Moors & Christians Masquerade in Peñíscola

Yesterday afternoon I was invited with four other members of the congregation to lunch at Les and Brenda's in Peñíscola, prior to going down the the north beach promenade to watch the annual 'Moors and Christians' masquerade, a parade celebrating the re-conquest of this part of Spain in the fourteenth century by the army of King Jaume I. The lunch was a most enjoyable triumph of good food and conversation, putting us all in festive mood for the evening's events.

The north beach promenade was lined either side for a kilometre by green plastic chairs for spectators available for the evening at €5 each. We arrived about seven, allowing us time to park, and then wandered up and down looking for an advantageous place to sit, close to a bar selling drinks to clients to outside customers. An hour of waiting amidst the gathering crowd was occupied by the passage of town and village marching bands heading up toward the starting assembly point.

I counted nine bands, six of them coming from villages inland on the coastal plain, several of which I've visited. Each band had between thirty and forty musicians. Over half of the players were under 20. All, without exception played to a high standard, and marched with pride. Each band had a standard bearer, and there were a variety of transport devices for the accompanying percussionist, as the big bass drums were too big to be moved any other way. I estimate there were around four hundred musicians involved all told. Moorish and Christian bands each played a shared theme tune. The Christian one I didn't recognise, but the Moorish one was the theme tune from the move 'Exodus', about the creation of the state of Israel. Was this something of a tongue ion cheek musical tease, I wondered?

It was an impressive testimony to the strength of local community life in an agricultural region, not least because of the participation of people of all ages. Some masqueraders walked to the start line, and among these were kiddies in costume pushed by mums or dads in buggies. When the parade eventually sauntered past, I noticed two babes in arms being carried in slings on a costumed masqueraders mum's tum, right in the middle of the ranks of soldiers.

Saturday's parade has groups of those dressed as Christian knights, backed by their village band, leading the procession and the Moors coming behind, 'chasing' them towards the castle. On Sunday there is apparently another parade in which the Moors go first, 'chased' away from the castle by the Christians. I was amazed at the splendour of the ranks of knights, each village with their own variation of costume design. The ages of participants spanned four generations, and despite playing at mediaeval soldiers, there were more women masqueraders than men. 

In any other European country at this time of political tension generated by the islamist 'protest' attacks on US embassies in the wake of the latest You Tube insult to the Prophet Muhammad, one could imagine anxious consultations and security risk assessments nervously carried out. There were thousands on the streets, and the best part of a thousand in the parade. The only Guardia Civil officers we saw were two in a patrol car, who seem to have mis-timed their return to base, driving carefully against the flow of people walking to the start point. The only raised voices were those cheering on the paraders or greeting friends exuberantly. The masqueraders and crowd were a sea of good humour and good will.

After sunset lighting conditions, even under extra floodlights and street lamps made good photographs difficult to obtain, even with a decent modern point and shoot digital camera. But by late evening, with a lot of flash usage, the battery was low and sensor reaction time noticeably diminished. Nevertheless it was great fun to try and capture such a special occasion.

It was an unique expression of community cohesion and voluntary enterprise, rooted in local history and civic pride. People having fun with their differences, not fighting over them. People enjoying being together, being part of their village and their family. After the parade finished just after 11.00pm, Peñíscola's hundreds of bars and restaurants were all packed with people eating out together. It took us a quarter of an hour to find a place with an empty table for a drink and bite to eat before the fireworks began at 12.30pm, another spectacular show, and not surprising since one of Spain's premier fireworks factory is located in adjacent Benicarló. I was pretty tired by the time I got home at 1.15am, but so glad to have witness such superb festivity.

The rest of the photos I took can be found here

 

Home visions

After breakfast yesterday I wrote a sermon for next Sunday. I had a visit from two house painters engaged by the owners to do maintenance tasks on the external walls, in odd spots where the paint has degraded due to salt efflorescing from the cement mixture of the surface rendering. I imagine this happens not infrequently in this environment.  Then I cycled into town to spend an hour or so in the drop-in centre chatting to visitors. The rest of the day I spent catching up on domestic tasks, doing the week's shopping, writing, uploading photos, catching up on news back home.

Today was somewhat similar. The house painters visited again and stayed a short while. They don't seem to have finished, to judge from the state of the patches they've been treating on the walls and balcony ceiling.  It was a beautiful afternoon with a brisk wind coming off the sea. While I was hopping channels on the TV, trying to make up my mind about where I might go for the afternoon, I alighted on the channel showing the Tour of Britain cycle race - the stage from Welshpool to Caerphilly, just over the mountain from home. I just had to watch, to try and figure out the route being followed. It was less than easy, due to advertising gaps, and reluctance of the commentators to pronounce place names visited.

