Going South-2 - Going South To The Costa Blanca-2003

Yesterday, I offered a shortened article about our emigration from the UK to Spain December 2003. At landfall, we’d driven off the P&O Portsmouth-Spain ferry the Pride of Bilbao and headed out of the port area, Jen navigating from the AA route planner obtained off the Internet plus the Michelin map. 

Bilbao is dominated by the green slopes of the surrounding mountains, even beyond the high-rise buildings.  The city’s busy reinventing itself, its steel mills and shipyards being transformed into conference centres and luxury flats, and of course there’s the famous Guggenheim Museum (opened in 1997 and featured in the Bond movie The World is Not Enough) which has generated a tourism boom.  The city celebrated its 700^th anniversary and is worthy of an article in its own right.  We drove round the edge of sprawling Bilbao as the dark receded.

It’s strange how quickly you adapt to driving on the other side of the road – even with a right-hand drive car.  Reading the smaller numbers on the speedometer’s kph dial soon became second-nature.  We had no intention of falling foul of speed restrictions here – though there were very few speed cameras in evidence.

It was overcast and dull.  Not surprising, really, as the north of Spain gets more than its fair share of rain and is green most of the year as a result.  One motorway sign we came across was of a raining cloud and a ‘100’ kph limit – warning motorists to reduce speed from the standard 120 on this section when it rains.  As we climbed into the surrounding mountains it did start to rain.  Another motorway sign showed a huge snowflake, warning of possible snow.  We saw two snow-ploughs driving up an adjacent road.  (Less than four days later this journey would have been through heavy snow, these selfsame ploughs working overtime to keep roads clear).

We turned onto the A68 or E80 – many roads have a European number as well as a national one. 

The only toll booth we encountered in our 530-mile drive south was at Junction 3 where we picked up an entry ticket and would be charged further south.  We now met mist and low-lying cloud.  Our daughter Hannah rang on the mobile so we gave her a weather report as we drove through fog.  A ten minute stop at a service area exotically named Area de Quintanapalla where we enjoyed tortilla and coffee. 

A few years ago some Eurocrat busybodies tried to get the enormous black Osborne bull-silhouette advertisements taken down; a sensible compromise was arrived at whereby the company name would be removed but the bulls could stay since they were synonymous with the image of Spain.  We passed the first of five of these bulls on the Burgos southern bypass signposted Valladolid, Madrid and the second on the approach to the N1, the end of the motorway, and paid the toll. 

 

Burgos was the home of El Cid in the eleventh century and was the base two centuries later for Fernando el Santo to reconquer Murcia, Cordoba and Seville.  Fernando started the building of Burgos’s cathedral, one of the greatest in all Spain.

Still keen to find the sunshine we’d promised it, our trusty car climbed to one of the highest points in the Puerto de Somosierra area – 1440 metres - and met sleet and snow.  One of the tapes we played was Placido Domingo, singing the American Hymn from East of Eden, and the words held a little significance for us both: ‘I dreamed of Eden all my life and now … where  ever I go across the land I stand so proudly in the sun and say “I am home”’ – though the sun still had to make an appearance!

 
Now we joined the toll-free motorway M40, the Madrid western bypass and followed the signs for the Aeropuerto – not that we were considering flying out through lack of sun or anything, just following directions … Essentially, this ring-road round Madrid was clear for us though vehicles travelling in the other direction were at a standstill, echoing our beloved M25 no doubt. 

Eventually we turned onto the A3 for Valencia – the Avenida Mediterraneo - for a short while, joining the A31 and stayed with this road for some 176 kilometres following the signs to Albacete.  From a psychological standpoint, you feel you’re covering a lot of ground as the kilometres rather than miles count down on the road-signs.

 
Now – at last! - the land was filled with sunshine, the ploughed fields a deep russet colour contrasting with the green trees and cultivated hills.  Rise after rise displayed modern wind turbines, graceful against the blue skyline, like small armies frozen in time while on the march.  Here you could imagine a modern-day Don Quixote tilting at these windmills.

After 275 miles we filled up with CEPSA petrol and soon afterwards sighted two more bulls. 

 

At about 3:50pm we joined the N301 until we hit Albacete – the fifth bull was sighted at the junction for Albacete.  Because our car was fully laden we didn’t stop, but this small city is worth a visit.  It was called Al-Basit – the plain – by the Moors but apart from a few old back-streets it’s a modern city.  The museum is renowned for its archeological and ethnographical collection, including five small Roman dolls perfectly sculpted and jointed and an array of local Roman mosaics.  Like Toledo, Albacete is famous for its high-quality knives, an industry that can be traced back to the Moors.

