La Vida Alcalaína

Last weekend, over two glorious sunny days and one wet one, Alcalá hosted the fourth  Feria del Mundo Rural y la Caza  with a range of activities, exhibitions and retail opportunities celebrating rural crafts and traditions.  Here are some of them - sadly I didn't get a decent photo of the catapulting competition and the mule-loading demonstration scheduled for Sunday morning was rained off, but there will be another opportunity no doubt. Payoyo goats, perfect for turning weeds into cheese Merino sheep from Grazalema, famous for their fine wool Demonstration of chair-making by Asociación Jacaranda How to cook the pig you've just slaughtered Products made from esparto grass Alcalá's famous rustic bread, baked in wood-fired ovens Hunting knives with handles made from antlers Souvenirs made from cork (but sadly not made here) Costume for a country lady Accessories for the country gentleman                         ...

Many years ago I read a book called "The Anarchists of Casas Viejas" by an American anthropologist called Jerome Mintz.  Casas Viejas was the old name for Benalup-Casas Viejas, about 15 km from Alcalá. Back in 1933 it was the scene of an event which shook the nation to the core and helped bring down the socialist government of the Second Republic. One of the key figures in that event was a young woman who went by the name "Libertaria", which piqued my romantic imagination. I vowed to find out more about her and one day write her story.  It's taken a while, but the book is now out and is available  on Amazon  worldwide, in paperback or Kindle format, at giveaway prices. The introduction to the book is reproduced below. Subsequent chapters cover the evolution of anarcho-syndicalism (also known as libertarian communism) in the area and why it was so attractive to men who could barely get enough work to feed their families; a detailed look at the events of January 1...

Alcalá has just been voted the most magical town in Andalucía (of course some of us have always known that, but now it's official).  There is no doubt that the number of visitors has increased dramatically over the last few years, especially since the Covid pandemic as more people opt for self-catering holidays in the countryside rather than crowded beach hotels. (They are easy to spot, wearing shorts in November and frowning at their phones trying to work out in which of the narrow backstreets their accommodation is.) The number of self-catering holiday lets in Alcalá has gone from two or three pre-Covid to over thirty today, as enterprising young people convert their late grandparents' abandoned dwellings into sparkling new air-conditioned apartments with fitted kitchens, hot-tubs and Ikea's finest wall art (see a list of them  here ). Of course, it's great to see semi-derelict properties restored and it provides work for local builders, but one can't help wonderi...

 This stunning aerial view of Alcalá was captured by Pedro A. Jiménez Gómez a couple of years ago.  It has just won first prize in a photography contest organised by the Mancomunidad de la Janda, and has gone viral across Spain.  The national newspaper La Razón  claims it as evidence that Alcalá is one of the most beautiful towns in the country.  Can't argue with that!

 In an attempt to do something about the lamentable state of my 71-year-old body I recently acquired one of those "smart watches" that nags you to do regular exercise. I now go for a brisk walk most mornings, with a target of 6,000 steps (I know they say you should aim for 10,000 but you have to start somewhere).   Fortunately Alcalá has plenty of hills and dales to get the circulation going. My favourite route is across the valley opposite my house, saying good morning to the horses and mules that graze there, past the ancient wells on Los Pozos, and along the (almost traffic-free) road which leads into the Parque Natural los Alcornocales.  View of Alcalá from the Patriste road. While many people who indulge in this activity plug their ears in order to listen to music or a podcast, I remain unplugged so I can enjoy the song of the numerous birds that line this route.  Although I am useless at identifying most of them by sight as they flit in and out of the tree...

I wrote this post in 2010, two years after we moved to Alcalá.   I'm reposting it now because most of it is still true, and recent arrivals to the pueblo might find it entertaining, if not informative ... A few years ago, while still a wage-slave in the UK, I made a list of all the reasons why I didn’t want to live there any more. Near the top of the list was Big Bad Supermarkets: their crimes included driving small shops and farmers out of business, seducing us into buying microwave ready-meals packed with additives, selling tasteless meat alongside jars of goo that supposedly turn it into something a celebrity chef would be proud to serve, wrapping fruit and veg in umpteen layers of plastic and then charging us for carrier bags “to help protect the environment” ... you know what I’m on about. And as for 24-hour opening, I’m not even going to go there, it’s the road to madness. To cut a long story short, I now live in Alcalá de los Gazules in the province of Cádiz. Shop...

Most of the streets and squares in Alcalá have had several different names over the years. Indeed some are still referred to locally by their old names, causing confusion for visitors, postmen and delivery drivers.  The renaming often followed drastic changes in the country’s government, notably: The declaration of the 2nd Republic in 1931, when Spain was governed by elected representatives following the abdication of the King and the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera; The military-civilian coup of July 1936, when the Falange party took over the government of Alcalá at the beginning of the Civil War; The transition to democracy following the death of Franco - the first local elections were held in 1979. The following list, in alphabetical order, was compiled from the series  Las calles de Alcalá y sus nombres: Evolución Histórica I-VII on the blog Historia de Alcalá de los Gazules , and Por las calles viejas de Alcalá I-IV on Mi Alcalá . Alameda de la Cruz: The open space at ...