I then spent ages re-arranging Costa Azahar photos uploaded to easily identifiable Picasa web albums - ages because the internet connection speed here is a third of that at home. Pictures can be seen here. Before supper I walked down to our local beach to absorb some fresh air. The wind off the sea created huge breakers which spilled surf right up to the beach wall, and under the cliff on the south side.  I sat for ages and marvelled at the spectacle.

It's easy to see on days like this how coastal erosion can be such a persistent and expensive issue to deal with. I wonder how far this is a product of changing weather patterns. The Mediterranean sea level has dropped ten metres over the last era of geological history, to produce current cliff erosion. Eventually, through global warming, sea levels will rise, and the shape of the coastline will inevitably change again. Coastal defences may become as essential to the national economy of Mediterranean countries as they are now to Holland, one day.  I wonder how many years from now?

 

An evening in the Delta

Today Les and Brenda invited to attend a Beetle Drive, lunch, followed by a session of this simple dice game which drives sane and normal people into a competitive frenzy. We were hosted by John and Jenny in the function room at the new marina in Sant Carles de la Rapita, where their boat is moored. It must be fourteen years since I last attended a fundraising Beetle Drive (like a whist drive for those who are no good with cards). This one was to raise money toward buying an ambulance for the local branch of the Spanish Red Cross. The last I took part in was held in the basement church hall in Geneva's Holy Trinity Church. The contrast couldn't have been greater, eating and playing in a room with windows overlooking the marina and its swimming pool. But it was every bit as much fun for the two dozen people taking part.

When it was over, I took advantage of the marina's proximity to the Delta to drive down to the sea past Poblenou. On the way, I stopped to photograph scores of herons and egrets as they stood in rice fields churned up by reaping machines, ostensibly mesmerised, staring into the evening sun. The air was pungent with the stench of waterlogged mud and decaying vegetation - the smell of the rice harvest.

Then, for the first, I time drove the five kilomtres of un-metalled road along the sand-bar  enclosing the lagoon, as far as the entrance road to the Salines de la Trinidad, and the conservation area beyond it, the Salinas de la Rapita, prohibited to ordinary traffic. This is nothing like any other place I know. There is water and sand as far as the eye can see in three directions. The lagoon shore is so distant, it appears as a thin line. In the light of the setting sun, the Montsia mountains behind the coastal plain beyond the Trinidad salt works are a haze covering a shadow.

Not since I travelled across Northern Mongolia back in 1999, have I experienced the exhilaration of being in such a huge uncluttered open expanse of landscape, except that here the power lines work, and supply the industrial installations of the salt works.

It's curious how the sand darkens away from the sea shore and looks like the colour of soil in some places. High salt concentrations ensure that little grows in the sand, except in clumps where it gets blown into little mounds, and rain leachs out enough salt to permit hardy species of vegetation to colonise. I saw a bird of prey patrolling off shore in the lagoon. Why so far out here I thought? Unless it was an osprey. It looks so tiny in the photo I took, it's hard to tell. At the other end of the sand bar, several people were kite-surfing on the lagoon, their 'chutes dancing at crazy angle sin the evening breeze. 

I stopped to take flamingo photos opposite the salinas of the Tancarda Lake conservation area, but the pictures with the new camera were disappointing compared to the one I lost.

Then I got stuck behind a rice harvester being taken home on a low loading trailer, and actually enjoyed the 3 km crawl back to Poblenou, as it gave me time to notice birds in the fields as we ambled along at a brisk walking pace.

What an enjoyable day!
  

Valencia visit

It's four years since I first visited Valencia with my sister June to see the architectural public works of Santiago di Calatrava. It's taken ten weeks of being here to get around to making the return visit, to look at the Cathedral, and check on a couple of works in progress. Today I woke up at six thirty and made a supreme effort to get to the station and catch the 7.20 regional express to Valencia Norte. It was still the pre-dawn twilight while I was waiting on the platform. There were a couple of dozen people also waiting, chatting loudly and sociably at this early hour. That's how I could be certain with my eyes shut that I wasn't waiting for a train back in Britain.

