Easter joy. Mallorca enjoyed the best Easter of the last decade. Hotel occupancy was at 76% with 80% of hotels open. In some parts of the island the occupancy was into the eighty-percentage bracket or even 90% (Camp de Mar). Joy indeed, but are we convinced? An analysis I made of Alcúdia revealed that the percentage of hotels open was not of the order that was being boasted; it was more like 50%. Alcúdia is only one resort, but if it is indicative, then where were the 80%?
Forgive my scepticism, but do I detect the proximity of elections and the support of the hoteliers' federation for the regional government? Good news on the tourism front can act as a boost to the Bauzá administration not just because of tourist numbers but also because of more employment, something that the federation has also been at pains to point to. This good news should say to the electorate that "tourism is working" under the PP and thus quell any talk of policies which might interrupt this, e.g. the revival of a tourist tax, and fire a pre-electoral broadside against parties that might undo this work.
If the good news is genuinely to be believed, it is the consequence principally of a revival in the domestic market, by which one means both Spanish mainland and Mallorcan: there were, for example, hotels in the north with Easter-breakers from the south. It is also a consequence, perhaps to a lesser degree, of instability elsewhere, notably Tunisia. Both these factors will come to Mallorca's aid this summer, but neither is proof that "tourism is working" under the PP per se.
This said, a change to the political landscape does introduce an element of uncertainty to the island's tourism. With the elections moving ever closer, issues such as a tourist tax are moving higher up the debating agenda. Som Palma, which is the city's version of Podemos, is speaking of introducing a specific tourist tax for Palma, the "same as exists in other European cities", while at a forum during the week, tourism minister Jaime Martínez and the hoteliers' president, Aurelio Vázquez, clashed with David Abril of Més over the potential for a tax. Martínez said that now was the time to be lowering taxes not creating new ones. Vázquez alluded to the disaster that was the old eco-tax. Abril insisted that a tax would be about "sharing prosperity" and recovering the future (whatever this means).
Francina Armengol for PSOE - and she may well become the next president of the Balearics - spoke earlier in the week about a tourist tax, saying that it might have to be looked at if financing from the state for the Balearics was not improved. Linking the possible introduction of a tax to the issue of financing was an attack on the regional government's perceived failure to negotiate an improved financing arrangement with Madrid, but doubts remain as to how committed PSOE might be to such a tax. Despite one of its spokespeople, Cosme Bonet, having talked up a tourist tax, the party has not forgotten the eco-tax disaster that Vázquez was quick to remind everyone of at the forum. It was a tax that a PSOE-led government introduced.
Nevertheless, battle is well and truly being joined, and tourism, especially in the form of a tourist tax, is going to be one of the key issues of the forthcoming elections.
Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts
Friday, April 10, 2015
Sunday, April 05, 2015
A Nice Day For A Picnic
A Mallorcan Easter, like a Mallorcan Christmas, is a lengthy affair. Holy Week is something of a misnomer. It is a Holy at least ten days or getting on for a fortnight. Its starting-point of white palm fronds in procession and being blessed on Palm Sunday is a fixed feast. It's the end-point which is the movable one. It all depends where you are, and even then it can seem to have come to an end, only for something else to crop up a few days later. Alcúdia is a good example.
Easter in Mallorca doesn't come to a sudden halt like a British bank holiday when the brakes are slammed on in order to avoid ploughing into the back of the massive tail back caused by the faithful departing the temples of out-of-town shopping centres. It carries on in gentle cruise control, the traffic that of pilgrims on foot or those less holy ones who prefer to carry their leftover empanadas in the boot of a car or even in a shuttle bus. Welcome to the Mallorcan post-Easter picnic.
Once upon a time, Holy Fortnight was indeed Holy Fortnight, and credit for this has to go to the Guardian Angel, in whose honour the citysfolk of Palma established an Easter of ever-longer extension by having a picnic two weeks after Palm Sunday. (In strictly numerical terms of days, this would really make it the Holy Fifteen Days.) By picnic, one doesn't mean it was an occasion for hauling large wicker hampers and cool boxes off to a shady spot in the countryside, it was a day when the poor were given bread that had been blessed. This custom changed markedly over the centuries, so much so that by the nineteenth century it was an excuse for yet another round of merry-making, but the name survived. The pancaritat.
At some point in time, most of the villages of Mallorca realised that what was good for Palma was good for them too. As best as I can make out, 43 pancaritat picnics take place, certain municipalities having more than one, e.g. Alcúdia. Given the Guardian Angel origins, there is a religious element, one that involves trooping off to the nearest hermitage and holding mass before organising the tables and chairs and whipping up some paella. And while 22 of the 43 have kept faith with the Day of the Angel, i.e. a week today, 21 have not. Monday or Tuesday are the preferred alternative days, unless you happen to live in Lloseta, where it is Wednesday.
In the northern area of Mallorca there are six pancaritats; seven if one includes Colonia Sant Pere. The six are in Campanet, Muro, Pollensa and Sa Pobla plus Alcúdia with its two, the first of which - at the hermitage of La Victoria - is on Tuesday, with the second at Sant Martí next Sunday. This is the cave of Sant Martí and not, you'll be relieved to learn, Red Electrica's much-hyped Sant Martí substation. The cave, with its icon of Christ, is within microphoned vocal range of Bellevue's Show Garden, though it is probably as well that the outer limits of Bellevue in closest proximity to the cave are uninhabited at this time of the year. Otherwise, curious bearers of wristbands might head off in hot pursuit of the pilgrims, the lager of plastic glasses slowly being warmed by the spring sunshine, and anticipate that the picnic forms part of the all-inclusive offer.
