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1615-21 - 22 july 2010 JANUARY 2010
Discover the Costa Blanca By Derek Workman. Derek Workman continues his series of excursions from his book ‘Inland Trips From the Costa Blanca’ which features 22 detailed trips that lead you to spots you’d never find by yourself.
Temple of Indulgence: Murcia Casino IF THE magnificent entrance, with its rose marble pillars and heroic allegorical bas reliefs isn’t enough to convince you that you are entering a building of grandeur and significance, then the Islamic splendour of the Patio Arabé will. Exuberant muliticoloured intricate designs with horseshoe arches radiating fantails of blue and gold arabesques fill the entrance hall of the Casino of Murcia, proclaiming its importance to the city’s
Moorish horseshoe arches
business and cultural life of years gone by. Casinos can be found in many towns and villages in Spain, but not always of the grandeur of that of Murcia. The ‘casino’ did not have the glitzy, high-rolling image that is implied today and the only gambling done would be for very small stakes on a game of dominoes or cards. They were essentially a gentleman’s club, paid for by subscriptions and seen as a democratic meeting place where business and high-minded enterprises could be discussed with like-minded people – as long as you could afford the monthly membership fees. The Casino of Murcia was founded on 12th June 1847 under the Presidency of Juan López Somalo and over the following decades the magnificent palace-like building was expanded and embellished. It was recognised as an Historic National Monument in February 1983 and, despite the sepulchral calm that pervades its halls, it now has over 150,000 visitors annually. As you stand overawed in the Patio Arabé, bright daylight filters through the coloured glass canopy overhead, casting complex shadows and dancing rainbow illumination around the walls of the upper level, around which runs a wrought-iron balustrade. You have the sense that you could be in one of the more intimate rooms of the Alhambra,
Sculpture room
were it not that before you stretches an arched glass roof over a marble-floored corridor, awash with diffused daylight, that extends to a semi-circle of deep armchairs, raised five steps above floor level and arrayed either side of a copy of the famous statue of the Dama de Elche. On either side of this corridor, dainty white marble steps with twisted handrails lead to the casino’s function rooms. As you descend the steps when you leave these subdued rooms you feel as if you are coming out of your own front door onto a brightly lit summer street. Pass through the Arabic arch, with its marble columns and intricate plasterwork, and into the room to the left, where you enter an elegant Edwardian library. Alternate lengths of pale oak and deep maroon mahogany form rectangles and triangles, radiating from a central square. Around the edge, a one-metre deep border of pale oak parquet lends an almost lattice-like effect. In the centre of the room deep maroon and brass studded chairs surround the two enormous library tables with their brasshooded lamps. Laid out on the tables are the daily newspapers, each carefully locked in its wooden handling support. Around the walls, small desks with darkened green shades allow members the privacy of private study or letter-writing. In one corner a wrought-iron spiral staircase twists its way up to a narrow balcony where leather-bound tomes rest majestically in glazed bookcases. Bookcases, balcony and books are born aloft on the wings of a flight of herons, each forming the ark of great cast iron brackets. Crossing the corridor to the room opposite the library, you find yourself in a small salon of faded elegance with cane-backed chairs, heavy maroon velvet drapes and flock wallpaper covered in ponderous oil paintings. Should you choose to do so, you could pass through the room into the pillared cool of the Patio Pompeyano, with its statues of Danaide and Amazona d Policleto, there with the courtesy of the Vatican Museum, but to lighten the mood it’s best to return to the corridor and visit the last room on the left, the Tocador Señoras, the ladies powder room, although these days the gentlemen are allowed in. In a gallant nod to the ladies this room has been set aside for their use, and in the male ponderousness of much of the rest of the casino, this tiny room is a delight. Gilded
