Tag Archive | Spain

The All New Metro de Malaga

Oh it’s been a while, hasn’t it? But what nicer way to start off the new year than by posting a new entry here, right?

A couple of weeks ago we had the privilege to be among the first passengers to inaugurate the new Metro of Malaga. Unfortunately, true to character, I forgot to bring the camera along. But fortunately, mobile phones come with cameras these days too!

For one entire hour we got the chance to ride, completely free, up and down on the new Metro lines as much as we wanted to. We could leave the stations, come back in again, get off at any station that we fancied……

This was one of the stations where we could get off and go outside, then come back in again, La Ciudad de la Justicia, next to the city courthouses. On December 21, only seven stations were open and this was one of them. However, supposedly, when the metro is finished, there will be fifteen stations on the red line (line number one) and ten on the blue line (number two). We are actually lucky enough to live close to three metro stations!

You can see how vast and empty these platforms look, during this pre-inaugural phase. But I’m sure it won’t be long before they are filled up with harried commuters rushing to work.

Well even though this doesn’t have much to do with the metro, I wanted to end with this cute little “postcard”, a pic of a typical show window in an ordinary shop decorated with a Belén for these holidays. So many anonymous and unsung merchants creating real works of art like this one all over the city.

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In the Studio of Antonio Lopez

Sep15

Antonio López Díaz is a painter and sculptor. He’s also a genius. And one of the seven members of the Movimiento Indaliano that was founded in a culturally impoverished, post-war Almeria, in the south-east corner of Spain.

Antonio Lopez became known most especially for his very personal style and his inimitable portrayal of daily life in the streets and villages of a traditional Almeria that no longer exists today.

Although I cropped most of the photos to only show the painting in question, here I felt like revealing how Antonio Lopez has all his paintings set up, one right next to the other, above and below, some way up high on the walls, some leaning on other paintings and some propped up on the floor (usually against another painting), in his studio.

In recent years, however, he became fascinated with modern and abstract art, and his hypnotic use of light and colour permeates all his latest work.

Antonio Lopez has been drawing and painting since he was almost a toddler. In fact, in his studio he pulled out an old painting that he had made at school when he was only six, which was when he discovered his precocious vocation.

These are two of his best-known works, and have been featured in numerous exhibitions.

Nonetheless, he only started studying formally when he was fourteen, and soon he signed up for classes with the Movement’s founder, the painter and sculptor Jesús de Perceval who was already a master artist. The two maintained a close friendship until the latter passed away in 1985.

The seven members of the Movimiento Indaliano, all of them painters, sculptors and artists, revived the pretty much inexistent cultural scene in a city devastated by the Spanish Civil War during the 1940’s. They adopted the traditional symbol of Almeria, the Indalo, as their logo, hence the name Movimiento Indaliano.

Antonio Lopez has lived a very picturesque and exciting life. After studying under the tutelage of Jesus de Perceval for several years, he decided to strike out on his own and moved to Brazil. There, he became quite renowned, and many of his paintings and sculptures still decorate public places, churches and altars today.

This sculpture of a dog is in his studio, but you can see another, almost identical one gracing a street in Almeria.

He eventually returned to Almeria, where you can also see samples of his paintings and sculptures as you walk around the city. I feel very privileged to know Antonio López.

This is his octopus stool, and next to it, a sculpted self-portrait.

The master himself at work in his studio.

This bronze statue, which was commissioned by the City of Almeria, stands in a quiet garden plaza in the city centre. (I’d taken some photos of my son standing next to it too, but he kept showing up with funny faces! Hence those photos are respectfully not included here.)

The general public won’t be able to see this mural painting of the Pão de Açúcar, Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, because it decorates the entrance to the apartment building where Antonio Lopez lives.

The master painter, relaxing in his studio surrounded by my sons and his works of art.

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The Science Museum of Granada

Jun16

After our previous very unfortunate and “ill-fated” visit to Granada – ill-fated because after scrimping and saving in order to take my son to the Science Museum of Granada (Parque de las Ciencias) for his birthday – when we finally got to go, since museums here in Spain usually close on Mondays, we very deliberately made sure to go on a Tuesday…… and it was closed! The only week of the year in which the Science Museum opened on Monday in order to close on Tuesday, because it was a holiday, and that was the week we chose to go!

