Benvenuti i bolognesi!

Ryanair might be a shower of agressive, money-grabbing, geographically-challenged chancers, but they do have their uses. At the end of March they're introducing low cost flights between Granada and Bologna. You'll be able to travel between two of Europe's most beautiful university cities from about €20 each way. (Plus of course the hidden extra charges for checking in, bringing a suitcase, breathing etc.) More to the point, some of the most sophisticated people in Italy will easily be able to reach our lovely house and rent it for less than €300 a week, or 625,000 lire in old money. For once the two airports are even relatively close to the cities which bear their names - less than 15k in each case. I only wish I had reason/opportunity/time to flit between two of my favourite places on a regular basis.

Ross offends abuela shock

The local press in Granada is doing its dinger today because Jonathan Ross, recently back in his BBC job after the Andrew Sachs affair, has been insulting old ladies in Conchar. Ross was doing a phone interview with a British resident of the town, who joked that he was building a wall to keep out the supposedly randy eighty-year old lady who lives next door. The presenter suggested that the Brit "give her one last good seeing-to before she goes to the grave". (I'm translating from Spanish that's been translated from Estuary English, but I think that's fairly accurate.) The lady in question has Alzheimer's, and her son is livid.

More snow hits Granada

The province got some really heavy snowfall this weekend, with many roads in chaos. This shot is from Castril, in the North East of Granada (and a fair bit lower down than our place). Ideal reports today that transport is getting back to normal again.

Beautiful women on bikes

This has nothing to do with the Alpujarra, but I'm interested in cycling at the moment and discovered a site called Copenhagen Cycle Chic. It's run by a guy who just loves taking pictures of girls on bikes, especially if they're wearing fashionable outfits. Blogger Mikael lives in a city full of beautiful women and bicycles, so he's in the right place. As he says, it's "bike advocacy in high heels with a streetwise twist from the world's cycling capital." I love the way the site is charming, sophisticated and very slightly pervy at the same time.

Save 20% on a booking at our house

I haven't had an enquiry on the house for a few weeks so I'm trying a discount ad on villarenters. If you prefer to book directly I'll extend the same terms, which are that if you book any full week or weeks for 2009 before the end of March, I'll give you 20% off. Prices now start at £200 per week (less 20%, of course, so that's £160) during February and March, rising to £350 (£300 with the discount) for the English school holidays. I'm putting the prices up soon - so that there's some relationship between pound and euro prices - so it won't ever get this cheap again.

San Anton, patron saint of pet food

The British cling to the belief that they're the most animal-friendly people in Europe, but I don't think they can compete with the Spaniards. It may be true that bulls and donkeys are slaughtered on a regular basis throughout the country, but when it comes to their mascotas, the Spanish are as soft-hearted as anyone else. Today is San Anton's day, when religious pet owners in Spain take their dogs, cats, hamsters and canaries to church to have them blessed and sprinkled with holy water. In a secular alternative, Ideal in Granada gets people to send in pictures of their pets for posting on the paper's website. Here's just one of several dozen.

The Alpujarra on BBC4

Rageh Omaar, the BBC journalist usually seen wearing a flak jacket in a war zone, was in Granada and the Alpujarra on BBC4 last night in the final episode of his mini-series “An Islamic History of Europe”. It seemed a pretty superficial exploration of a vast and infinitely rich subject to me - apart from anything else, how can you do a whole history of Muslim influence in Europe without mentioning the Ottoman Empire? - but he did get to sit on Chris Stewart’s terrace drinking mint tea, and that's not far from our house and so worthy of mention on this blog. The cheerful evocation of ancient battle at the Moros y Cristianos enactment in Velez de Benaudalla was fun. Apparently nobody wants to dress up as a Christian because the Moors have better swords, and the town enacts two battles with contrasting outcomes during the day of the fiesta, so that everyone gets to win at least once.

Here's a picture of the Moros Y Cristianos from our own village:

Cultural evolution/confusion at work

This is quite an interesting phenomenon. The funny little exterior decoration on the left represents the Magi from the traditional nativity story; the "we three kings from Orient are" (as a kid I wondered where Orientare was, but that's another story). They were climbing into every other window in Spain this Christmas, though I've never seen them in previous years. The Chinese-run emporia that sell all kinds of cheap junk were full of them.

The fascinating bit is that Spain is in the grip of a generational battle between the Kings, who traditionally bring presents for good children on January 6th, and the recent US import and Coca Cola spokesperson Santa Claus, who is meant to bring gifts during the small hours of 25th December. Retailers and the ad industry naturally want the Spanish nation to embrace both and give twice as many gifts, but hard-pressed families may have to make a choice and go for one or the other. Last year the balcony adornment of choice was Santa climbing up a rope-ladder. This year the Spaniards, with the help of the Chinese tat-vendors, have amalgamated traditions so that we get the Kings climbing Santa-style, rather than turning up on camels. (If you were a wise old king from Orientare, would you suffer the gross indignity of climbing a rope-ladder to break into someone's flat, with passers-by looking up your cassock? No, neither would I.) It'll be interesting to see if this one sticks - the Christmas story changed forever by cheap decorations.

Home again

We got back to Scotland on the first day of 2009, after getting up at 6am to drive down to Malaga airport. The roads have improved so much that the journey now takes only about two hours and ten minutes - it was at least three hours not so long ago. Juviles and the Alpujarra in general were spectacularly pretty in the brilliant winter sunshine. We missed the heavy snow - a quitanieves was through the village's main street twice the week before we got there - although it was pretty damn cold. Above is a shot of the sun coming up over the Contraviesa, taken from our terrace. Not a bad view to go with your early morning coffee.