Shades of the past

We began our last day together, the day before our wedding anniversary, celebrating the Transfiguration, our special feast day (tomorrow) with the congregations, first at Vinaròs and then driving up to L'Ampolla. After the Eucharist there, we joined the congregation at a picnic lunch under the carob trees in the Jardin San Jordi campsite down by the beach closest to L'Ampolla port. It was a most enjoyable opportunity for Clare to meet with people in a different context. 

I was interested to learn from Pru in conversation over lunch that Poblenou del Delta was constructed in 1956 under the Franco regime - a new town to remedy the social problems and devastation caused by the Civil War, as part of agrarian reform. Later I discovered that it was originally named Delta Villafranco, but was changed after a referendum in 2003 to Poblenou - 'our town'.

As ever, Clare went for a swim after lunch, and I found a shady spot to doze for an hour before driving back. The high level of humidity rather than just the heat made today more taxing than usual.

As I was parking the car outside the Parish Church of Sant Joan Bautista before today's service, I noticed a plaque on an external wall which stated that the church had been rebuilt in 1946 through the agency of what I guess to have been a national war damage commission. A third reminder in two days of the 1930's Civil War, in which Catalunya suffered badly.