MORAYMA, THE LAST MOORISH QUEEN AND THE BEAUTIFUL LECRIN VALLEY, A PARADISE FROZEN IN TIME

When Muslims arrived, in the seventh century, to a country called “Hispania”, attracted by rumours of riches and treasures, they discovered a fertile paradise valley, located in a basin bordered by mountains. That place had everything they cherished: good soil, rivers that ran freely and the natural protection of their mountains, so they stayed there.

Captivated by its beauty, they called it The Lecrin Valley (or "Valley of Joy"). It was also known to the Arabs as "district of sugarcane", since this region was on the way to the sugar cane plantations of the coast of Granada.

In addition, in that valley people lived happily for a long time, until at the end of the fifteenth century, they went into exile in North Africa, expelled by the Catholic Monarchs in the Reconquer Wars.

More than five hundred years after this garden full of crops and fruits, still retains its Moorish essence. In this valley, a heady fragrance of orange blossoms and lemon trees scent the air in spring. In addition, old flourmills, Muslims castles, canals and charming cottages, spread  over this entire quiet and bright region. It also enjoys a real microclimate, where there is little rainfall.

The Lecrin Valley is just 25 minutes from Granada going to the north and if you take the opposite direction, you can get to the Tropical Coast. Within 40 minutes you can ski in the Sierra Nevada heading east. In addition, in less than an hour you can visit  the villages of the Alpujarra. Therefore, for all this, its situation is magnificent and privileged.

This land and the villages and people who live in them (there are 23 villages), still remains serene and beautiful, receiving each year thousands of visitors from around the world, who want to find the authenticity of the simple life where one has the impression that time has stopped there.

 

Their houses are whitewashed inside and out, with this typical whiteness of all Andalucia, with a closed structure and the houses attached to each other forming blocks that are separated by narrow lanes.

Besides being an ideal place for relaxation and rest, so is to live fully the nature performing a wide range of activities such as gliding, horseback riding, hiking through rivers and mountains, cycling or practicing birds watching. In addition, very close to the valley you can ski in Sierra Nevada, play golf or practise scuba diving, snorkelling or surfing in the nearby waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

You can also make many different cultural routes, visiting their mills, orchards and castles, as well as visiting local festivals or open-air markets of farmers and artisans, enjoying its art and gastronomy, among many other activities. Not to mention the nearby city of Granada,  where  so many attractions are offered, the first of which is the world famous Alhambra Palace.

And among all those Muslims castles, there is that of Mondújar, where the Nazaries Kings of Granada, were buried and where it is believed that the last burial which was held, was of Morayma, wife of Boabdil.

Morayma, the last Moorish queen, was born in Loja (west of Granada) and was the daughter of Aliatar, Boabdil’s partner in the struggles in which they participated. One day when he was returning from one of his daily battles their eyes met forever.

At 15 she married Boabdil, in a royal wedding with great pomp and joy, surely one of the few happy moments of his life. According to historians, she was a beautiful woman with big eyes and sweet face.

A few days after the wedding, Mulay Hacén (Boabdil’s father) imprisoned his son, separating him from his young wife and locking her in a Carmen (house with garden and orchard) in Granada. For years he was a woman abandoned by her husband's ongoing battles and had to bear a life of constant confinement, away from her husband and her two sons (Ahmed and Yusuf), kidnapped by the Catholic Monarchs during 9 years, in return to release Boabdil, until capitulations signed by Boabdil took place.

Meanwhile all of this happened, Morayma lived with her mother in law, Aixa, a resentful and spiteful woman, due to the neglect of her husband, who fell into the arms of his new favourite, Zoraida (a Christian woman named Isabel de Solis) who would become his second wife. For this reason, Aixa was constantly encouraging his son to fight against his father.

It is said that one day Morayma consulted a wise astrologer, very famous in the kingdom, about the horoscope of King Boabdil. And the old man replied: "The stars say that the last Mazarin King will live long but also he will suffer a lot".

When she was 26 years old, shortly before her husband went into exile in Fez (Morocco), she died. She was buried in the village of Mondujar, along with the other nazaries kings. Her body was placed on the ground facing The Mecca, fulfilling her wishes, since Morayma was a very pious woman.

Surely Boabdil loved her loyal and faithful wife very much, since after leaving for the exile he never got married again. 

It is very paradoxical that this queen, whose life was not nearly as sweet as a fairy tale, it is finally resting somewhere in the beautiful  “Valley of Joy”, a place where Muslims were captivated and enthralled for centuries. And when you visit it some time, then you will realise and understand why .....

