A Trip to Cuenca. Day One.

Setting out early(ish) from Sanlúcar, in My Dark Lady's Citroën C4, aka Mr. Bubbles, we drove the 600+ km to Cuenca on the dual carriageways and thus avoided being led into temptation by inviting signposts pointing to places of interest.

Our destination was La Antigua Vaquería (literally the Former Cowshed, or for the more poetic among us, the Bygone Byre ) in La Melgosa, a small village about 6km outside Cuenca. Click here for photos from their own website. The hostal was amazingly clean and well-run. Its owners managed to combine helpfulness, discretion and friendliness perfectly. We were shown up to our spotless room

A room with a view, indeed!

with an en-suite bathroom and perfumed towels. Opening the blinds on the window, this is the sight that met our eyes. 

After a refreshing shower, we set off for Cuenca with a view to seeing the famous casas colgantes, or hanging houses. We didn't actually reach that particular goal, so here is a rather dramatic photo published on the sobreturismo.es website. Click here to see more photos of the houses.

sobreturismo.es

Objective number two was to see one of Cuenca's famous Easter processions where statues of Christ and his mum are paraded around the streets accompanied by penitents wearing pointy hoods and tunics. It is said to be quite something. Unfortuntely, we didn't have the patience to hang around for it, but we did take some pretty photos of the cathedral, the main square etc.

An aside: anyone who has seen films about the Ku Klux Klan or the Spanish Inquisition will be familiar with the garb of the penitents. Another aside: the Mediterranean tradtition of carrying painted idols around towns as a sprigtime celebration of rebirth and fertility goes back as far as Ancient Greece. 

Penitents in all their 
sinister glory. Image
 courtesy of
diariosur.es

Here we can see one of the local penitents swilling a swift beer before putting on his hat and working both it and his sins off with a bit of candle-waggling idolatry, with a blithe disregard for the 1st & 2nd commandments: 
"³ “You shall have no other gods before Me.

The 16th-century façade of Cuenca's
 Gothic cathedral. 

⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; ⁵ you shall not bow down to them nor serve them." Exodus 20, 3-5 (New King James Bible).

It all seemed rather hypocritical to me but, hey, we are talking about religion after all - and the Romish Sect in particular.

The Cathedral's 16th-century façade was obscured in the 18th century by a new one, this latter being demolished in the 20th century. This also led to a lot of restoration work being done on the façade that we see today. In fact most, if not all, of the decorative carving is new.

Detail of one of the Cathedral porticoes.  Note the lancet arch's  new
 stonework compared with the eroded interior. 

A view from one of the archways
in the  main square towards the
 steps leading down to the river 
Júcar.

Above: a view of the main square from the Cathedral Steps
Below: the rooftops of the former Sisters of Mercy 
Monastery, now home to the FundaciónAntonio Pérez.

It was then literally onwards and upwards to ontinue exploring. So we arrived at the Fundación Antonio Pérez which was closed.

Nevertheless, from the street above it, the roofs of the different buildings that make up the former convent where the Foundation is housed made a pretty picture. 

A view from the street next to the Fundación.

It was now time to leave the old city, with most of its treasures unvisited and pending a further trip. Tums rumbling, we looked for a place to dine and ended up in a pizza place, American Piccolo where we shared two delicious pizzas. Our sojourn at the restaurant was spolied, for me at least, by the arrival of other clients. We arrived early and this, coupled with the fact that that most people were in the old part of the city, meant that we had the pick of the tables.  Halfway through our meal, another party of people arrived and chose, out of all of the empty tables, the table behind us. Then another family arrived (complete with a seven-year-old, iPad-toting brat) and sat opposite. My question is this; if the restaurant was practically empty, why did they have to come and take the tables next to us??? Sometimes I despair of this herd mentality, especially when it directly affects my digestion.

Anyhow, having finished our meal, we decided to go back to the hostal. Easier said than done. We got lost several times looking for the car and tried the patience of the the woman in my phone's Google Maps to breaking point. Finally, we found Mr. Bubbles and, after several adventures in the city's narrow streets, we escaped into the suburbs and drove back to the bucolic surroundings of La Antigua Vaquería for a good night's rest.

What To Do on A Sunny Thursday in Cádiz

Visit the Museums.