We passed under the hill-top fortress of Chinchilla de Monte Aragon but didn’t linger for the view as we still had over 150 kilometers to go.  A short run down the N430 then onto the N330 for seventy-five km and we were in familiar territory, the Alicante region and arrived at 6:30pm as dusk turned into night.  We’d covered some 815km in ten hours, with stops.  It was a lot easier unloading than loading the car.  We’d arrived at our temporary residence, a base from where we would seek a permanent home under Spanish skies.

And just a week later on Christmas Day we were sitting with friends on the roof under those clear blue skies eating a traditional turkey meal with all the trimmings. 

 

[Note: Not every Christmas lunch can be eaten out, sometimes it's just a bit too cold; the nights are cold too. But the skies are usually gloriously clear blue! Then, petrol was about 81 cents a litre, now it's 1 euro 41 cents!]

On a pinnacle - Guadalest, Spain

About 25km inland from Benidorm is the enchanting town and castle of Guadalest. If you’ve never been there, it’s really worth a visit, as it has one of the most photogenic views in the Costa Blanca area. You can get there by car or an organised coach trip, travelling past lush and fertile valleys originally terraced and irrigated by the Moors. The best view of the craggy fortress and village is from the almond terraces and olive groves on either side of the twisting road.

Hundreds of people go time and again, and yet it never seems overly crowded; I’m speaking from experience, we take our visitors regularly, and they never seem to tire of the place. Its popularity is understandable when you realise that Guadalest is the second-most visited place in Spain for tourists, after Madrid’s Prado Museum - over two million visitors in all.

Strangely, if you watch the film My Life in Ruins, which is set entirely in Greece, you’ll catch some views of Guadalest, and other nearby parts of the Costa Blanca!

The water used in Benidorm’s many hotels actually comes from Guadalest; one of its main attractions is the breath-taking idyllic reservoir viewed from the castle walls.

 

 

By rights Guadalest should be an expensive tourist trap, with plenty of shops selling the whole spectrum of keepsakes and ornaments, from the ridiculous to the sublime. Yet it’s still magical and the prices, surprisingly, are better than you will find on the coast.

Like an eagle’s nest on a pinnacle, Guadalest stands out like no other Spanish town. There are countless attractive mountainside villages, and both Ronda and Cuenca are spectacular in their own way, but Guadalest is one of a kind.

Surrounded yet not dwarfed by the Aitana, Serella and Xorta mountain ranges, Guadalest has been named as a ‘Monument of Historical and Artistic Value.’

Way back in AD 715 the Moors settled here, endowing the place with its name. They didn’t plunder or molest the inhabitants in the area but lived alongside them, as was their way for hundreds of years until the Christian kings in the north started to fight their way south to eject them.

Jaime I conquered Guadalest in 1238 but it wasn’t actually occupied until 1245. There were ongoing battles with the Moors until their leader’s expulsion in 1275 and the ruling that no Moor could change his dwelling-place without the permission of Christians. Yet more uprisings of Moors occurred – even after their final expulsion in 1492 – by those who had stayed on. One of the bloodiest and last uprisings was as late as 1609; these battles are celebrated boisterously and noisily every year, particularly in nearby Alcoy.

In 1644 and 1748 Guadalest suffered earthquakes. The ground here trembled yet again during the War of the Spanish Succession when the town’s powder reserves blew up – whether accidentally or deliberately isn’t known – which prompted the place to be abandoned as a stronghold in 1848.

In its day it was quite formidable, the local population living within the castle walls, with only the single access through the gate of St José. The narrow streets are typical, providing shade in the sweltering long summer months and shelter in the blessedly short cold winters. The two hundred inhabitants devote their lives to tourism and agriculture.

Wend your way through the quaint shop-filled streets up the steps and through the St José Gate and immediately opposite is the entrance to the Orduña House which charges a modest entrance fee. Here you can view original and interesting furniture, paintings and kitchen utensils. Perched on and overlapping the rock edifice, the house offers some spectacular panoramic views. The library is perhaps the most attractive feature, with over 1,200 volumes. The house also provides the only access to the castle above, which is definitely worth venturing for the added perspective the viewpoints provide.

Next to this house is the church where scrolls were found mentioning the baptism of 190 Moors. The watch tower – Peñon de Alcalà – perched on the top of this rock could only be reached by a rope-ladder. The town square has the small but imposing town hall and below it a twelfth century dungeon, which is open to the public. You will also encounter several museums, ranging from modern sculpture to designs on pin-heads, from belens to torture chambers!

There are plenty of cafés and restaurants where you can stop and eat, all reasonably priced, the favourite meals being paella, stuffed peppers, rabbit in garlic mayonnaise and oven-cooked vegetables. The shops offer an amazing choice – beautiful local handicrafts, ponchos, shawls, stoles, china, porcelain and fine lace-work. These colourful shops stretch from the lower, outer part of the town all the way up to the high square, some 590 metres above sea-level.

