ChaliGram 15-1: Spanish Spring
23 April 2015 | Cartagena & Granada Spain
Alison
Hello dearest Friends and Family.
We returned to Cartagena, Spain on March 3rd, and although the weather was a little cooler and sometimes rainier than we would have liked, it was SO MUCH BETTER than our horribly cold winter in Alexandria, VA! I certainly wasn’t going to complain about temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s! And there were lots of winter-liveaboard cruisers here, so it’s been a fairly social time! Happy Hour every Thursday, a visit from some cruising buddies we haven’t seen since April 2007 when we wintered together in Vibo Valentia, Italy. They swung by in their RV, and it was a delightful reunion.
I decided to wait until the 2 BIG EVENTS had happened before writing this ChaliGram: the famous Cartagena Semana Santa (holy week) AND our road trip to Granada. Cartagena is known throughout Spain as having one of the most elaborate celebrations of Semana Santa…. which means one of the most elaborate in the world, I think.
I have witnessed Good Friday parades in other Spanish cities over the years, so I knew to expect the KKK-like pointed hoods of the penitents’ costumes, but…. in Cartagena they crank it up about 5 notches! In fact, it’s not even holy WEEK; it’s a whole 10 DAYS of holiness. Every day and/or night there were processionals, some starting as early as 3AM. Needless to say, we did NOT go to those! There are 4 competing brotherhoods who organize the events for each day, and 2 of those groups go back to the late 17th century. So, once you get over the pointy hoods, you notice the richness and beauty of the velvet and satin robes. There are thousands of Cartaginians who participate in this 10 day affair. But…..there’s only so much standing an old person can do, so Chuck, Zoey and I only went to 3 of the parades. The Palm Sunday parade featured no pointy hoods, as this was the celebration of Jesus entering Jerusalem (I never knew that.) So, the parade featured lots of Romans, Jews and very solemn and adorable children. On Palm Sunday, while I was riding my bike past one of the old churches in town, the service was just letting out, and a whole bunch of Roman soldiers marched out of the church. Now…… I know the Romans were major participants in the whole easter story, but…. coming out of a Catholic church?????? Really???? The Good Friday parade was by far the biggest one, lasting 3 hours and featuring at least 12 “thrones,” or what we might call floats, of all the main Easter characters and events. The biggest, the most elaborate and always the “grand finale” is the virgin. NOT Jesus. In addition to all the gold and beautiful lanterns, she also has a million flowers on her throne. The thrones are ENORMOUS and beautifully gilded, sculpted, painted works of art; they were conveyed either on a rolling platform OR more often, carried by at least 100 penitents. I can’t imagine where they find the space to store all of these thrones. Each brotherhood had their own… so there must have been about 50 of these things! I imagine a very religious catholic would feel quite emotional witnessing these events. But even among us atheists, it was still a fabulous spectacle of beauty, solemnity, art AND the music of the frequent marching bands. Besides, I do believe Jesus existed and was a pretty radical and admirable fellow in the day. Another aspect of the processionals in Cartagena was the large military presence. Most were costumed in 18-19th century “Napoleonic-styled” uniforms. However, in the Good Friday Processional, there were present-day soldiers who were doing a serious goose step march. I sort of felt like I was watching a bunch of Nazis, although I know the goose-step goes back much farther than Hitler. So…. between the KKK-hoods and the goose-stepping soldiers, there were definitely some eerie feelings!
Shortly after Semana Santa in Cartagena, we rented a car and drove the 3.5 hours to Granada, home of the world famous Alhambra and the Generalife summer palace, a UNESCO world heritage site. We had found an apartment on www.airbnb.com (a WONDERFUL alternative to hotels!), that was perfect and very centrally located. The Alhambra we see today dates mostly from the 13-15th century, although the Muslims (sometimes referred to as the Moors —Arabs and Berbers from Morocco and other parts of northern Africa) had arrived in Andalucia(Al-Andalus) in 711. Cordoba was the main center before Granada. The Alhambra is an exquisite example of the advanced state of learning among the Muslims in the middle ages. (Apparently Mohammed was a big believer in education for all.) They were so far ahead of the rest of Europe in terms of mathematics, (especially geometry!), architecture, science, the arts and poetry. And their incorporation of water into the design of palaces and other structures provided a very soothing and peaceful element to one’s surroundings. The constant gurgling of fountains and water flowing throughout the gardens and the rest of the grounds did indeed have a calming effect! There’s a superb youtube video by Bettany Hughes, “When the Moors Ruled Europe,” that explains the Alhambra in the context of the 700 year Moorish rule, until 1492 when the “catholic kings” Isabel and Fernando defeated this last Muslim stronghold of the Nasrid dynasty in Spain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Xnc8ijkrA At least Ferdinand and Isabel, and their subsequent descendants didn’t destroy the place…. even if they did eventually expel all the Moors and Jews…. NOT a highpoint of Spanish history...