Façade of the Centre wit the bay in the background. Image 

courtesy of  http://cadiztraselobjetivo.blogspot.com.es/

Today was the turn of the Centro Cultural Reina Sofía. Luckily, this centre has nothing to do with the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid and as such is free. The centre is housed in a mid-18th century buidling that was once home to military engineers and now houses a whole host of cultural organisations: the Vasallo Museum, with a permanent exhibition of the Cádiz-born sculptor's works, the Royal Hispano-American Academy, reflecting the city's close ties with the New World, The Cádiz Atheneum, the Military Library, The Féderico Joly Foundation, the Galván Press, the Municipal Culture Foundation and the permanent exhibition of the Aramburu Picardo legacy.

The stairwell - a detail.

When we entered, we were greeted by a helpful receptionist who recommended that we start on the third floor and work our way down, so ignoring the impressive staircase we took the lift to the third floor. The lift opened onto a flat roof that gave magnificent views of Cádiz and its bay, so magnificent that I risked taking a panoramic photo of the scene that presented itself before us.

A young Detectorist?

The tower on the right is part of the building and is known as a veedor - literally a seer. Most merchant and military houses in Cádiz were built with such towers so that the interested parties could see what was going on in the Bay - mostly merchants anxiously awaiting the arrival of their ships from the Americas or elsewhere, or naval types wondering when the next horde of British prototourists (i.e. the Royal Navy) would descend upon the city, drink the place dry and then set fire to it.


But I digress. The Aramburu legacy is mainly a collection of paintings collected by the Aramburu Picardo family. Originally from the Basque Country, the Aramburus were a family of bankers who eventually sold the business and donated this collection to the city. Among the paintings, two particularly caught my attention. There was this one on the left, whose subject, commented my Dark Lady, looks remarkably like Toby Jones.


And the one on the right, a charming portrait of a young boy, and his parrot. 

Apart from the subject, what really drew our attention was the frame. Made to look like bamboo, the black blotches to be seen are small works of art in themselves, depicting oriental scenes.

On the subject of BBC lookalikes, both the little boy with the parrot and this young girl, presumably both members of the Aramburu family, bear an uncanny resemblance to 1980s Dr Who actor Colin Baker. Compare and contrast.

Colin Baker, the 6th doctor. 
Image courtesy of
doctorwho.tv.co.uk

A 19th-century Aramburu, 
looking as if she's on 
the naughty step.

It was now time to waft downtairs to the Vasallo Museum. Juan Luis Vasallo was born in Cádiz in 1908 and died some 78 years later in Madrid. The museum has a permanent exhibition of numerous pieces in bronze, stone, clay, plaster etc. Below are two photos of Vasallo's marvellous clay version of Don Quixote. It is only about 3 inches tall and inexpressibly moving. Observe the hands; they are reminiscent of El Greco paintings

Among the many other pieces were a study of the hands of Cádiz-born essayist, poet, journalist and all-round writer José María Pemán. As most of the exhibits in the whole building are hands-on, more of which later, a certain bollocks-talker couldn't resist this hands-in visual joke.

The crystal chandelier lighting up
the paintings on the wall - all very
Charley Pride.

It was then time to take to the stairs again, admiring this wonderful chandelier as we did so.                                  

Back on the ground floor, it was now time to visit the Féderico Joly Hohr Foundation. The late Féderico Joly was chairman of the Cádiz-based Joly newspaper group and upon his death bequeathed his library, including his desk and papers therein, to the city of Cádiz. and here it all is. Amazingly, his desk is not behind a glass screen and you can actually pick up his notebooks and read them and, if it takes your fancy, try on his sunglasses and sit behind the desk, pretending to be a newspaper magnate while gasping out the word "Rosebud".

Joly's desk...

...and papers.

And so ended our visit to this charming building with its enchanting collections, all the more enjoyable because you can actually touch and interact with almost all of the objects. A great afternoon out and definitely worth a second visit.

Inland from the Guadalquivir: Ducks, Drakes and Meres

After exploring the banks of the Guadalquivir[i], This weekend we turned inland to explore the countryside surrounding the town of Espera. To our surprise, we discovered a set of three meres, the Complejo Endorréico de Espera, that are home to a wide range of birdlife, both aquatic and otherwise.

Far in the distance, Fatetar castle dominates the countryside.

