Murcia (13th August)

Hello, good evening, and welcome to another episode of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook. Now, I’m sure that you’ll have been paying attention so you’ll know that today was scheduled for a trip to Murcia. I was surprised to learn that Murcia is actually Spain’s 7th largest city. It was actually founded in the 9th century by the Emir of Cordoba, and I saw a couple of traces of the city’s Islamic heritage.

So, I promised you some foolishness, I think. I made sure that I was by the station with some time to spare, so I nipped into the nearby Hiperber supermercado to buy a large bottle of water, and a smaller one. The idea was to drink the smaller one, then refill it and use it if I was going to make a painting. Clever huh? Well, actually not really. You see, I opened it on the platform a minute or two before the train was due. Now, bearing in mind it was called something like Gaseosa I did expect it to be fizzy. Not that fizzy, though. It practically exploded on opening, and the top third of the bottle showered me, just as the train was pulling into the station.

To be fair the little Cercania train to Murcia passed through some quite interesting scenery. Now, I’m a city boy, myself, and I often find scenery to be a bit like wallpaper – I don’t really notice it’s there a lot of the time. The hills, which we passed quite near to, were impressive. In fact, colour and shape wise they were kind of like I’d imagine the surface of Mars to be like.

It took about 40 minutes to get to Murcia. Now, a little bit of research beforehand had told me that I really wanted to see the old town, and that the railway station was a bit of a walk. When I had researched which bus to take me to the Royal Casino – more about that later - - it gave me two options. Well, when I asked the drivers of both,- Casino Real – they both gave me the kind of reaction they might have done if I’d asked them for a cheap day super saver return to Ulaan Baatar. So stuff it, I thought, and started to walk. I had seen the tower of the Cathedral as we’d puled into the station, so I knew the right general direction. I hoped.

No, I’m not going to try to keep you in suspense. I did get there. And the centre of Murcia is really rather impressive. First port of call was the aforementioned Casino Real. It was built in the 19th century, and is still the HQ of a private club, but in 1983 it was declared a national monument. Oh, and if the word ‘casino’ is conjuring up mental images of slot machines and roulette tables, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Open to the public are some rather grand public rooms – ballroom, a hall of mirrors, and an Italianate patio meant to conjure up images of Pompeii. After I’d taken the audio tour I was pretty much ready for a sketching break, so I walked to the Plaza San Domingo at the end of the street where the casino was located, and made the ink sketch you can see of the corner of said street.

The Casino is the most visited building in Murcia. However, probably the most impressive is the Cathedral. Again, I had the same problem with it that I’d had in Madrid – when you’re in the Plaza where you can see it’s detailed and ornate façade, you just can’t get a good sketch of it. You can’t because a) you’d hurt your neck, and b) the whole plaza is bathed in sunshine and you’d go doolally in the heat before finishing your sketch. On the same plaza is the tourist information office, and all I had to do was ask and they gave me a lovely detailed map of the centre of the city. Incidentally this revealed that I had actually gone in a fairly impressive circular detour on my way from the station to the Cathedral. Such is life.

Using the map then I visited a nineteenth century market, just as it was closing up for siesta time, and crossed the Rio Segura on a different bridge from the old bridge I’d used earlier. Walking back along the side of the river towards the old bridge I came upon a good angle showing the bridge, and the tower of the cathedral, with, more importantly, a bench in the shade to sketch it from. This is the second sketch I made today.

I had two things left by this time. The first was to sort out some sustenance. I’d bought a couple of queso y jamon boccadillas (aka cheese and ham baguettes (aka cheese and ham long crusty rolls) ) earlier before catching the train. Having polished these off I was looking for a little more. I passed a pasteleria and saw what I took to be a tray of cheese pastries in the window. I bought one, bit into it, and found that what I had taken to be light yellow cheese was actually custard. Gotta be honest, it was delicious, for all that. Then it was a gentle walk to the station, incidentally passing by tpday’s winner of the Most Unusual Name For A Museum Award – Museo de la Ciencia y Agua de Murcia (The Museum of Science and Water of Murcia). I’ll be honest, I was tempted to have a look inside, but time was getting on, and so I headed back to the station.

Nothing particularly interesting to report occurred on the way back to the Casa Me Duck, but something interesting happened when I got there. I was sitting in the living room, minding my own business, reading my kindle, when the sofa started to shake from side to side. Honestly, it was an earth tremor, and it went on for it must have been about half of minute. Apparently it’s not uncommon here, and the houses have been built so that they can withstand any amount of tremors of this strength – which I believe from reports locally to have been about 4. Well, I can promise you all that it is the only time that the Earth has moved or will move for me on this trip. (Oh, be fair, you can’t say that you didn’t expect that one, surely.)

So that was the trip to Murcia – nice place and I enjoyed. Tomorrow it’s Alicante. More foolishness? Can’t promise anything. Watch this space. Adios.