The pancaritats of La Victoria and of the Puig Maria in Pollensa (Monday) are ones for the committed pilgrims, involving, as they do, hacking up the side of a mountain with the picnic goodies in tow. The others are mercifully far less strenuous, even if Campanet's requires the climbing of the soapy pine tree. Not that everyone is obliged to climb the pine. I mean, the Bishop of Mallorca is turning up for mass, and I fancy his devotion doesn't extend to such frivolity.
Of the different picnics in the north, those of Campanet, Muro and Sa Pobla are the grandest; they are like mini-fiestas. In Muro, it all kicks of with rockets being let off in the town at 10am on Monday, the signal for the picnic-goers to gather items from the fridge and larder and trek to the hermitage of Sant Vicenç Ferrer. The hermitage, being as hermitages generally are, is not the location for events later in the day. The clubs of Muro go into overdrive from four in the afternoon, offering an alternative type of dance to the ball de bot folk dance at the hermitage and so an alternative pilgrimage: to offer thanks for the DJ deck and USB stick.
But Sa Pobla's is probably the best-known of all the picnics. It is the one that takes place at Crestatx every Tuesday after Easter, when seemingly the whole of the town takes itself off to the hermitage, some say oratory, of Crestatx with the image of Santa Margalida, one of Sa Pobla's patron saints: indeed, the original patron, as Santa Margalida was associated with the tiny populace of Crestatx before it was relocated in 1300 to the new town of what was to become known simply as Sa Pobla.
A big thing of the Crestatx day out is the wearing, by men, of the barretina hat which, though it is not unique to Catalan culture, is most closely identified with it. The red hat was commonly worn in rural areas, such as Sa Pobla, until the nineteenth century. It is now more symbolic than fashionable, and the Crestatx picnic is when it gets taken out of the wardrobe and dusted down for the day. A further important element is the t-shirt. The town hall organises an annual Crestatx t-shirt competition (first prize one hundred and twenty euros), so far from it being a case of been there, got the t-shirt, it is one of going there each year with a different t-shirt in the hope of securing the prize.
A common element of all these picnics is the hermitage. The history of the various ones in the north is something I shall delve into on another occasion. But for now, I shall just mention that the oldest of them, by some considerable distance, is Alcúdia's Sant Martí. This cave-shrine was a catacomb for early Christians during the time of the Roman occupation. Strange that, of all the hermitages therefore, its neighbours should be Bellevue and an industrial estate with a new substation named after it.
Easter in Mallorca doesn't come to a sudden halt like a British bank holiday when the brakes are slammed on in order to avoid ploughing into the back of the massive tail back caused by the faithful departing the temples of out-of-town shopping centres. It carries on in gentle cruise control, the traffic that of pilgrims on foot or those less holy ones who prefer to carry their leftover empanadas in the boot of a car or even in a shuttle bus. Welcome to the Mallorcan post-Easter picnic.
Once upon a time, Holy Fortnight was indeed Holy Fortnight, and credit for this has to go to the Guardian Angel, in whose honour the citysfolk of Palma established an Easter of ever-longer extension by having a picnic two weeks after Palm Sunday. (In strictly numerical terms of days, this would really make it the Holy Fifteen Days.) By picnic, one doesn't mean it was an occasion for hauling large wicker hampers and cool boxes off to a shady spot in the countryside, it was a day when the poor were given bread that had been blessed. This custom changed markedly over the centuries, so much so that by the nineteenth century it was an excuse for yet another round of merry-making, but the name survived. The pancaritat.
At some point in time, most of the villages of Mallorca realised that what was good for Palma was good for them too. As best as I can make out, 43 pancaritat picnics take place, certain municipalities having more than one, e.g. Alcúdia. Given the Guardian Angel origins, there is a religious element, one that involves trooping off to the nearest hermitage and holding mass before organising the tables and chairs and whipping up some paella. And while 22 of the 43 have kept faith with the Day of the Angel, i.e. a week today, 21 have not. Monday or Tuesday are the preferred alternative days, unless you happen to live in Lloseta, where it is Wednesday.
In the northern area of Mallorca there are six pancaritats; seven if one includes Colonia Sant Pere. The six are in Campanet, Muro, Pollensa and Sa Pobla plus Alcúdia with its two, the first of which - at the hermitage of La Victoria - is on Tuesday, with the second at Sant Martí next Sunday. This is the cave of Sant Martí and not, you'll be relieved to learn, Red Electrica's much-hyped Sant Martí substation. The cave, with its icon of Christ, is within microphoned vocal range of Bellevue's Show Garden, though it is probably as well that the outer limits of Bellevue in closest proximity to the cave are uninhabited at this time of the year. Otherwise, curious bearers of wristbands might head off in hot pursuit of the pilgrims, the lager of plastic glasses slowly being warmed by the spring sunshine, and anticipate that the picnic forms part of the all-inclusive offer.
The pancaritats of La Victoria and of the Puig Maria in Pollensa (Monday) are ones for the committed pilgrims, involving, as they do, hacking up the side of a mountain with the picnic goodies in tow. The others are mercifully far less strenuous, even if Campanet's requires the climbing of the soapy pine tree. Not that everyone is obliged to climb the pine. I mean, the Bishop of Mallorca is turning up for mass, and I fancy his devotion doesn't extend to such frivolity.