So at any rate, as a very belated (as in, one year and one month late) birthday present, we finally managed to get into the museum.

We’re very hard put to get to Granada, even though it’s not that far from Malaga, only about an hour by car. But if you don’t have a car, it’s a 60€ round trip for three people, and of course, when two of these three people are unemployed minors, guess who has to foot the bill?

We watched a falconry display (actually, more accurately a bird of prey show) featuring an owl, an eagle and a falcon. The falcon took off for a long flight and most spectators got bored waiting for it to return and left. People today have such short attention spans!

The Science Museum also boasts a large Butterfly Zoo with exotic species from around the world. It was supposed to be a “tropical” zoo, but I think it was hotter outside (it was a very hot day, about 36º Celsius) than inside the zoo.

One girl enjoyed the immense good fortune of actually persuading a butterfly to alight in her hand.

This is a machine for creating tornados and hurricanes in the water.

The Science Museum has a tall tower with an observatory at the top, which you can reach by going up in a glass elevator. I took photos of the view of Granada from all around the tower, but most of them only came out so-so because Granada doesn’t have a particularly compelling skyline.

One thing that was quite strange, however, was that there was still snow on top of Sierra Nevada, now in June, in spite of the most impressive heat that we were experiencing in the city (36º Celsius of pure, cloudless sunshine).

You can choose to walk down by stairs instead of going down in the elevator, if you like. (You can also choose to walk up, but I doubt that that is a choice many would make.) If you choose to walk down, at every landing there is a sign telling you what height you are at, and some object on earth which is the same height.

My sons don’t work as workmen. But there was an activity that let you feel what it would be like to work in that profession.

These odd, irradiant spacemen are not spacemen at all, but rather, my sons on an infrared camera. They had the time of it jumping around in front of the camera!

At the entrance to the museum are some balls that show how planets were originally formed, made with very finely-sifted, coloured sand floating in water, that you can spin around. You can see they also make stupendous carousels for children to ride on.

My oldest son, who is a science junkie, couldn’t get enough of the museum, and read every single word on every single information panel. My youngest son, however, was thoroughly bored and tuned out about halfway through the visit. My recommendation if you plan to visit the museum with small children who aren’t particularly crazy about science? I would say to divide the visit over two days, if at all possible.

The museum is usually open from Tuesday to Saturday from 10 in the morning till 7 at night, it closes at 3 in the afternoon on Sundays, Mondays closed. But of course, as mentioned above, they are subject to unpredictable variations in their schedule, so if you are planning to go and you don’t live in Granada, check out their website to make sure it is open on the day you want to visit!

Their usual entrance fee is just 6,50 € for adults and 5,50 € for children ages 6 to 16 (wish “children” were considered children at all places, in most places round here “childhood” only lasts till the age of 13! Sigh!) and retired persons. There is also parking (paying, of course). Or you could try parking on the nearby streets for free (just make sure the tow truck doesn’t happen by or it will be far from free!).

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The Old Provincial Prison of Malaga

May17

Today butterflies flit where once people despaired and lost their lives. Now the only things that move through the overgrown courtyards and patios of Malaga’s Old Provincial Prison are stray cats and flowers ruffling daintily in the breeze and pushing their inexorable way into the sun-filled peace of this highly charged space.

The doors of Malaga’s old Provincial Prison are closed and barred now.

And nature continues to open a pathway through its abandoned walls.

The former Provincial Prison of Malaga opened its doors in 1933, before the eruption of the Spanish Civil War, and its original purpose was similar to that of any prison: to house the usual delinquents and criminals, petty thieves, murderers, con artists, etc.

After the Spanish Civil War began, however, it took on a much more sinister taint. At the start of the war, Malaga was in the hands of the Republicans, the current leaders of the country at that time. Many Nationalists were held in the Provincial Prison as political prisoners, until Franco’s forces seized a hold of the city in 1937.

Franco’s bloody forces grabbed thousands of their enemies and confined them within these four square walls surrounded by guard towers and high fences, where they remained until the day of their executions.