chairs line the walls, but it is the ceiling that draws the eyes and the gasps. Painted with eternally youthful maidens with bright butterfly wings skittering across a cloud covered deep blue sky, they appear to be ascending heavenward to the centre of the domed ceiling. You suddenly realise, though, that they are in fact reaching out to one of their flaxen haired maids as she tumbles to earth, her wings on fire – although one couple of nymphets are too busy prettifying themselves to care! Before you leave the room, stand in front of one of the tall oval mirrors and see yourself reflected into infinity in the one opposite, as you travel down an Alice in Wonderland hole in the wall. The painted butterflies of the Tocador Señoras are a mere aperitivo to the banquet that is the piece de resistance of the casino – the Salon de Baile. As you approach the room at the side of the Patio Pompeyano, all is in darkness. Drop a one-euro coin into the box to the side of the door and a rousing Parisian polka strikes up as the room burst into brilliant light. The ballroom is an incredible confection of gilding and gold moquette, with a stunning painted silk ceiling, now sadly suffering from damp. Heavenly scenes and Greek rural idylls fill panels in the frieze and from the centre of a group of maidens floating on clouds, who appear to be observing the goings-on below from above a tromp l’oie balcony, five huge chandeliers hang, the light from their 326 bulbs being reflected in a hundred direction from the incredibly rococo gilt mirror frames. The salon de Baile Regio was inspired by the French palaces of Luis XV and was completed in 1876. The lamps were made in Paris from an original design and are of gilded bronze with 1,800 pieces of glass made by Bacarat. Having done a twirl beneath the glowing candelabras, be ready as the applause fades after the music. Just as the first strains of a waltz appear the lights suddenly go out and you are plunged into near total darkness. Whilst the casinos in Spain are often deteriorating due to lack of new members they provide an important part of the cultural history of the country. Many are open to the public or at least allow them to visit the more public rooms. It is unfortunately quite rare than anyone has actually written about them, either individually or collectively, but they are glorious reminders of the individuality and idiosyncrasy of the Spanish culture.
To discover more about Spain, visit www.derekworkman-journalist.com and http://derekworkman.wordpress.com. http://valpaparazzi.wordpress.com are random notes about life in Spain. Derek Workman’s books, Inland Trips from the Costa Blanca and Small Hotels and Inns of Eastern Spain are available from most good books shops or direct from the publisher, Santana Books, www.santanabooks.com or Tel. 952 485 838.
August 2010
www.thetraderonline.es • 962910095
A Stroll Around…Peñiscola
Derek Workman
W
hen Charlton Heston charged his marauding hordes along the beach at Peñiscola in the ‘60’s film version of El Cid, there was little to the town other than a few streets leading from the sands and the omnipresent Castillo, glowering over the inhabitants of Peñiscola as it had done for seven centuries. Stand on the Castillo ramparts today and you get a clear idea of modern Peñiscola – a three kilometer sweep of beach forming a bay, more developed than when Charlton was here, but much of it still only a one apartment-wide strip of buildings separating the sea from the huerta. Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, and before them Phoenicians and Greeks, were all aware of the location of Peñiscola and its secure position as an unyielding stronghold. Its situation could hardly be more secure, having its own supply of fresh water that still springs today from the heart of the rock underneath the fortified city. The present day castle was built by the Knights Templar between 1294 and 1307, with the Italian, Juan Bautista Antonelli, under the orders of Felipe II, building the stout city walls between 1576 and 1578. Peñiscola’s most famous resident was Papa Luna, who took up residence in the castle in 1411, changing it into a palace and papal library (although it must be said that his ‘palace’ is hardly palatial). With this move Peñiscola became, with the Vatican in Rome and the Papal Palace in Avignon, one of only three Holy Sees in history. Born Pedro de Luna in Illueca, Zaragoza, in 1325, he belonged to one of the twelve noble families of Aragon. In his youth he loved weapons and fighting, but eventually entered the ecclesiastical world. After the death of Clemente VII in 1394, Don Pedro was appointed the new Pope and Vicar of Christ on earth under the name of Benedict XIII.
Papa Luna was widely known as a bit of a controversial figure but had the misfortune to be appointed Pope at a time when Christianity divided into two opposing schisms. In an age market by war, ambition, greed and corruption that affected even the higher principal dignitaries of the Church, he decamped from Rome to Peñiscola where, in spite of
being accused of being a heretic, and after surviving more than one attempt to poison him, Papa Luna died peacefully on 23rd May, convinced that he was the rightful Pope – although only two cardinals could be found who shared his conviction. The stout walls of the Castle may have repelled innumerable invaders, but they are as naught against the latter invasion of tourism. The meandering alleyways are full of tiny shops dedicated to relieving the visitor of his holiday spends. For every artisan shop there are three dispensing such ‘must-have’ souvenirs as the porrón made to look like a Guardia Civil with the spout being an engorged penis. But there are some surprisingly good crafts.