We were in the plain south of Alcossebre before the sun came over the horizon. The first colours of day, in the changing soil and vegetation of the landscape were remarkably rich. This serves to explain why Spain's artists and designers  work so happily with vivid colour - it's such a dominant environmental influence on the way they see the world. The train stopped half a dozen times en route, running inland for the most part 5km from the sea. This meant that when we entered the conurbation of Valencia were were close to the large commercial port, with its forest of lift structures for handling shipping containers, and occasional cruise ship in sight. The route then crosses the riu Turia and heads inland on the south side of the city to reach Valencia Norte station, which is more west than it is north.

It's but a short walk from the station into the oldest part of the town, past many high quality 19th century civic buildings which advertise the city's prosperity as a regional capital. I had my sights set on visiting the Cathedral this time around, with its fourteenth century gothic nave, gothic and baroque portals, and a Lady chapel so big it's a separate building close by, linked by a corridor bridge to each other.

I stopped off here to say morning prayer, as I had been too sleepy to read on the train. There was an elderly priest in cassock and cotta (with sunglasses) installed in the place set aside for private prayer, ready to hear confessions. He seemed to be hovering in the background while I read the divine office. I hope I didn't make him nervous, but I did pray quietly, albeit using a book instead of a rosary. Both edifices look out on to handsome plazas. The Cathedral plaza is the more interesting of the two.

I walked from the Cathedral to the 14th century gothic arched gateway the Torres de Serranos across the road from the former river bed of the riu Turia. Once part of the city walls, long disappeared, it stands majestic in isolation, like a monument to some long dead potentate.

Then I went looking for the Gran Mercat, navigating successfully all the while from memory, and homed in on it without difficulty. It's a wonderful building, like a huge temple dedicated to food at its very best, filled with people shopping, sightseeing and enjoying the incomparable buzz of the place, if not all of its smells and riot of colour. Opposite is the city parish church of the two St Johns - Baptist and Evangelist. Last time, it was closed for all but essential pastoral activities during an interior resoration. Also the plaza outside contained a gigantic 20 metre deep hole (and accompaning traffic jam), for the building of a new underground car park.

Four years on, the construction is still incomplete, but work is now going on at normal surface level, and it won't be too long before new street furniture reappears. The two St John's was open to visitors, and its sixteenth century 'renaissance' now looks very good indeed. Apparently there were a couple of earlier churches on the site which burned down. Let's hope the precedent is broken.

I was wondering about getting a runabout bus ticket, but the directions I was given to find out where I cold get one yielded nothing. I couldn't even remember what a Metro station entrance looked like, where I could get a ticket, so I determined to walk for as long as I could, and maybe end up seeing more. I went back to the riverbed park the Jardi Turia and strolled all the way down to the amazing Calatrava bridge shaped like a lyre, past the opera house the science museum and other Calatrava masterpieces familiar from my last visit. Next to the bridge, no longer clad in scaffolding and plastic wraps is a dramatic dark blue building shaped like a clam shell sitting on its edge.

 There's no notice up to say what it's eventual function will be. It's still not open, the interior is being fitted out. In such a progressive city for two major building projects to have taken so long to complete is an indication of the recession which bites hard into the well being of this creative country.

By now I was beginning to tire, so I re-traced my steps to a Gran' Via (a road which intersects the grid street plan diagonally) where I recalled there was a good restaurant for lunch. I had a large cool beer and a paella with snails, rabbit and chicken, a royal treat for a special day. Then I made my way slowly, feeling very tired, back towards the station, sent a postcard to June, and arrived uncommonly early to await the departure of the express back to Vinaròs, arriving just as the sun began to set. The ninety mile journey there and back cost me the same as the fifty mile journey from Cardiff to Bristol.

Ulldecona - town & reservoir

This afternoon I made my first visit to Ulldecona, a town about 15km from home west of the Montsia mountains. In the valley north of the town there's an important site where paleolithic cave paintings were found. Like so many settlements in this area, this place has a history both ancient and modern. The area's paleolithic heritage is certainly promoted in the presentation of the town's identity, but there's more to it than that. Like nearby Alcanar, it's been a primary wealth creating place for centuries due to limestone quarries in the vicinity. These produce huge vivid scars in the local landscape.

It was a place won from the Moors in the fifteenth century, as one of the town elders told me in conversation, using whatever words we could find in common, after I photographed a former Dominican convent at the north end of the main street. The church and domestic buildings opposite were taken over for the use of the municipality in the mid nineteenth century and have had an interesting renovation in the late 20th century. The former is the Casa de Culture (library and performance space), the latter is the Casa de Ville (Ajuntament).

