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Published: April 26th 2009
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Been here for four months now trying to save our savings for a while and enjoying whatever sun comes our way.
VILANOVA PARK
Vilanova Park is an all-singing ,all-dancing camp-site, although it is more like a village, sprawling over and on a wooded hill behind the coastal town of Vilanova i la GeltrĂș which is about 40km south of Barcelona. A village because it is virtually self-contained with a large restaurant and bar at it's heart, shops, swimming pools including an indoor one with gym next door;and a scruffy "zoo". That's what they call it but it's a small collection of pens holding a flock of sheep with curly horns(Mouflons?),a herd of deer,three small sturdy ponies and a couple of peacocks. As we are on a pitch near this said zoo we also frequently get wafts of "Animal" on the breeze, so why are we pitched in this spot? It's up a cul-de-sac with an uninterrupted view of a log pile and trees, high up and open to catch what sun there is;and quiet, well away from the general hubbub of weekending Spaniards in their chalets. There are lots of birds including a pair of Hoopoes which drill away at the
lawn by the upper outdoor swimming pool and the green parrots which live in the date palms. Lovely to hear the Serins(like Canaries) trilling up on the topmost leaves of trees on the morning walk down to the pool for the early(ish) morning exercise. Apart from swimming and Chris gymming we have been playing table tennis, ten-pin bowling, taking long walks in the hills, boules and now golf as there is a pleasant Pitch and Putt course up in the hills behind the Park to which we cycle. That answers part of what we do all day. The rest of the time is taken up with servicing the van, shopping, cooking, eating, the usual stuff and socialising. Up here, most of our neighbours are Danish, this being a favourite overwinter Viking stop but the Brits come a close second in number with a sprinkling of other Europeans thrown in throughout the Park. We have friends who are resident in chalets here as well having given up the travelling life, for now. Now our Dutch Bridge playing friends who we met 2 years ago have arrived so our rusty play has been given boost-hopefully. Before their arrival, due to lack of
players, Chris and I did play a 2-handed version but its nothing like the real thing!
FESTIVALS
In March we had a couple of days in Valencia for the Las Fallas Festival. This is a week long festival which includes every thing from bullfights to parades of family groups bearing flowers, all accompanied by the sound of firecrackers and musical bands. The
Fallas are large(some 30/40 ft high) wood and polystyrene 3D constructions featuring grotesque political and social cartoons which are found in all parts of the city:in squares and street intersections. During the week they are judged and prize banners are awarded from a platform in the town hall square. This too involves a march through the streets in full national dress with a band of musicians playing, needless to say, "Valencia " as the favourite tune. All this is a prelude to the main event of the day,
Las Mascaletas, which is an almighty noisy and earth-shaking firecracker display in the same square at 2pm on the dot. This starts with a few fireworks exploding overhead and builds up to the most terrifying and exciting noise one would ever hear outside a war zone. Just when you think
Valencia
Lunch-time you can stand no more, it stops;the ground ceases shaking;the smoke clears;and everyone goes off to lunch, after applauding the design team who parade round the now empty shell debris littered cage.( The cage essential for H&S!) The city comes to life again at 4pm when the processions start to the Plaza de la Virgen where a huge wooden framework below the head and shoulders of a Virgin and Child is covered with the carnations bought by the women in the parade. Everyone is in National dress including babes in arms. By the end of the week,the saint's day of San José, the framework is a mass of flowers in a preordained pattern to make a magnificent and fragrant skirt and cloak. The culmination of this week of festivities is the
Nit de Foc:the burning of all the Fallas in the city ending with the one in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento-Town Hall Square. To add to all this, just in case there isn't enough excitement, there are bullfights every day.
A more local but equally enjoyable festival is
Les Comparses, the sweet-throwing Carnival in Vilanova. This time groups of people in traditional dress:skirts and silk shawls for the women, coloured
waistcoats and Catalan berets for the men, dance arm and arm in the streets with music provided by a following small band. Handfuls of gaily wrapped sweets, taken from big shoulder bags, are hurled into the crowds or at a rival group. Many of the crowd are in fancy dress and the streets are a sticky brightly coloured mess. All stops for lunch and siesta and by evening the streets are swept clean and the town returns to it's sober, provincial self. Neighbouring Sitges has its own, now famous, Carnival. This is a more usual parade of floats and OTT exotic costumes and most of the watching crowd is in fancy dress too, some of it outrageously funny.
One other local festival held earlier in the year and worth a mention is the
Tres Tombs:it starts with a blessing of domestic animals at the main church then there is a parade of horses some with riders, others pulling a variety of carts and carriages from the posh outfit with beautifully turned out horse teams to the dog cart pulled by a tiny pony. The riders vary from the sombrero wearing senor with a flamenco-dressed senorita slung on behind to well
Tres Tombs
Children make these hobby horses. turned out Thelwell girls on groomed ponies. In the middle of these are the traditional working carts;haywains, barrels, logs, some of these pulled by up to eight horses in a line and all with handlers in traditional Catalan dress. The whole parade goes three times(tres tombs) round the town centre before the inevitable lunch and sweeping up of manure. The joy of these festivals is the inclusion of everyone from babies to oldies, teenagers to tourists, and minimal supervision or barriers. So be it if one gets trampled by a horse or hit in the eye by a flying candy, its all part of the fun!
We have been to Barcelona a few times mainly to go to art exhibitions and one evening to see the Fountains display on the steps above the Plaza Espanya:a riot of colour and water in every conceivable form with musical accompaniment. Apparently the fountain on the big swimming pool here was designed by the same man but that we haven't seen in action yet.
Now we are just waiting for better weather in France to start our journey back to the UK for mid-May via the Pyrenees where we want to do some walking
Vilanova Park
Boules game:the French know best! preferably in the dry.
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