Of the different picnics in the north, those of Campanet, Muro and Sa Pobla are the grandest; they are like mini-fiestas. In Muro, it all kicks of with rockets being let off in the town at 10am on Monday, the signal for the picnic-goers to gather items from the fridge and larder and trek to the hermitage of Sant Vicenç Ferrer. The hermitage, being as hermitages generally are, is not the location for events later in the day. The clubs of Muro go into overdrive from four in the afternoon, offering an alternative type of dance to the ball de bot folk dance at the hermitage and so an alternative pilgrimage: to offer thanks for the DJ deck and USB stick.
But Sa Pobla's is probably the best-known of all the picnics. It is the one that takes place at Crestatx every Tuesday after Easter, when seemingly the whole of the town takes itself off to the hermitage, some say oratory, of Crestatx with the image of Santa Margalida, one of Sa Pobla's patron saints: indeed, the original patron, as Santa Margalida was associated with the tiny populace of Crestatx before it was relocated in 1300 to the new town of what was to become known simply as Sa Pobla.
A big thing of the Crestatx day out is the wearing, by men, of the barretina hat which, though it is not unique to Catalan culture, is most closely identified with it. The red hat was commonly worn in rural areas, such as Sa Pobla, until the nineteenth century. It is now more symbolic than fashionable, and the Crestatx picnic is when it gets taken out of the wardrobe and dusted down for the day. A further important element is the t-shirt. The town hall organises an annual Crestatx t-shirt competition (first prize one hundred and twenty euros), so far from it being a case of been there, got the t-shirt, it is one of going there each year with a different t-shirt in the hope of securing the prize.
A common element of all these picnics is the hermitage. The history of the various ones in the north is something I shall delve into on another occasion. But for now, I shall just mention that the oldest of them, by some considerable distance, is Alcúdia's Sant Martí. This cave-shrine was a catacomb for early Christians during the time of the Roman occupation. Strange that, of all the hermitages therefore, its neighbours should be Bellevue and an industrial estate with a new substation named after it.
Saturday, April 04, 2015
On The Trail Of The Soapy Pine
You may have noticed that your car, your terrace, your washing have recently been turned the colour of what a paint-maker's swatch might term a dewy green or a breezy lime. I prefer to moniker it Norwich City, but whatever title it might be given there is no escaping the powder that floats on the breezes or is thrown about by a force six or seven hurtling in from a north-westerly direction. The pollen is a peppery pulverulence of the pine and the pellitory - and try saying that as you are in mid-sneeze. Nettles, sticky-weed, these are the worst offenders in allergic terms, but what is tossed hither and thither can include the pollens of cypress, olive and pine trees.
The Mallorcan relationship with the pine is such that researchers once studied the "hate" that the islanders have for it. Emblematic it may be, poetic it has been - as in Costa i Llobera's pine of Formentor - but there's no escaping the fact that pine needles clog up drains and gutters and that the trees harbour the unpleasant processionary caterpillar and can cause respiratory problems, and not just because of the pollen.
Notwithstanding this dislike, the good old pine tree does have its emblematic and symbolic qualities. There is even a political party that has adopted it as its name and its logo, not that El Pi is likely to get very far in the forthcoming elections. I mean, you wouldn't vote for a party whose name is The Pine, would you? Perhaps you would.
But its symbolism is such that when the moment arrives for a tree to be required to be chopped down, replanted in a village square and climbed by the youth of said village, there is only one arboreal candidate. The pine.
Now, many of you will know that in January the good people of Pollensa take themselves off to the finca of Ternelles on not one but two occasions in order to first locate and chop down a pine tree and to later transport it to the town's centre, while at the same time helping themselves to copious amounts of strong alcohol. The bark of the pine of Ternelles is stripped down, the denuded tree is given a good soaping, a cockerel in a bag is tied to its summit and up go members of the youth once the tree has been hauled into place in the old plaça of Pollensa.
The pine that is climbed as part of January's Sant Antoni fiesta is not the only pine to be scaled. Puerto Pollensa has one as well. But this odd tradition is unique to the municipality of Pollensa. Or is it?
As far as Sant Antoni is concerned, it is, but there are other pines that need climbing, having first been lathered up with industrial quantities of Palmolive. The village of Selva gets pine-slippery on the occasion of its Sant Llorenç fiesta in August.
Away from Mallorca, in Torre de l'Espanyol in Catalonia, they have a pine as well, and it is produced for Carnival. Said to be a ritual of pagan origin, the pine is climbed but with certain differences - there is no soap, the bark stays on, as do some stumps of branches, and there is no, in a Pollensa style, cockerel in a bag.
This particular tradition now involves the local "quintos", these being teenagers of the village who have come of age (the name comes from a centuries-old scheme for selecting young army conscripts; every fifth - quinto - male would be called up). The quintos of Mallorca court some controversy. Or they do in Muro, where there have been allegations of cruelty to chickens - fiercely denied. Quintos, generally speaking, are just out for some harmless, high-spirited fun, and quintos are central to a pine-climbing event - featuring a soaped-up tree - that is barely a pine-tossing throw away from Pollensa.
In Campanet, as with several other villages, there is a post-Easter picnic. The folk of the village gather to eat, to dance and to partake healthily of the local grape. Once the more sober formalities of a procession with the image of Christ and mass are dispensed with, the picnic entertainment this coming Tuesday involves a mass rice eat-in, something for the smaller people of the parish and finally, at 6pm, the climbing of the soapy pine by a selection of quintos, the tree having been located and chopped down the day before with the same due ceremony that the people of Pollensa reserve for the Ternelles tree, i.e. plenty to eat and drink.
Why do they do it? Who knows. But what one does know is that, for all the disadvantages of the pine tree, it has one very clear advantage. It can be climbed when soapy. Or not, as the case may be.
