Valencia or bust!!
Because my company decided to cancel all Christmas holidays last year I had some extra days to use up, so I took that one off, I danced happily out of the head office. As a matter of fact my time off happened to be the same week that my mum and dad decided to take my baby niece out to the villa in Valencia, so I tagged along for the craic. Unfortunately when we arrived, the weather was just as bad as back home and the house was freezing (que panic buying of electric heaters) but the alcohol was flowing freely and being away from real life for a bit was really nice.
Valencia is a beautiful city with amazing buildings and sights (including a functional bull ring, which I don’t like at all) on this trip I managed to learn a lot about the history of Spain. I discovered that Valencia was actually a independent city in Spain up until Franco and his fascists took control and made it give up it cultural identity, including it’s language. You can see examples of where people have changed the spelling of many road signs back to the original Valencia spelling. I also discovered that during the Spanish civil war (just before WWII, which is why you might not have heard about it) the German Luftwaffe practiced its bombing raids on the Bask region of Spain killing thousands of civilians and destroying hundreds of homes. The fight against Franco and the Nazis was undertaken but Communists from all over the world, including England, but because the world was gripped by the paranoia of the “communist threat” none of the world leaders would lend aid and condemned the fighters travelling there. Right up until invasion of Poland by Germany, at which point we all know the story.
Funny that, huh?
Anyway the most amazing part of the weekend was that on the Friday it snowed in Spain for the first time in 24 years. Me and my sisters bloke Ian had a play in the snow that night, just so that we can tell the shorty's to come that we had a snowball fight out side our Spanish Villa, while dodging behind snow covered Palm trees.
Life can be good when it wants to be
Valencia is a beautiful city with amazing buildings and sights (including a functional bull ring, which I don’t like at all) on this trip I managed to learn a lot about the history of Spain. I discovered that Valencia was actually a independent city in Spain up until Franco and his fascists took control and made it give up it cultural identity, including it’s language. You can see examples of where people have changed the spelling of many road signs back to the original Valencia spelling. I also discovered that during the Spanish civil war (just before WWII, which is why you might not have heard about it) the German Luftwaffe practiced its bombing raids on the Bask region of Spain killing thousands of civilians and destroying hundreds of homes. The fight against Franco and the Nazis was undertaken but Communists from all over the world, including England, but because the world was gripped by the paranoia of the “communist threat” none of the world leaders would lend aid and condemned the fighters travelling there. Right up until invasion of Poland by Germany, at which point we all know the story.
Funny that, huh?
Anyway the most amazing part of the weekend was that on the Friday it snowed in Spain for the first time in 24 years. Me and my sisters bloke Ian had a play in the snow that night, just so that we can tell the shorty's to come that we had a snowball fight out side our Spanish Villa, while dodging behind snow covered Palm trees.
Life can be good when it wants to be