Wanderlust and Words

Tarragona is a delight. Small enough to get a good feel for the town and yet lots of interesting things to see and do. Skip the crowds of tourists in Barcelona and visit Tarragona (an easy day trip). In addition to the Roman ruins, there are two lovely old homes that are well worth visiting. Castellarnau House Castellarnau House was built at the start of the fifteenth century, and it was the home of some of the most influential families in Tarragon for the next 400 years. The noble floor has elegant rooms for entertaining with ceiling murals and 18th and 19th century furniture. Unlike English stately homes, there are no carpets. Instead, the mosaic designs on the floors imitate the patterns of elaborate carpets. I was entranced by the kitchen on the ground floor with tiled paintings of saints and a wood stove inside the tiled cabinet with vents for kettles and pans. There is a lovely inside courtyard with a door leading to a small low-ceilinged room for storing wine barre...

exploring the layers of history with Turiguias Alicante has been a major port for thousands of years with layer upon layer of history. The city’s warm, fertile climate and strategic position in the Mediterranean basin (relatively close to Africa) ensured the city’s historic importance. Nowadays, its airport is one of the largest in Spain, welcoming millions of tourists to the region’s sunny beaches every year. Mount Benacantil dominates the city’s skyline and is topped by the Castle of Santa Barbara . I learned a great deal about the city’s history from Maria Jose Aparicio, the owner of Turiguias , who gave me a personal tour of the Castle and the old fishermen’s quarter of Santa Cruz. Maria Jose, Mireia Aldeguer ( Mandarinablue Travel Experience ) and I started our tour in the town centre. Maria Jose had a wealth of information that added depth to my understanding of the city. For example, the waterfront used to be much further in, but they gradually extended the land surface ...

My first stop while touring the Alicante countryside with Mireia Aldeguer of Mandarinablue Travel Experience was the cooperative winery in Alguena , a small village north of Alicante. My Spanish was immediately put to the test as three key players in the cooperative were on hand to explain their operations and none of them spoke English. Primitivo is one of the cooperative’s most senior winemakers; Paco is its manager; and Manolo makes organic wine, at the cooperative, for personal distribution. Bodega Cooperativa de Alguena In 1974, local farmers banded together to form the cooperative in order to purchase modern equipment that they could not afford individually. Cooperative wineries face some real challenges. They need to be able to handle large quantities of grapes, and the quality of an individual wine carries less weight than the success of the cooperative as a whole. For example, farmers may be asked to delay harvesting their grapes until the cooperative is ready to accept ...

I have now watched four different sets of Semana Santa processions in Spain and, from my very limited perspective, they are a mix of pageantry and community party. There may be a touch of religion, but tradition and ritual are far more important. And the alcohol starts flowing the minute the procession is over. Everyone, from very young to very old, participates in the parades. I saw mothers carrying youngsters and fathers shaking their heads over kids who no longer wanted to beat their drum. The parades are super informal. Someone will drop out of the procession to hug a bystander. There are huge gaps between sections of the parade, with family and friends following “their” section. The processions are very informal. There are a few police officers and cars to clear the streets of traffic, but no barricades. Amateur photographers will stand in front of the procession to get a good photograph. Jesus proceeded through the streets of Jumilla on a donkey on Palm Sunday, and he stopp...

Part One: Mandarinablue Travel Experience and Heretat de Cesilia Winery When I started planning my trip to Spain, I did some internet research and contacted a number of tour companies and individuals who I hoped would be able to offer me a tour or a local perspective on their home region in exchange for me providing them with some coverage on my blog. Mandarinablue Travel Experience Mireia Aldeguer of Mandarinblue Travel Experience near Alicante responded immediately and enthusiastically to my request. I was delighted as she had a really interesting website offering tours of wineries, chocolate factories, mountain valleys and orange groves. As a solo traveller I particularly appreciated the fact that she has set up a special program called Half Mandarina to provide opportunities for solo travellers to meet and make friends with other travellers. Tour Leader This is Mandarinablue’s first year of operations, but Mireia has plenty of travel experience. Mireia grew up in Alicant...