THE CARMENES, TYPICAL HOUSES IN GRANADA

Leaving aside the Alhambra Palace, the carmenes are one of the biggest attractions when you visit the city of Granada.

The question of foreigners when they come to visit the city is to know the reason of the name of carmen. What does it mean? The general opinion is that the term derives from the Arab word carmen, karma, which in a broad sense meant in Spanish colloquial Arabic, "vineyard", ie a greater or lesser extent of land planted with vines. A carmen represents a closed house with a garden.

They were born after the expulsion of the Moors, in just two years, from 1568 to 1570, the Albaicín district went from populous neighborhood to neighborhood in ruins. And little by little, the carmenes were occupying the space left by the overthrow of Moorish houses.

Usually you can find the typical carmenes in the historic districts of Granada, they are in the Albaicin, the Realejo and on the slopes of the hill of the Alhambra. Mainly the carmenes are located in the high Albaicín resulting in unique perspectives and beautiful sights. In the part of the Albaicín carmenes try to follow the norm and are distributed in two or three terraces and they are surrounded by high white walls.

They have all the charm of a mansion in the countryside and are yet in the city. It is a combination of housing and nature that blends inspiration from the Renaissance villas and gardens of love for the Nazari. Nowadays some of them are Museums like the Carmen de los Mártires, others have been converted into restaurants and others have been restored as private villas. Really in some ways they reminds me of the Riads, the typical Moroccan houses in Marrakech.

The carmen has something of a little garden and an orchard, but it is not only a garden nor is only an orchard. It is intertwined with flowers and vegetables in a harmonious marriage. The trees do not only play an ornamental function, they decorate, they provide shade and coolness, and, in time, produce optimum fruit delight of eye and palate. The carmen is sucked by penetrating parfum of lilies, roses, jasmine, carnations, lilies, the violets, honeysuckle, valet and at the same time, collect shells, plums, figs, apricots and strawberries.

As Chateaubriand considered them “Carmenes are the everlasting garden, a sample and a remain of the paradise, one of the few privileged places still on earth."

Source:

http://www.cvc.cervantes.es/

EL HIERRO ISLAND HAS GOT THE SMALLEST HOTEL IN THE WORLD AND PERHAPS A NEW LITTLE SISTER ISLAND?

It all started last July 17th 2011, when the seismographs from the National Geographic Institute (IGN), responsible for volcanic surveillance in Spain, recorded unusual seismic activity on the island of El Hierro(one of the 7 Canary Islands) and after many theories and predictions of seismologists about what could happen eventually there was a rash last Friday in the sea next to the coastline in the south of El Hierro island.

The Canary Islands have more than 1,000 km of coastline. Most of the sand on the beach is white, although some in Tenerife is golden, brought from the Sahara desert. There are 140 nature reserves, 4 national parks and hundreds of volcanoes. The Canary Islands is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Spain during the whole year. Some people describe its weather as the "spring constant".

The Canary Islands are also known as the "Fortunate Isles", the "Garden of the Hesperides" and "Atlantis". In fact, some historians say the legendary continent of Atlantis was located here.

The largest of all the Canary Islands is Tenerife, a combination of tropical
paradise with volcanic landscape. Mount Teide at 3,718 m.,
is the third largest volcano on Earth from its base.

Gran Canaria has some amazing beaches and is a good place to go out,
the nightlife is excellent.

It is famous for its bananas and tomatoes.

Lanzarote is an island scorched by fire which has developed an unprecedented
and unique landscape, difficult to find elsewhere. The similarity to a lunatic
and cosmic landscape is only a matter of miles and dimensions.
It has 300 volcanoes now extinct.

Fuerteventura has the best beaches of all islands and
is very close to the Sahara desert.

La Gomera is a rugged and mountainous terrain, which gives it
a very exotic character. It is advisable to visit the forests of the island,
a natural paradise. It is also protected by the government.

La Palma is called "La Isla Bonita" (the pretty island),
because of its striking beauty.

And El Hierro island, the one most volcanic active in the last days.

The Canary Islands, like most volcanic islands, are buildings that rise from the seabed so that only a small portion protruding from the sea level. This means that we know directly less than 10% of island building. The training process began in the Miocene, 23 million years ago. The oldest islands are La Gomera, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, while younger ones are El Hierro, La Palma and Tenerife. From the late fifteenth century there have been 14 eruptions, the last in 1971 on the island of La Palma (when Teneguia volcano erupted).

