Some pics from a recent trip to La Safor, an area in the south of Valencia Province. Mostly of the town of Gandía. These are from the 'old town' area where nearly every building was photogenic. Blogger has uploaded the photos in reverse order, not that they are in any order that matters anyway. Most of them were taken during the quiet siesta hours so there are few people around.
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Excerpt from Vicent Andres Edellés, 20th century Valencian poet.
You will assume the voice of a people,
And it will be the voice of your people,
And you will be forever, a people. |
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Plaque in Valencian to local poet and knight, Ausiàs March. Rough translation: Love, love, I have cut (myself) a garment
from your cloth, dressing my spirit.
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| More March. Taken from the wall opposite the lines by Edellés. |
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| This reminds me I need to order some Cypress trees for my Italian battles. |
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| Local boy made good. Francesc de Borja, 4th Duke of Gandía. The family are better known to history as 'the Borgias', two of whom became popes. Franny went one better and was canonised. Not sure how much it means given the family's track record. |
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| How the mighty have fallen. From popes and saints to opticians?! Surely the most Gaudiesque shopfront I have seen outside Barcelona. |
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| More detail from the optician's shopfront. |
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| The Lesser-Spotted Margravina enjoying the vista above. |
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| Out on the coast where we were staying, there was a thunder storm late one night. I could see flashes of lightning from the balcony so I walked round to the sea wall and sat taking videos and photos of the sky hoping to catch the lightning. This one came out looking apocalyptic or the scene from the Ten Commandments when the Red Sea was split asunder. |
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| It was actually darker than it appears when I tool this. Bar the blue box on the right it looks like an oasis scene in Lawrence of Arabia or Ice Cold in Alex. |
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| Another Biblical movie shot. |
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| Late night walk along the prom. The lights in the left middle distance are reflections of the lamps on the right I think. |
On the last day we met one of the neighbours in the same apartment block. A Frenchman by the name of Juan. The Margravina had previously read that a lot of locals emigrated to France in the 20th century and (they or their descendants) frequently return on holiday. Juan told us that he had inherited the flat from his father who had bought it after returning to Spain many years after going in to exile. The father fought on the Republican side and left in 1939. I'd love to have found out more.
Adéu!
Some very nice pictures Chris - they are obviously a poetic people, given the first few images! Nice story about the French Juan and his dad - pity you did not meet him a couple of days earlier and have a chance to investigate his dad further - there were obviously huge numbers of socialists etc who fled into France to avoid the inevitable reprisals from the fascist victors of the SCW. I have a feeling a lot may have been forcibly returned by the Nazis and/or Petain and his collaborationist regime,
ReplyDeleteCheers Keith. The guy only arrived on the night before so there wasn’t much chance to find out more. But there might be future opportunities.
DeleteChris
Great photos, just the thing to view on chilly morning here. Incidentally Blogger does that with my photos too, very annoying when posting a battle report.
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradgardland
Thanks Alan. It’s definitely Autumn now isn’t it.
DeleteChris
Some great shots there Chris, with a few very 'Cecile B de Mille', especially the storm at sea one. This is the sort of place I love to wander around, off the beaten track but so much stuff to see. BTW re: Blogger and uploading, I've found I have select my photos from left to right in the folder on my PC, to make sure the download in the correct order. Normally about a line at a time, so around 10 in my case. Then I have to add in a letter after them, to start a new paragraph as it were, and repeat as above until they're all done. A pain but so far it works...
ReplyDeleteCheers Steve. Cecil B de Mille - that’s the chap!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Blogger tip.
Chris
Great photos of a wonderful looking town Chris.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ben. Certainly a very pretty area. Don’t know what the rest of it is like though.
DeleteChris
Great photography, Chris.
ReplyDeleteCheers Richard.
DeleteLovely photos, I liked the apocalyptic one! Quite a lot of the resistance in the south of France were Spanish Republicans, which makes sense?
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Thanks Iain. The Apocalypse was just one of those fortuitous outcomes to a point and click with the phone camera. (Just re-read that sentence 😆).
DeleteYeah makes complete sense lots of the Spanish melting into the countryside and joking the Maquis.
Chris
Stunning photos matey. There’s a plaque on a neighbouring village out here that is one of those so and so lived here type thingys - and the subject was some noteworthy spanish guy that moved to France after the civil war. Must’ve been a lot of em I guess.
ReplyDeleteCheers me ole China. Saw a satiate of 400,000 Spanish exiles in France. So yes, lots! The current mayor of Paris is descended from one of them.
DeleteMany joined the French forces on the outbreak of War. Some of those ended up in Vichy controlled forces and were probably relatively safe (until they joined the Allied cause). Some ended up in British forces and in other ways helped the war effort like Michael Portillo’s dad.
Chris
Looks great, really nice pictures. Poetry in the streets and the last of the Borgias, indeed!
ReplyDeleteI got some basic Cypress trees from Heroics and Ros, you can see them in my recent 1859 battle report. I think they were about 75p each. I assume other makes are available, and probably rather more sophisticated, but the H&R ones will do for now.
Thanks David. Those H&R trees are about the best I’ve seen for modeling cypress trees in terms of value. But I can’t see them listed any more on their website. Maybe discontinued. Only lime trees and a couple of pine trees listed.
DeleteChris.
Ah! I’ve found a poplar tree. That’ll do.
DeleteChris