The Parish Church, dedicated to St Luke, sits in a square which has arcaded buildings on two sides which harbour bars and restaurants. Last weekend was the fiesta of our Lady of Sorrow & Love hereabouts, and banners proclaiming the mystery fluttered in the breeze throughout the town. I was thrilled as I stepped inside the church to hear the senior choir practicing in a grand side chapel - as if the main 14th century Valencian gothic nave and sanctuary were not enough liturgical space to manage! Religion in Spain may be on the back foot because of secularisation in the past few decades, but continues to strive vigorously to make its case to the world, unconcerned about being a minority pursuit. There's something which is both ancient and authentic about that.

From Ulldecona, I drove up to La Senia, and from there up the valley to the reservoir which bears the name of the town, but is in the valley leading to the village of Benifassa. Here the magnitude of the drought afflicting Spain takes on dramatic proportions. The bridge belonging to a hamlet submerged beneath a hundred metres of water after the dam was built is now plainly visible. This forested region exhibits a profound pale yellow scar in places where only blue water was visible until a few years ago. 

From the road bridge which crosses the once submerged valley giving access to 'Poblat de Benifassa' - the main village, I saw a deer foraging for new vegetation on the valley floor a hundred metres below in the pale yellow monochrome desert of a waterless reservoir. A crisis for humans maybe, but be a small opportunity for animals meanwhile. 

I wish there had been time to linger, but I had to return and get ready to go out for the evening, for a quiz session at the Vinaròs camp site, just 15 minutes walk from home. It's twenty years since I last took part in a quiz, when I was Rector of Halesowen. Once more tonight, I found myself part of the winning team, and again walked home - this time under a warm clear starry sky - with a bottle of Catalunyan wine as prize, laughing with incredulty at the sheer co-incidence of this occasion.

Ermita de Sant Lucia y Benet

After the Vinaròs Eucharist I drove to Alcossebre for the second Eucharist of the morning, where the congregation is returning to its usual strength after the summer. There were people to greet whom I first met when I arrived, before they went away on holiday. Refreshments were served on the terrace outside the church for the first time since July. Among the visitors was Judy Phillips, the widow of John Phillips, whose church planting ministry in Alcossebre laid the foundations for the Costa Azahar chaplaincy.

Before I headed for home, I drove up the steep winding road to the Ermita di Sant Lucia y Benet, perched on a high promontory overlooking Alcossebre, 312 metres above sea level, with breathtaking views  south along the coast and inland. Visibility was far from perfect as the weather was cool and cloudy.

It was built in the 17th century on a site which may once have been a coastal watchtower. There were only half a dozen cars up there, and one family, enjoying a picnic lunch in the shade of church building. In such a remote place, it must be kept locked. 

The presence of graffiti on its walls suggested good reason for this. Next to the church overlooking the sea is a building on a terrace, which could have been a snack bar, but was empty and in a state of disrepair. I noticed a couple of septic tanks half buried on the hillside just below, and wondered if  was looking at a renovation project which had failed for lack of funds.

This was the first time I could get a good impression of the size of Alcossebre and how it stretches around the bay, although it would all fit into one photograph.

The views inland present a beautiful patchwork of cultivated areas in every direction, intersected by arteries of public transport.

There's also a view up a valley behind the coastal mountain chain, part of the Sierra d'Irta nature reserve, with the castle overlooking Alcala de Chivert barely visible on a distant ridge.

A signpost pointed to the 'Capiletta de Sant Benet', down a steep narrow stony track. I followed this down the mountainside with little idea of how far away it was, still wearing less than adequate Sunday shoes. After about a kilomtre's walk, the track ended at a viewing platform in a small clearing, which contained a modest shrine in honour of Sant Benet (aka St Benedict, Father of Western Monasticism and Patron Saint of Europe), co-patron of the Ermita, along with Saint Lucy, one of the early Roman virgin martyrs whose name is mentioned in the ancient form of a Canon of the Latin Mass.

Benedict began his spiritual journey as a solitary hermit monk at Subiaco, before others began to be attracted to his way of life and request his guidance. No doubt he'd approve of little hard to reach places like this, and recommend them to his followers.

On the road leading to the Ermita at about 250 metres above sea level are two modern urbanizacions with some very smart expensive houses. I wondered if these were exclusive regular residences or holiday homes. It was noticeable that the road quality in the section giving access to these dwellings was greatly inferior to that of sections above and below. I imagine the land owner or the developer of the urbanizacion is meant to be responsible for the section in between, and the road condition is doubtless subject to ongoing dispute with the local Council.

