Valverde (La Rioja), May 13 (EFE) at a crossroads between four communities.
Valverde, one of the five districts of Cervera del Río Alhama, is crossed by the N-113 national highway, with a point where the autonomous term of La Rioja changes to Aragón, a border that also divides the old train station in two. railway, and a few meters from Navarra and Castilla y León.
The restaurant “El mojón de los tres reyes” is located in a national service area, in memory of the historic place where, at the end of the 12th century, the monarchs Alfonso II “El Casto” of Aragon met; Alfonso VIII “El Noble”, of Castile; and Sancho VII “El Fuerte”, from Navarra, to establish the limits of their kingdoms.
Legend has it, according to the locals, that the three kings stayed in the place that Valverde now occupies to celebrate lunch at a triangular table and each one ate seated within their own domains.
MARRIAGES IN THE “MUGA”
The village mayor of Valverde, Fermín Ramos, knows a lot about crossroads and the movement of neighbors between communities, who runs the local store, located on the N-113, with his wife, Pilar Mayor.
Despite being born 30 meters away, she is from Aragon and he is from La Rioja, the mayor told EFE, having the “muga” -the border- in the middle of the municipal area.
Ramos, 65, has already served two terms and acknowledges that he would not mind repeating a third, although his position is a decision of whoever is elected mayor of Cervera de Río Alhama.
Many of its neighbors work in local companies, but others move to nearby municipalities, such as Tudela and Cintruénigo, in Navarra; while the 14 children of the town study at the Valverde school, which also has a nursery for 6 children.
When they go to high school, most of them study Secondary in Alfaro (La Rioja) and some choose to go to Tudela, where they also go in the afternoon for their extracurricular classes, such as English.
In health, being registered in Valverde, they go to La Rioja hospitals in Calahorra or Logroño, and the residents of the town registered in Tarazona go to Zaragoza.
SOME COME AND SOME GO
This shopkeeper assures that “there is very good harmony” between neighboring towns, due to family and business relationships between them.
“Some go and others come” to the town, founded in 1914 and repopulated by people from La Rioja, Aragon, Soria and Navarre, many of whom were forced to emigrate to the capitals in the 1960s.
Álvaro Coloma is the son of one of those Valverdans who emigrated to Zaragoza, but this 32-year-old decided to return to the town in 2012, where he assures EFE that he is “happy” with his work in an espadrille workshop, a traditional trade in the region .
Although she is originally from Valverde, Mónica Marqués lives in Cabretón, another of Cervera’s neighborhoods, and every day she travels to her town to take her daughter to school. She acknowledges to EFE that “you have to go out for everything” and, although she buys food there to support the merchants, she has to go to Tudela for clothes.
Rebecca Palacios