DON JUAN TENORIO, PERFORMED IN ALL SAINTS' DAY

All Saints' Day is a feast day celebrated on 1st November. The first thing you will notice are the graveyards to be unusually full of flowers. The Spaniards remember their dearly departed on All Saints' Day and bring flowers to the graves and pray for them.

Although Spain's celebration of Halloween is having strong draft in the past few years, there is a very traditional celebration in this country whose date coincides with All Souls' Day and is the theatrical representation of Don Juan Tenorio (the very famous and mythical character from which so many versions have been made) that takes place during the first week of November.

Don Juan Tenorio performed by Errol Flynn

and another version performed by Johnny Depp in Don Juan di Marco

The story is based on a book written by Jose Zorrilla in 1844. And it chronicles the adventures of Don Juan Tenorio, a young gentleman delivered to a wild life of gambling, womanizing and duels. The beginning of the plot is actually a bet between him and another young man to see who will do more harm in a year. This fact triggers another bet most outlandish if possible that consists of Don Juan to get to seduce a young novice, Ines, and the fiancee of the other young man. Don Juan is getting everything that he has proposed very skillfully, but each time his soul gets lost more and more. At the end of the play he must literally face his ghosts and only the love that the young Inés feels for him will be able to save him to perish eternally in hell.

But what is the real origin of the custom of this theatrical celebration of Don Juan Tenorio the eve of All Saints’ Day? A review of the history and tradition tells us that the representations were not unusual in funerals services. In Greek and Roman times the origins of the theater were the religious rites of representation. And in Spain and elsewhere in Europe there were the 17th allegorical religious play. They were liturgical forms which are held in the church, but that little by little after the clergy grow and a liturgy for clergy is created, they are pushed into the porch of the church first, and then away from it. Inevitable, because the story increasingly grows being too profane and scurrilous to be inserted in the sacred drama, and they are incompatible with the dignity of the temple.

The processions of the dead in the name of this day to bury the unburied dead (usually executed exposed to the entrance of the village to notice and warning residents and outsiders), with all the paraphernalia that accompanied them, including some dances with skulls, had a dramatic deep-rooted.

In ancient Rome there were sang the glories of the deceased and extolled their virtues. This drama was part of the funeral, which was one of great intensity: the chorus of mourners paid, the more numerous the higher the status of the deceased, who accompanied the funeral procession of pain screaming, demanding the return of the deceased, clawing at their faces, tearing their hair, tearing clothes and writhing. And the great Roman families offered to people within the funeral of their dead, the representation of a play, usually a moral one.

So to mix All Saints’ Day with theatre was nothing new. And that is why Don Juan Tenorio drama permeated so deeply, besides part of the drama unfolds in the cemetery.

And this is the reason this play keeps on to be performed in Spain every year during this date. Anyway, I wish a Happy Halloween to all visitors, friends and followers of  Sangria, Sol y Siesta!

¿Truco o trato?

(trick or treat?)

and the sweet thing about All Saints' Day:

Saints'  Bones.......... and Saints' Buñuelos!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
 

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!

19 SPANISH PLACES TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE

In one of my last birthdays I received a very nice present from my sister: a book titled "1000  places to see before you die" written by Patricia Schultz. From time to time I read a different chapter in order to dream a little about places to visit in the future and sometimes to remember about places I have already been to, of course, most of the places named in the book I haven’t still been to! But well, I hope before I die that list can be reduced just a little bit, luckily!

Last time I reread it I felt very curious to know how many Spanish places there were in it and I counted 19. If you, dear reader, feel curious as well…….these are the places:

- Arcos de la Frontera

- Cordoba Mosque

- The Alhambra (the most visited monument in Spain) and the Parador of San Francisco in Granada

- Sevilla

- The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao

- San Sebastián

- Altamira Caves and Santillana del Mar

- Avila

- León Cathedral

 - Salamanca's Main Square

- El mesón de Candido (Candido's Inn) in Segovia

- Toledo Cathedral

- Cataluña National Museum of Art

- The Holy Family in Barcelona

- Picasso Museum in Barcelona

- Cadaques and Figueres villages in Gerona

- The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago de Compostela and the Cathedral

- Madrid

- Deia's Residence (Mallorca)

Of course there are many other places I would have suggested Patricia Schlutz to add in this list, but a reference to new visitors to this country, I think is OK. By the way, I have to confess that I haven’t been to four of these places……yet! Have you ever been to any of them? Would you make any suggestions to add to the list? Perhaps any charming place which has never been named in any famous travel list so far?

Source:

"1000 places to see before you die"

by Patricia Schultz

MORE SUGGESTIONS!

October 16th, 2011

I add today several suggestions kindly made by "An expat in Spain":

1) Cova d'en Xoroi in Menorca
2) Binibequer in Menorca (I just got back from there, so it's fresh in the mind)
3) Far de la Mola in Formentera
4) Albarracín (Teruel)
5) Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (y the River Turia park), Valencia
6) L'alt Penedés wine region during la vendimia

Thanks for them!!


October 16th, 2011

A suggestion made and shared by Steviedeluxe and Jo-Ann in the British Expats Forum:

1) Cuenca

Thanks to both!


October 24th, 2011

Another suggestion made by Ashleigh:

1) Canary Islands

Thanks Ashleigh!