arth! It’s the smell of wet earth that strikes me; tantalises me, as I step out into the early morning sunshine. The sun’s rays, shining through tall pines along neat rows of vines hanging heavy with black merlot grapes blind, as I crunch along the gravel path from my villa to the Casa Grande for …
2-Minute Video Holy Thursday he streets of Seville are lined with orange trees. It’s Springtime and the scent of orange blossom fills the air. We are busy participating in the Holy Week observances in churches and joining the crowds to watch the processions of floats through the winding narrow streets and grand Plazas of …
e’ve heard of ‘bats in the belfry’ with imagery of Gothic novels based in English parsonages or turreted castles. But, ‘farm birds in the cathedrals’, as we’ve discovered here in Spain requires a big stretch of the imagination. We are all puzzled in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada at seeing a live …
tanding at the packed Pilgrim’s Mass in the Cathedral of Santiago, the quiet following Communion is suddenly broken by deep intakes of breath from more than a thousand pilgrims surprised at the unexpected lowering of the giant fifty kilogram Botafumeiro falling to the marble floor of the Sanctuary like a stone. Excitedly, they guess what’s …
n the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, I don’t stand in line to climb up the narrow staircase behind the main altar to hug the statue of St James as so many of the pilgrims are doing, but I do go down into the crypt to see the silver casket in which his remains lie, …