The Guadalest dam is 73 metres high and 270 metres long and was built between 1953 and 1964. Nearby, and usually part of any organised tour to Guadalest, is the Algar river and waterfalls, both of which are refreshing and attractive and most certainly worth a visit while you’re in the area.

Strangely, I haven’t included Guadalest in my fiction yet. This is clearly an oversight. I feel that Leon Cazador will be called to resolve one of his cases here soon.

Spanish Eye - first 22 cases of Leon Cazador, Private Eye

due out from Crooked Cat Publishing 29 November 2013

 NB – ‘belen’ – nativity tableau

 

 

Moor about Spain

Today, I’m discussing in brief a 2004 non-fiction book entitled Andalus by Jason Webster. The sub-heading of this book is Unlocking the secrets of Moorish Spain and it’s a follow-up of his first book Duende: a journey in search of flamenco which became an acclaimed big seller. Having studied Arabic in Oxford, Webster lived for several years in Italy and Egypt then went to Spain to learn to play the flamenco guitar; he now lives in Valencia with his Spanish wife.

Like many Hispanophiles, he’s had a long-lasting fascination with the Moorish past of this country, whether triggered by the sublime Alhambra in Granada, the dramatic and beautiful Great Mosque in Cordoba or the surprising number of Arabic root words in the Spanish language. Gibraltar which the Spanish vociferously and with inept politicians insist is theirs could realistically be claimed by Morocco or other North African countries – after all, it’s named after a Moor – jabal Tariq – the mountain of Tariq, the first Arab to conquer Spain.

For eight centuries Christians, Muslims and Jews lived and worked side by side. It was a period of great cultural and artistic blossoming. The Moors in Spain had the first universities, the first paper factories and the first street lighting in the whole of Europe. The Arabs learned paper-making from the Chinese artisans on capturing Samarkand. Indeed, the Moors first crossed the Strait to Spain in the Dark Ages, at about the same time as Bede was writing his History. At the time Spain was under Visigothic rule, the German tribes having moved in and taken over as the Roman Empire collapsed.

‘Moor’ was the term used to describe Muslims in Spain – Arabs, Berbers, Syrians, Persians and eventually Spaniards; it originated from the Latin maurus, which had been used to refer to North Africans.

Eventually the Christian Reconquest started to bite and in 1492 the Moors were expelled from what had become their country. What followed was religious intolerance, epitomised by the Inquisition. In modern Spain now annual ‘Moors and Christians’ fiestas occur in many towns and cities; these are noisy, colourful and quite spectacular events.

Two hundred years before the Reconquest, Arabic scholars translated great medical and mathematical works from the original Greek. By way of the Reconquest many of these works were translated into Latin, notably in Toledo. It could even be argued that the Arabic learning laid the foundations of the later Renaissance.

Webster was curious to see how the Moorish influence persisted even to this day, beyond these fiestas – ironically at a time when the Spanish government is having difficulty stemming the tide of illegal immigrants from Morocco and North African ports.

He read an old legend about Musa the Moor, the richest, strongest and most powerful caliph in ancient Spain. As the Christian armies were advancing, Musa asked his friendly jinn to safeguard his riches – which he did by turning them into stone in a special cave; but Musa’s daughter Zoraida didn’t want to flee, so she was turned into a tree outside the cave. But for one day in every year, as spring arrives, Princess Zoraida comes back to life and all the Caliph’s riches gleam and shine again. Only for one day the spell is broken. Webster was enchanted by this tale and wondered if, like the Caliph’s riches, much of the Moorish heritage was hidden from view, only waiting to be discovered.

The book begins with Webster incognito under the plastic sheeting of a fruit farm, doing some journalistic research on the illegal immigrants working in appalling conditions. Because they’re illegal, the immigrants are locked up at night and monitored by guards; they get no pay, only food and cramped sleeping quarters. Slavery was alive and well, it seemed. Then he was discovered and had to flee, aided by a young Moroccan called Zine. They got away but Webster now felt beholden to Zine and attempted to find work for him – a difficult task when he had no papers. [This short episode inspired me for a sequence in my Blood of the Dragon Trees].

Amazon.co.uk - http://goo.gl/fsLk3X

Amazon.com - http://goo.gl/wHQpQp

 

Accompanied by his own modern-day Moor for most of his journey of discovery, Webster meets a number of fascinating characters in Cordoba, Murcia, Almeria and Seville, among other southern Spain and Portugeuse towns. There’s an amusing visit to a clinica de enfermedades sexuales in Seville; however, I could have done without the over-long surreal Christmas party in a Valencia disco. On the way he reminds us of the Moorish legacy in the language – many words beginning with ‘a’ or ‘al’ have Arabic roots, whether English or Spanish: ‘Cotton’ – algodon in Spanish – comes from the Arabic al-qutun, for example.

