Easter Sunday – Finally a procession goes forward

Wake up this morning to blue sky, so we’re off the find the Church where the procession is due to start this morning at 10AM.  Got there around 9:30 and we were way too early so walked around town a little and went back to stand outside the Church to see exactly what happens in this procession.   

Some decorations for Easter

Tiny cobblestone street

Don't think I would step out on this balcony to water the plants

Starting to gather for the procession

We stood at the front of the band at the very beginning of the procession from the Church on a very narrow street.  When the band started playing, it was very loud on this tiny street.  There were about 50 people in the marching band, followed by a couple of hundred people in costume following the band of all ages.  Following these people we looked back towards the Church and saw 30 porters carrying a huge statue of Jesus on a platform, and then following Jesus was a huge statue of Mary on a separate platform carried by 30 men.  Interesting because when they came out of the Church Jesus headed one way down the street, and Mary headed the other way down the street.  This started at 10AM, we then followed the crowds to a square in town where Jesus and Mary would meet up again at about 11AM.  The porters carrying the statues were stomping their canes the whole time, and swaying in time, very moving.  They have this all coordinated so Mary and Jesus meet coming in from different streets into the square.  A young woman is lifted up onto Mary to take her black robe off, and then a number of pigeons are released to huge cheers from the crowd.  By the time we reached the square where all this happened the crowds were really large, 10 deep in places along the route to watch the procession.  

Mary still in her black wrap

Huge crowds and people out on their balconies watching

Mary meets Jesus and her black cloak is removed

 

Following the procession we decided to go to Mass in the Cathedral.  I think it was all in Spanish, but who knows it may have been Latin?  We understood when to Pass the Peace, and of course when communion happened, but certainly didn’t get much out of the sermon.  Andre was commenting that when his parents were young they would have only had Mass in Latin, can you imagine going every week at least once and not understanding anything.  The Cathedral was very nice inside, but was it ever cold! 

We then picked up some things to make lunch back at the apartment, time for a little siesta and then off to a concert.  One last time to take in some of the views around town before the concert since it is not raining.  Andre is ok with standing on this bridge but I am not so much. It is over 120 feet high and build around 1900.  The original one was all wood and built in the 1500's.  Good thing the original bridge fell down because Andre would have made me walk it as well.  This is the bridge that I am sure Dad would not have crossed!

Hanging houses from the bridge

View of the city from the bridge

 

 

This week is also the week of Religious Music, with 19 different concerts going on during the week.  They are all classical music, and tonight is the finale being held in the Cathedral.  We bought tickets online last night for 20.00 Euro each, what a bargain for what we saw.  The only problem was it was in the Cathedral again, remember how cold it was at noon?  We each wore 5 layers, I had my little dollar store mittens on, and we rented little flannel blankets for .50 Euro to wrap ourselves in.  We were still cold, but nothing like those poor musicians must have been, I have no idea how they did it.  This is the 52 year that they have had these concerts during Easter week in this city.  Tonights concert was Beethovens 9^th Symphony performed by the Salzburg Symphony Orchestra along with a choir which is claimed to be the most important in Spain.  

 

We were so cold after this that we just picked up some snacks to take back to the apartment for supper.  It had also started pouring out again, so a quick run down the mountain, quick bite to eat, then off to bed as we leave tomorrow and Andre has all kinds of side trips planned for our 3 hour drive to take 8 hours :-)

Day trip from Cuenca

Day trip from Cuenca

Today we woke up to some bits of blue sky, yeah!  We decided to head out of town for the day to explore the region. 

We head North into more mountains from where we are now, and it is colder!  Our first stop is the Enchanted City which is about 25 km from town.  There are about 200 hectares of land that is full of eroded rocks in all kinds of interesting formations.  Some rocks were shaped like different animals, faces, castles, boats etc.  you had to use your imagination for some, and we had a hard time translating the signs.   We spent about an hour here picking our way between people, trying to get pictures with no one else in them.  When we arrived it wasn’t too busy, no line up for tickets, at 3.00 Euro entrance they have a goldmine here during the holidays!  Not much maintenance.  When we left the lines were huge just to buy a ticket, and it started to rain, perfect time to leave for us.

