Sunday 27 December 2015

Mazarron – town and port

Having been here nearly four weeks I feel empowered to comment on where we are. Well, self-empowered anyway.
First thing is that Mazarron the town and Puerto de Mazarron are not only two different places but I am pretty sure their current relationship is the exact opposite of the historic one.
Mazarron the town is about five kilometres inland and correctly described as a mining town. It grew up on the back of the excavation of silver, tin, iron, copper and alum (MORE HERE). Puerto is a fishing village essentially. And on the coast, natch. It has an apparent sub status to Mazarron now.
There must have been Iberian natives here more than 2,700 years ago but whatever remains they left in this location have been lost. Not so 45 kilometres inland where recent work has uncovered a very large city size settlement dating back far beyond 3,000 years ago. Did it use a port in the adjacent bay?
We also need to remember that only 20 kilometres away is Cartagena – first know by the Phoenicians and/or the Sea People, then influenced by Greece, and finally overwhelmed by Rome in the Punic wars. It got its name from the Carthage of Hannibal fame.But the record we have here starts with the Phoenicians in about 2,700 BCE. They developed the obvious harbours afforded by both Cartagena and Mazarron – both big bays with significant headlands and small islands for shelter. The Greeks traded with the Phoenicians. Then came Rome.
But they took time out to nick their ship-building skills and, I bet exploited the silver, copper and other metals abundant in the inland hills. By the middle ages mining was big business and Mazarron grew fast, being closer than the port to the action. The port however has been trading metals since the Phoenicians (MORE HERE).
So to today and us. Well first off all this fascinates us and redeems any other shortcomings. And there are a few. For this is the Costa Calida, mere kliks from the Costa Blanca and prone to the same over-development. The place is littered with ticky-tacky houses on hillsides miles from any justification for existence. That's the ones actually built. Others are skeletons against the skyline or netted enclosures of half-broken ground. They vie with the startling and more interesting remains of mining for attention.
We are living in a completed version, although ours is within the town of Puerto – indeed a mere 200 metres from the prom and town centre. The really nasty ones in the wilds of Spain are called urbanisations. Less unjustified versions like ours are Residencias (Luz Bahia is us).
Most of these are, like ours, a rectangle of terraced houses surrounding a communal pool and parkland. The houses vary in style, following a pattern-book in the way of London's Edwardian villas.
Ours is a standard terrace, east-west oriented with the morning side having kitchen and utility facing a large terrace. At the evening, poolside, end the large living/dining room opens onto a smaller but rather nice terrace viewing the pool.
Upstairs the main bedroom faces the morning side and the two smaller but servicable rooms face the pool. In between is the stairway out of the living room and the shower room There is also a cloakroom downstairs.
This is the fourth such house we have rented in Spain and all but one share more features than they differ by (oops; hung that one). They heat quickly and cool fast in the Spanish way. Air con is an expensive extra, lazy ceiling fans essential, and we do have an open fire but it seems never to have been lit.
Of course here is the point – our hosts are English and are unlikely ever to have stayed here in winter. That is true of all but one of the other houses we have rented here. The exception was a casita (a small two bedroom cabin style structure) within the grounds of the Spanish-resident English couple. There we had logs, an open fire and it was charming – right up to the day it rained a lot and the bedrooms flooded to a depth of two inches.
Anyway, as stated, we can walk into town and down to the prom. The town is what one would expect of a place that, until the 50s, was just a Spanish fishing village that had benefitted from the by then defunct mining business. I would guess it was charming. Frankly, it is not now. It is workmanlike and easy to navigate, however. And very well supplied with services – including Mercadona, Consum, El Arbo, Eurospar and Lidl! And both a seven day town market and a Sunday market of 300 stalls! Oh and a load of Chinese suopermarkets. And someone with a pale blue Skoda Roomster. Really!
The town is in two parts rather like Tenby but unlike Tenby neither half is very pretty. The beaches on the other hand compare very favourably with Tenby. Those to the west are rugged and smaller, with a small marina for local regatta style boats in one corner. To the east they are bigger and very, very sandy. Close to the town is the large fishing port, with a smaller number of craft, and a larger marina for the 'nearly-gin places'. There is no castle on the headland but a lighthouse and a very big Christ statue.
But both benefit from superb promenades, extending along all of the eastern end and most of the west. They provide palms, seating, play space and just plain easy walking. The beaches are mostly blue flag holders due to cleanliness (this is Spain), loos, facilities and, in season lifeguards. Dogs are banned for most beaches and for much of the year of course.

RW 17/12/15



Monday 21 December 2015

Spanish weather for the English

FIRST point to make is that we have never been here in the summer. Back in the 70s we took the family to Majorca but even then it was not July or August. And yes we have been on holiday in Spain nearer to summer but never in it.
So what we have seen is the winter in Spain. Given my reason for being here – my chest – our focus has been on the dry south-east, the  Costa Blanca, Calada, Almeria - even the Costa Malaga. Except two winters back when we chose to take our caravan to the western end of Spain, near Cadiz so on the Atantic rather than the Med. It was very good and very different but I will get there later.
Our first winter trip was in 2008/9 and we have missed a couple of years due to the desire to see the family at Christmas. Even then however we have indulged ourselves with caravanning trips through France, northern Spain and Barcelona.
But to the weather - and it needs to be noted that in choosing this part of Spain I was very keen on the fact that it is virtually Europe's only desert. I mean it, this place is in the tenth year of an officlal drought. The only blue in the rivers is on the maps. They are dried up Ramblas. In which some Spanish have built some houses and flogged them to, mostly, Brits. I presume they pray against the rains.
It is warm since there is little cloud ever and the sun blazes down. But the nights can be cold and on the coast when the sun comes up it warms the Med, the warm air rises and sucks in cold air from the coastal mountains behind it. Down nearer to Granade where the mountains really are big and snowclad the mornings can even be frosty - not that there is much moisture even there to actually freeze.
But by about 10 a.m. the chill wind is dropping and the mercury is climbing. Here it tends to be about 18-20C on a typical day, 16-18 if a cold one. Nice, yes? And it tends to stay warm right until the sun goes down. But it cools fast then due to absolutely no clouds.
The owners of this house and others we have rented are English and so largely unaware of what the winter is like. Our daytime temperature would be a cool night for them. So heating equipment is a bit perfunctory. The one exception was at Bedar where we were in a casita on the owner's land. There we had a blazing log fire whenever we wanted it. But that was before the flood (more elsewhere).
Dressing to suit is not easy - the Spanish consider it is winter and wear what we consider vast amounts of clothing - mostly brown and black and a lot of it puffer jacket style. I tend to wear a fleece in the morning so I can dump it when the sun gets going. But walking the dog can be a trial - at 9-ish it is jumper AND fleece weather. By 11 the jumper is too much but walk in the shade and the fleece may not be enough! By 11 p.m. there is a chill and something extra is needed. Sometimes.
Am I complaining? Absolutely not since the key for me is the temperature range and the humidity. The latter is closer to zero than it EVER gets in the UK and the temp this time of year is about 8-9C at night to 16-20C daytime. That's a range of 12 at worst.And no chill factor except for that brief morning breeze. The UK range in winter is nearer to 20C and the humidity nearer to 65% on a good day!
Mind you, I still need the old bluey once in a while.

I'm back - be very afraid!

OK I am indeed going to use this blog to put up some stuff about our trips to Spain. I shall link to it from other places and if anyone wants to read it please do. 
And if you have a point of view to share let me know - hardly anyone actually reads this stuff. But hey, who knows?