A little holiday

 When you're retired your time is your own, more or less. It's been very hot this summer and we didn't really fancy moving very much. Autumn is almost here; in fact the hot spell has really broken and we've seen some rain and some storms. After a week in Zaragoza, where first of all we slept without even a sheet and the windows open. During the day the weather was good for shorts and sandals or even in my case a summer dress.  Last Friday the 15th of September we set out from Zaragoza to Orihuela del Tremedal. What a name! It's in the province of Teruel, and it's very remote. There's a motorway from Zaragoza all the way to Sagunto in Valencia and we were going to use our journey to the church retreat as a stepping-stone to Valencia. As the retreat didn't start till the afternoon we wanted to visit Peracense castle.

It looks good, doesn't it? Before we got to the turning there was a violent storm, such that I didn't want to carry on driving, so I pulled into a service station and waited until the worst had passed, and we decided that it wasn't the right day to visit a castle, so we still have it on our to-do list. Instead we went to the city of Teruel and spent the morning there. The streets of the centre are elegant, mostly Modernist, with two beautiful Mudejar towers and a spectacular cathedral, where we had a guided tour finishing up in the jewel in the crown which is the medieval wooden painted ceiling.

This is taken from ground-level

Here, in this view from the gallery you can see the freize of carpenters in red and blue

When the tour was over we had a nice meal on a terrace and then headed for Albarracín which is considered one of the most beautiful towns in Spain. The road is long and winding, and the town is certainly spectacular.

Set in the mountains, with steep streets

Amazing views

Oddities

Curious knockers

It turned out the town had its fiestas.  There were barriers up for bull-running and left-over cow-dung in many of the steep streets. We got our coffee, walked around a bit and then headed off along the winding mountain roads to the village of Orihuela del Tremedal.. Beautiful scenery, scant population.

The place chosen for the church retreat had in earlier times been a hunting lodge from which Franco hunted, presumably the red deer which are celebrated here.

This is a statue outside the tourist office and they offer tours to see the rutting.

The area is all pine forests but they are bordered by oak trees and all the undergrowth is oak seedlings. However, there were hardly any acorns. My theory is that they are harvested to feed the pigs for the all-important ham production.

View from 1790 m above sea level

There's a chapel at the top of the hill and the most spectacular views over three provinces

This explains about the tremedal or trembling peat bog

The arrow tells you where to find the Pole Star and the disk helps you locate constellations.

Once the retreat was over we headed for Valencia, more specifically Manises, a 2-hour drive away.

In spite of problems

 A few weeks ago I tried to run along a track I hadn't run on before, from the north end of Jaca, more or less parallel with the main road to France. After a while I crossed a bridge called Puente de las Grajas; rook bridge and followed a paved road back towards Jaca on the other side of the river Aragón. I thought I'd be able to get to the medieval bridge of San Miguel and from there go up to Jaca, but I found this: 

and I understood I couldn't carry on. At this point, there's a pipe coming down from the top of the mountain which reaches a kind of golf-ball structure. I think there's a hydro-electric turbine in it. 

Here's the pipe in the distance

And the golf ball structure

Well, that day I turned round and went back the way I'd come, there was nothing else I could do and noone to ask.

Yesterday I tried the other way, this time walking, not running. I started off at what they call the Rompeolas, the breakwater, because it looks as if it belongs on the seafront. I went down to St Michael's bridge
 

(sorry, I didn't take my own photo)

On the other side I turned right and walked towards Asieso, with the river Aragón on my right. Reaching the turning for the tiny village of Asieso I turned and immediately found a sign for the Puente de las Grajas.

This was quite an easy footpath until I found my way blocked by red and white tape and a car.

I couldn't think how it had got there, but it must have been some kind of off-roading that went wrong. 

I really didn't want to turn back, so I ducked under the tape and carried on following the footpath, with its little wooden footbridges across the streams going down into the Aragón river. 

By this time I was almost at the golf ball, emerging on the other side of where it said no entry.

I came out from the right-hand side, not the left, where the no entry sign is.

Well, from there it was easy enough. I went along the paved road to the Puente de las Grajas and crossed the river again, then turned right along the footpath leading back to Jaca, past the little chapel of San Cristóbal, where I found another blockage of the path: 

A fallen tree, making difficulties for cyclists and horses

but no trouble for lone walkers.
I'm glad I managed to find the way!