Turning off the main road, we took a dirt track towards the meres. Click here to see a map. As we took the track, to the left we coud see Espera's Fatetar Castle rising above the emerald green fields, more of which later.

We then took the track towards the wetlands. Today we were in Burbuja, my Dark Lady's Citröen C4, which was completely at home with the conditions. 

Scrubland, farmland and newly-sown fields.

Burbuja, parked up and watching over a complex of rabbity residences.

Leaving the castle behind,we forged on along well-maintined dirt tracks towards our destination. As we passed the undulating hills of farmland, we were amazed by the sheer number of birds to be seen: partridges running across the road as we approached, finches of every descrition wittering away in the bushes and trees, and marsh harriers hovering above us in search of a tasty hare or rabbit, whose warrens are to be found everywhere. 

Indeed, we were lucky enough to see two harriers involved in their aerial mating rituals. 

For a more exhaustive list of the flora and fauna to be found, click here. The common names are in Spanish, but they are accompanied by their Latin names, too.  

Bad joke: Q.;What do you call a man with a load of rabbits 

stuffed up his fundament?

A.: Warren.

The vastness of the landscape is truly amazing, yet the rolling hills make it seem more familiar and intimate than the endless plains that conform the Guadalquivir valley that lies beneath the foothills.

Soon we arrived at our destination. The first of the three meres, Laguna Hondilla, is completely fenced off and has no path around it, so we started to walk towards the second, Laguna Salada de la Zorilla.

Laguna La Zoriilla Salada.

If the truth be told, there was not a lot of birdlife to be seen, but we could certainly hear it; quackings, splashings, plashings honkings, flappings, tweetings, twitterings and witterings filled the air. In fact, it sounded frighteningly like one of the bird-brained Wednesday morning meetings at the august educational establishment where I have the honour and privilege to earn my crust.

Moreover, with just a phone camera, it would be well-nigh impossible to take good photos, but there are plenty to be seen in the links I have included above. 

After a walk around the mere and the surrounding countryside, it was time to head back to the car and explore the castle. 

Like many castles in Andalusia, the town's cemetary nestles close to the walls.

Fatetar Castle. you can just about see the tower on the left.

Although the rocky outcrop doesn't look particuarly high, the road leading up to the castle from the town side was quite steep and had to be taken in first gear. The view, however, was worth it, but not really woth photographing. Seen one alluvial plain, seen 'em all!

I did take some photos of the castle and its environs.

A piece of decorative stonework,
probably replaced during restoration.

---

An interesting limestone formation

A set of doorways and an arch. All very
Velázquez.

       The entrance to the castle.
       Once serving as a church, it
         is now a museum.

Then it was back into the car and off to find somewhere to have a well-deserved coffee before returning to Sanlu to watch from our balcony the sun set over the neighours' houses.

And so, dear reader, to bed.

[i] BTW, Guadalquivir is a corruption of the Arabic, Guad-al-Kebir, literally big river, or in Spanish Río Grande – a name I’m sure that lovers of Westerns will be more than familiar with. 

On The Banks of the River Guadalquivir

Navigating the Guadalquivir. The Belle de Cadix, a mini

cruise liner that plies between Seville and Cádiz makes

its way upriver  on the tide from Cádiz. On the far side we

can see the Doñana Nature Park.

The river Guadalquivir runs almost the whole length of Andalusia and is navigable as far as the inland port of Seville where, in the 16th century, the gold from the Americas was offloaded from Spanish galleons and then straight onto waiting Genoese boats to service the debts that the profligate Spanish crown ran up with the Italian moneylenders.

Another of La Belle de Cadix with tourists lining the 
upper deck.

For years I lived in Seville and had often wondered if there was a road that ran the length of the river from Seville to its debouchement in the Atlantic at Sanlúcar de Barrameda, where I now live. Last Friday I found out that there was. This road is known as el Camino del Plástico the Plastic Road. My friend, Joaquín, told me that the name was a corruption of el Camino del Práctico - literally the river pilot's road.

I was also told that, although the road was in a bad state, it was driveable in a normal car so, on Sunday, my Dark Lady and I set off, taking the road from Trebujena as far as La Señuela, an abandoned village. For a satellite image of the journey, click here. If you want to see images from another blogger, click here.

