Friday, October 18, 2024

Europe Fall 2024 - Castillian Invasion (Or) Arrival Of The Niece

One of the lovely things about our stay here in El Campello is our being close to so many family members. Not only to do we have our Granddaughter 2.2 just a couple of hours away, but our closest niece and fellow blogger, RGM now lives in Madrid, only a bit more than 3 and a half hours away by train from Alicante (which is only 30 minutes drive from our apartment). So on Monday afternoon off we went to pick her up for nice five day visit here.

Our original plan was to spend Tuesday wandering about El Campello giving her a good feel for this beach side town so very different than the nation's capital of Madrid. However, a quick reconnaissance observation from our tower noted that all our local supermarkets were closed again???? This was when Wife went on line and we discovered there was yet ANOTHER holiday (the third in 9 days), this one specifically for the town of El Campello. 

With nothing better to do we decided to run into Alicant/Alicante itself. While El Campello has been very quiet while we've been there, Alicant was mobbed with tourists!

But before we go into that, we should discuss a bit about the local language, Valencian.

Valencian is generally considered by linguists to be a dialect or variety of the Catalan language. While Valencian and Spanish are both Romance languages spoken in Spain, they have significant differences:

    • Valencian is more closely related to Catalan than to Spanish, belonging to a different branch of the Romance language family.
    • It has distinct vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar from Spanish
    • Valencian uses Catalan orthography rather than Spanish orthography 
    • Mutual intelligibility between Valencian and Spanish is limited, whereas Valencian and Catalan are mutually intelligible

  So you will note we often refer to Alacant instead of Alicante - the Valencian version rather than the Spanish version of the name. Also, we refer to 'Castilian' Spanish since it derives from the old kingdom of Castile that dominated the Reconquista during the late Middle Ages. There is tension between these groups and a feeling that the Castilian influence is a bit arrogant and overbearing. 

Visit to Alacant

 Valencian language be damned - It is the Spanish Flag we see

It was not a great light/sky day for picture taking and we were not really in photo taking mode. And as much as I like this area, I would not call Alicant/Alicante the most photogenic city I've been to (unlike Valencia for example)

 

A sad example of Lamps


But as Wife has noted, a FINE example of Butt Statuary

 

 😡

 

 The Ancient Enemy

Examples of the Famed Alicant Square Oak Tree


 Tell me...who WOULDN'T want to repaint their place after this.

 Alicant does have a rather interesting church whose exterior is quite different and from an earlier time than most of what we've seen in this area.

 A better example of a lamp

 The Niece

 Around Alicant



 Local Monument to Decisive Decision-Making


 We returned to our apartment, whipped up a wonderful pasta with cheese sauce and enjoyed a spectacular full moon over the Mediterranean.

2 comments:

alexis said...

such a great place from which to entertain!!

Renee Michelle Goertzen said...

I know that you disapprove of my use of the invader language Castilian, but it did come in awfully handy at the bank and talking to the apartment manager :)

It was so delightful to see you both. I'm glad Spain is on your list of repeat destinations!