A short walk for an autumn day

Looking down into the valley of Narila and Cádiar from the terrace of ´El Paraje´, it is a joy to still see the lines of poplar trees with their bright yellow autumn leaves. Before the leaves will all have fallen, we decided to do a walk which would give us a nice ´poplar experience´. This meant we set off from the western limit of Juviles, near the Cerro Macilla. We followed a small path to a poplar grove from where we picked up a path along an irrigation channel, the Acequia de Cástaras. From the large water reservoir Alberca del Cerro, the path down to Nieles is steep and turned out to be quite overgrown, but nevertheless it is well worth the effort. This path was waymarked, but the yellow and white paint marks have faded over the time. From Nieles we followed the Ruta Medieval to Cástaras. The view down into the valley with the poplar lined Barranco de Alberquilla was fabulous. Better still was the view of the village when we got round the corner. On a beautiful sunny autumn day, when enclosed by yellow poplars, Cástaras looks as picturesque as ever. From the high part of the village we followed the ´camino real´ back to Juviles. This old cobbled path passes through the Barranco de Fuente Medina, another enchanting poplar lined valley. It is a circular walk of about seven kilometres that we can definitely recommend on a autumn day. Those who want to start off at ´El Paraje´, need to add another eight kilometres.

Vaya veranillo

We have had a month of quiet weather with above normal temperatures after the rains at the end of September. Most countries have a special term to refer to the calm sunny days with blue skies in autumn. Having experienced a warm weather period with spectacular yellow and red leaves in the United States once, the term that came back to mind is Indian summer. The Dutch have a quite practical word ´nazomer´ translated as ´after summer´, and the Spanish use the diminutive ´short summer´ or ´veranillo´. Having had a look at the forecast this morning, we see that this spell of warm weather is coming to an end this week. With temperatures above twenty degrees in the shade today, it is difficult to imagine that we might have snow at ´El Paraje´ the coming weekend. In the meantime, we are enjoying the Indian Summer while it´s around, because one thing is for certain, it never lasts!
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Otoño Cultural 2009 Alpujarra de la Sierra

A few days ago the programme ´Otoño Cultural 2009 Alpujarra de la Sierra´ was published on the website of this municipality that is formed by Mecina Bombarón, Yegen, Golco and Montenegro. There will be a fungi exposition from the 28th of October to the 2nd of November in the salón cultural of Mecina Bombarón. Apart from this, all kinds of interesting activities are organized like a market and tasting of local seasonal products, excursions to collect and taste mushrooms, literary and botanic walks, graphic displays of organic agriculture and of the traditional pig-slaughter. The 6th of December, Yegen celebrates the Fiesta de la Constitución with the planting of trees at the Prado Real, an exposition on the constitutional history of Spain, a photographic excursion and a gastronomic tasting. As you can see on the programme there will also be music, dancing and theatre on different dates, starting with a ´gran castañada´ on the 31st of October in Mecina Bombarón and closing the cultural autumn with christmas carols on the 20th of December in this same village.

Dutch painter leaves Tímar

When the Dutch painter Pieter Vermeulen visited the Alpujarras for the first time, he was immediately captured by its beauty and tranquillity. On a walk through the area, he saw the former school at the bottom of the village of Tímar and thought that it would be ideal for a studio. He imagined that this could be the place where he would be able to paint without being disturbed and he liked the idea of working with the special Andalusian light. A friend talked with the local authorities and it turned out that he was able to rent it. Since then, Pieter and his wife Truus have been coming to this small village each spring and autumn for twelve years. On the website of the painter, we see at the bottom of his homepage a photograph of him working in the former school building. Many of his paintings are inspired by how he experienced life in the Alpujarras and have Spanish titles. Apart from working here, Pedro and Getrudis – their names on the layout of the village on the website of Tímar - enjoyed walking in the countryside. They felt a great attachment to the village and the area in general. Pieter helped restoring the image of the patron saint and the couple always took great pleasure in socializing with the local people. We need to use the past tense, as the local authorities did not want to renew the contract. They have other plans with the escuela de Tímar. There is already a new sign next to the consultorio, which says ´Antiguas Escuelas: Centro multiservicios, Centro de interpretación de las minas del Mercurio´. This sign might mislead visitors the coming months, because as a matter of fact they still need to start working on this interpretation point on the old mercury mines. Pieter and Truus handed in the key last Friday and are saying goodbye to their beloved Tímar this weekend.

Autumn 2009

We had a long hot summer this year with a sudden change of the weather the last weekend of September. It rained for a couple of days and the temperatures dropped dramatically quite suddenly. It was the first time that we inaugurated the fireplace in September and we were afraid that we would jump from summer straight into winter. The first weekend of October the temperature began to rise to comfortable summer levels though. This meant that we have been able to serve breakfast outside again for the last two weeks. Yesterday it felt we had to say goodbye to summer with one hour of rainfall during a beautiful foggy evening. Nevertheless, this morning the sky was clear blue again. When we took this picture of a bee collecting pollen from a calendula officinalis or pot marigold, it felt like a spring morning once more. At the same time we are enjoying the sound of falling chestnuts and the sight of the poplars in the valley that are starting to turn yellow. The charms of autumn in the Alpujarras are not easy to put into words.
related keywords: el tiempo, het weer, le temps, das wetter