Okay, so when I left you in the previous episode,
I’d just scarpered from the Testivos de Jehova. I sat myself outside the Church
of San Bartolomeo, fully intending to sketch the church as an act of penance,
when I noticed a rather interesting statue right in front of it. Dios Mercurio,
or the God Mercury as we call him. My first thought was that the Church was
rather bidding against itself by having this statue outside its entrance, but
then, thinking about it, I suppose that it’s the ecclesiastical equivalent of a
Marvel comics/DC crossover. By the way, if you’re looking at the sketch, that
thing sticking out in front of the statue is his caduceus. Ooh, Matron. That’s
his wand – ooh Matron. Honestly, get your minds out of the gutter, please. The
caduceus is the staff with two serpents wound round it which has since become
an international symbol for medicine and medical help. As for the strange thing
seemingly sticking out of his cheek, well, this was all part of a baseball hat
and scarf combination which had been hung rather haphazardly around his neck.
I had a hankering to see the Plaza
del Toros, which I noticed on the map. Yes, that’s right, a bullring. Now, let
me try to explain my feelings about this. I have never been to a bull fight,
and I never want to go to a bullfight. I understand that bull fighting is part
of Spanish culture and tradition, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it
or condone it, because I don’t. But architecturally, I wanted to see the
building – well, the outside at least. For me, a Spanish bullring is the
closest modern descendant of a roman amphitheatre, both architecturally, and
also in terms of the bloodthirsty spectacle provided. So I did walk along to
it, and in terms of architecture, I can’t say that I was disappointed. It
wasn’t easy to get a good vantage point to sketch it, and this was a standing
up job.
I walked back towards the cathedral,
and found a useful low stone wall to sit on while I sketched the bell tower,
which you can see on the same page as the sketch of Mercury. Time was getting
on by now, and a spot of lunch seemed to be in order. Cards on the table, food
never forms an important part of my agenda whenever I’m on a sketching trip,
and especially when the weather’s hot as it is here, then it tends to suppress
my appetite. However, you do have to eat, and in this case I walked back down
the Gran Via towards the bridge, then took a detour towards what I think was
the Church of San Pedro, and this was surrounded by restaurants, as you can
hopefully see from the sketch I made. I had a very nice slice of pizza with
cheese and chorizo, and thus fortified, I headed back towards the river.
It was while I was walking towards an
interesting Iron girder bridge that I noticed that something was sticking out
of the river. Something huge. A closer look revealed that it is in fact a
sculpture, of the head of a fish, and its tail sticking out of the river. I
have to say that I rather liked the frivolity of it. I idly googled it when I
got back to the casa last night, and found out that it is the Sardina del
Segura – the Segura being the river – and it’s a tribute to the most famous
ancient fiesta of the city, the Enttierro de la Sardina. It’s held every
spring, and the literal meaning of Entierro del Sardina is the burial of the
Sardine. And you thought my putative Fiesta del Propane sounded silly! I’m not
making this one up. Apparently it is a mock funeral procession which ends with
a symbolic burning of an effigy of a sardine to mark Ash Wednesday, the end of
carnival and the start of Lent. 
Well, I thought, how do you follow a
giant, concrete sardine sticking out of the middle of the river? I’ll be
honest, I didn’t have much of an answer when I’d finished the sketch. My modus
operandi for a day’s sketchpedition is to keep going until my legs hurt, and
then stop. It was about 3 o’clock and my legs were hurting, so I headed to the
station. Where I swiftly found out that the next train to Alicante didn’t leave
until 4. Well, such is life. I wasn’t in a huge rush, which was just as well
because it was more like quarter past by
the time the train left the station.
Just one more thing worthy of
mention. Only two of us got off the train at San Isidro. The other guy was
ahead of me, and we both walked out of the station. Then he headed off in
exactly the direction I wanted to go. Every turning I needed to make, he made
exactly the same turning before me. As we approached the road with the Casa Me
Duck I couldn’t believe that he walked into exactly the same street. Poor devil
must have thought that I was deliberately following him. In fact, I wouldn’t
have been surprised if he had preceded me into the gates of the casa, but
thankfully he went into a house across the road, and so my brief, unwanted
career as San Isidro’s own Senor Stalker came to an end.
Well, that’s it for yesterday’s
Murcia trip. Not a lot happening on what has been a lazy, can’t be bothered to
step outside the casa, day so far today. So I’ll see you again tomorrow.
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