Good old American author Washington Irving of Rip Van Winkle fame memorialized the Alhambra in his “Tales of the Alhambra” in 1832
Not only did Granada feature this marvelous hill-top city, but the town itself was wonderful. It has more plazas than just about any city we’ve ever been to. On our first day walking around, we wandered into the Plaza Bib-Rambla and happened upon a troupe of Flamenco performers. What a TREAT! Flamenco clubs are major tourist traps in Granada (and other cities in Andalucia), and although I enjoy watching Flamenco performed, we probably wouldn’t have gone to a club. As such, we were delighted to stumble upon this exuberant performance of Flamenco guitarist, singer and 2 dancers. The woman of course was Chinese. ;-}
Okay, so…. those are the 2 big EVENTS. We have an equally significant ANNOUNCEMENT to make. We have decided (for today at least!) that we’re going to ship ChaliVentures back to the states this Fall. It’s been at the back of our minds for awhile now, but we think that maybe it’s time to be a little closer to home. We’ve had 10 years cruising the entire Mediterranean, from Spain to Syria and back, and well…. not much is NEW anymore. As such, we’d like to spend more time with PEOPLE we love instead of lovely PLACES…..and we have certainly seen some wonderful places! We haven’t signed the contract yet, nor paid any money, so there’s still time to change our minds, but I think we’re about 95% decided. Friends in Florida: We’ll be meeting the yacht transport ship in West Palm Beach probably early to mid November. It would be great if we could have a little visit when we’re in that region. We’ll be heading north, eventually back to our home waters in the Chesapeake by the spring/summer 2016 (so Ashley, we might be able to see your new digs as we’re passing through the Cape Canaveral area.) Knowing that we have the Chesapeake Bay to look forward to, and perhaps summer trips north to Maine is NOT a bad “consolation prize.” We thought about sailing back, but, neither one of us is that keen to do another transatlantic crossing. Been there, done that, ya know? We’ll leave our boat in Palma de Mallorca, Spain while we fly back for our daughter Sammy’s wedding to Brian in mid October, and will hire a skipper to drive the boat from the marina to the ship. So that’s the plan. It’ll be nice to not have to squeeze our loved ones and friends into a short window during the winter!
In the meantime, when we leave Cartagena, Spain in the next 2-3 weeks, we’ll probably head to the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Formentara) and just “wander around” from anchorage to anchorage. We passed through somewhat quickly back in 2006, so there will be some new places to go. It’ll be a nice change from last season’s cruise down the east coast of Spain when there were NO anchorages! If it gets too crowded and insane, we can always go to Valencia until September… then BACK to Mallorca.
Hope you all are having a great Spring!
Linkw to photos:
[For those of you who are Facebook friends, you may have seen some of the photos in the attached links. ]
1/ Best of Palm Sunday: https://picasaweb.google.com/chaliventures/SemanaSantaPalmSundayMarch292015?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNbmtsPgz5uTHQ&feat=directlink
2/ Best of Good Friday: (Good Friday seemed very similar to “opening night” the friday BEFORE Palm Sunday, so I’m only including the good friday processional highlights… don’t want to bore you after all!): https://picasaweb.google.com/chaliventures/BestOfGoodFriday?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPqX_vKB-4_giwE&feat=directlink
3/ Best of Granada and Alhambra: https://picasaweb.google.com/chaliventures/GranadaAlhambraApril152015?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKyRvf6onp_kGg&feat=directlink
Love, Alison, Chuck and Zoey
Alison Spinney
Onboard s/y ChaliVentures III in…
Cartagena, Spain