The Mallorcan relationship with the pine is such that researchers once studied the "hate" that the islanders have for it. Emblematic it may be, poetic it has been - as in Costa i Llobera's pine of Formentor - but there's no escaping the fact that pine needles clog up drains and gutters and that the trees harbour the unpleasant processionary caterpillar and can cause respiratory problems, and not just because of the pollen.
Notwithstanding this dislike, the good old pine tree does have its emblematic and symbolic qualities. There is even a political party that has adopted it as its name and its logo, not that El Pi is likely to get very far in the forthcoming elections. I mean, you wouldn't vote for a party whose name is The Pine, would you? Perhaps you would.
But its symbolism is such that when the moment arrives for a tree to be required to be chopped down, replanted in a village square and climbed by the youth of said village, there is only one arboreal candidate. The pine.
Now, many of you will know that in January the good people of Pollensa take themselves off to the finca of Ternelles on not one but two occasions in order to first locate and chop down a pine tree and to later transport it to the town's centre, while at the same time helping themselves to copious amounts of strong alcohol. The bark of the pine of Ternelles is stripped down, the denuded tree is given a good soaping, a cockerel in a bag is tied to its summit and up go members of the youth once the tree has been hauled into place in the old plaça of Pollensa.
The pine that is climbed as part of January's Sant Antoni fiesta is not the only pine to be scaled. Puerto Pollensa has one as well. But this odd tradition is unique to the municipality of Pollensa. Or is it?
As far as Sant Antoni is concerned, it is, but there are other pines that need climbing, having first been lathered up with industrial quantities of Palmolive. The village of Selva gets pine-slippery on the occasion of its Sant Llorenç fiesta in August.
Away from Mallorca, in Torre de l'Espanyol in Catalonia, they have a pine as well, and it is produced for Carnival. Said to be a ritual of pagan origin, the pine is climbed but with certain differences - there is no soap, the bark stays on, as do some stumps of branches, and there is no, in a Pollensa style, cockerel in a bag.
This particular tradition now involves the local "quintos", these being teenagers of the village who have come of age (the name comes from a centuries-old scheme for selecting young army conscripts; every fifth - quinto - male would be called up). The quintos of Mallorca court some controversy. Or they do in Muro, where there have been allegations of cruelty to chickens - fiercely denied. Quintos, generally speaking, are just out for some harmless, high-spirited fun, and quintos are central to a pine-climbing event - featuring a soaped-up tree - that is barely a pine-tossing throw away from Pollensa.
In Campanet, as with several other villages, there is a post-Easter picnic. The folk of the village gather to eat, to dance and to partake healthily of the local grape. Once the more sober formalities of a procession with the image of Christ and mass are dispensed with, the picnic entertainment this coming Tuesday involves a mass rice eat-in, something for the smaller people of the parish and finally, at 6pm, the climbing of the soapy pine by a selection of quintos, the tree having been located and chopped down the day before with the same due ceremony that the people of Pollensa reserve for the Ternelles tree, i.e. plenty to eat and drink.
Why do they do it? Who knows. But what one does know is that, for all the disadvantages of the pine tree, it has one very clear advantage. It can be climbed when soapy. Or not, as the case may be.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Picnics For Pilgrims: The pancaritat
Once upon a time, in the days before a bit of old bone from Saint Sebastian turned up in Palma in the sixteenth century, relieved the city of the plague and secured for Sebastian the gig as the city's patron saint, the Guardian Angel was Palma's patron. So revered was the Angel that the festival of the Angel was one of the most important religious occasions on the island. The day for this festival was established as being the Sunday after Easter. In Palma it still is the Festival of the Angel (it was in fact revived at the start of the 1980s) but it is also the day of the "pancaritat", which literally means bread charity.
Long ago, the festival and bread-giving were combined. The poor would receive bread which had been blessed at the oratory of the Knights Templar, but the nature of the pancaritat changed over the centuries. By the nineteenth century it was no longer a solemn and charitable affair but rather an occasion for having something of a party, and the tradition had long ceased to be confined to Palma. Pancaritats now take place in most towns on the island.
This diffusion has meant that the pancaritat doesn't have to take place on so-called Angel Sunday. It has, quite literally, become a moveable feast, depending on where it is held. The word itself has acquired a different meaning. It is a picnic but one which retains a religious overtone. It is a picnic that is also a pilgrimage. In Palma this means thousands of people schlepping up to Bellver Castle. Elsewhere it can mean taking a bit of a stroll down the road, armed with bread, pastries and what have you and usually accompanied by the ubiquitous pipers.
In Alcúdia, as one example, they have stuck with Angel Sunday as being the day for the pancaritat. There is not one mass, not two but three. The first two are where mass is normally held - in the parish church - but the third, at one o'clock (just in time for lunch), is at the cave of Sant Martí, the rather odd bit of iconography carved into the countryside near the Bellevue hotel complex which is subject to the occasional spot of graffiti. Once mass is dispensed with, it's time to open the cool boxes and the picnic hampers.
But Alcúdia doesn't only have the Sant Martí pancaritat. The walk to the cave isn't that difficult. Walking up the mountain from Bonaire to the hermitage of La Victoria presents an altogether tougher proposition for the picnic-bound pilgrims. And it takes place on Tuesday, which is an example therefore of how the feast has been moved.
