Wednesday, 30 September 2009

Anywheresville, the Med, Spain

Granted that these images could be, as I said the last time, Anywheresville, Med, you must take my word that they were all taken from the fortified old town of Evissa. The picture of the cannon should be enough to persuade you it wasn't Piccadilly (which, admittedly, is not on the Med, but you get my drift.
My trip was well worth it, although I got directions wrong and instead of taking the scenice rout up a gently set of steps, I walked up some road in the blazing sun (yes, it's back) and ended up at the back of the whole town. But eventually I found be way in.
Why the picture of the door, I hear you ask. Well, I don´t know. As with steps and stairs I find them somehow evocative, here - they did seem to be the entrance to someone's house - they seemed especially interesting. In fact, the piccy of set of steps here could well have been take in Cornwall. The long shot of the harbour was only taken and included here because I find the sail on the obviously very expensive yacht interesting. It looks medieval but it obviously is not. The fort is quite spectacular and very well preserved. It must have been pretty impregnable in its day (qv my joke about drones, napalm and other more humane means of slaughter. The old town proper is made up, as are most of these medieval town's, of narrow alleyways and tall houses. But the houses still seem to be inhabited. Then a little further down, you get the newer old town which is just as pleasant and picturesque. I should imagine this was where most people lived until the end of the nineteenth century.
Then there is the older new town, which is pretty much your standard Med town, laid out on a grid system and, to my eyes, indistinguishable from many others I've seen. Finally one the outskirts a huge amount of building is going on, many, rather smart, apartment blocks. And I don't mean holiday apartments, but homes for ordinary folk, and by 'rather smart' I don't mean that they strike me as necessarily where only rich or well-off folk could afford to buy. In fact lying as it does on the coast, the are is rather flat and featureless and if you had the dosh - if I had the dosh - it is not where I would choose to live. So there.
The others? Well, bog standard tourists shots. If you don't have access to a camera to take your own, try going to the local newsagents to buy a few postcards. Talking of shops, aspirin and paracetamol are not available as in Britain more or less everywhere, but you have to go to a chemist's. In Italy, when I lived there in 1972 the only place you could buy salt was at a tobacconists. Why I don´t know. Also, because the then lira was in a bit of a mess, there was no small change, so if you were owed a few pence, you always got it in the form of a handfull of sweets. I once tried paying with sweets, but they weren't having it.







1 comment:

  1. thanks for the photos of the trip, seems lovely, like im there
    k

    ReplyDelete