The document provides observations from a walk around a village in northern Spain during fall. It describes the traditional shops, cafes, market, and sense of community. Key points noted include the focus on quality products and excellent customer service at family-run businesses, the weekly market featuring local foods, and signs of traditional celebrations for Todos Los Santos rather than Halloween.

1. Paying Attention… Being Fully Aware and
Intentionally Present
Ten thousand flowers in spring,
the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer,
snow in winter.
If your mind isn't clouded
by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.
WU-MEN-KUAN

2. My exercise: walk around the village
where I spend my fall vacation with
the family (husband, children, sister
and grandpas) While I go though my
daily activity consisting mainly in
having teas and coffees in between of
food and winter clothes shopping. I
have done my best to look at
everything as I did the first time I
arrived in here. See what I have
found….

3. Ana Mari’s
place…the best café
for pastries and
breakfast

4. Ana Mari’s place offers the best including of course homemade
products from the convent nuns (masters of universe for pastries)

5. Tuesday’s Marketplace

6. Tuesday’s Marketplace

7. Clothes for work, shoes, slippers

8. Colorful luxurious fruit
and vegetables in a
very cold morning
These people do know
their business man. They
know how to best place
the products how to
“create” an eager want for
a beautiful cauliflower and
how to fill and weight the
bags incredibly fast leaving
previously suspicious
customers with the feeling
of having made a
wonderful bargain or even
better as if they were
carrying jewels instead of
vegetables.

9. Legumbres de la tierra (pulses) of course, Castilla and
Cantabria, one of the most crowded parades, managed by
the third generation of the same family
Magic phrase is “¿quién da la
vez?” or who’s next ?...if you
do no not know how to use it
you are heading into serious
trouble…
The family in charge knows
their customers extremely
well, even if, as myself and
my family they show up just
once a year. They fill bags and
offer great advice at light
speed . It is just paramount
customer service on top of
great quality and reasonable
prices.

10. True beauty and meaning in legumbres (pulses) from Castilla and
Navarra,it is a pleasure to dig with your hand and feel and touch the
grain

11. Codfish on
display. This is
when the
product does
its own
advertising. No
need for
printed sinage
or banners.

12. CHEESE, REAL CHEESE, NO
JOKES. A parade as crowded
as the legumbres one…there
are other places where you
can get cheese at the market
but only this one has such a
queue that is a signal more
effective than one million
Google Ads.
The buying process leaves
your tummy full since you
need to taste throughly every
possible cheese you want to
buy. Children get special
tretment with ham and
chorizo for free…Great
quality and great service.

13. Awesome Romanic Heritage

14. Shop of the cookies’ factory
…very fresh cookies although the perssonnel
are strangely bad tempered and unkind. As if
they were making you a favour letting you buy
there. Cookies manufacturing is the key
industry in the village, actually in working days
there is a sweet vanilla smell in the air.

15. Kid’s friendly pharmacy

16. Soportales, bars and cozy old fashion
shops in a freezing cold evening

17. Todos los Santos

18. Don Juan Tenorio Todos los Santos

19. Testimonial Halloween: just to try and drive people to
bars or entertain the little ones at school. This is still
the Tenorio and “Los Santos” land.
What on earth is an “olla ferroviaria” ?
http://gastronomiadelamia.blogspot.co
m.es/2011/12/la-puchera-u-olla-
ferroviaria.html

20. The Library: a magic
environment for imagination

21. Snapshot of life at the library board

22. Autoservicio Domingo…going back 20 years
and still making sound business

23. Autoservicio
Domingo…like going back
20 years and still making
sound business. Not really
compelling to start with
and the shelfs are
occupied to the fullest in
a baroque way but the
excellent quality of the
products and friendliness
of the owner makes you
forget anything else

24. Soportales, bars and cozy old fashion
shops in a freezing cold evening

25. Reflexions and outcomes (i)
In this village, at the north of Meseta Castellana in Spain even summer is chilly but
this week with Los Santos coming up its is already freezing cold with merciless wind.
Incredible Romanic architecture, best in class in Europe, surrounds you with
curches, convents, abbeys and traditional houses breathing everywhere. Pisuerga
river embraces the place with a calm, peaceful and confident atmosphere. Financial
Crisis is far, far away.
Key industry is cookie’s manufacturing and also tourism. Additionally people grow
wheat and breed sheep flocks to make cheese or to eat the young ones as “lechazo”
The village is designed for business and for that it is key to allow people go around
comfortably even in the most inconvenient weather. All commercial roads have
“soportales” which are like an extended ceiling to shelter people while they go from
one place to another from one errand to another.
The outlook of most businesses is quite traditional but the most important feature is
to deliver the promise of a warm, cozy and comfortable atmosphere inside. It is
clear that all businesses be it cafeterias, bars, groceries, clothes or even the public
library send a very clear message that says “come in and you’ll be a lot better than
you are now, with frozen ears falling to pieces”

26. Reflexions and outcomes (ii)
Overall all businesses have a traditional or even old fashion decoration
which give a feeling of trustworthyness, respectability and comfort
which combined are very compelling. Interestingly enough the only bar that
has been refurbished recently with a modern look feels oddly cold .
After a few walks up and down, and a lot of shopping on my side since this is the only
occasion I have time for thoughtful purchases, it seems that except for the chineese
bazaars all businesses rely on quality for their products. There are very few
things for selling that could be classified as poor or worthless. This has of course a
price but still that price is reasonable.
Besides that quality the other essential element is the service and the incredibly
good attention you get from sales personnel. I wonder if one of the reasons
is that most of the businesses are family businesses where the owner and relatives are
there taking care personally of everything. They provide excellent advice on how to
buy, what you would need for what and which are the prices most adequate for what
you need and any possible piece of infomation that you can think of.

27. Reflexions and outcomes (iii)
The weekly market is a different story since it is very chilly there and uncomfortable
since you need to que and stand in the cold while the coldness gets into your feet
from the floor up. Still the parades, at least the ones for food are so incredibly good
that people wait for the market day with a bit of excitement. Again for food
(although not for clothes) quality and customer service are paramount . These are
family businesses that flow from one generation to another, Personnel are amazingly
efficiant, know the products, and know how to sell and how to deal with people. I
wonder if it is possible to do somehting about making the shopping
experience from a weather perspective more comfortable. You can find
people from many places shoppping, even from other provinces.

28. Reflexions and outcomes (iv)
Since is it is arelatively small village any shop or any queue at the marketplace turn
into a fantastic source of information for almost anything…and in a sense
complementing that that you cannot find in wikipedia. How could we
tap there I wonder? These people are not exactly putting their thoughts on
Twitter of Facebook.
What I have loved most is that Halloween hardly exists, there are very very
little Halloween decorations if any at all. Instead you find the signd of Todos los
Santos tradition, in the form of flowers for the deceased loved
ones, traditional sweets such as “saints’ bones”, Don Juan Tenorio Theatre
representations and conversations everywhere abour massses for the dead not
forgotten or about going to the cementery to put the flowers.

29. THANKS FOR PAYING
ATTENTION

30. Don Juan Tenorio de José Zorrilla
¡Ah! ¿No es cierto, ángel de amor,
que en esta apartada orilla
más pura la luna brilla
y se respira mejor?
Esta aura que vaga llena
de los sencillos olores
de las campesinas flores
que brota esa orilla amena;
esa agua limpia y serena
que atraviesa sin temor
la barca del pescador
que espera cantando al día,
¿no es cierto, paloma mía,
que están respirando amor?