Political prisoners were brought out to see the light of day one final time before being executed in public in front of thousands of on-lookers.

After the Civil War ended, political prisoners still filled up the ranks of those held within this small space for several years, until eventually the prison regained its original use, as a place to deprive the usual petty delinquents of their freedom.

And life went on within its walls.

The prison was witness to a violent riot in 1985, where presumably some guards and police officers were killed. No one knows what became of the prisoners involved in the riot, but I doubt that they enjoyed a particularly optimistic fate.

The Old Provincial Prison of Malaga began to lose its importance in 1991, when the New Provincial Prison was inaugurated in Alhaurín de la Torre, in the suburbs of the city. And finally, in 2009, this former architectural splendour closed its doors for good.

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Holy Week in Malaga

Mar29

I wasn’t going to put up a post on Holy Week, but we went to see processions and they were so beautiful, I just had to take some photos even though I hadn’t brought the camera along. But I’ve got a mobile phone, even though it doesn’t take such nice photos as the camera.

On Holy Thursday, the city is filled with processions running up and down all over the place. You can do like what we started to do, which was “procession hopping”, jumping about from one procession to another to see all the different religious statues, or tronos.

However we soon got tired of that activity, and just decided to situate ourselves next to the Alameda, the main thoroughfare in Malaga, because all the processions pass down that way at some point.

These people carrying a glittering cross and wearing “cone hats” are penitents.

There’s a lot of religious fervour and excitement during Holy Week processions. Even people who haven’t entered into a church for the past fifty years feel awe-struck.

Spectators also applaud the brave and strong men who bear the tronos as they pass by. Each trono-bearer is carrying about 20 kg. on his shoulder. This is very exhausting work and they deserve all that applause, encouragement and confetti!

However, the ones who would probably rather be sitting at home playing with their Nintendo or Gamebox are…… the kiddies. Here are some who are clearly bored out of their minds. But fortunately, today we have portable electronic apparatuses to play with.

My son was quite fascinated by the penitents. He told me that he wanted me to fashion him a cone-shaped hat covered with velvet to wear around the house, and a huge gilded staff like the ones that the penitents carry.

My son’s cousin, a hale and hearty teenager, decided to participate in a procession this year bearing a trono. This wasn’t due to any religious zeal. He just wanted to know what it felt like. He ended up all ground up and declared that he was never going to do this again.

A little boy by our side apparently also had his father carrying a trono. As the statue paraded past us, the little kid just wouldn’t stop screaming at his dad to look at him.

Given the number of processions taking place each year, and the number of men required to make them happen, most of the inhabitants of Malaga probably know someone personally who is bearing a trono.

Religion is a pretty important theme during Holy Week, of course – but so is partying! Everywhere we went, it seemed more like a carnival or a fair rather than a supposedly sombre religious event commemorating a rather tragic occurrence. There were people at stands selling everything from hot dogs and hamburgers to donuts and home-grown lemons.

I think the line-ups to get baked potatoes stuffed with delicious hot filling were just as long as the ones to see a trono pass by.

Apparently, on Holy Thursday all of the processions consist of two tronos coming out of every church that participates. The first trono is always a statue of a cross, Jesus Christ or Jesus Christ on a cross. He is always followed by a statue of his mother, the Virgin Mary. Because if they were carting your son off to hang him, wouldn’t you go running after him too?

Well, I took a few more photos but I got so tired editing them, and besides which, they were all pretty much more of the same, and not such good quality anyways (after all, I do not have an iPhone!). In the end, what caught my fancy was this large tree with its roots hanging off of the high branches.

I have no idea what this tree is called though. You can see the full moon shining beside it.

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Preparing for Holy Week

Mar25

I’d been getting this post ready for the past week or so, and then I realized that I’d better get it up soon or as they say in Spanish, “se me iba a pasar el arroz”. Which just simply means something like, the right time is about to pass you by.

Sorry for the rather iffy quality of the photos, I took them all with the mobile phone, just little reminders posted everywhere as I walked about town, about the imminence of Holy Week and its numerous processions (procesiones de Semana Santa).

