Life in Culebrón

Often, on the Pinoso Community Facebook page people, who are considering moving to this area, ask - 'What's Pinoso like?' So, as a nice easy blog, I thought I'd give my answer to that question for those people. First off, Pinoso is more a big village than a small town and expectations should reflect that. The town is in the province of Alicante, part of the Comunitat Valenciana, but it's right on the border with the Murcia region. Pinoso, like all of Spain, speaks Castilian Spanish which is the Spanish spoken worldwide. However, because it is a part of the Valencian region it also speaks a local variant of Catalan called Valenciano which is taught in all the local schools. You will hear Valenciano all over the place. Increasingly the town hall produces information primarily in Valenciano. The population of the municipality is a bit short of 9,000 people, and that includes all the people living in the satellite villages or pedanías that surround the town. Culebrón, w...

The tissues were not needed for an annoying sniffle. They were not needed to dab away a breakaway tear at an emotional moment. They were needed to block up our ears; torn in half and twisted into a cone they produced makeshift, but perfectly serviceable, ear plugs. The clue was that the majority of people cradling an arquebus were also sporting ear defenders. The One True Cross was doing a tour of the town of Abanilla supported by the Captains, Pages, Queens, the Faithful and the Holy Brotherhood of the Vera Cruz. The Town Band, the Santa Cruz, were out too and when that Cross appeared at the church door the arquebuses made an awful din and covered us in smoke and soot. "It's a salute to the Cross," said a man, "no bullets in them today." We caught up with the shooters a little further down the route, salvo after salvo, then one of the girls in the funny frocks bowed to the armed guard escorting the Cross and they let go a volley as well. Distinctly odd but ...