Life in Culebrón

I soon get itchy feet if I’ve spent too many days around the house. Fortunately, there’s nearly always something going on close to where we live to cheer me up. One of the advantages—drawn directly from the disadvantage of living a fair way from anywhere—is that we don’t look to just one source for our “what-to-dos”. If I lived in Alicante, Madrid, or Murcia, I’d expect there to be something going on just around the corner or a short bus ride away. Here, where there are no buses and driving to the larger cities requires a real commitment, it’s a matter of picking and choosing from all the towns and villages around us. We often go to concerts, theatre, exhibitions, and various other events, but one of the oddities of Spain, at least for me, is that the place is cram-packed with fiestas. Fiestas are not just "events"; there might be a big music festival or a sporting event, but that is not a fiesta. Now, if you live here, you know full well what a fiesta is, but for those who d...

I'm late with this. I also wrote it much more quickly than I normally write my blogs so apologies for any failings of style. If you want to go to the Fallas they finish tonight so, if you're interested, you'll probably have to wait till next year. Put it in your diary now, March 19th, that's the date for the burning. There are things to see during the week leading up to the 19th, particularly after the 15th. Towns, like Denia and Xàtiva, have Fallas too but the big one is in Valencia. Oh, and Elda has Fallas in September. This is not a Wikipedia article and I haven't done anything other than the most basic check of my facts. It's just what I know, or think I know, so it's quite likely that there will be factual errors. But it's enough to get the idea. Honest. There will probably also be inconsistencies in spelling because I speak English but sometimes I will have used the Valenciano expression and sometimes I'll have used the Castilian translation. T...