Within the infinite solitudes, which are the paramerical lands that extend like natural borders between the stately Soria towns of Medinaceli and Almazán, there are many small rural towns that, far from the tourist routes, more out of ignorance than anything else, survive with languid melancholy, watching time pass.
Towns, which were already like mysterious lanterns hanging in the distance, for the travelers who crossed the plateau of Soria along the old national road 111 and which now look even more remote and isolated, with the creation of the new Autovía de Navarra.
Motorway that, on the other hand, has also isolated and condemned to ruin the small service stations and not a few roadside hostels and restaurants, which in the past fed the heavy traffic of trucks and travelers heading towards Soria capital, so which, I recommend, if one day you decide to undertake this adventure by yourself, do not forget to stock up on gasoline, because you will not find any station for kilometers around.
From what could be said, that leaving the motorway and entering those forgotten country roads, which are lost at will between horizons of desert and farmland, is quite an experience that awakens, in the spirit of the restless traveler, that irrepressible taste for what unpredictable.
In Taroda, a town of ancient Celtiberian origins, where the Roman legionnaire also planted the spiked soles of his sandals and even the delicacy of his djellabas, the refined Muslim combatant, whom I invite you to accompany me on this occasion, happens what in most of the towns of a Spain, which not in vain was always considered as a bastion of Catholicism, at least since the times of that precedent of the Crusades, which was the Reconquest: which stands out, above all the whole, the imposing grandeur of its parish church.
A temple that, like Mary Shelley's famous Frankenstein, is nourished by numerous styles, without fully identifying with any of them, and that is dedicated to the figure of that comparative Apollo stabbed against a tree, which responds, however, to the Christianized and hallowed name of Sebastián and of which stand out, among other ornaments, such as the Renaissance portal that formerly served as an access gate to the old cemetery, for its magnificent baroque-style domes, which in no way envy those that can be seen in the churches of capitals like Madrid.
Apart from the curious noble coat of arms of Taroda, formed by a rose with its thorns and flanked by two descriptive ears of wheat that denote the main product of this land of bread and good wine, some modernities, such as the four-spout fountain or the imposing pediment both located in the vicinity of the church and except for some other details of the latest urbanization, a look at its architecture is enough to rediscover that rough, but effective culture of what is precise, formed by the matter inherent in its harsh environment: stone, baked clay, wood and tile, with outstanding wooden gates, through which the car used to enter and which now serve as a welcome for the tractor.
Houses, on whose lintels, although there are few consecrated symbols that formerly served to keep all kinds of superstitious horrors away, still recall, in their weather vanes, the ancient fear of the figure of witches, in one of which, we can suppose that looking east, indicates the direction of a town, Barahona, famous for being considered, historically, as a town that was a hotbed of witches and where they still show, to all investigators and curious, the so-called 'stone of the witches': originally a menhir, which was partially destroyed during the Civil War, when the field where it was located became an improvised airfield for General Franco's nationalist aviation.
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