On C/San Roque, at number 29, Tiziano has some pretty paintings done by the owner, and opposite, at 32, his wife sells attractive small crafts. Meanwhile, on C/Farones, Casa de las Conchas is a tiny shell covered building with Arabic horseshoe-arched windows, which houses a bright beach wear and knickknack shop, and is a charming bit of kitsch that must have taken hours of seaside walks to collect enough shells to cover the walls. Someone has tried to maintain its kitschy appeal by covering even the downspouts with shells.
As the day drifted into evening the narrow cobbled streets came alive with the paseo, and old men and women brought out kitchen chairs onto the streets to chat – though kept themselves carefully segregated. The people who live up by the Castillo must have legs like whipcord and soles on their feet like welltanned leather because not only is it a steep climb, but the small stones placed side-on to form the patterned cobbled streets are crippling on the feet. If you want to escape the hustle and bustle of the streets, wander down through the Portal de San Pere and cross the small wooden bridge that brings you onto the quayside where Peñiscola’s fishing fleet tie up. Below the stone clock tower you will see an orange illuminated sign saying Puerto Mar, and alongside it a large knife and fork illuminated in blue. This is a four-table restaurant (although the whole of the quayside is its patio) that only sells fish fresh from the boat. Great bowls of berberecho’s, spouting jets of seawater, sit on the open counters, and fishermen and their families discuss the merits of dishes of fish that they could have well caught themselves earlier in the day. One of the nicest things about Peñiscola is that if you time your visit right on a warm summer’s evening, a stroll down the prom brings back memories of the sort of seaside town not seen in Britain for the last three decades.
If you’ve forgotten what the fairgrounds of your childhood were like – or you’d like to bring the memory back – get yourself up
21 to Peñiscola, when the annual fair comes around. Dodgems, the terrifyingly whirling Octopus (here called El Dimon), rifle ranges and sideshows, where if you can shoot an arrow into the centre of the target you win a fat teddy bear; hook a floating duck and a gawpy green dragon can be yours. Darts that never seem to fly straight and juggling balls that really must be weighted to have missed by that much! On the Torito Bravo, five-year olds get their first feel of the Bous a Carrer, and a ghost train passes through dragon’s claws as a gigantic one-eyed pirate with a demonic grin lasciviously raises a scantily dressed and terrified young maid to his lips.
It’s a proper funfair, complete with algodon dulce, baba-popa, cotton candy, or, as we would call it, candy floss. Just like Blackpool pleasure beach of thirty years ago, it puts the ‘fun’ back into ‘funfair’. As I wandered back along the prom I tried to peel off the sticky algodon dulce that was stuck to my cheek. Now I remembered why I didn’t like it in the first place. Still – when you’re at a fairground you can’t not buy a stickful of the smudgy stuff can you? To discover more about Spain, visit www. derekworkman-journalist.com and http:// derekworkman.wordpress.com. http://valpaparazzi.wordpress.com are randoms notes about life in Spain. Derek Workman’s books, Inland Trips from the Costa Blanca and Small Hotels and Inns of Eastern Spain are available from most good books shops or direct from the publisher, Santana Books, www. santanabooks.com or Tel. 95 248 5838.
The Inland Magazine™ For the last few kilometres of arrow-straight road from Toledo to Seguera that cuts like a straight black gash through the flat plains of La Mancha, you become aware of a small block on a distant hill, shimmering through the dust clouds raised by the hooves of the great herds of goats that wander these plains, source of the milk that makes the queso de cabra, the strong Manchegan cheese, and the legs that become paletillas, roast kid’s leg. Climbing the hill to the block is a series of stumps, looking like a row of rotting teeth. As you get closer you begin to see the outstretched sails that the loco hidalgo, Don Quijote, Cervantes’ mad knight with his colander helmet, mistook for the swirling arms of fearsome giants.
