SHOOTS FROM LA ALPUJARRA

Hi friends, we visited the beautiful villages of the Alpujarra area, situated on the south side on the Sierra Nevada mountains. We where not very lucky with the weather, cloudy, even foggy when we reached the 1400 meters, and it was cold. There are a lot of small villages most with less than 500 inhabitants, before living of the agriculture, but now most live of the turism. We visited the most known Pampaneira, where many of the moors retired when they had to leave Granada, Capileira the last village on the road going over to Granada though Sierra Nevada, now closed for motor traffic, but with many hiking routs, even up to the Mulhacen peak, at 3482meters.
Trevelez, the origen of the Serrano Ham, here called Jamon de Trevelez, there are many possibilities to visit the bodegas where the hams are hanging to dry in the fresh mountain air. Try the chorizos as well, you can buy all their products, you can even get it sent home.
Tha gastronomy is mostly pork products, trouts from the rivers, their local vine, and the typical bread and moorish recipes of sweets.
Dry figs, and sweets made of figs, almonds and local honey, you must try them, and the famous Soplillos, see the recipe on my blog.
There are many posibilities to stay a night or two, have a look at these sites :                                      Turismo Pampaneira     
Turismo Capileira   
                                                                                                                                                          Hotels, Casas Rurales, Apartments and I can recomend a very nice hotel we stayed in, Hotel La Alcazaba de Busquistar ( their web site is under construction) Tel.958 858 687 , very nice staff, fine food, indoor pool and spa, good value for the money. 

I hope you liked my small photo book of this special Spanish place.

Have a good week, lots of love;

Hilde

LATE INFORMATION, SORRY

I'm so sorry, but my days when I came back home where so buisy, and I had so much to do, coudn't find the time to write a real post about how we finish the year in Spain.
We use to have a formal dinner with friends or and family, the menu is often some seafood , then it depends on where in Spain you live, the main dish is fish or meat,  the dessert use to be any home made speciality, and then we count down for 12 p.m. , everybody has a glass with 12 grapes, and you have to eat one on each ringing until 12. This can be quite difficult,as you at the same time must do your most important wishes for the year that begins, and somebody always start to laugh. You might have seen in every fruit stand, lots of grapes, and a sign that says " uvas de la suerte" ( the grapes of the luck).
If you have watched television these days, you se all cities and villages ring the new year in from a square, normally where the town hall is situated, people congregate with small bags of 12 grapes, specially the youngsters, there is always wery crowded.
And then we wish each other happy new year with a glass of cava ( or two).

The tradition in Spain comes from Madrid, where the  bourgeois used to have the grape and the champagne, but until 1909 when Alicante had a surplus of table grapes, witch would rot , and somebody had the great idea. to promote the idea of eating 12 grapes at the 12 rings of the bell to ring in the new year. Today nobody would miss the grapes.

Now is when the young people go for their "cotillion", all party dressed, and the party goes on until breakfast,  when they meet with all friends for chocolate and churros, then you can see the girls, when they left home with 16 cm. high heeled shoes, now with flat shoes or sneakers on, but the party dress is still there.

1st of January is a pyjama day, we listen to and see the New Years Concert from Wiena,  but the rest of the day is only relax.

Then you have the 28th of  December wich is the day you can deceive anybody, it's quite fun to figure out what was in the newspaper and in the TV, and always some friend that cheats you.

And now it comes to the most important day for the children, The Magi, the 3 Kings, Melchor, Gaspar and Baltasar,will come and every town has a big cavalcade of magi, a traditional parade of kings coaches, you must have seen if you are or have been to Spain on the 5th of January,
The page boys throw out caramels, in Granada this year, 15 tons of them, 1000 people participate in the parade, and  everybody comes to see and pick up the sweets.

The first cavalcade celebrated in year 1885 in Alcoy, is now Fiesta de Interes Turistico Nacional.

This night the children go ealy to bed after having their shoes or boots cleand,and set by the door, we also put a tray with some cakes and cookies, 3 glasses of liqueur and a big bucket of  water for the camels. ( before bed time we parents had to eat the cookies, drink the liqueur and throw out some of the water from the bucket, and the children really thinks ( well?) they have been there)

 At home we used the Julenisse, we even bought a dress in Norway and hired someone to be Santa Claus at home, for the joy of our girls when they where small, but then there was always the little problem on the 6th of January when their friends always had a lot of toys, so they got another couple of gifts with "Los Reyes Magos" too. The children sends a letter with their wishes in December, and they have to behave well, if not they will have coal in their boots. ( today candy coal, and only as a joke).