We thought it was funny until we translated it to French

Crocodile and Elephant

From here we travelled further north to the Nacimiento Del Rio Curvo, which are waterfalls.  This area has had much more rain than normal, and we were told that the falls were bigger than they had been in 60 years.  It was impressive, but a muddy mess to climb higher than the bottom of the falls, and as Canadians we have so many pretty water falls that it disappointed a little.  But, the Spaniards again were out in the hundreds at this stop.  You could tell how much higher the river is than usual, and the falls were definitely flowing much wider than normal, some of the stairs were under water, as well as the trees along the riverbank.

Falls overflowing Staircase

From here we headed a little further North to join up with another road so we could do a circle instead of returning on the same road.  Considering how many people were at the last 2 stops I have no idea how they all got there, there was very little traffic on the road.  The drive was beautiful, many different mountains and valleys, and very green in spots because of all the rain. 

Guardrail picture for Freddy

Beautiful little towns along the drive

Ran out of time to hike to these falls, this is far from the highway with Andres camera

  We saw some interesting new signs, can you guess what these are?

 

Do we need snow tires?

First time we've ever seen this sign, had to look it up in the Spanish English dictionary

We picked up some bread, cheese, and cucumbers at a little 2 aisle supermarket.  The back was a woman and her daughter selling the bread, and they had some buns that I think may have been for Easter so we got some of these also.  We stopped at a nice picturesque spot on the drive and had lunch on the side of the road.  

Chef Andre hard at work, nice knife, I think the corkscrew is on the other side

 

Continued on our drive and stopped in a really nice small town called Priego. This area is known for it’s basket weaving, and we saw lots of the willows that they use growing and drying in the fields, but we never did see any baskets for sale.  They really looked like pussy willows from a distance. 

 

For our dog lover friends

Drying willows for baskets

For Jill, spring is definitely here in the mountains

We drove up to the monastery, very steep climb up, with spectacular views, the monastery was from the 1500’s.  

Drive to Monastery from the 1500's

View from Monastery

Canyon we drove up to get to Monastery

 Around here we also saw lots of holes in the mountains on the edges of the little towns we drove through, we’re still not sure what they were, any guesses?

Maybe cemetery??

 

Returned back to Cuenca as it was getting dark, headed out for a few pictures without the rain, and for supper.  Went to a restaurant that we had tried to get in for lunch yesterday but it was packed, we lucked out tonight because we were there around 8PM, really early for Spain so they let us take a table without a reservation as they knew we would be done by 10PM when they were booked full.  Tried some local cuisine for apps which were good.  They were like 4 different tapas, wild game pate, red pepper salad, cod with garlic egg and potato spread, something like antipasto.  All were good and made on site.  The owner is originally from Canada and has owned this place for 30 years, nice to hear someone speaking English.  A woman and daughter also came in at the end of our meal from Calgary, these are the first people we have heard speaking English since we got here, so we chatted with them for a while.  Walked around the square for a bit before the hike back down from Old Town to call it a night.

Waterfall in front of our apartment

Glad I wasn't driving

Leaving restaurant, Andre likes doors....

Good Friday in Cuenca – Rain rain go away

Up early this morning to drive to Cuenca for Easter week-end.  Very easy packing as we just packed anything warm we had as Cuenca is in Central Spain in the mountains, and much cooler than Javea where we are on the coast.  Out the door by about 7:30 to start our 3.5 hour drive.  As we get closer it is much greener than we have seen, and also much foggier and rain starts, it reminds us of Ireland at parts.

Are we in Ireland or Spain?

Andre chose this place for the Easter traditions.  Come to find out thousands of others have chosen this town too.  Found the apartment we are renting a room in no problem, parking is a problem.  After a few loops around the block we are lucky, but I kinda stole the place from someone else, not nice but we had an appointment to meet for keys that we were going to be late for.  It was a woman driver who did not speak English thank-goodness, so I just said I didn’t understand her, I should have waved an American flag, I’m sure that it was choice words she was saying.

