Category: Uncategorized
-
Back to the Canaries
East this time: Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote (in that order). Why the Canaries? No, they weren’t our favourite place last time, but the major positives are winter sun (ie more sun generally) and better temperatures than gloomy UK weather in January. Plus, having done three of them, we felt obliged to get the whole…
-
Zafra and white towns
When the term ‘white towns’ is used about Southern Spain, often the villages being referred to are in the far south of Andalucia and seems to apply to more obviously Moorish places. While it may be that the habit of painting everything white came from the Moors (as a way to reflect the hot sun),…
-
Warrior monks, castles and a monastery
The history of the Knights Templar (or Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, to give them their full name) is entwined both with the Crusades, the many pilgrimages undertaken in the Middle Ages and (surprise) the south-west area of Extremadura (and the east of Portugal). The Templars acted initially as a…
-
Elvas – fortifications run amok
It may have seemed that there isn’t a lot to do in Evora; this is not quite the case, there just weren’t things that particularly appealed to us. Like Capela dos Ossos – a church with a knave made of bones: apparently the town ran out of space for burials so the decision was made…
-
Evora – via Monsaraz
As the road climbed gently out of Mertola, the fog burned off leaving a sparkling blue sky. Gently rolling, stony scrubland gave way to flatter, more fertile pastures – sheep, goats, cattle. There were fields full of what looked like holm oaks, but not a pig in sight. Bearing north, the route joined the Alentejo…
-
Mertola – a small town with a long past
For years (and years) Spain completely ignored its Moorish past, which is short-sighted given the nearly 800 years the Moors spent in El-Andalus, the significant donations of Arabic words to the Spanish language, the influence on agriculture, food, architecture… the list seems almost endless. Thankfully, southern Spain has woken up to and acknowledged its Arabic…
-
The Guadiana river
The decision to take the longer route into Portugal via Ayamonte was based on an interest in seeing the mouth of the Guadiana river. From mountains and forests the terrain quickly flattened, turning into acres of citrus fruit trees (possibly oranges, based on the quick flashes of orange among the leaves). Further south these became…
-
Spain and Portugal – southern border
Spain, again you might think, but this time exploring the Guadiana river valley, mostly on the Portuguese side of the border, along with the Sierra de Aracena y Picos de Aroche Natural Park and (hopefully) a few of the medieval castles associated with the Knights of Santiago (competitors of the Knights Templar after the Crusades…
-
Crete – other historical sites
Well, ‘some’ other historical sites – there is a LOT of history in Crete! The very first site we visited was Falassarna (also spelled with a ‘Ph’, you find both on the same website, in the same document and on different road signs), in the northwest, just beyond the long sandy beach the modern town…
-
Crete: Minoans
Given Crete’s position in the eastern Mediterranean, it’s hardly surprising that its history extends well into the dim and distant past. The presence of Neolithic obsidian tools and blades (obsidian is only found on the Agean islands of Milos, Anti-Paros and Nisyros in the eastern Mediterranean) is testament to Crete’s early connections with the world…
Retired? What now? 