Following Crazy Don
A region bigger than Wales, Castilla-La Mancha reflects the diverse landscape of Spain itself. To the north, in the provinces of Cuenca and Gudalajara, great fields of golden corn and the vibrant yellow faces of equally large plantations of sunflowers brighten the green of vast pine-forested hillsides. The Cuiudad Encantada (the Enchanted City), to the north of Cuenca, is an eerie forest of humanistic and animal forms carved in stone over millennia by water, wind and ice. To the south, seemingly endless vistas of cornfields, vineyards and olive groves, bare of anything other than small two-storey villages that look as if they are keeping their head tucked down against the Manchegan winds, bake under the brilliant blue sky. The restored molinos of Seguera, each with its own name, uphold the myth of La Mancha but its hilltop cities present a wide contrast and represent a major part of the history of Spain. Albacete has the rare distinction of being recognised as the most boring city in the country but the regional, and once national capital, Toledo, counters this by being said to be one of the most beautiful and historically interesting. Toledo saw its greatest period of artistic development at a time when its political power was on the wane. Just after the mid-16th century, a few years before El Greco arrived from Italy, Felipe II moved his court north to Madrid. By the time it clicked with the city fathers that Toledo was no longer the seat of national power many of the artists, the architects, the rich and the powerful had decamped, leaving the city to become nothing more than an architectural and artistic bywater. Fortunately for today’s visitors most of the later development took place outside the city walls and their feet can still tread the same cobbles that El Greco trod as he paid court to his illustrious clientele – and charged them whacking great fees for doing so. Unfortunately for the artist his scandalous prices outraged many of the citizenry of Toledo and by the time he died in 1614 he was almost penniless, with his paintings scattered throughout the city. Fortunately for art lovers they remain there still. If you walk the tiny alleyways at the breakfast hour, waiting for the sun to show itself over the high spires of the Cathedral, you feel as if you are in a labyrinth of grey chasms where neighbours can shake hands with each other across the way from the oriole windows above your head. Early-bird shopkeepers begin to set out their stands, much of it of the touristy armament kind, as Toledo was known worldwide for the quality of its sword making. For some reason there seem to be almost as many shops selling marzipan as there are selling metalwork, strange when you consider that there is barely an almond tree to be seen in the area. To sample the sweet paste and help the poor at the same time you can buy some from the Convento de Ursula on Calle Santa Ursula where, for reasons unknown, the marzipan is called Santa Rita. You can even pick up a rosary if you feel so inclined. 2
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by Derek Workman
Costa Blanca Once the most important cities in Muslim Spain, after the Reconquista, the overthrowing of Moorish rule by Christians in the 11th Century, the Vatican confirmed Toledo as the centre of the Catholic Church in Spain. The architecture of the city shows is heritage, and grand plazas with Modernista (art nouveau) facades, such as the Zocodover which, from 1465 until 1960 was home to El Martes, the city’s Tuesday market and originally the Arab souq ad-dawab, a livestock market from which the square took its name, are fed by the narrow twisting streets typical of the Moorish style. Nearby is the distinctive Alcázar, once a grand royal residence, now a museum. It’s worth getting lost in Toledo because you won’t go far. That way you’ll find some of the rickety streets that are more emblematic of the city than those tarted up for the tourist routes. It’s here you’ll find tiny alementaciones, dimly lit grocers shops presided over by matronly ladies in perms and white pinnies. Wander down Calle Pozo de Amargo (the Street of the Bitter Well), just off the Plaza de Ayuntamiento, and you will come across the battered ornate metalwork of the Pozo Amargo who’s waters are said to have been fouled by the bitter tears of a young Jewish girl who’s Christian lover was murdered by her father. To the east, the ancient walled town of Cuenca rises even more steeply above its modern city than Toledo does, a long narrow spur rising between two deep gorges. It is this sheer drop that gave rise to a peculiar form of house extension, created during the middle Ages. They are the Casas Colgadas, the Hanging Houses that dangle over the Huécar River. If you aren’t content with a postcard and will only be happy with your own photograph, the best place to take it is on the Puente de San Pablo – but beware, this spindly bridge than spans the gorge is not for those who suffer from vertigo as its handrail is barely waist high and it’s a long drop! The image of Castilla-La Mancha as a vast plain over which a lanky mad knight trudged on a weary old nag still holds sway in the south, but the region is far more than that; great forests, lakes, an abundance of historical and archaeological sites and a hardy cuisine based on stout country food. And there are still the white giants with the waving arms waiting for the old Don to charge at them.
