CAMPILLO DE RANAS, SPAIN - Far from the hedonistic beaches of Ibiza or the disco nights in Barcelona, the tiny town of Campillo de Ranas — the Little Field of Frogs — is nestled in the rugged hills of Castilla-La Mancha, a 90-minute drive north of Madrid in Guadalajara province. With its squat slate houses barely rising above the rolling hillsides on which they are built, the town’s pretty Romanesque bell tower is the only thing that doesn’t blend into the landscape. The place would appear to be the perfect setting of an open-air staging of “The Flintstones.”
But first impressions can be deceiving. This small town, with around 60 full-time residents, most of them over 60, has in the last few years been transformed into the unofficial gay wedding capital of Spain.
In June 2005, Spain’s socialist government passed a law legalizing gay marriage and conferring the exact same rights and nomenclature — matrimonio in Spanish — to both homosexual and heterosexual unions. But soon after the law’s passage, several prominent and conservative mayors publicly declared that they would not perform gay marriages. Campillo’s nonprominent and liberal mayor, Francisco Maroto, who also happened to be openly gay, declared that he would perform them.
What happened next is the subject of a documentary film, “Campillo Sí, Quiero” (“Campillo Yes, I do”), which was produced and directed by Andrés Rubio and is making the rounds at gay and independent film festivals from Dublin to Buenos Aires. Shot over the span of a year, the film tells the story of how this hardscrabble hamlet, which was virtually abandoned 20 years ago, has been revived through a willingness to serve anyone who is willing to marry there. Saying “yes” to gay couples turns out to have lured straight ones as well and has spawned a wedding and tourism industry that coexists quite peacefully with the town’s rural character.
“Campillo shows what’s possible when you have the proper measure of tolerance and respect,” Mr. Rubio said in a phone interview, explaining what inspired him to make the film.
Since the summer of 2005, Mr. Maroto has married more than 140 couples. While gender is not listed on wedding records, the town archivist says that 40 percent of them have been same-sex couples. Brides and grooms — in various combinations — have come from all across Spain and as far as the United States and Russia to tie the knot in Campillo’s rustic city hall.
With its main salon painted a perky robin’s-egg blue and adorned with little more than a portrait of King Juan Carlos I, the Spanish flag and a rainbow flag — the presence of the first two being required by law at official acts like marriages — city hall is hardly the Chapel of Love, but then this town is hardly Las Vegas.
Visitors go to Campillo not to gamble, but to gambol along the miles of hiking trails winding through green pastures that are carpeted with wildflowers in springtime. In the heat of summer, folks hike to the poza del Aljibe, a spectacular natural swimming hole created by a cascading waterfall. In the autumn, the hillsides and riverbanks get a good grooming by locals and visitors out gathering berries and wild mushrooms.
The region is part of the Ruta de la Architectura Negra (Black Architecture Route), named for the quirky, vernacular slate buildings. For centuries, if not millenniums, virtually everything here has been constructed of slate, much of it tinged green with lichen or stained red by the iron content of the stone.
There is a pragmatically haphazard look to the buildings, a combination of odd angles and rounded corners that is instantly appealing. Despite their lack of architectural pretense, the houses convey a sense of nobility and permanence. With their silvery and irregular slate tiles gleaming in the sunshine, the gently sagging roofs look as if they could be made of molten lead dripped by the hand of a primordial giant.
Even before Campillo’s wedding fame, a small neo-rural return to the land was under way in the region, where electricity, such as it was, only arrived in the late ’ 50s. Landline phone service was installed just last December, mostly for high-speed Internet access.
Drawn by the simplicity of life and the beauty of the surrounding countryside, José Antonio Reig and his family arrived 12 years ago, when there were just a handful of residents. In 2001, the Reig family opened a restaurant and small hotel, Aldea Tejera Negra, and two years ago, started Alternatura, a tour company specializing in the region’s diverse outdoor activities.
Thanks to such efforts, Campillo’s country charm does not require roughing it. Aldea Tejera Negra puts on an elegant spread in wedding tents overlooking the hotel’s pool and surrounding hills. Across town — about 100 yards away — is a more intimate restaurant, La Fragua, where a cozy dinner for two might start off with homemade pâté and savory spinach and prawn croquetas followed by a tender filet mignon, all accompanied by an excellent Ribera del Duero and topped off with decadent chocolate truffles.
Other accommodations are equally civilized. While the nearby four-room Casa del Sol might want to rethink the creaky brass beds in a town known for weddings, no issue could be taken with the bohemian-chic charm of the place or with the delicious breakfast, which can include rustic homemade cinnamon bread topped with quince paste and mild queso fresco. Toasted bread is the ideal vehicle for sampling the local honey, which is a deep caramel color and has none of the cloying sweetness or floral aftertaste of most honey.
The influx of both workers for the hospitality industry and so-called neo-rurals has meant the reopening of Campillo’s elementary school, which had been shuttered for 32 years.
Though he was elected, Mr. Maroto’s post is an unpaid one, and like most residents he earns his living from the land. In 2007, he was re-elected in a landslide, and in 2008, he was married to Enrique Rodríguez, his partner of 15 years, by one of the town council members. While he acknowledges having an activist streak, he says he’s just doing his job.
“Mayors mostly have to deal with problems — sometimes we even get blamed for the weather — so it gives me a lot of satisfaction to be known for marrying people.”
from The New York Times
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