Sexi Christmas 1
We returned home from London the night of Dec 10. Almunecar was ready for the holidays:
This seems like a good opportunity not only to fill you in on our two weeks back in Almunecar before setting off for some Christmas travel, but to share a few general thoughts about Almunecar.
With every return to this town, I appreciate what it offers more and more: quiet, simplicity, sun, sea, & mountains. It is a small, out-of-the-way place, really. It is not a political hotbed or a center of commerce or part of the cultural cutting edge. It could use a couple more really inventive restaurants.
But as I write this, we have entered the second half of our year already, and I have started dreaming about future visits back to this now very familiar and friendly town.
Almuñécar (I don't always put in the punctuation because this blog program doesn't allow it, so I have to cut and paste) is about an hour south of Granada and an hour east of Malaga on the Costa Tropical. Set right on the sea, the Sierra Nevada mountains are just 45 minutes away and the Sierra foothills loom large when you turn inland. Joe has become an avid cyclist and sends us photos of amazing vistas from his rides. As I mentioned before it is a popular summer destination for Spanish families, and a winter vacation spot for northern Europeans. Not too many Americans, actually, but a fair number of Brits, French, Germans, and Scandanavian types. Spanish still dominates here and you can't expect people to speak English, unlike some other towns along the coast.
I won't give you a whole history of the town, but of course part of what is amazing living here is the connection to old Mediterranean empires. Our town was founded by the Phoenicians around 800BC, and it was named "Sexi". The people here are still called Sexitanos, and many things here are named Sexi something or other. Here, for instance, is a sign for El Pollo Sexi. The Sexi Chicken.
This is still funny to me. Abby, Joe, and I call our What's App text group SuperSexitanos. Everything is "sexi". There is even a car rental place called "Auto Sexi," which borders on inappropriate.
Our town was then under the Romans -- there are still very impressive portions of the Roman aqueduct here -- and then under the Moors, who gave the town the name Al-Munakkab (I believe), which turned into Almunecar. From our house, one regular walk is up the nearby hill to an old Moorish lookout tower over the sea. I'll refer you back to the post on Cordoba to remind you of the prominence of this part of Spain in the Muslim world during medieval times. Almunecar also has a castle -- the current version of which mostly dates from the 17 or 18th centuries, well after the time when the Catholics reasserted themselves under Isabella and Ferdinand.
One curious remnant of this history is the Almunecar town flag, which looks like this:
Yes, that's right. As Wikipedia explains: "Almuñécar's coat of arms, which shows the turbaned heads of three Barbary pirates floating in the sea, was granted to the town by King Carlos I in 1526 for its having destroyed a Berber raiding force." And so it remains.
I did appreciate this effort at Christmas time to lighten the mood:
That's a poster for the festivities around the Dia de los Reyes Magos (the three kings, whose heads are floating in the water). For whatever reason, people don't seem bothered by the town flag. Here is a nice mosaic version of it, along with some other mosaics, part of a very nice beautification project along the paseo by the beach.
This mosaic is of the main church in town:
And this mosaic on the back of a bench is of Castle San Miguel, including the crumbled tower just to the left of the main gate.
These photos were taken in December during our weeks back in Almunecar after London. While it has gotten cooler, and we wear extra layers, we still enjoy wonderful sun most days and highs are typically in the 50s.
Maybe that's enough for a day. I'll pick up tomorrow.
This seems like a good opportunity not only to fill you in on our two weeks back in Almunecar before setting off for some Christmas travel, but to share a few general thoughts about Almunecar.
With every return to this town, I appreciate what it offers more and more: quiet, simplicity, sun, sea, & mountains. It is a small, out-of-the-way place, really. It is not a political hotbed or a center of commerce or part of the cultural cutting edge. It could use a couple more really inventive restaurants.
But as I write this, we have entered the second half of our year already, and I have started dreaming about future visits back to this now very familiar and friendly town.
Almuñécar (I don't always put in the punctuation because this blog program doesn't allow it, so I have to cut and paste) is about an hour south of Granada and an hour east of Malaga on the Costa Tropical. Set right on the sea, the Sierra Nevada mountains are just 45 minutes away and the Sierra foothills loom large when you turn inland. Joe has become an avid cyclist and sends us photos of amazing vistas from his rides. As I mentioned before it is a popular summer destination for Spanish families, and a winter vacation spot for northern Europeans. Not too many Americans, actually, but a fair number of Brits, French, Germans, and Scandanavian types. Spanish still dominates here and you can't expect people to speak English, unlike some other towns along the coast.
I won't give you a whole history of the town, but of course part of what is amazing living here is the connection to old Mediterranean empires. Our town was founded by the Phoenicians around 800BC, and it was named "Sexi". The people here are still called Sexitanos, and many things here are named Sexi something or other. Here, for instance, is a sign for El Pollo Sexi. The Sexi Chicken.
This is still funny to me. Abby, Joe, and I call our What's App text group SuperSexitanos. Everything is "sexi". There is even a car rental place called "Auto Sexi," which borders on inappropriate.
Our town was then under the Romans -- there are still very impressive portions of the Roman aqueduct here -- and then under the Moors, who gave the town the name Al-Munakkab (I believe), which turned into Almunecar. From our house, one regular walk is up the nearby hill to an old Moorish lookout tower over the sea. I'll refer you back to the post on Cordoba to remind you of the prominence of this part of Spain in the Muslim world during medieval times. Almunecar also has a castle -- the current version of which mostly dates from the 17 or 18th centuries, well after the time when the Catholics reasserted themselves under Isabella and Ferdinand.
One curious remnant of this history is the Almunecar town flag, which looks like this:
Yes, that's right. As Wikipedia explains: "Almuñécar's coat of arms, which shows the turbaned heads of three Barbary pirates floating in the sea, was granted to the town by King Carlos I in 1526 for its having destroyed a Berber raiding force." And so it remains.
I did appreciate this effort at Christmas time to lighten the mood:
That's a poster for the festivities around the Dia de los Reyes Magos (the three kings, whose heads are floating in the water). For whatever reason, people don't seem bothered by the town flag. Here is a nice mosaic version of it, along with some other mosaics, part of a very nice beautification project along the paseo by the beach.
This mosaic is of the main church in town:
And this mosaic on the back of a bench is of Castle San Miguel, including the crumbled tower just to the left of the main gate.
These photos were taken in December during our weeks back in Almunecar after London. While it has gotten cooler, and we wear extra layers, we still enjoy wonderful sun most days and highs are typically in the 50s.
Maybe that's enough for a day. I'll pick up tomorrow.
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