People get really excited about Holy Week processions around here. Even very young people (like teenagers), whom you would expect would be more into fashion or clubbing than religion, show tremendous zeal and anticipation. And several young men that I know with big, strong shoulders can talk about nothing else for weeks except the “trono” that they are planning to bear around the city.

As you can see, everyone gets in on the act, and even the owners of convenience stores have Holy Week posters up.

Because, of course, all of those heavy “tronos”, or religious statues, that you will see marching around during Holy Week, are borne solely by the shoulders and feet of the “trono-bearers”. Each procession lasts for several kilometres, so you can imagine the exhaustion that these people face. But they are very proud of what they do and even compete with each other for the privilege of bearing a trono around town.

This is a poster with a play on words. It’s urging people to shut their cars up at home during Holy Week and come to see the processions by bus, in order not to clog up the frenetic traffic downtown. However, it’s also playing on the term “encierro”. Encierro means to shut something up, like your car in the garage, but an encierro is also when the procession is finished and the trono is brought to rest in its “home” in the church that it belongs to.

There was one other scene that I wanted to capture on film (well, digital film, nowadays), a religious scene that was set up in a shop window, but whenever I passed by the lighting was never right. Either it was too bright and everything was reflecting in the window, covering up the scene underneath the pane, or it was night-time and too dark. If I ever manage to pass by at just the right moment, I’ll flash a pic of it and post it up here too.

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A Treasure Huntin’ We Will Go

Feb27

The other day we went Treasure Hunting. That is easy when you live near a Treasure Cave!

Our Treasure Cave, La Cueva del Tesoro, is in Rincón de la Victoria right next to Malaga city. We go there every year, actually, but always when the weather is hot. (I won’t say in the summer, because it could be in October, and of course, technically, October isn’t summer – but the weather is still hot.)

This year my son, of the Wild Ideas of Hermenegildo fame, wanted to go there in the winter to see if it would be warm in the cave. You see, I had told him that Cave Homes, like the ones that Granada is famous for, are naturally conditioned and they are cool and fresh in the summer and warm and comforting in the winter, so you don’t need heaters or air conditioners if you live in a cave.

So we hopped on a bus for our annual pilgrimage to the Treasure Cave in Rincón de la Victoria. Whether you go there by bus or car, it’s easy to arrive – once you know the way. The problem is that the route isn’t mapped out or indicated with signposts anywhere (that I’ve seen).

Anyways, to get there, you take the big winding main road that passes through La Cala del Moral and Rincón de la Victoria, the coast road (not the autoroute). After La Cala del Moral this road will start winding its way up a large mountain, you will know it is the right place because it is very spirally and coils around a lot.

When you reach the top of this winding mountain road, at its highest point, that is the place to hop off the bus, if you are taking the bus in from Malaga. (Most buses that head eastwards out of Malaga will stop here for you.)

If you are taking the car, take advantage of the fact that you have a car and don’t hop out of it! Instead, veer to the left onto a road. I don’t know the name of the street, and there are no signs to indicate that it’s the right street. It’s just the street at the top of the winding mountain road where there is a traffic light (there aren’t any other traffic lights nearby). Very useful information, right?

When you get onto this street, just keep climbing and climbing and climbing…… and climbing. It’s great exercise for your legs, or for your car motor, if you come by car. You will come to a roundabout. Go around the roundabout and keep climbing.

Even when you arrive at the cave it is very easy to miss it. There is no sign or anything there to point out to you that you have arrived at a cave.

This is what the cave entrance looks like. As you can see, there is no way that you can tell that there is actually a cave somewhere in there!

The lighting was also pretty lousy, because it was, as usual, raining. A Cuban acquaintance once told me, “I dunno why they call this the Sun Coast. They oughtta call it the Always Cloudy Coast, or the Rainy Coast. Now Cuba, that’s a whole different story. In Cuba it is sunny all the time.”

However, one of the reasons I chose Malaga is because it does rain. If I had wanted perpetual sunshine, I would’ve headed off to Almería, which is a desert.

Anyways, the entrance fee is very cheap. And if your kids are members of the Club “La Banda” and have their membership card, entrance is free for them.

