Marbellous

Just for a while I had a student who owned a marble company here in Pinoso. I have no idea whether there is money to be made in marble but I do know that he bought himself a Mercedes GLE - one of those big four wheel drive coupé things - because he said that some of his Arab customers looked askance at his Citroen. He also told me a story about how a new employee had left something off the manifest for a container full of marble which had lost him 2,000€. But, these things happen, he added, as he shrugged his shoulders.

All around this area there are companies that sell stone. Lots of them are alongside the motorway as it passes through Novelda but there are tens of them scattered around. Some are quite posh and others are just fences around an area with a few big blocks of stone, some handling and cutting equipment. I've been on a trip to the quarry here in Pinoso. It is humongous. It's what makes the town so clean and tidy with such brilliant facilities or at least the money it produces is. In a bad year the quarry brought in 6,000,000€ for the less than 8,000 population of the town. The sums aren't hard.

Pinoso does an ivory coloured marble. I think it really is a marble, in that the limestone has been recrystallised, and, as such, it takes a lovely shine. It's almost certain that you've walked on our marble in some office block or shopping centre. One day, when there was a marble and wine themed day in Pinoso I visited the only stone yard we have actually in the town and I was surprised to find that they were cutting and selling a limestone quarried in Albacete. The main company involved in the Pinoso quarry has its HQ in Novelda.

Today I went to visit another quarry as part of the Mármol-on event run by Novelda tourist information. We went to the Bateig quarries which were big, if not on the same scale, as the Pinoso quarry. They seemed to have a limestone that has a blue hue and takes a nice shine too.

The chap who did the commentary before we got there was really great. He emphasised that the three original stone companies in Novelda, had grown up around the railway. He stressed over and over again the effect that the railway had had on Alicante businesses from wine and marble to saffron, cigarette papers and toys. Just as an aside finding out that Banyeres de Mariola and Alcoi have history with fag papers was nearly as interesting as finding out yesterday that, in the last days of the Spanish Republic, the official Spanish currency was printed in Aspe. And probably more interesting than seeing some stone.

We went on to the workshops of Iván Larra the man who built the first ever church organ out of stone - marbles and granites. He gave us a tour of his workshop. He was more a musician interested in stone than a mason interested in music though he didn't give us a biography, or, if he did, it slipped me by. His workshop was a series of tumble down buildings which had once been part of a spa complex alongside what is now the A31 Alicante to Albacete motorway. Interesting (again) to think that people might have "holidayed" there until the 1950s.

I seem to have used the adjective interesting a lot in this entry but what with quarries and exhibitions and stonemason-musicians plus the street music event in Villena I can't think of a more appropriate adjective.