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COSTA DEL SOL NEWS, September 6-12, 2007
Hammam Andalusi, Jer´éz By Derek Work m a n
One One of of the the baths baths at at the the hammam hammam I ’ V E O F T E N H E A R D expats say that Spain is their spiritual home, so it comes as no surprise to hear Matt Godsell say it. What does come as a surprise, though, is that he and his wife, Nuria Olmedo Barroso, seem to have got their origins confused, as her spiritual leanings are definitely toward the Celtic, and with
from Morocco specifically to adorn the tea room of the Arab baths that began as a dream at the turn of the millennium, when Nuria and her cousin David’s girlfriend, Virginia, went for a soak in the h a m m a m in Granada. But the story begins nine years earlier, when Matt paid a visit to Jerez while studying languages in the UK.
Partners David, Virginia, Nuria and Matt her tall, slim figure, blond hair and blue eyes, she could easily pass for Scandinavian, despite being Jerez born-andbred and Andaluz throughand-through. We sit taking mint tea beneath the ornately carved ceiling in the teteria of the Hamam Andalusi, in the old quarter of Jerez. Like all the furnishings, lamps and teapots themselves, the ceiling made the long journey
“My course was for four years, and the third one had to be spent somewhere abroad. I’d been to Jerez as part of a holiday and really liked the place, although it was pretty rundown then and there was barely a trace of tourism, so it seemed natural for me to spend my year here.” It was a year when Matt began to ‘discover’ himself, mainly through the expediency of being totally
The original state of the house
broke and living from hand-tomouth. “I think in situations like that you go right back to basics and find out what you really need to survive. I really felt I discovered a part of me that I’d never known before. I felt very Spanish.” He also ‘discovered’ David, whose family treated him like an adopted son, feeding him and keeping him alive. Matt’s year finished at the end of the May Feria, and he returned to his studies in the UK, but always hankered to go back to Jerez. Seven years later, he did, with a group of seven mates to have a big boys knees-up at the Feria, but on the first night he bumped into Nuria, danced with her all night, and ten months later they were married, and ten months after that Candela, now seven, arrived. “I’d bumped into her a couple of times during my study year, when I went out with David – with eighty first cousins you’re always bumping into family in a place as small as Jerez – but we’d never gone out with each other until I went back seven years later.” Hitched, with a nipper, and making ends meet by bar work and the occasional private English lesson, Matt was at a bit of a loss as to where life was leading, although Nuria worked as a garden designer at her father’s plant nursery. While visiting David and Virginia in Granada, the girls went to try out the h a m m a m, and instantly the idea came to open one in Jerez. David and Matt went along to see for themselves and humour the ladies, as chaps do, and were equally as struck. It was probably fortunate that they didn’t realise just how long it was going to take, but when you’re in your late twenties and early thirties, as they were at the time, everything seems possible. “When we decided we were going to do it we agreed that we would keep it a secret for as long as possible, because we didn’t want anyone to jump in ahead of us,” Matt tells me. Not an easy thing to do, particularly as they had to search for investors and grant funding, as well as draw up a formidable business plan – and that’s as well as actually researching how a h a m m a m works and finding somewhere to put it. “Our original idea was to find a plot of land with a ruin on it, demolish that and build from scratch, but we could never find anywhere suitable. The building we finally bought took us two years to find, but because it’s a typical Andaluz house, with a
central open patio and rooms radiating off it, it was almost perfect for our needs.” During the search for the building and its restoration the four partners made countless trips to Morocco to see original baths and get a firm idea of how they wanted theirs to be, as well as understand the technology. “As much as anything, our trips were to find out what we didn’t want because that helps narrow down the final design,” says Nuria, who was mainly in charge of the décor. “We wanted to get it as near as possible to an original, but one of the major problems we came
later, that caused another major headache, as Nuria explains. “It’s actually quite clever how it’s done, because everything is built in a workshop and then assembled on site, so you need very precise measurements. That’s all well and good if the carpenter’s workshop is in the same town but when you are a thousand miles away that can be a bit difficult. We handed over the measurements, went back after a few months to see how it was going, which was fine, and then just waited.” But before they could even get to the problem of fitting the ceiling they had to wait for it to cross the water from Morocco – unfortunately via Tenerife, where the owner of the shipping company died and left everything in disarray. It was six months in a container before it landed at their door in Jerez. “Fortunately, we’ve got a really good handyman here and with the help of one of the tadalekt workers he fitted the whole thing in place with barely a need to trim anything.” Perhaps not quite the Sistine Chapel, but not bad, considering it’s almost 80 square metres By the fifth year, after a couple of years of building, it was time for everyone to give up their full-time jobs and