Webster has an observant eye and a deceptively easy writing style which enliven a fascinating quick tour round the Moorish history via modern-day towns and cities of Spain.

Since writing Andalus, Webster has produced three detective novels featuring Chief Inspector Max Camara in Valencia: Or the Bulls Kill You, A Death in Valencia, and The Anarchist Detective.

 

A holy forest

Córdoba was once the greatest city of the Arab west, rivalling both Cairo and Baghdad. Its mosque – Mezquita – is one of the world’s most beautiful Islamic buildings.

From the fifth to the eighth century Córdoba was ruled by the Visigoths. Two hundred years later, the Moors came, with the help of the city’s disaffected Jewish residents. The Islamic rule permitted the worship of other religions, so Jews, Christians and Moors lived and worked cheek by jowl. A far cry from the intolerance of the Spanish Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand who threw out of Spain not only the Arabs but also the Jews in 1492.

Cordoba - the river is often populated by cattle and goats in the height of summer!

 

It’s an intriguing fact that often beneath any place of worship you may find older hidden churches and cathedrals. Apparently, during the Visigothic period the church of San Vicente was built, only to be destroyed by the Moors who began in 785 to build on the same site their great mosque; the construction took two hundred years and the mosque was considered so important that it saved the city’s inhabitants the arduous pilgrimage to Mecca, which boasted the only mosque of greater size and importance.

 

Abd al Rahman I, inspired by the Mosque of Damascus, intended the design to include the traditional ablution courtyard – where the faithful washed before prayer – and the hall of prayer itself. His successor, Abd al Rahman II, carried out the first addition, lengthening the courtyard and the prayer hall aisles.  A minaret was constructed in the courtyard but this is now embedded in the cathedral’s 93m high bell tower, Torre del Alminar. Al Hakam II increased the splendour of the decorations, bringing Byzantine artists to provide beautiful mosaics. The final expansion of the mosque was effected under the rule of Al Mansur.

With its seventeen aisles, divided by tiers of arches spanning columns often taken from Roman and Carthaginian sites; it still has a powerful effect on any visitor entering from the Courtyard of the Orange Trees.  The profusion of magnificent arches has been called ‘a holy jungle’, which is most apt with about 850 columns creating a criss-crossing of alleys, the pillars supporting two tiers of striped arches that add height and create a remarkable feeling of space.

The mihrab – a prayer recess – is situated along the wall that faces Mecca and it held a gilt copy of the Koran. Here you can appreciate the exquisite mosaic art and interlaced arches. The mihrab is topped by a shell-shaped dome. The worn flagstones indicate where pilgrims circled it seven times on their knees – it’s now fenced-off, probably to preserve the floor.

 

The great mosque and its courtyard were places of worship, centres of teaching, of justice and here too a social life thrived.

In the eleventh century, civil war devastated the city, hundreds were massacred and much of the beautiful city destroyed. Although it remained a Muslim city for another two hundred years, its power had gone, being transferred to Seville and other petty Islamic kingdoms. Córdoba finally fell to the Reconquest in 1236 and its Muslim inhabitants fled south.

Immediately after the Christians took the city, the great mosque became their cathedral – Church of the Virgin of the Assumption – with minor architectural changes, such as placing chapels in the outer aisles. The first chapel – Capilla de Villaviciosa – was built in 1371 and its multi-lobed arches are quite stunning. In 1523 began the construction of a tall cruciform church in the centre of the mosque building. Emperor Charles V had given unthinking permission for the construction. When he saw the result, he accused the cathedral builders: ‘You have built here what you or anyone might have built anywhere else, but you have destroyed what was unique in the world.’ Part of the Mezquita was destroyed to accommodate the cathedral; much of it survived and was transformed. And with its dazzling visual effect, the great mosque is still unique.

What is surprising is that, unlike so many other times, the reconquering Christians actually let the original Islamic building stand. They razed many to the ground. This great mosque and the Alhambra palace of Granada suffered privations, but even now they’re still standing, captivating emblems of Arabic history and culture.

Now you encounter the breath-taking forest of Islamic arches then the hodgepodge of styles (Gothic, Renaissance, Italian and Baroque) that comprise the Christian cathedral.  The Christian architects created a Latin cross shaped plan, ingeniously integrating the caliphal structures. The main altarpiece is covered by a vault inspired by the Sistine Chapel, with an unusual set of stalls. Outside, the Muslim courtyard was remodelled with the cloisters. Original palm trees – imported by the Caliphate – were replaced by orange trees in the fifteenth century. It has been argued that the Cathedral administration has preserved the great mosque, which is now a World Heritage Site.