We have been taking an afternoon a week to visit the nearby villages, and this past week we visited Toral de Merayo. It has about 550 inhabitants and is situated in a small valley across the river from Ponferrada. We ran to the village (about 6 km away), walked around a little, and tested out the playground equipment.

To my knowledge, there are three ways to get to this village. You can walk across the edge of El Pajariel (the small mountain that borders Ponferrada on its southern edge); take the road on the east side of Ponferrada (which was washed out for a while during our rainy season), or take the the highway out and around, looping back in through gravel paths.

Toral, like many other villages, feeds Ponferrada – in multiple ways. These villages are home to many gardens, orchards and vineyards, so their produce ends up at the market in Ponferrada. The inhabitants are also often times employed in Ponferrada.