The only way to see the cave is with a guided tour. Guided tours are very frequent and run every half hour or so. Take care though, as they do close for lunch and the last tour in the wintertime is at 5 o’clock. (In the summer, I believe it is open an hour later. Which is good because at 5 o’clock in the summer you will die from sunstroke.)

Okay, well I’m not going to wax informational and spit out information that you can read on any website or tourism pamphlet about these caves. I’ll just mention a few bare facts.

This cave is special because it was an underwater cave, and it was formed entirely from the erosion of seawater on the rocks. After the seawater withdrew and the level of the sea went down, this cave emerged. There are only three underwater caves in the world (that is, caves that used to be underwater and are now above ground) and this is the only one in Europe.

It got its name because of the legend that this Roman guy hid away in it for eight months escaping from his enemies, and left an enormous treasure behind inside this cave. Many people have gone a-searching for this treasure, but they’ve all left their fortunes, energies and the health of their backs in the process (I mean, after all, excavating isn’t supposed to be exactly the most beneficial exercise for your back, right? If you want to strengthen your back, I would recommend you take yoga classes rather than spending all your time digging in a cave), without any luck.

The first cavern you will enter is called the Eagle Cave (la Sala del Águila). This is because of this rock formation which looks like an eagle’s back and head. (Sometimes the photos didn’t come out too well because we couldn’t use flash.)

The next cavern is the Cave of Noctiluca. Noctiluca is the goddess of the night, the full moon and fertility. In prehistoric times, people made offerings of the sacrifices of small animals to her. They slaughtered the animals and dribbled the animals’ blood into a basin below her “statue” (in reality, a natural rock formation).

In case you can’t distinguish her silhouette too well, here it is in outline. (At least that’s the way I see it. You know, these things are like constellations, you have to throw in a lot of imagination to see what people say they see.) The large round hole above her head is supposed to represent the full moon.

These are some crystals glistening in the cave walls.

This is the Cave of the Three Lagoons, because it has three natural lagoons in it. (The photo isn’t very clear because these guided tours run around as if they were some sort of marathon instead of a touristic stroll. I usually like to take several shots of everything and then choose the best shot, but in this case, they wouldn’t let me, because they were all galloping about as if the cave were about to crash down upon us or something.)

This is a cave which is still in the process of erosion, because rainwater continues to seep into it and form little streams and, of course, these lagoons.

I had the pleasure of translating the tourism pamphlets for the City of Rincon de la Victoria, and if you go to the Tourism Office in that town, you can read my translations in English. They also offer a free audio guide in English that you can download to your iPhone or SmartPhone and if you do that, you can listen to me, since I did the English recordings.

However, apparently Management at the Treasure Cave didn’t take advantage of my services and had their information panels translated by someone who was obviously not a native English speaker. The result is that you can read such strange headlines such as “The Geological Training of the Caves” instead of “The Geological Formation of the Caves” (La Formación de las Cuevas).

(Oh that is so not nice of me to laugh at someone else’s bad work, isn’t it?)

This is one of the many openings that the cave has into the ground above.

The Cave of the Three Lagoons is the last cavern to be visited in the guided tour, which is fairly short.

And as to the answer to my son’s question, as to whether caves are warm in the winter? Well, we still had to keep our jackets on during the frenzied relay race er, I meant, guided tour. The only area where it was warm enough to walk around in T-shirts was in the deepest cavern (not shown in this post), the Volcano Cave.

Well, just had to end this post with an outdoors pic, instead of yet another dark, lugubrious, underground photo. This is the coastline at Rincon de la Victoria.

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Pa Amb Tomàquet

Feb22

Oops, that’s not quite right, wrong Community, I think. I meant: pan con aceite!

Next week is the Day of Andalucía, which commemorates the date when Andalucía won the status of Autonomous Community within the country of Spain.

People get patriotic and hang out flags, and in the schools they set up little plays (which unfortunately we parents won’t be privy to observing). My son’s got a role in the play his class has mounted up at his high school: he’s going to open the curtains at the start of the show and close them when it ends. (He hates acting!)