while a couple of people spent an hour drinking a pot of mint tea, it was costing us money, so we decided to open the tea room just at weekends, but even that wasn’t practical. Then we started doing set meals on fixed nights, which works, but because we’re all so busy and we actually do the cooking we can’t do them as often as we would like. Fortunately we get bookings for meetings where people take the whole room, and that’s very useful. I think it’s a case of always having to re-think something, and if it isn’t working, change it.” Two years to the day since the opening (I’d arrived just too late to join in the celebratory lunch), how had their plans matched up to their expectations? “We’re very, very pleased,” says Matt. “We’re nowhere out of the woods yet, but business has been up each year since we opened, even allowing for the teteria not going as we planned. We’re working on a roof garden now, designed by Nuria, obviously, and looking at ideas to utilise the tearoom space better, so the whole building will function well.” So, a visit to an Arab baths seven years ago became the sparkle of an idea that has transformed an old derelict
devote their time to finishing the baths. Candela practically grew up surrounded by building debris and during the second year Nuria had to take it easy because she was pregnant with Robin. “The finishing work seemed to go one forever,” says Matt, “but we finally opened on June 15, 2005. Word had got around about what we were doing and we got off to a good start, particularly during the July and August, when the whole of Spain is on holiday. From then it tailed off, but we’d expected that, and the fact that we’d had three very good months to kick off with helped us a lot.” As the popularity of the baths grew, the next project was fitting out the teteria – and another learning curve. “We’d planned to offer teas and Moroccan cakes so that people could relax either before or after their time in the baths, but it soon became obvious that it just wasn’t going to be economically viable,” explains Nuria. “For the time we had to pay a waitress to stand around
house in a run-down area of Jerez into a oasis of Moroccan languor – even if the owners themselves can’t decide whether they are British, Spanish, Celtic, Scandinavian or a melange of them all. Heaven alone knows what their nippers will think of their heritage! Hammam Andalusi, Jerez, Tel 956 34 90 66, www.hammamandalusi.com . For winners of the Casa Grande hotel competition, (see the coupon in this week’s issue), the owners of the Hammam Andalusi are offering an opportunity to experience the luxury of a Baños Arabe and massage free of charge. They are also offering all Costa del Sol readers a discount of 10 per cent during the months of November, December and January. Derek Workman travelled to Jerez with the help of Hotel Casa Grande www.casagrande.com, tel. 956 34 50 70 and An Amazing Hotel www.anamazinghotel.com, Spain’s specialist website for boutique hotels. Tel. 659 734 684.
The hammam tea room up with was the humidity so we finally decided that we had to use tadelakt, the original lime plaster method that the Arabs use.” Unfortunately, the only company they could find doing it in Spain was based in Marbella and, more used to dealing with golfing princelings than working Jerezanos, wanted to charge the extortionate rate of 200 euros per square metre – practically the cost of a small house in Jerez at the time. “It was a chance meeting with a man in a street in Marrakech that got us to specialists to do the work on the h a m m a m,” continues Nuria. “He introduced us to some tadelakt workers who agreed to come to Jerez to work with us. The problem was, we forgot about Spanish bureaucracy, and it took us over a year to get all the permissions sorted out before we could bring them and everything they needed, including the plaster and all their tools, over from Morocco to Spain.” Although the ceiling for the tea room didn’t come until
TIM Magazine™
BUTTERFLY MAIDS AND PAINTED PIGEONS by Derek Workman
Area: West of Torrevieja. Route: Torrevieja – Orihuela – Murcia – Archena – Abanilla Distance: 119 kilometres
Visit a fabulously decorated old-time casino to see the butterfly maidens and dance a polka, then drive through the arid south to wallow in medicinal mud. Orihuela sits on the banks of the meandering Segura, a river that
supplies a complex irrigation system dating back to Arab times and feeds the abundant orange and lemon groves that form such an intrinsic part of the regional scenery. The capital of the Vega Baja, Orihuela has no less than five national monuments and more than a scattering of museums, parks and galleries to keep the visitor entertained for hours.