The tradition is to eat the "Roscon de Reyes", for breakfast on the 6th, with hot chocolate, you might have seen it in any bakery, supermarket, sweets shop, like a giant bagel, filled with cream and decorated with frosted fruits, and a crown in the middle.

I never baked it, but a bloggerfriend Lidia de la O has the most wonderful photos and recipe, the link;   

www.atrapadaenmicocina.blogspot/roscon de reyes

Inside they put a little kings figure, and the one who get it always gets the crown from the top of the cake, and then there is a dry fava bean and the one who gets it must pay for the "roscon".
This is the end of the Spanish X-mas celebrations, today all x-mas decor is stored for next x-mas, and the big "Rebajas" has started, the january sales.

And I will come back with some healthy foodie as soon as I can.
Hope the 3 Magi didn`t bring you coal.

SOLIDARY SPAIN

X-mas is approaches, and soften our hearts..........

This weekend the Spanish people donated 15 million kg of no perishable food, 65 000 volunteers collected,packed and clasified it all,  this means that the "food banks " all over Spain can help families without income the next 6 months. I'm very proud of us, and Andalusia was the 2nd of the most giving districts, in name of the receivers, " gracias a todos".
 If you like to help, contact;

www.bancoalimentos.org

I like to chare the  music I love to play these days, Oslo Gospel Choir;

Beautiful  autumn leafs.

There are many ways to be solidary, and one way that doesn't cost you anything more than a little time is blood donation, both my daughters has been blood givers since fulfilling 18 years, and when the "Banco de Sangre" need more blood, they recive a letter in the post with the information of where they can donate blood, wery often in the different Universities, and there is non stop during several days.

Berit (back) and Andrea (front)

I never did it myself, always too occupied, but this time I wanted to do it, a heart operation for a child needs 6 units of blood, a liver transpalntation 8 units etc. etc.

With all the scientific avances, human blood is only available from the human body, 450 ml. is extracted in more or less in15 min., you must drink as much as the extracted amount, and not do any hard work or sport during that day, make it a habbit, only required that you have between 18 - 65 years, and your weight must be more than 50 kg., and generally good healt.Ladies 3 times and men 4 times a year.

You can get information here;

    www-donarsangre.org

The actual vision of Sierra Nevada from  the Albayzin .

To give myself a little gift I  went to the florist to buy some Hyacinths, at this time of the year they always have them in small pots already sprouted, but none left, so I bought the bulbs and just have a centimeter of water in the bottom of the jar, in 24 hors you can see small green sprouts.
THE NATURE IS MAGIC.


Night,night........................................sweet dreams!!!!!!!!

1st OF NOVEMBER ALL SAINTS DAY

Halloween celebrating has got very fashion in Spain, but it's a modern celebration, tomorrow the "Dia de Todos los Santos", All  Saints'Day, the tradition is to go to the graveyard to visit the graves of family and friends.

Several days before, people start cleaning, painting and decorating with fresh flowers, if you have been in the surroundings of a cementry the last days, you might have seen people carrying ladders, buckets and flowers. Since there is not enough space in the ground of the graveyards, you have the "nichos",  and to reach the highest ones they need a ladder. There are some public ones, but it can be a long time to wait to get one, so people bring their own ones from home.

Lots of people travel a long way to go to their home town to look after the graves on this day, years ago I have seen places where they brougt the picnic to the cementry.

The Spanish "Camposanto" (Holy Ground) has always been respected, and lots of  them have or are beeing restored, in Granada it has the privilege to be situated just behind the Alhambra, actally you use the same parking. A route of the memory was made to visit the histrorical mausoleums, the art was a sign of power and wealth, many of the mausoleums are made by local artist, but also of national and international well known sculptors.

The guided visits show you the most significant art work, the San Jose Cementry is one of the most ancients in Spain, dates from XIX  and occupies 110 000 square meters,divided  in 19 patios, one of them has a chapel, La Ermita, in new romantic style, now restored ,where you can bury the ashes.

www.granadadirect.com/rutas/cementerio-granada/

The photographs are from the cementry in Otura,  the little town where we live, but here and everywhere in Spain, you can sea the respect and the care for the deceased.

Hope you get some good treats tonight, and the best is tomorrow beeing holiday, in Spain when you have a holiday together with a week end it's called "puente", bridge, and we use it to travel, see family and friends, discover something new, students go home to be with family, so be careful on the road.

Happy Hallloween !!!!!!