The Mighty Focus, proud of a job well done,
poses in front of a building housing machinery 
that operates the sluice gates that control the 
surrounding marshy farmland's 

water levels.  

The day before, we had got as far as Lebrija through the salt pans of Sanlúcar and the pinewoods of La Algaida, passing flocks of flamingos and various other waders (grist for another blog) before having to turn back due to potholes that the Dark Lady's car did not have the necessary clearance to negotiate. Today, therefore, it was the trusty Ford Focus' turn. 



It performed the job manfully (carfully?) and only bottomed out on a couple of occasions. 

The Guadalquivir plain with the Sierra de Cádiz in the
background.

When we arrived at our starting point for the day - a landing stage for pleasure craft - we could see quite a large cargo ship in the distance, so we waited a while to see it pass but, unfortunately, as the tide was going out, the ship was waiting for the next rising tide. We pressed on, but not before taking a photo of the river plain on t'other side of the road. 

I would not go so far as to say that such flat, riverine, agricultural countryside is beautiful, but interesting it certainly is. Somehow, it reminded me of the Dee estuary on the Wirral Peninsula and the Severn estuary, as well as the plains of Lincolnshire. I suppose it was the salty tang in the air, coupled with the smell of fresh mud and the loneliness of the area.

Cows. Grazing, creating life, harming no-one. Creatures
of beauty. Photo courtesy of Vanesa CR

Here and there, we also saw beef cattle living out their tranquil  lives next to the river, as well as sheep grazing the aromatic herbs that grow on the salt marshes. As a carnivore who has had the privilege of eating lamb raised on a farm on the banks of the Severn, thanks to my cousin in Dursley, I immediately started to feel hungry. Not having any lamb chops on us, we stopped in a meadow and feasted on coffee from a flask and cakes instead.

Coffee, chocolate and egg
custard palmiers and a very
consistent Spanish custard. 

Then it was onwards and up(river)wards again. The next point of interest was a long avenue of eucaplyptus trees leading to La Señuela. Eucalyptus trees were originally planted in the Doñana area, replacing the native stone pines, in order to supply the paper industry with a cheap, replaceable, rapidly-growing source of cellulose. These trees impoverish the soil and are now slowly being removed in favour of the autocthonous pines. 

A view through the eucalyptus trees onto a stream
running parallel to the road and the river. The water, in 

contrast to the turbid Guadalquivir, is crystal clear

And so we motored on. Now however, the scenery became more industrialised as we entered the rice-growing part of the marshlands, so it was time to turn back and say hello to the placid cows again. 


On the way back we were also fortunate enough to witness the cargo ship we had seen that morning chunter past the landing stage where we had been waiting to watch it .

A nice, circular way to cap off our Sunday adventure

A Long Weekend in Andalusia Pt. 1.

Last weekend was a Bank Holiday here in Spain, celebrating the 1978 Constitution on Dec. 6th and some Virgin Mary or other's on the 8th - although I prefer to think of it as marking the anniversary of John Lennnon's death.

Luckily for us, my Dark Lady had Friday 5th off and I don't work on Fridays, so we set off to Granada while the rest of Spain - well at least the few who still have a job - were working. We decided to avoid the motorway for the first part of the journey and so went through the Sierra de Cádiz, stopping off for a coffee at Algodonales in El Cortijo a roadside restaurant/café/hotel with a charming exterior and interior. Here's a photo.

The Romantic Spain that many look for, but few find.

WHY BOB GELDOF AND HIS MATEYS WON'T BE SHAMING ME INTO PARTING WITH MY HARD-EARNED PENNIES.

Oh how it warmed the cockles of my heart to see Sir Bob Geldof and his superannuated millionaire mateys bestir themselves once again for the poor benighted Africans! 

Oh how (bowel-) moving to see the aristocracy of rock gather together in a spirit of brotherhood towards their fellow man and revive a conscience-stirring anthem of giving!

Oh how warm and fuzzy I felt inside seeing all of these rich people sacrifice their time and talents to help those less fortunate!

Oh how wonderful it must feel to swap anecdotes and tax dodges in a glow of camaraderie while quaffing champers and scoffing caviare butties (tax-deductible, no doubt).

Oh how guilty I felt as I fingered the change in my pocket, realising that I was going to have to spend it on diesel to get to work instead of buying this hymn to universal brotherhood.

