Spain, like many other industrialized countries, sees its countryside get literally empty, as most people abandon rural life in the search for a better and most comfortable future in the cities.

“The empty Spain” (España vaciada), as it has been called in the media, is, however, filling fast. Across the plains, up in the mountains, atop the hills and in the thousands of deserted villages, a thick, almost solid silence has returned. The traces and memories of those who left mix now with the footprints of wolves and the scream of eagles. Up in the sky, the black night fills, again, with millions of stars.