  In fact, almost everyone speaks both languages fluently and can switch from one to the other without batting an eyelid.  It has changed and expanded beyond recognition since I was last here about 45 years ago. and the new parts of the town are attractive but make it seem a different place.  Most of all it is a clear illustration of modern Spain's problems. 

Over 25% of Lleida's population are immigrants from Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, other African and middle Eastern countries, with all the usual problems of language difficulties, lack of skills, poverty etc and they are much more in evidence drifting around the streets than is usual in most parts of UK.  In fact their illegal immigration problem and housing problems are rather worse than ours, and have, as you probably know, pushed the Spanish Prime Minister into an early general election, and in Madris and other large cities there are constant demonstrations and protests although my own observation of them is that they are better behaved than ours.  It took well over an hour to pass across the front of the Cathedral in Santiago.  So there is a little bit more than sun, good wine (and Spanish has improved enormously over the last two generations) and flamenco in today's Spain and some noticeable distrust of the EU as well.

Six nights here and then something I have been much looking forward to...  I will be going up into the Pyrenees to a town near the top of a pass into France, called Bielsa.  I have never been within about 30 miles if Bielsa before, but from what I can see on Mr Google's site, the scenery should be dramatic.  I did spend two or three holidays in the Pyrenees in the 1980s, and am looking forward to going back there...