The Paralympics closure ceremony is happening, but I'm not watching. After a few hours spent with nature's mountain grandness, human spectacular events feel contrived and tiresome.

Exiles feast

Still with a heavy heart, I drove to Carrefour this morning and dithered for an hour as I shopped for other things about buying a new camera. The new improved version of the one I have was not in stock, so what I ended up buying was a slightly smaller Sony W690 with approximately the same specifications as the one I lost. The price was about 20% less than I paid for the HX5 over 18 months ago. I paid more for it than it would have cost me in Cardiff Camera Centre, but to have a lighter more pocketable version of the one I lost, now, and without hunting around all day was worth the extra. After all, today is the Feast of the Birth of the Virgin Mary, and I hope there will be something special happening at the Archiprestal Church of St Mary in Vinaròs to require having something more than a camera-phone to hand - we'll see.

A few days ago, I noticed a banner attached to some tall pine trees on the N340, near the town boundary, advertising the presence of a Romanian Orthodox Church the other side of the trees. It wasn't visible or easily accessible from the main road. Driving past the church compound this morning with my window open, I caught the sound of liturgical singing issuing from loudspeakers. Why not? It's a feast day of the Virgin Mary observed as widely in the East as it is in the Latin Church, even if it commemorates an event of which there is no biblical record. It's the ancient church's way of stating dogmatically that the mother of Jesus wasn't a supernatural being, but someone like us, born into a human family, just like her son. It's not about worshipping Mary or regarding her as an extension of the godhead, but celebrating her as one rooted in our common human history, who accepted God's grace in faith and shaped her life by it.

I learned to see it this way as a youthful Anglican student coming into contact with the Russian Orthodox Church when I was nineteen. The Bristol Orthodox pastorate was dedicated in honour of the Nativity of Mary. Some of my earliest ecumenical experiences were in dialogue with Fr Nicholas Behr, the priest there. So with these memories and reflections arising from my unconscious as I heard sacred singing on my way shopping, I resolved to go to the Romanian Church on my way home. I had to park across the main road and dash across in between traffic. 

 

The brick building isn't very big. Half of it contains the sanctuary, the rest is the nave and a narthex which opens into the grounds, where worshippers may stand during the service on crowded busy days, entering only to greet the icons of Christ and the Mother of God, and receive Holy Communion.

I could still hear singing from the road outside. This time a recording of a man singing an unaccompanied hymn in Romanian - if my memory serves me right this would be an ancient 'Akathist' hymn in honour of the Blessed Virgin - Akathist means 'not sitting', you either stand or kneel. Such hymns are long and require stamina. But that's historic custom. Today it was just background music to what we'd regard as a social event after church. The Orthodox regard this as 'The Liturgy after the Liturgy'. When the communion part of the service finishes, bread, cakes and other food and drink are blessed and shared by the congregation. It varies according to occasion. 

People eat and greet. The priest circulates, though not for small talk. He stops and prays with people. Mothers with newborn babies come and kneel at his feet for thanksgiving prayers after childbirth, and the tiny one is taken into the sanctuary of the church for a blessing. All very informally, normally, life and prayer mingle. I stood inside, on the fringe of the gathering. It wasn't long before a woman presented me with a small plastic cup containing rice soaked in chocolate milk with piece of chocolate on top. Then a man gave me small picnic beaker of wine, then biscuits were offered by small children circulating with trays. No conventional greetings were uttered. The offer of food was its own kind of welcome to a stranger. Just as it was fifty years ago when I first visited Bristol's Orthodox church.

I went into the church to greet the icons, as I learned to do all those years ago. I gave thanks for this community of exiles, living in the most natural the spiritual and social tradition at the heart of their Christianity three thousand kilometres from home. As I left, I felt blessed, moved to tears by this unpretentious communal expression of faith. It reconnected me to experiences and learnings made in my youth which have had untold influence on my life and ministry in all the time I spent living and working among people making themselves a home far away from home.

I walked into town this evening, but apart from the regular Saturday Evening Mass anticipating Sunday, there was no special observance of the Feast of Our Lady's Nativity. Out in a few of the country villages I visited recently, I saw fiestas advertised for today. I really should have planned to go out of town instead of assuming a uniform pattern of celebration. Each community has its own history of observances which stretches back centuries if not millennia, even in an age when secularisation threatens to level everything to dull monochrome uniformity of events.