It is a city of grand buildings. The most impressive of these is the 16th-century Colegio de Santo Domingo. Originally a convent with a small school, it was recognised by papal bull in 1569 and became a university. It taught theology, grammar, arts and the law until it was closed in 1824 as part of the suppression of religious orders. Almost two centuries later, it fulfils an educational role once more, housing a secondary school and part of the tourism department of Alicante University. The Renaissance convent cloister was built in the early 17th
century and the baroque university cloister was built between 1727 and 1737. The latter has two levels of Romanesque arches, slender Corinthian columns and heraldic logos among which are the coats of arms of Spain, Calatrava and a number of popes.
Between the cloisters is the original refectory, decorated in 18th-
century Valencian tiles depicting pastoral scenes, said to be one of the most important examples of this kind of decoration in the region.
The interior of the church is an outrageous confection of ornate
stuccowork and rich decoration dating back to the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries. The altarpiece by Juan de Juanes looks out of proportion, hardly surprising as its former home was in a side chapel and replaces the original altar destroyed during the Civil War.
San Salvador began life as a parish church but, in a series of ecclesiastical promotions, worked its way upwards until, in the 14th century, it became a cathedral. Its main structure is Catalan Gothic and two of its main entrances, the Puerta de las Cadenas and Puerta de Loreto, are from this period while a third, the Puerta de la Anunciación, is of Renaissance origin.
At the rear of the church is the Museo Diocesano, which boasts Velázquez’s The Temptation of Saint Thomas among its collection of religious art. For a change from imposing architecture, you could venture
underground at the Museo de la Muralla, where a guided tour leads you through the underground remains of the city walls, Arab baths and domestic buildings. The Museo de Semana Santa houses most of the processional thrones and sculptures used in the Easter processions, while the Museo de La Reconquista is dedicated to the folklore of the Moors and Christians fiesta. Here you will see costumes, arms, musical instruments, photographs and publicity material relating to this fiesta.
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Costa Blanca
In front of the church is the beautifully restored façade of a mansion, once home to the commander of the local forces of the Knights of Calatrava, Spain’s oldest military order. Founded in 1158 by a group of Cistercians monks from Navarra, who formed themselves into a military confraternity as a defence against the Moors, the order was very powerful, holding large tracts of land until the 13th century, when it fell into decline. The house is now a private home, but you can sometimes get a
brief glance through the heavy, studded doorway into its tree-shaded central courtyard.
Walk a few metres up Calle Mayor, a narrow street that runs off the Plaza de la Constitución, the square in front of the Ayuntamiento, and you come to a beautiful fountain, decorated with ceramic imagery telling the folkloric history of the area. Elderly women of the village spurn the bottled water available from
shops and bring large plastic buckets to fill up here, proselytising on its excellent quality. “Es muy dulce; en verano es fresca y en invierno es caliente,” they will tell you. “It is very sweet; in summer it’s cold and in winter it’s warm.”
Climb up the 177 steps from the Plaza de la Constitución to a pleasant garden of cactus and palm and you find yourself beneath a 10-metre-high statue of Christ of the Sacred Heart. It is completely white except for the vivid red heart emanating golden rays and the stigmata in the hands. Walking back down the steps, you can enter one of the narrow side streets that meander through the old town and stop off at the Plaza de la Lonja to relax in the shade of a bougainvillea-covered arbour where the locals gather to chat and enjoy the cool of the evening. This excursion is taken from Inland Trips from the Costa Blanca, by
Derek Workman, available from Santana Books, www.santanabooks. com. The full version of the excursion can be seen on http:// derekworkman.wordpress.com. To learn more about the delights of Spain, visit, www.derekworkman-journalist.com, and http:// valpaparazzi.wordpress.com
E-mail: theinlandmagazine@yahoo.co.uk • Web site: www.timspain.com
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