Sunray in front of the haunted castle of Almodóvar del Río (Cordova, Andalusia) — and Longfellow’s Castles in Spain poem.

Hi folks! I hope you this finds you well…

I just wanted to share this sunrise photo with you. In the background you can see the impressive, haunted, Christian-cum-Moorish castle of Almodóvar del Río, stage set for various films and ads. These include:

1967, Camelot, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero
1972, the famous Martini advert
1986, Harem / Dardanelos with Ava Gadner, Nancy Traver, Omar Sharif and Silvia Marsó
2002 the children’s Dutch series Pippo
2015, the Russian singer’s Tiger Cave video clip
2019 a Budweiser advert
And more recently, HBO’s Game of Thrones, and chapter 3 of Netflix’s Warrior Nun, as well as various documentaries that took place in between.

For the history of the castle, its enchanted legend and photos, click on this link.

The castle, its surrounding villages of Almodóvar del Río, Posadas and Hornachuelos that lie in the Guadalquivir Valley close to the historic town of Cordova, are really well-worth a visit! They are steeped in a rich history and culture, and are replete with traditions. The landscape is beautiful too, varying from flat valleys that rise to the imposing Sierra Morena in the north. (You can find a description of these places in my earlier blogs.)

Well, before leaving I would also like to close with a classic poem about Spanish castles, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

**Henry Wadsworth Longfellow** (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) American poet, educator and the first American to translate Dante Alighieri’s *Divine Comedy*. (Wiki)

Castles in Spain

How much of my young heart, O Spain,

Went out to thee in days of yore!
What dreams romantic filled my brain,
And summoned back to life again
The Paladins of Charlemagne,
The Cid Campeador!

And shapes more shadowy than these,
  In the dim twilight half revealed;
Phoenician galleys on the seas,
The Roman camps like hives of bees,
The Goth uplifting from his knees
  Pelayo on his shield.

It was these memories perchance,
  From annals of remotest eld,
That lent the colors of romance
To every trivial circumstance,
And changed the form and countenance
  Of all that I beheld.

Old towns, whose history lies hid
  In monkish chronicle or rhyme,–
Burgos, the birthplace of the Cid,
Zamora and Valladolid,
Toledo, built and walled amid
  The wars of Wamba’s time;

The long, straight line of the highway,
  The distant town that seems so near,
The peasants in the fields, that stay
Their toil to cross themselves and pray,
When from the belfry at midday
  The Angelus they hear;

White crosses in the mountain pass,
  Mules gay with tassels, the loud din
Of muleteers, the tethered ass
That crops the dusty wayside grass,
And cavaliers with spurs of brass
  Alighting at the inn;

White hamlets hidden in fields of wheat,
   White cities slumbering by the sea,
White sunshine flooding square and street,
Dark mountain ranges, at whose feet
The river beds are dry with heat,–
  All was a dream to me.

Yet something sombre and severe
  O’er the enchanted landscape reigned;
A terror in the atmosphere
As if King Philip listened near,
Or Torquemada, the austere,
  His ghostly sway maintained.

The softer Andalusian skies
  Dispelled the sadness and the gloom;
There Cadiz by the seaside lies,
And Seville’s orange-orchards rise,
Making the land a paradise
  Of beauty and of bloom.

There Cordova is hidden among
  The palm, the olive, and the vine;
Gem of the South, by poets sung,
And in whose Mosque Ahmanzor hung
As lamps the bells that once had rung
  At Compostella’s shrine.

But over all the rest supreme,
  The star of stars, the cynosure,
The artist’s and the poet’s theme,
The young man’s vision, the old man’s dream,–
Granada by its winding stream,
  The city of the Moor!

And there the Alhambra still recalls
  Aladdin’s palace of delight;
Allah il Allah! through its halls
Whispers the fountain as it falls,
The Darro darts beneath its walls,
  The hills with snow are white.

Ah yes, the hills are white with snow,
  And cold with blasts that bite and freeze;
But in the happy vale below
The orange and pomegranate grow,
And wafts of air toss to and fro
  The blossoming almond trees.

The Vega cleft by the Xenil,
  The fascination and allure
Of the sweet landscape chains the will;
The traveller lingers on the hill,
His parted lips are breathing still
  The last sigh of the Moor.

How like a ruin overgrown
  With flowers that hide the rents of time,
Stands now the Past that I have known;
Castles in Spain, not built of stone
But of white summer clouds, and blown
  Into this little mist of rhyme!

A very beautiful poem, encompassing many parts of Spain and touching on its history.

Well, that’s all for now. Thank you for visiting!

Your comments are always welcome.

Take care! xxx

Yet another beautiful, inspiring dawn here in Posadas (Cordova)

Dawn arose early this morning, and so did I, even though I had only had a few hours sleep because of all the thoughts that were crowding my head…

Still, at least the weather’s broken and you can sense the autumn just round the corner, knocking at the door…

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run…

(To Autumn, John Keats 1795-1821).

Though why did I move to Cordova in the first place if I find the summers impossibly hot? Well, you can view my very first blog here for the reason; this also has lots of photos of the historic town and is actually the introduction to my book An English Lady in Cordova — the Alternative Guide (at present available from me).

Anyway, getting back to this morning’s photo — not only is the rich palette of colours inspiring, but you can also just spy the conical hill of Priego, La Tiñosa rising up from the plains that form part of the hilly Sierra Subbética. (The word Subbética has Roman origins and derives also from the Gualdalquivir River, which was then called the River Betis. The present Guadalquivir name is Arabic and harks back to the Moorish occupancy of the Iberian Peninsula, previously named Al-Andalus.) For more photos of the views from my home, you can visit the earlier blog of mine.

Though for now, I’d just like to end this blog with a quote from Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī’ (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), the Persian poet, theologian, scholar and mystic’s,

The Breeze at Dawn

The Breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep.

(Perhaps meaning something like: we can break old habits and tendencies and become the present. We don’t need to fall back into the same old ways…)

That’s all for now folks! Once again, thanks for visiting — and do take care! xxx

Yet another gorgeous sunset in the skies above Posadas (Cordova) and Jelaluddin Rumi

Hello all!

Yes, I know I should be busy translating and not get distracted by my blog, but I just couldn’t resist putting in this quick one of yesterday’s gorgeous sunset. (Thanks to my daughter’s phone the photos have come out quite well this time — haha!)