Similarly, Tuesday is the day for the good people of Sa Pobla to rediscover their Crestatx roots and head off the kilometre or so to the old oratory of Crestatx. It is a rediscovery because Crestatx is where the people of Sa Pobla were originally from. Under King Jaume II's system of Mallorcan new towns (1300), Crestatx folk were relocated, and thus Sa Pobla was born.
The Crestatx pancaritat is of an altogether grander order than the events in Alcúdia. It's an all-day affair, the pilgrimage leaving Sa Pobla at nine in the morning and not returning until half six in the evening, and even then there is more of a celebration - folk dance back in Sa Pobla's Plaça Major. And the pilgrimage itself doesn't have to be on foot. There is a shuttle bus which goes every fifteen minutes.
Muro is another town which takes its pancaritat seriously. It's on Monday. Rockets fired at 10am are the starting-gun for the big day out (in Sa Pobla they ring the bells, minus the Antonia big bell, which has come down for repairs), and the "murers" trek off to the hermitage of Sant Vicenç (pipers in tow, naturally enough) for a spot of mass at eleven, some kiddies' ents at midday, ensaimadas and other nosh at the picnic tables and then some folk dance at half three once the food has been digested.
These are just a small selection of Mallorca's pancaritats. They are very much a Mallorcan tradition and Mallorcan only. In Catalonia there are "caramelles", which are similar in that they are an Easter festivity, but the pancaritat can rightly be claimed as being unique to Mallorcan culture and can also rightly be claimed as being one of the very oldest traditions on the island.
Long ago, the festival and bread-giving were combined. The poor would receive bread which had been blessed at the oratory of the Knights Templar, but the nature of the pancaritat changed over the centuries. By the nineteenth century it was no longer a solemn and charitable affair but rather an occasion for having something of a party, and the tradition had long ceased to be confined to Palma. Pancaritats now take place in most towns on the island.
This diffusion has meant that the pancaritat doesn't have to take place on so-called Angel Sunday. It has, quite literally, become a moveable feast, depending on where it is held. The word itself has acquired a different meaning. It is a picnic but one which retains a religious overtone. It is a picnic that is also a pilgrimage. In Palma this means thousands of people schlepping up to Bellver Castle. Elsewhere it can mean taking a bit of a stroll down the road, armed with bread, pastries and what have you and usually accompanied by the ubiquitous pipers.
In Alcúdia, as one example, they have stuck with Angel Sunday as being the day for the pancaritat. There is not one mass, not two but three. The first two are where mass is normally held - in the parish church - but the third, at one o'clock (just in time for lunch), is at the cave of Sant Martí, the rather odd bit of iconography carved into the countryside near the Bellevue hotel complex which is subject to the occasional spot of graffiti. Once mass is dispensed with, it's time to open the cool boxes and the picnic hampers.
But Alcúdia doesn't only have the Sant Martí pancaritat. The walk to the cave isn't that difficult. Walking up the mountain from Bonaire to the hermitage of La Victoria presents an altogether tougher proposition for the picnic-bound pilgrims. And it takes place on Tuesday, which is an example therefore of how the feast has been moved.
Similarly, Tuesday is the day for the good people of Sa Pobla to rediscover their Crestatx roots and head off the kilometre or so to the old oratory of Crestatx. It is a rediscovery because Crestatx is where the people of Sa Pobla were originally from. Under King Jaume II's system of Mallorcan new towns (1300), Crestatx folk were relocated, and thus Sa Pobla was born.
The Crestatx pancaritat is of an altogether grander order than the events in Alcúdia. It's an all-day affair, the pilgrimage leaving Sa Pobla at nine in the morning and not returning until half six in the evening, and even then there is more of a celebration - folk dance back in Sa Pobla's Plaça Major. And the pilgrimage itself doesn't have to be on foot. There is a shuttle bus which goes every fifteen minutes.
Muro is another town which takes its pancaritat seriously. It's on Monday. Rockets fired at 10am are the starting-gun for the big day out (in Sa Pobla they ring the bells, minus the Antonia big bell, which has come down for repairs), and the "murers" trek off to the hermitage of Sant Vicenç (pipers in tow, naturally enough) for a spot of mass at eleven, some kiddies' ents at midday, ensaimadas and other nosh at the picnic tables and then some folk dance at half three once the food has been digested.
These are just a small selection of Mallorca's pancaritats. They are very much a Mallorcan tradition and Mallorcan only. In Catalonia there are "caramelles", which are similar in that they are an Easter festivity, but the pancaritat can rightly be claimed as being unique to Mallorcan culture and can also rightly be claimed as being one of the very oldest traditions on the island.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Easter processions across Mallorca
A round-up of processions for today (referred to as Holy Thursday as opposed to Maundy Thursday) and tomorrow Good Friday, courtesy of the "Diario". Pollensa's Friday events are described as the most outstanding (though the translation can also mean most peculiar) and beautiful.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Friday, March 30, 2012
The Entry Of Christ Into Alcúdia
There was always something phoney about Easter. It was Christmas without the presents. Easter Sunday would loom and so would a hope that an oversight would be righted and that an old geezer with heavy boots and a woolly beard carrying a large sack of "Beano" annuals would make a reindeer-line for the chimney. It never happened. Easter was like Boxing Day; a total anti-climax.
Hunting for the chocolate egg (or better still, eggs) was small consolation. The buns with the cinnamony stuff on top were ok, but they weren't a pudding with sixpences inside it. Even the religious thing was all a bit bogus, as there were no Phil Spector or Motown carols LPs to be bought.