El Hierro is the smallest island, south and west of the Canary Islands and is the youngest island, it is only (!!!) 1.2 million years old and is in its first phase of creation (the rest of the islands are in the third). El Hierro is the island with the highest density of volcanoes in the Canary Islands, there are more than 500 opened craters and 300 covered by recent lava flows. Currently there are 70 volcanic caves.

On January 22, 2000 was declared by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve. Currently there is a plan promoted by the Ministry of Development to become the first island in the world in total renewable energy supplies.

Its geography stone and ash is the result of streams of lava that broke the seafloor and then cooled. A process that apparently has not stopped, because after more than 3,000 earthquakes occurred in the last month, has erupted one of the 800 volcanoes that are in this island. However, the rash can take days or years. It is a Stromboli type volcano and this means that there is first a viscous magma output, then the pyroclastic and explosive phases would come eventually, but not with virulence. Although there is a big stock of magma at the bottom of the island.

The current situation in Hierro island is relatively calm, since the system has discharged its energy, but there continues to further input from magma, experts can not say whether the eruption will last several days or several weeks, while the stain is increasingly larger and closer to the coast, the material which is going out is mainly molten basalt, touching the water cools and becomes rock while the turquoise blue of the stain is attributed to sulfur and remobilization of marine clay soil waters become turbulent. Experts are evaluating whether gases can be harmful to people. Nevertheless some species are already suffering the effects of underwater eruptions since they have appeared dead on the surface (this is a great diving area).

this is the stain seen from Deimos-1 satellite

(the stain is already bigger than the island)

The probability is low but it is possible that this huge stain of sulfur finishes in a volcanic island rising.

And there is something that I did not know myself until all this happened and a neighbour of mine told me something curious about this island: it has the smallest hotel in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records. It is the Punta Grande Hotel and rises just above an old pier alone, amid the rough waters of the islands. All its facilities are summarized in just 600 m2 floor area and 9 feet high. It was a former customs office which handled the ships that made the route to America and is decorated with all sorts of references and adventurous sailor, ship scrapping fruit or wrecks, compasses, lanterns, portholes, charts and a wetsuit that introduces the history of this fascinating place.

It only has four bedrooms and they have no telephones, no televisions, and minibars. The perfect place to rest and be in contact with nature. Curiously, one of the rooms has a terrace where you can blown launch rod into the sea. To sleep in it must be something like sleeping on waves.

If you visit Tenerife surely you will be taken to Teide Mountain, formed by eruptions; if you go to Palma you will be taken to visit the Teneguia volcano and if you go to Lanzarote, you will be taken to visit Timanfaya volcano, a devil with flames where you will see to roast a chicken in the hole of a rock boiling. And perhaps in your next visit to Hierro island you will be taken by some tours guide to visit a new little island or a new volcano to be visited, who knows it?

By the way, I have to confess you something that I would not like to get out from this blog, and it is that despite having traveled to quite a few countries in Europe and around the world (I have traveled to China, the United States and Canada, for example) I haven’t been yet to the Canary Islands! but hopefully next year I will try to solve out this, without fail!

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BEACHES IN SPAIN

Spain has a long coastline along which there is a large number of beaches, whether in the north, east or south of the country. Many of them are very beautiful and it is a little hard to choose and to stand out some of them above the rest. Nevertheless I have tried to list those considered the most gorgeous and here it is:

Rodas beach, this is considered, according to The Guardian newspaper,

the most beautiful beach in the world and is part of the

archipelago called Cies Island, in the province of Pontevedra in Galicia.
Its sands are 6000 years old, are quartz and very white.
 And just out of  curiosity, it is said it was visited by the Roman general Julius Caesar.

Galdana Beach, in Menorca island

Bolonia Beach, in Cádiz

Langre Beach, in Cantabria.

Las Catedrales Beach, in Lugo (Galicia)

Los Muertos Beach, in Almeria

Salada Beach, in Ibiza

L'illa Roja, in Gerona

Silencio Beach, in Asturias

El Mosul Beach, in Almeria

Mazagón Beach, in Huelva

Salada Beach, in Ibiza

And if you want to keep on watching more beautiful photographs of beaches, I invite you to visit my other blog in Spanish where I have posted about the most strangely coloured beaches in the world and this is the link:

http://eltrolleydenieves.blogspot.com/

Thanks for your visits and I'll be back here in a few days
(I am going to enjoy a short beach holiday in the Valencian coastline).
See you soon!