His little brother cracked up when “Hermenegildo” proudly announced his important assignment. But I explained that it’s very important that someone open the curtains too, because if no one does that, then the show can’t go on!

What the kids love most about the Day of Andalucía, however, is pan con aceite!

Yes, the schools regale them with a typical Andalusian breakfast: rustic bread dunked in pools and pools of fresh virgin olive oil.

Too bad this wonderful meal is also accompanied by homework assignments for spring break (okay, winter break, since I guess technically it’s still winter……).

Thought I’d close this post with a flash of almond blossoms. Living in da inna big city isn’t the hottest thing, but occasionally, we get a real treat from Mother Nature too.

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The Orange Trees

Feb19

I love to see orange trees. I really love the sight of these perennial greens loaded down with fruit. Growing up in Canada, we never saw oranges, of course. In fact, it was inconceivable and totally impossible, to me, that any plant could keep its leaves twelve months of the year (except conifers, of course). Oranges were this rare, exotic thing that arrived in crates from California or Florida, half-wilted already.

So I love to see orange trees, because they remind me that we don’t live in the Arctic anymore! I love to see them because they tell me that in some parts of the world, there is life the whole year round.

I stop often to take photos of them, and every once in a while, I’ll upload a few of these photos here. Not too many at a time (although I literally have dozens!), because if I beat you over the head with endless scenes of oranges, well, that’s no fun.

Oranges grow all over the place here. You can’t eat them, though. Otherwise, how would supermarkets and fruitmongers survive? The oranges that grow out on the street are bitter oranges. You could, I suppose, take a few home for free and make bitter orange jam with them. But why would you want to do that, anyways, when you can get a jar of bitter orange jam for about a euro at the supermarket, and save yourself all the fuss? Besides which, the ones on the streets must be chock full of contamination and pollution from sucking up car fumes all the time.

But they sure are nice to look at!

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Bye Bye Birds!

Feb18

Every morning as I take the kids to school I see all the birds lining up in the sky and taking off to their homes in the north. Hundreds and hundreds of migratory birds that all head northward in perfect “V” formation. I feel so sad to say good-bye to them, they were so happy here playing, eating, enjoying the great weather. I also want to tell them how lucky they are, to be able to spend every winter jumping around in the sun while their human counterparts are trembling to death in the snow in northern Europe!

I think how perfect their natural instinct is, that just tells them so naturally and wordlessly when exactly is the right moment for them to line up and return home. How do they know it will soon be spring? And how do they know how to line up so perfectly? How does each bird recognize where is its precise place in the “V” formation, and none of the birds loses the rhythm as they fly?

They have such a long ways to go now. I estimate maybe by the end of March they will be digging up worms in the parks of Amsterdam, Copenhagen and London, and enjoying the first green buds over there. They have to cross the entire Iberian peninsula from south to north, then wing out over the whole European continent before they reach their homes. They travel all that distance using the power of their own wings, no airplanes, trains or cars for them!

And I also think how we’ve lost touch with our own natural nature. The natural thing to do is to head south in the wintertime, where food continues to be plentiful and you can go to bed without waking up transformed into an ice cube. It’s we humans, in our advanced human civilization, who are going counter-nature by persisting in remaining in arctic lands and heating ourselves using artificial (and non-renewable) sources of energy.

Once upon a time we used to do what birds do. We used to be nomadic, and we followed the food supplies and the warm rays of the sun all around the globe. Oh well, but times have changed.

Local birds here, on the other hand, really know how to live it up, and these days they are busy building nests. The other day my son and I enjoyed the spectacle of a neon green parrot busily hawing away at a tree branch. It picked and pecked and wouldn’t give up until it succeeded in breaking off the thin branch. It then proceeded to take off with the enooorrrrmous branch dragging about in its beak until it arrived at its own tree nearby, where we could observe how it added the tree branch to its nest.

If I could ever take the time out during out daily morning marathon to snap a photo, I’ll add a pic here of birds flying north for the spring another day.

But in the meantime, here is a pic of some green buds. Although on the other hand, green buds here don’t necessarily mean spring, either, because here we have blossoms all year round!