Here’s my interpretation of this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge: Foreshadow, which is a verb meaning “to act as a warning or sign of indication of a future event”.
Whilst you’re here, you might like to have a look around:
Riddle Me This: The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Statues
Patatas a lo pobre: Poor man´s potatoes
Image credit Flickr CC: agsaran
WELCOME TO THE WORLD’S LARGEST FOOD FIGHT!
If you are thinking of heading to the village of Buñol, near Valencia, for this year’s tomato-throwing La Tomatina Festival, be warned that you now need a ticket to take part!
The annual festival, which takes place each year on the last Wednesday in August, has been attracting such huge crowds that a ticketing system has had to be introduced. Only 20,000 tickets will be issued (40,000 people attended last year’s festival) at a cost of 10 euros each – creating a new “sauce” of income for the local council! 15,000 of the tickets will be made available to the general public, with the other 5,000 reserved for local residents. You can buy your tickets at this website (in English)
Happy throwing!
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In a festival that dates back several hundred years, many coastal towns and fishing villages in Spain celebrate the Fiesta del Día de Virgen del Carmen as the protector of mariners and fishermen.
Every year around 16th July, spectacular maritime processions of decorated fishing boats known as jabegas head out to sea carrying their precious cargo – an effigy of the Virgen del Carmen, to bless their fishing grounds.
The vessels, many decorated with brightly coloured flags and bunting, each crowded with people, gather under the late dusk sky patiently waiting for the official party of sailors, fishermen, clergy and authorities to bring the Statue of the Virgin on board the boat that will lead the procession.
But before that, the Virgen del Carmen is paraded through the streets for all to see. There is an air of excitement with people surging forward for the best views as the parade passes by, before making its way to the water´s edge.
Celebrations vary slightly from town to town along the coast, east of Málaga. In La Caleta de Vélez the parade is held each year on the feast day of the Virgen del Carmen, 16th July. Some towns and villages celebrate the following weekend, but there will be posters displayed in local shops, announcing the day and time, if you want to join in the festivities.
My photographs show last year´s celebrations in La Caleta de Vélez, situated at the mid-coastal point of La Axarquía region.
In the video below, you can see the festivities held in 2011 in the town of Torre del Mar, just along the coast from La Caleta de Vélez.
Which is your favourite Spanish festival or fiesta?
Whilst you´re here, why not have a look at the following articles too?
The heart of Cómpeta: El Paseo de las Tradiciones
Patatas a lo pobre: Poor man´s potatoes
Weekly Photo Challenge: The Golden Hour
I took this photograph of the charming El Vendimiador several years ago when it was situated in the main square, Plaza Almijara in the village of Cómpeta.
The statue commemorates centuries of wine-making in the area and shows the grape-picker standing in his sandals on a dry-stone wall. On his head he carries a basket of freshly-picked grapes and by his side, his young daughter helps with the harvest.
Despite being sited in the main square, next to the 500 year old Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción village church only eight years ago, the statue disappeared a few years later. I suppose this was to make more room for vehicles to turn around in the tiny square, already half full of tables, chairs and sunshades from the nearby cafes and restaurants.
No-one seemed to know what had happened to the statue and some even suggested it had been damaged during the move.
Fortunately El Vendimiador re-appeared earlier this year at the new Mirador in Competa’s Plaza Vendimia (where he really should have been all along), except now he stands alone, without his daughter.
Curiouser and curiouser …….!
Looking down on El Vendimiador from the Church tower
This post is my response to this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge: Companionable and to Ailsa’s Travel Theme: Sculpture
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Competa´s Noche del vino: Night of wine
The heart of Cómpeta: El Paseo de las Tradiciones
The Day of the Dead: A Celebration of Life
[Image credit CC: Ian Britton]
If you choose to live in a town or village in the Axarquía, there will probably be a postal delivery to your house on most week days, just as you would expect in many countries. Depending on where you live in the world, you might think it strange, but most front doors here in Spain don’t have letter boxes set into them, making mail delivery a little more complicated.
Your correspondence will usually be left in a lockable post box fastened to the wall at the front of your house. That’s always assuming, of course, that you have a lockable post box. If you don’t, it’s likely that the postman will push the letters in the gap under your front door. I can recall when we rented a house in the beautiful white village of Frigiliana, before we bought our present house, seeing letters poking out from underneath many of the doors, as I walked through the narrow village streets.
If you choose to live in the countryside (el campo), you will not have your post delivered to your home, but instead you will need to go to your local village post office to collect it.
Before the post office in the village of Cómpeta moved into new premises a few years ago, this service was free to residents in the area where I live. We had all been allotted Post Office box numbers (Apartado de Correos) and we would then queue up, as we Brits are so good at, waiting our turn to be given our goodies!
You knew you had truly been accepted into the local community when the Spanish postmistress didn’t need to ask for your post office box number ….she just went to the pigeon-hole, situated behind the counter, and took out your bundle of post!
The Post Office queue was always a sociable event, with locals and expats chatting and listening in to each other’s conversations. It was always a place to learn what was happening in the village, particularly as you had chance to read the notice board, as you shuffled past it, whilst you were waiting.
Sometimes, of course, the wait would stretch to half an hour, as the queue snaked around the Post Office and out of the door, which would result in people grumbling and moaning about what an old-fashioned system it was. Personally, I always found it rather charming.
Sadly, the social aspect of mail collection all changed when Cómpeta Post Office moved into a new building and the system was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.
In order to retain your Apartado de correos address, it would now cost you more than 50 Euros a year. Each household was issued with a key, so you can visit to collect your mail from your own personal lockable mail box, in racks on the public side of the counter, anytime during post office opening hours.
So nowadays, people drop in – open the box, and are off again within a moment or two and without a drop of gossip in sight!
Shame that …. 😉
What is an aspect of modern life that you think has changed for the worse?
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East of Málaga 