ardbol

With Bárcena de Bureba we have found something unfindable. Which sounds impossible but it is true.  Bárcena cannot be found on google maps. When searching on Google you will find a place in Spain but somewhere in the middle of nowhere. See the image on the right. And we all know if Google cannot find it, it does not exist! As you can see this is not a village and not even an empty village but just some meadow. In the left panel Google recognizes the village as a ghost town with images which actually are from the actual village. Here you see one of the broken houses with graffiti on it. This is from the real Bárcena and not the above location in the meadows.    All the way at the bottom you find the Ghost town label. In the search bar google gives it a zip code of 09410. A funny detail is that there are 6 reviews and they seem to be very happy with the empty town as it has an average of 4.3 stars. But if you want to visit, do not drive to this location as you will not ...

When we first visited Bárcena de Bureba we where guided by the current owner Marcelino. As we where interested, we told him about our project Ardbol. We explained him that we needed about 5 to 10 hectares of land. He replied that it was no problem, he knew many farmers in the area. Soon we got an image of the land area (See image below) from Marcelino without any explanation but it looked promising.  We assumed the black crosses where the pieces of land we could buy. When I checked it on the Spanish cadastral website some pieces where quite clear but some existed out of many small parts.  After the price negotiation we where anxiously waiting on which pieces of land we could buy. In august we got a large zipfile with new information. As Yasmin could not open it and we where on mobiles we needed to wait until we where behind a computer, which of course added on to the tension. Finally we could open it. In it where 64 files. 60 of each house and 4 for the land. See the next imag...

  As we were interested in the abandoned village we needed to see if we could afford it. On the website it was stated it was € 350.000 for options 1. Option 1 being 20 houses with an extra optional land. That immediately was our full budget. So we were hoping the price could include the land. It was also much higher than our other option which was € 50.000 for 10 ruïnes. When we got our tour the first thing Marcelino said was that the price was € 350.000 so it did not sound that there was much room to negotiate but we tried nevertheless. First step was to add the optional land. As we were planning to create a food forest, for us that was the most important.  During the tour he said it would not be a problem and within some weeks he had sent us the image below without any explanation. Our guess was that the black crosses where the parts we could buy. So that seemed perfect.  I checked the 'cadastral' website and it seemed that the land would be about 6 hectares. It was re...

During our first week of summer holidays we could finally revisit Barcena. With my four kids I took the train to first pick up a large car, then we would all pick up Maaike from the ARTIM Festival. She had been there for a week already so we were happy to be reunited. We could immediately get to know the extreme heat as it was about 40 degrees. Luckily there was a river where we could cool down.  On Sunday we drove to the little village and we looked around. This was our second time but the first time for my big kids. They still do not understand what we are doing and why.  Maaike told me what she had learned in the last week from the ARTIM Festival, her meeting with the major and the visit of Barcena with Marjolein. I took the opportunity to take some photo's, which I will post below. The rest of the week, we used to get to know the neighborhood. We went to Bilbao, Vittoria Gasteiz, Mirande de Ebro and Briviesca. 

So that afternoon after interesting conversations in the car - first with Ruben and then with Marjolein - we arrived at the peña to meet with the mayor (Amparo) and the representative of Barcená (Juan-Carlos). The idea was that I would do the introduction, Yasmin the questions that we had prepared and Marjolein the questions she would come up with during our conversation. Although I think that during the rehearsal moment it went better, this all went well. We got all the information we needed and even more. For example, we got to know that the brother of Juan-Carlos is the owner of one of the lands that were listed by Marcelino (list of lands we would be able to buy). In their eyes, the most difficult part would be the access to water, although we know that there are a lot of possibilities out there that we could implement. When we asked our final (and maybe most important question), ‘What did they think about the project?’, the answer meant mostly ‘bears on the road’ (Dutch saying, me...

So I left on Friday the 8th of July to Spain, together with Yasmin and her son Leonardo. Unfortunately the night train to Hendaye had a delay, which caused us to miss the scenic train route to Espinosa de los Monteros and even worse we couldn't find another way to get there with the public transport. Luckily we were able to take a taxi. And so we arrived at the festival. A tent with a bar and tables for eating and theatre. Near a river (with a natural swimming pool!), between the trees, a place for camping. No courses yet during the day on Sunday, but there were other activities: a hike in the mountains and theatre in the village. I went for the hike and Yasmin for the theatre. For me the hike was the first trial for speaking Spanish all day, which went alright. Talked to an English lady who had been living in Spain for 10 years. We spoke Spanish but I could ask her for words if I didn't know them. And I even spoke with another data scientist. In the beginning of the evening wa...

Back home, our normal lives went on, with work, kids and yoga. Besides that, we worked with the parents of Maaike to build them a new home. So time went by fast.  And we continued with Ardbol. Together with Yasmin we created a presentation. Making more clear what the goals of Ardbol are. I will add a copy to this site soon. In short: we want to create a place, built around trees, where all what humans need, comes together. Instead of the specialized world we usually live in; where work, leisure, food, energy creations, nature, healthcare and sport is all in different places. We want to combine them with the tree as the basis.  Marcelino, the owner of the village Barcena, talked to land owners and found about 6ha of land around the village. He sent us an image with some black crosses, for which we assumed that this is the land we could buy.  With this addition it became an interesting option. So we started the price negotiations with Rafael, the real estate agent. The hou...