Search Results for: burriana

Burriana / Strolling / Valencia

Mom visits our Mediterranean home

In addition to our trip to Tarragona, mom’s early summer visit included plenty of beach time, trips into the city, and paella. Mom accompanied Dreamer to the nearby city of Vila-real to discount shop at the local football club’s end-of-season sale. After buying a bright yellow scarf, the ladies casually strolled through downtown, where they came across an 18th-century villa with some special inhabitants. Dreamer was thrilled to discover four gigantes, or giant people, in the courtyard of the villa. Built by the family of the man who introduced and promoted the cultivation of mandarin oranges in the region, the Casa

Continue reading
Burriana / Castellón / Museums / Valencia

Valencian Community: sights unseen

We traveled quite a bit our first year in Spain, but sometimes it was relaxing to spend a weekend at home. After returning from a long week and a half traveling to the Netherlands and to Tenerife for spring break, we started the last weekend of April with lunch in nearby Castellón de la Plana before making our way to the city’s fine arts museum when it reopened after the afternoon descanso. At some point during our visit, we discovered Dreamer had become a friolera, the local word for someone who is sensitive to cold. This room was maybe 60°F. There was art

Continue reading
Andalucía / Tourism

Competing courtyards? Yes, please!

Spain brings many images to mind. Bulls, maybe, or flamenco. Paella or sangria, even. Before she ever set foot in the country, Dreamer associated Spain with courtyards. However, when we moved to the Valencian Community, on the eastern coast of the country, we did not find tranquil inner courtyards in abundance. We learned these cool sanctuaries – which have traditionally provided respite from the brutal heat – primarily exist in the south, especially the city of Córdoba. When Dreamer learned the city has a two-week competitive festival devoted to courtyards (called patios in Spain), we couldn’t book train tickets fast

Continue reading
Burriana / Holidays / Valencia

Flowered crosses and modern art in May

A little more than a month after Fallas transformed our town, the local groups who created the giant papier-mâché monuments that were burned at the end of that festival got their creative juices flowing once more – this time to construct giant monuments made of flowers. Valencians, it appears, are really into ephemeral art. Technically, the monuments were supposed to feature crosses, as Burriana – like much of Spain – was celebrating the Cruces de Mayo (Crosses of May) festival the first weekend of that month. As we came to see, however, the cross concept proved a very loose jumping off point. Since the

Continue reading
Tourism

Island in the Sun: Tenerife

For the final leg of our long April trip, we decided to go a more traditional spring break route, finishing our adventure waaaay south, and on an island to boot. But before arriving in paradise, we had to take a train from Rotterdam in the Netherlands to the airport in Brussels, Belgium. We were delighted with how easy (and fast!) international travel proved. No advance reservations needed, even. After arriving in Tenerife’s southern airport, we drove our rental care about 15 minutes to our beachside Airbnb apartment in Médano Beach. Tenerife is the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands. Politically, the

Continue reading
Burriana / Las Fallas

Losing Ninot or: burn, falla, burn

And so, our Fallas coverage draws to a dramatic end. All of the parades, fireworks, and other events in our city and in the capital, Valencia, led up to this final moment in the life of any of the enormous monuments: the burning, also known as La Cremà (quema in Spanish). We came home to Burriana Sunday, March 19, after a brief visit to Castellón to see the Magdalena celebration, only to encounter a smoldering pile of rubble in the street where one of the children’s fallas had stood before we left town. And down the road, smoke in the sky indicated there was more

Continue reading