The religious thing didn't exactly play a huge part in our Easters. One Easter Sunday, totally against normal procedure, we all went off to church. It was clearly thought better of in subsequent years, as it never happened again. And for most people, Brits that is, one suspects the religious thing was - and still is - as inconsequential as it was to us. So much so, that there is much evidence to suggest that most Brits don't quite the get whole deal with Easter, as in, for example, being able to put a timeline on events.
Nevertheless, there was and is some sort of basic appreciation - cross, nails, no one in the tomb, raised from the dead, this sort of thing - but what of the appreciation of the, if you like, pre-match warm-up? Palm Sunday (and it's this Sunday, if you didn't know) barely even registered. We knew there was this business to do with a donkey and some palm leaves, but when Palm Sunday came around, it was, well, a Sunday.
A few years on from this deeply irreligious upbringing, and Palm Sunday was given a whole new lease of life. Not because of Palm Sunday as such, but because of Adrian Henri. One of the Liverpool Poets, Henri, with the group of which he was a member, the Liverpool Scene, recorded "The Entry Of Christ Into Liverpool". It caused a bit of a stir, but in so doing, it did add awareness of what Palm Sunday meant to a generation for whom it meant practically nothing.
The recording was made five years after Henri had completed painting his scene with the same title. It was a homage to James Ensor's "The Entry Of Christ Into Brussels" that the Belgian had painted in 1889. Unlike the poem set to music with the Liverpool Scene, Henri's painting had been largely overlooked, but once John Peel started playing the song repeatedly, so the painting assumed greater prominence.
Henri's theme, as had been Ensor's theme, was the "Second Coming" in a Palm Sunday scene for a very different time and a very different location. There was an element to it of it having been a precursor of the cover of The Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's" album. Among the various characters depicted were The Beatles themselves as well as those from the world of jazz, such as George Melly and Charlie Parker.
What made the painting, however, was its satire. In Henri's Palm Sunday, Christ is almost a peripheral figure. His entry into Liverpool has been hijacked by demonstrators against this and that - a large banner proclaiming "long live socialism" dominates the painting - and by the corporate world. Indicative of its time, prominent advertisers are Guinness and Colman's Mustard. Forward from the early 1960s to today, and the corporatism would be that much more extreme; immediate worldwide coverage would demand enormous advertising rates and a group of Official Sponsors Of The Second Coming.
This, though, would be the cynical attitude in a country without religion. In Mallorca, it would be different. Wouldn't it? Easter is, you may have noticed, a pretty big deal of adherence to religious tradition and little else. Even Palm Sunday's a big deal, assuming any palms are left. Perhaps it should be renamed Red Beetle Sunday. But were Christ to suddenly reappear and make an entrance into, shall we say, Alcúdia, would the temptation for rampant religio-commercialism be spurned? No, it wouldn't. In an imaginary remake of Henri's scene, The Entry Of Christ Into Alcúdia would feature a damn great TUI blimp hovering over Sant Jaume church. You would be barely able to make Christ out for the guests who had paid several grand per head for a ticket, straining to get their faces into camera shot.
Irreligious cynicism may not exist in Mallorca, but create the right money-making opportunity and it would. And as for Christ himself, what would he charge for image rights? God knows.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Hunting for the chocolate egg (or better still, eggs) was small consolation. The buns with the cinnamony stuff on top were ok, but they weren't a pudding with sixpences inside it. Even the religious thing was all a bit bogus, as there were no Phil Spector or Motown carols LPs to be bought.
The religious thing didn't exactly play a huge part in our Easters. One Easter Sunday, totally against normal procedure, we all went off to church. It was clearly thought better of in subsequent years, as it never happened again. And for most people, Brits that is, one suspects the religious thing was - and still is - as inconsequential as it was to us. So much so, that there is much evidence to suggest that most Brits don't quite the get whole deal with Easter, as in, for example, being able to put a timeline on events.
Nevertheless, there was and is some sort of basic appreciation - cross, nails, no one in the tomb, raised from the dead, this sort of thing - but what of the appreciation of the, if you like, pre-match warm-up? Palm Sunday (and it's this Sunday, if you didn't know) barely even registered. We knew there was this business to do with a donkey and some palm leaves, but when Palm Sunday came around, it was, well, a Sunday.
A few years on from this deeply irreligious upbringing, and Palm Sunday was given a whole new lease of life. Not because of Palm Sunday as such, but because of Adrian Henri. One of the Liverpool Poets, Henri, with the group of which he was a member, the Liverpool Scene, recorded "The Entry Of Christ Into Liverpool". It caused a bit of a stir, but in so doing, it did add awareness of what Palm Sunday meant to a generation for whom it meant practically nothing.
The recording was made five years after Henri had completed painting his scene with the same title. It was a homage to James Ensor's "The Entry Of Christ Into Brussels" that the Belgian had painted in 1889. Unlike the poem set to music with the Liverpool Scene, Henri's painting had been largely overlooked, but once John Peel started playing the song repeatedly, so the painting assumed greater prominence.
Henri's theme, as had been Ensor's theme, was the "Second Coming" in a Palm Sunday scene for a very different time and a very different location. There was an element to it of it having been a precursor of the cover of The Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's" album. Among the various characters depicted were The Beatles themselves as well as those from the world of jazz, such as George Melly and Charlie Parker.
What made the painting, however, was its satire. In Henri's Palm Sunday, Christ is almost a peripheral figure. His entry into Liverpool has been hijacked by demonstrators against this and that - a large banner proclaiming "long live socialism" dominates the painting - and by the corporate world. Indicative of its time, prominent advertisers are Guinness and Colman's Mustard. Forward from the early 1960s to today, and the corporatism would be that much more extreme; immediate worldwide coverage would demand enormous advertising rates and a group of Official Sponsors Of The Second Coming.