Santa Cristina

 This is a crossover from my other blog, the one I do for the Orfeón Jacetano. I've just published an entry on it in Spanish, so I thought I'd do one in English. 

On Saturday we broke new ground. The Orfeón Jacetano celebrated its 60th anniversary last year, and over the decades we've been to many places and sung in different conditions, from churches and cathedrals, theatres, cinemas, town and city squares, parks, even a football stadium, I seem to remember. Well, on Saturday we sang in an archaeological site. The ruins of the medieval hospital of Santa Cristina in Candanchú can't be seen from the road. Many people would have come there to ski or take advantage of the mountain climate in summer and never have realised there was anything of interest up the stone steps just before the buildings in the mountain resort.

A few years ago, coming out of the pandemic, we sang our annual August concert outside the church in Candanchú. We got really cold. However, on Saturday, in the middle of the third heatwave this summer, the midday sun was merciless. Before the concert we wore hats and some even had umbrellas: I noticed there was even an umbrella with level 50 SPF.

The setting was matchless. The accoustics between singers were good. We could hear each other well.

This is a video with a reconstruction of the monastery.

It really was a unique experience, a privilege to sing in such a unique location.

Jaca folk festival, behind the scenes

 Yesterday was the inauguration of the bi-annual folk festival in Jaca. Due to start at ten thirty at night, it meant the finish was bound to be late. 

The city is absolutely crammed with tourists as well as the many participating groups: from Mexico and Martinique, Northern Macedonia,  Uganda and Uruguay, Indonesia and Italy, from Argentina and Zimbabwe, not forgetting groups from Jaca, neighbouring Sabiñánigo and Asturias and Galicia. I may have missed a few in my attempts at alliteration; but I mustn't forget my own, Orfeón Jacetano and the municipal band of Santa Orosia.

Well, I live a little way out of the centre of the city, and while it's no problem for me to walk there and back, I'd rather not do so past midnight, so we took the car down earlier and parked it near to the open-air auditorium of Sanlure where the show was to take place. It was a great parking space except for the fact that I couldn't leave until the whole thing was over because the street was solid with dancers, musicians, ambulances, technicians, volunteers.

We all arrived in good time, drank in the festival atmosphere and enjoyed the spectacle of the interactions between the waiting groups. The audience entered from the other end of the arena so everyone there was either a performer or support for the performers. I watched a young girl from Zimbabwe with a circle of girls from the Slovak Republic. She was teaching them how to wiggle their bottoms in the style of her dance. Brilliant.

We waited. On stage, they talked. Talked. Of course, from behind, we could hear noise, but not follow what was being said. It went on for a long time befor our cue, which was when our conductor, Celia, was called on; she's taken part in a lot of festivals in its sixty years history.

Finally we filed onto the stage, sang our song, which is the anthem of the festival, and filed off. 

Most people went home, but I couldn't because my car was stuck, so I hung around until almost the end, chatting with people and watching what was going on. I enjoyed the experience. Where we opened the show, the municipal band were to close it, so they had to wait through all the performances. The Italian flag-throwers sat on chairs and smoked. The people from Zimbabwe had to take refuge in an ambulance because they felt too cold: their costumes didn't cover them much, whereas some of the Spanish women and the Mexicans were wearing warm, bulky dresses. The Uruguayan tango dancers also got chilly; the women had slinky backless dresses.

Each group had something like two or three minutes to file on, perform a spectacular dance or sing a somg, or throw flags up. A lot of waiting for a few moments on stage, but generally people were cheerful; probably used to being patient.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of my group and a video: I'll post some of the others when I can.

https://jacetaniaexpress.com/jaca-la-ciudad-de-la-ilusion-un-paseo-por-la-historia-del-festival-folklorico-de-los-pirineos/

This link will give you access to lots of photos of the event. Here are a few of them.

Candanchu and Canfranc

 Today we went on a gentle walk in Candanchu, followed by a quick visit to Canfranc to see the refurbishment of the station building.

Canal Roya

 In the last few months there have been protests and demonstrations about Canal Roya because there was a plan to put a cablecar through this untouched route. 

My little selection of photos probably doesn't do it justice, but it's really special! 

Foxgloves

Irises

Violas

Dianthus