Spain appears to love religious festivals and parades, and the celebration of Semana Santa, the Holy Week preceding Easter, are huge events in almost every community. I'm going to do some research because I really don't know anything about this, but I did witness one of the very first parades yesterday from my hotel window. The children were so tiny, and they were surrounded by adults guiding them and taking their photos - very cute! According to Sue Walker of Jumilla Journal who took photos of a similar parade in Jumilla, this is the Tamborada Infantil. Check out the little guy whose eyes are covered by his hat!

Mercado Central Markets in Spain are all very centrally located in the downtown core, and the one in Alicante is HUGE! Upstairs is meat (plus cheese and eggs), while downstairs one wing is devoted to fish while another wing is devoted to fruit and vegetables. Flowers are outside on the main patio. I was particularly impressed by the booths selling heaps of eggs of different kinds and sizes. The fruit and vegetable displays are all artistically arranged with overflowing piles of so many different varieties. I loved the purple-and-white-striped eggplant, the knobbly green-and-red Raff tomatoes and itched to try some of the many different kinds of mushrooms and fresh cheeses. Bakeries No wonder I like Spain – the Spanish obviously love sweets just as much as I do. And of course croissants don’t have calories if you’re on holidays! Mireia, from MandarinaBlue Travel Experiences , recommended two bakeries that were close to my hotel. The tiny Croissanteria on Calle Poeta Qui...

In most cities, trees are few and far between. But not in Elche. Step out of the train station, and you are immediately greeted by avenues lined with palm trees and by parks, fields and squares full of palm trees of all shapes and sizes. Palmeral The Palmeral of Elche is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its palm tree plantation is the largest in Europe covering 3.5 square kilometres, 1.5 of which are within the city limits. There are 200,000 to 300,000 palm trees, some of which are 300 years old. (Palm trees are extremely slow growers. It takes them 100 years to grow to 10 metres in height.) The Phoenicians brought palm trees to Spain in the first century BC and cultivated the dates as food for their long sea journeys. When the Arabs arrived in Spain, they added extensive irrigation systems and landscaping. The City of Elche continues to protect and develop its palmeral, and it’s a delight to walk in the shady parks that are filled with trees and flowers. El Huerto del Cura The Hue...

I took the tram (a small, modern train) out from Alicante towards Benidorm. A narrow strip along the coast has been highly developed with high rises and residential estates to house tourists and ex pats who flock to the beach and the sun. But there is much more to Alicante than “sol y playa,” and my destination was Villajoyosa, a former fishing village that in the late 1800s was home to over 30 chocolate factories. Two of the chocolate factories, third and fourth generation family businesses, are still in operation today. Chocolates Perez Chocolates Perez is a fourth-generation family business. The Perez family were already selling chocolate in 1874. They would take a load of chocolate by horse-drawn cart to a neighbouring village and then unload it into sacks to sell door to door. Their small business includes a chocolate museum, and Perez family members are still on hand to show visitors the primitive machinery that they used to use to mill the chocolate. Valor Chocolates Val...

Yesterday I took the train south from Tarragona to Alicante. Both cities border the Mediterranean, but what a difference! Tarragona was relatively small and homogenous. It was bilingual, with Catalan the predominant language and I was grateful for Spanish translations on the menu. Alicante is the second-largest city in the province of Valencia with over 300,000 inhabitants and it has a very large tourist population (Benidorm, a huge tourist resort town is just along the coast) so the second language is English (far too many restaurants have picture menus). The weather is really warm so you could barely see the beach for the bodies – a frightening sight for someone like me who vastly prefers art galleries and museums to beach resorts. However, the beach is just one tiny corner of Alicante. The seafront promenade is lined with palm trees and flowering bushes (hibiscus, sweet pea, roses) and I discovered a small gallery with two contemporary art exhibits in the former fish market. T...