The apartment is in a fantastic location.  We have a bedroom rented and she provides us with a breakfast in the morning.  I think this is a way for this single woman and child to make a little extra money.  For 35 Euro a night it works for us.  Nice and clean and very friendly. 

This week-end is also a big music festival here that Eva was working at so we followed her to old town to the cathedral.  We basically walked straight up the mountain from her apartment, quite the hike.  She told us when it is not Easter she can do this walk and see no one else, today there were hundreds of people with umbrellas walking into town.  

Walking to Old Town, this is just a small part of the walk up

The old town of Cuenca is a Unesco heritage site.  The first Easter procession should have finished around 2PM, but we found out after visiting the information center that it was cancelled because of the rain.  The one at 5:30AM was also cancelled due to rain.  Oh well another one to try for tonight at 9PM.  We explore the town, find the hanging houses, which were built on the edge of town, many of these have been lost, but there are a few still hanging.  We cross a very high foot bridge to take some picture, Dad would have never done this.

Hanging Houses

View of Old Town built on the cliff

Typical Narrow street

Convent that has been turned into a hotel (more than 35 Euro a night!)

Cathedral

Another view of the hanging houses

Time to find some lunch.  With this many tourists in town everything is packed.  Tourist information tells us to try near the castle as it is not as popular as near Plaza Major where the Cathedral is.  We had missed the Castle earlier on our exploring, how do you miss a castle?  We eventually find a place that takes us in to feed us.  A funny little place as it seems to have a main restaurant, then a few tables out back in another building that I think is the bar, this is where we are sat.  No menus in English, waiter doesn’t speak English, but we do understand that they have a 3 course menu special that includes a drink.  So we order Sopa, must be soup, I pick Pollo for the main as I know it is chicken, Andre still does not know what he had for the main, must google it.  Then they bring us a bottle of wine for our drink.  We asked for wine but figure it will be a glass, oh well we’ll figure it out when we get our bill.  For dessert Andre has flan, which turns out to be crème caramel, and I have fraises, which I knew where strawberries.  It is now about 3PM, so not sure if this is lunch or supper or both.  Here is a copy of the menu, what would you pick?  Bill comes and it is 12.00 Euro each, no tax, no tip, including wine.  We did tip though, can’t break that habit when you have an ex waiter with you.

 

On walk to find lunch

Lunch menu, what would you pick?

After lunch we walk around a bit more, and decide after our bottle of wine it is time for a siesta.  Back down the huge hill, I think it is worse going down than up.  Still hundreds of people walking around, I can’t imagine what this would have been like if it was sunny out.

Huge nap finished, it is about 6PM and time to get ready to head out in the rain again in hopes that the Easter procession will happen tonight.  Back up the hill and there is a huge line up for one of the concerts happening tonight.  It would be good to see one, but not knowing the language and trying to even figure out which one to see would be hard so I think we’ll pass this trip.  We see lots of people in their costumes for the procession, they are very strange as they have masks that look like KKK.  It has nothing to do with the KKK but it is still kind of creepy.  We walk around for a couple of hours taking some night picture and find out the procession has been cancelled again because of the weather.  

Town square at night, still raining, waiting for procession that does not happen

Cathedral where the procession should have started

Our new rain jackets have already paid off, did not get wet!

Going home, no procession

View from the street outside the apartment, see what we need to climb!

Back to the apartment at about 9:30.  Find a parking place closer to the apartment so move the car.  Have some oranges and strawberries that we had in the car, as well as some of the breakfast that Eva has left out for us tomorrow, guess this is supper.  Off to bed, with hopes that tomorrow brings some sunshine as we plan on driving a little around the area to see some of the sites.  There is one more procession scheduled for Sunday, I sure hope it happens!

 Some good new did happen today, our "relations" from England James and Karen Bowler are going to meet us in Valencia in 2 week-ends, they have booked their flights and we both booked hotels today.  Karen chose the hotel, the LeBlancs are moving up....