This, though, would be the cynical attitude in a country without religion. In Mallorca, it would be different. Wouldn't it? Easter is, you may have noticed, a pretty big deal of adherence to religious tradition and little else. Even Palm Sunday's a big deal, assuming any palms are left. Perhaps it should be renamed Red Beetle Sunday. But were Christ to suddenly reappear and make an entrance into, shall we say, Alcúdia, would the temptation for rampant religio-commercialism be spurned? No, it wouldn't. In an imaginary remake of Henri's scene, The Entry Of Christ Into Alcúdia would feature a damn great TUI blimp hovering over Sant Jaume church. You would be barely able to make Christ out for the guests who had paid several grand per head for a ticket, straining to get their faces into camera shot.
Irreligious cynicism may not exist in Mallorca, but create the right money-making opportunity and it would. And as for Christ himself, what would he charge for image rights? God knows.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, March 07, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Over two-thirds of hotels in Mallorca open for Easter
According to the hoteliers' federation, almost 69% of hotels, equivalent to 122,000 beds, will be open at Easter. In March, some 45% are open.
Roll Out The Barrel: Oil and airport strikes
Just when you thought that all those nice Arab sorts, running around causing a spot of bother, were helpfully attempting to pack Mallorca with wall-to-wall tourists, along come ... . Well, along come some other Arab sorts, those standing smugly in their sunglasses in front of some giant desert derricks. And, just to make things really ducky, along also come some airport-worker sorts.
As one door opens, so several close. Airlines, motorists, bus operators, taxi-drivers; all held over an oil barrel. Airport workers, rather than rolling out the barrel in greeting the Easter holidaymaker, threaten anything other than a barrel of fun. The gang's all there, waiting to get all aboard to jet off to sunny Spain, but rather than being able to enjoy the oom-pa-pa of an Arenal or to throw their cares away in Alcúdia, they end up sleeping on a bum- and back-breaking plastic bucket of an airport-lounge seat.
You knew that something had to go wrong. All we need is for Iceland to get in on the act again. It was all looking so good, all a bit too good. It couldn't last, and it hasn't.
Thomas Cook, Air Berlin, Air Europa and British Airways all started the ball rolling. Thomson and First Choice have followed. A family of four now faces forking out an extra 60 quid for its flights to Palma, assuming they can get on a plane. The Spanish airport workers intend to turn what is known as "jueves santo" (holy Thursday) into bloody Thursday, followed by Bad Friday, as airplanes will all be in the wrong places. Bloody airport workers, moan the families of four, already a couple of ponies and a brace of Godivas more out of pocket, having to hand over excessive cash in a refugee-camp-style departures lounge, while they wait for the workers to clock back in.
The airport workers plan a strike because they're unhappy about proposals for the part privatisation of AENA, the national airports authority. AENA reckons the strike won't happen, but then it probably would reckon this. Even if the strike were not to take place at Easter, the brothers are holding their sword of Damocles over the rest of the tourism season. They haven't quite got the Spanish Government over a barrel, but they're readying their staves and metal hoops just in case.
The uncertainty about oil supply is proving to be even less a barrel of laughs than the airport workers walking out. While the airlines are slapping on surcharges left, right and centre, the local buses and taxi-drivers have got their own worries. The price of petrol and diesel is now at a record high in Spain, so all those transfers and excursions and cabs back to the hotel after a night on the razz might also start attracting some extra charge.
The bus operators, and these include those for public transport, are hoping that they can prise a subsidy out of the government and create a so-called "professional" fuel price, as opposed to an unprofessional one for the suckers who have to drive cars. It might help them, the bus operators, out, and it might help in preventing surcharges, but at the same time as the government is hoping to claw back God knows how many millions of euros by reducing the motorway speed limit, it would be handing it out again to the coach firm transferring tourists to and from the airport.
And with the rise in the price of petrol, might we also anticipate a new addition to the moaning car-hire noises? "I've had to pay 700 euros for a tatty old Focus and now they expect me to pay 1.3 euros a litre as well. The authorities must do something." If it's any consolation, petrol in Spain is still cheaper than in many other European countries. But it won't be a consolation. It'll just be another stick with which to beat the local tourism industry.
There is, though, some good news. The fifteen quid per person Thomson surcharge is a lot less than that for long-haul and it is also less than the surcharge for travelling to Greece and Turkey. And Egypt. "Ha-ha-heh-ha-ha, you're more expensive." "And you started it." Which they did, give or take the odd Tunisia. And it was all really, really nice of them to have done so. We could have settled back and contemplated a fine summer, tourism money rolling in, staring out at a serene, calm sea. Until someone woke us from the dream and there was a ruddy great oil slick washing over us.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
As one door opens, so several close. Airlines, motorists, bus operators, taxi-drivers; all held over an oil barrel. Airport workers, rather than rolling out the barrel in greeting the Easter holidaymaker, threaten anything other than a barrel of fun. The gang's all there, waiting to get all aboard to jet off to sunny Spain, but rather than being able to enjoy the oom-pa-pa of an Arenal or to throw their cares away in Alcúdia, they end up sleeping on a bum- and back-breaking plastic bucket of an airport-lounge seat.
You knew that something had to go wrong. All we need is for Iceland to get in on the act again. It was all looking so good, all a bit too good. It couldn't last, and it hasn't.
