The City of Almeria: March 9th

Almeria city is the capital of the province of Almeria. It is less well known than other regional capitals like Seville as it has less ‘A’ list attractions. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant city and an important port with ferry links to North Africa. We parked by the port and strolled up the attractive main boulevard that used to be a dried-up river bed.

Trees feature plentifully, most with this bottle stopper clipping treatment that would do credit to any barber.

There were a few individual typical Spanish buildings that stood out.

And even in the backstreet quarters, some inhabitants made an effort to brighten things up. This flowery balcony is an example.

Approaching the cathedral we noticed a large sun symbol on the wall. It’s not certain who authorised the carving during the building of the cathedral in the 16^th century as it is represents Sol the Roman sun god and nothing to do with Christianity. However, because Almeria is the sunniest province in Spain, it has been adopted by the Almeria Tourist Board as their logo.

 Moving to the front of the cathedral, it looks more like a castle. This was the intention as the city was plagued by pirates and the upper parts of the church were designed for, and actually held, cannon.

That’s the trouble with having visited the stunning Seville cathedral, others look like a poor relation. However, the photo of this fine chapel shows a silhouette on the right exclusive to Almeria cathedral. By his horns, it has to be the Devil himself!

To be fair, the altarpiece is magnificent, and compares favourably with the best.

Going through the cloisters on the way out, it’s charming but functional. You can imagine the scurry of men passing powder up to the cannon when the city was under threat.

In the old quarter we walked through pleasant squares and elegant buildings like the town hall.

And this courtyard, beautifully proportioned, was a location for the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Probably the best monument in Almeria is the Alcazar, the fortress on the hill overlooking Almeria. It was started by the Moors in 955 and extended in the 11^th century. There are  at 3 rings of walls and at one time contained a population of 20,000. We did not visit due to shortage of time. The photo is from the car park just before leaving the city.

Almeria, although not spectacular, had a really nice feel and merited more time than we gave it.

The blog is usually written about a week after the event. After visiting Almeria we travelled the next day, March 10^th, to our destination campsite near Mazarron. A week on, at the time of writing, we are in lockdown at that site. Spain is now just behind Italy in the surge in Corona virus cases. In the next blog I’ll attempt to describe how we are coping locally and at our campsite.