Oh how grateful I felt to Bobby and his mates as they made me realise how selfish and uncaring I was towards my neighbour. 

Oh how unworthy I felt as cynically I wondered if this was nothing more that a ruse to revive various flagging careers.

Oh how much self-loathing and hatred I felt as I mused upon the fact that U2 gave away their latest album to iPhone owners (not exactly the most destitute of people) instead of putting it on sale at a greatly reduced price, proceeds going to combating Ebola. Obviously I am a hateful sceptic unfit to share a bottle of Bollinger with the great and good who were setting me such a shining example of self-sacrifice. 

In sum, instead of trying to shame ordinary people with their mortgages, school and/or university fees to part with a few pennies, why don't these people donate the royalties of one of their hit songs or albums to the cause - although I dare say that in the case of Saint Bob such royalties would be rather (and deservedly) meagre these days? How easy it is to have a social conscience when you've got more money than you know what to do with, except employ armies of accountants and tax lawyers to keep as much of it as possible and scrabble for more by demonstrating how wonderful you are by donating our money to your pet causes. 

Pay your taxes, I say, and then both the people and their governments will be able to contribute more to such things as the Ebola crisis.

I don't deny anyone the right to accumulate a fortune and enjoy it as they see fit, but I do object to a bunch of millionaires taking money from my pocket in order to bolster their own images as concerned humanitarian crusaders.

El Vaporcito. Better a Viking Funeral than Being Left to Rot?

Not so long ago, I wrote an entry on the El Puerto de Santa María - Cádiz ferry service. Well this weekend, my Dark Lady and I repeated the experience.

This time I was able to take a closer photo of the ill-fated Vaporcito mentioned in the above entry. Here is a picture of the boat in its present state. Have you ever seen such a sad sight?

A(nother) Modest Proposal

This week my colleagues and I have been conducting B1 certification oral exams for our august educational establishment's degree students. Thanks to the EU's Pisa Hgher Education treaty (GB quite sensibly did not sign up to this particularly demented bit), European students need a B1 level in a foreign language in order to get their degree.

Now, as an English teacher, I must admit to serious misgivings over my power to deny a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, or whatever, to a truly academically gifted student because s/he cannot give me grammatically correct advice on how to stop my imaginary daughter from spending all of her money on shoes, how I can lose weight, or remove a spider from my bath, however welcome that advice may be.

I also find it worrying that there is a growing number of unemployed 40+ year-old students with families etc. who are back at uni. trying to get a degree in order to have the slimmest of slim chances of finding employment. It's also rumoured that there are unicorns in the local park - they should try hunting them instead. It's depressing enough to see all the young ones with hopes of a bright future when the only brightness thay will get to experience is that of the TV as they kill zombies on the Play Station because IN SPAIN THERE ARE NO JOBS - unless you have friends in the right places.

A possible - but just as brutal - solution might be an adaptation of Swift's Modest Proposal. Swift ironically suggested that as the 18th-century Catholic Irish were such prolific breeders and so grindingly poor, they should breed babies for the tables of the English nobility and mercantile classes. Spare the babies, I say! What Spain needs is another Civil War. It might plunge the country into poverty, starvation and mass murder, but it would sure as hell reduce unemployment. Indeed, it would provide huge opportunities for the unemployed young men and women as soldiers, doctors, nurses, black marketeers, NGO leeches &c. &c. &c. And, of course, post-war there would be a lot of reconstruction and fewer workers.

The above is obviously an ironic comment on the state of the country, yet all of the ingredients for a civil war are there - a disgruntled populace, tired of the corruption, and unemployment that devastates the country while highly gruntled politicians, bankers and union executives live off the fat of the land, tax the people and bleed the country white. And now we are witnessing the rise of Podemos (aka Pokemon), a demogogical political party for the disaffected - i.e. almost the whole Spanish populace - which seems to have borrowed from Castro, Chaves, Morales, &c. 

The cafés and bars in Plaza del Cabildo, the main square in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, are witness to a constant procession of beggars, asking clients for food, a coffee or money. Some are addicts. Most are unemployed people whose benefit has run out and who have no other means of support. And all credit to the good people of Sanlúcar de Barrameda; they are very charitable and willing to help when they can. Who knows? It might be them next.