Thomas Cook, Air Berlin, Air Europa and British Airways all started the ball rolling. Thomson and First Choice have followed. A family of four now faces forking out an extra 60 quid for its flights to Palma, assuming they can get on a plane. The Spanish airport workers intend to turn what is known as "jueves santo" (holy Thursday) into bloody Thursday, followed by Bad Friday, as airplanes will all be in the wrong places. Bloody airport workers, moan the families of four, already a couple of ponies and a brace of Godivas more out of pocket, having to hand over excessive cash in a refugee-camp-style departures lounge, while they wait for the workers to clock back in.
The airport workers plan a strike because they're unhappy about proposals for the part privatisation of AENA, the national airports authority. AENA reckons the strike won't happen, but then it probably would reckon this. Even if the strike were not to take place at Easter, the brothers are holding their sword of Damocles over the rest of the tourism season. They haven't quite got the Spanish Government over a barrel, but they're readying their staves and metal hoops just in case.
The uncertainty about oil supply is proving to be even less a barrel of laughs than the airport workers walking out. While the airlines are slapping on surcharges left, right and centre, the local buses and taxi-drivers have got their own worries. The price of petrol and diesel is now at a record high in Spain, so all those transfers and excursions and cabs back to the hotel after a night on the razz might also start attracting some extra charge.
The bus operators, and these include those for public transport, are hoping that they can prise a subsidy out of the government and create a so-called "professional" fuel price, as opposed to an unprofessional one for the suckers who have to drive cars. It might help them, the bus operators, out, and it might help in preventing surcharges, but at the same time as the government is hoping to claw back God knows how many millions of euros by reducing the motorway speed limit, it would be handing it out again to the coach firm transferring tourists to and from the airport.
And with the rise in the price of petrol, might we also anticipate a new addition to the moaning car-hire noises? "I've had to pay 700 euros for a tatty old Focus and now they expect me to pay 1.3 euros a litre as well. The authorities must do something." If it's any consolation, petrol in Spain is still cheaper than in many other European countries. But it won't be a consolation. It'll just be another stick with which to beat the local tourism industry.
There is, though, some good news. The fifteen quid per person Thomson surcharge is a lot less than that for long-haul and it is also less than the surcharge for travelling to Greece and Turkey. And Egypt. "Ha-ha-heh-ha-ha, you're more expensive." "And you started it." Which they did, give or take the odd Tunisia. And it was all really, really nice of them to have done so. We could have settled back and contemplated a fine summer, tourism money rolling in, staring out at a serene, calm sea. Until someone woke us from the dream and there was a ruddy great oil slick washing over us.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
This Charming ...
Charming. Not always a word that comes out sounding sincere, but I've got a place that fits the word, a place and the girls running it - and when I say girls, I do of course mean ladies or women. It's hard to know what the correct usage is as "girls" is quite acceptable here, as in "chicas". But so much for the apology for being non-PC. Where was I? Ah yes, charming. And more positive after yesterday's story of abandonment. Doubly positive as it's a place that has been given a really good makeover inside, and it looks great. On the pinewalk, Puerto Pollensa, the name - Los Pescadores. Angie runs it, with her sister. What really nice people, and I mean that most sincerely, friends (using my best Hughie Greene voice, which was not necessarily sincere, but is in this case).
A restaurant on the pinewalk. Boulevard may be colonising Puerto Pollensa with any number of tex-mex joints sprouting up all over the place, but on the pinewalk it is still possible to get restaurant charm. Pescadores was always a fairly decent place but it did need some work, and it has had it. Along with the cracking pizza place of Caryl, Rafa and Michele, Little (Italy) - though the Italy is not meant to be used - here are two places blessed by location on top of the beach and looking out over the bay, though today, the wind whipping in and cold, it was not really the day for the terrace.
And on Puerto Pollensa restaurants, a word about Sal i Oli, joint winner of best new restaurant of 2007. It is still Sal i Oli in essence but the name has changed to L'Almirant, which is the same as the original L'Almirant. Confusing I know. But the new L'Almirant is a Tapas and Beef Club, whereas the original L'Almirant was just tapas. There. Glad I've cleared that up.
Easter is here. Today is Holy Thursday, which is a bit of a gig in these parts: re-enactment of Last Suppers and various processions and the like. All part of the Semana Santa (Holy Week), which is in fact longer than a week. Though an irreligious sort, I shall be taking a slight rest over the Easter weekend, unless something really grabs me. So I apologise in advance if the normal daily dose is absent. Happy Bunnies.
A restaurant on the pinewalk. Boulevard may be colonising Puerto Pollensa with any number of tex-mex joints sprouting up all over the place, but on the pinewalk it is still possible to get restaurant charm. Pescadores was always a fairly decent place but it did need some work, and it has had it. Along with the cracking pizza place of Caryl, Rafa and Michele, Little (Italy) - though the Italy is not meant to be used - here are two places blessed by location on top of the beach and looking out over the bay, though today, the wind whipping in and cold, it was not really the day for the terrace.
And on Puerto Pollensa restaurants, a word about Sal i Oli, joint winner of best new restaurant of 2007. It is still Sal i Oli in essence but the name has changed to L'Almirant, which is the same as the original L'Almirant. Confusing I know. But the new L'Almirant is a Tapas and Beef Club, whereas the original L'Almirant was just tapas. There. Glad I've cleared that up.
Easter is here. Today is Holy Thursday, which is a bit of a gig in these parts: re-enactment of Last Suppers and various processions and the like. All part of the Semana Santa (Holy Week), which is in fact longer than a week. Though an irreligious sort, I shall be taking a slight rest over the Easter weekend, unless something really grabs me. So I apologise in advance if the normal daily dose is absent. Happy Bunnies.
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