Model's Life

     As models, we spend too much time on the road, airports and hotels (most of it, alones); we pose with summer dresses in winter (with the consequent risk of getting a cold or a flu) or with winter clothing in midsummer under a 35ºC sun (with the consequent risk of cooking ourselves...); we can be atacked by animals, little kids, hairdressers armed with pliers or fashion designers armed with scissors and pins... But we also spend very, very hilarious moments, and we get to know wonderful people and places.


     Last saturday I had a photo shoot with a great designer and best friend, José Martín. The team was awesome. Clothing... incredible! The entire team gathered in a little village called Amusco, very close to Palencia. This village has a great history. There are Vacceos and Roman deposits; although his period of greatest splendor came in medieval times, in which Amusco was noted for its sheep industry and its grain mills. In fact, it became one of Palencia's most important Jewish centers with the construction of a large synagogue during 14th century. It is half buried as the laws of Castilla prohibited the synagogues would exceed the churches in height. The large Amusco's Jewish population (probably bigger than Christian one) would get through the administrator of Duke Pedro Manrique de Lara, the Rabbi Yuce Milano, the necessary authorization to build  the synagogue in a place of honor, next to Saint-Peter's Church, but to comply with Castilla law to a lower level as if it were a basement.

Saint-Peter's Church

Amusco's Town Hall

     We had the great honor to take pictures in this Village Square, next to these wonderful buildings. The house where we were located is part of that magnificent synagogue as its basement reveals(today, winery). In adittion, this house belonged to the village's notary and its walls show part of that past glory.

Notary's house

     After having lunch, we went to Castilla's Channel, one of the most important projects of civil engineering of the Illustrated Spain (that runs through Burgos, Palencia and Valladolid), where we took pictures in its locks. It was built to facilitate the transportation of wheat to northern seaports. However, it became obsolete, a vestige of a great past, with the arrival of the railway.

Locks of Castilla's Channel

     Later, we went to Villamartin de Campos. There we posed in a wheat land, with gorgeous dresses. And here I met the flea which has bitten my body from head to toe... Despite my mixture of Palencia and Valladolid blood, I'm just a little city girl with a very sweet blood and those little animals don't forgive anybody!

     I just hope that you like this story and that the "little flea" of curiosity bite you and  finally you decide to explore Palencia one day and to learn about its history. It won't disappoint you. I swear!