Visiting Hogueras

At last! I can finally sit down and finish sharing last week's crazyness with you! The problem with blogging about festivities I've discovered... is precisely all the partying! lol! Staying out late (and on my feet) so many nights in a row takes a toll on the hours available the next day... and when you've got a house full of foreign visitors here to take it all in, well then your nights and days get pretty busy! :p Not to mention unpleasant things such as work getting in the way... ;o)

So, back to business! But before I wrap up the festivites with the big burning on the night of June 24 -> 25, I thought I should give you a better look at all these "doomed" monuments. Looking back over the posts I realised I hadn't shown you much of the Hogueras themselves! oops! So I'm going to introduce a few to you here, and then come back with a few more posts on the biggest ones (my two favourites plus the big prize winner). I just can't resign myself to two photos of each for those! ;o)

This first shot was taken by my sister. It's the Hoguera Puente Villavieja (by artist Joaquin Rubio), Fifth Category (9 of these were made, price range between 7505 - 8939€), up in the oldest neighbourhood of town. It's the only shot I've got from this category, apparently most of the ones I ran into were all Third Category! As you can see they're celebrating an 80th anniversary...


Now start a series of Third Category Hogueras (so price range between 10926 - 15781€, there were 14 of these in total), as you can see there's quite a bit of variation in size and quality within a same category.

Hoguera Plaza de Gabriel Miró (by Fernando García), a bit disappointing, last year's was much nicer!


Hoguera Alicante Golf (by Juan Asensi). Title: "Brisa Primaveral" (Spring breeze). I discovered this one on my way back from an English class, I hadn't realised there were so many hogueras in the beach area, we're finally better integrated into the City! ;o)


Hoguera La Condomina (by Miguel Balaguer), a 15' walk from my place, 2 blocks from my parents', celebrating its 10th Anniversary and receiving a 4th Prize in the category.


Hoguera Av. Costablanca Entreplayas (by Sergio Edo), two blocks from my place! They won the 2nd prize in this category. Yay! Damn! I just realised I never returned to get some better shots of this one! The theme was "La Moda" (Fashion):


starting as you can see here below in the Stone Age! ;o)


Hoguera Explanada Puerto Postiguet (by O. Serrano). This has to be one the ones seen by the most people as its right at the entrance of the center of town, at the end of the Explanada (Alicante's famous paseo) and just in front of the Harbour. Theme was "El Día i la Nit" in which the artist wanted to show the diversity in figures, character, happenings between night and day. Quite a few funky figures in there!


And do you remember this one? Hoguera Plaza Santa María, theme "Hechizo de Luna" (Under the Moon's Spell):

Well they won a well-deserved 1st Prize in the Third Category!

As I don't have any photos from the First or Second Categories (next year I need to do a better job of diversifying my visits!) we'll skip straight to the "Categoría Especial" i.e. the most expensive ones (over 54122€, but limited in height by law to be lower than 20m) and the ones that people make the most effort to visit (there are 11, with only 5 being within a reasonable walking distance in the downtown area). I'll just show three here, the other three I saw each get their own posts (since I can't make up my mind to reduce the number of photos just because I'm generous that way!)

First up, a shot by my sister of Hoguera Mercado Central by Daniel Jiménez, 8th Prize in this category.


Hoguera Port d'Alacant (by José García). Impressive, yes, but last year's (which I saw burn!) was much prettier! I'm assuming the "authorities" agree with me on this one as it got 11th Prize (i.e. last place) for this category. The main problem I have with this one is that since it's in the Harbour part of it is facing the water and so difficult to see! Supposedly you can walking in it for 3€, but in spite of having been by there twice I couldn't figure out the schedule!


here with the Hoguera Infantil in the foreground and Alicante's castle in the background.


Hoguera Polígono de San Blas (by Carlos Rondón). 9th Prize in this category. Oops! I forgot to check for the theme! I drove out looking for this one as it was one of the three Hogueras to feature an appearance by President Obama (see if you can spot him! he was also in the previous Hoguera with "W". Don't worry if you can't, Obama gets his own post when I'm done with these). The nice thing about this Hoguera is that it was located in an empty lot so plenty of room to walk around it and take photos.


Only problem was it faces east... and I went in the early afternoon so the sun was directly behind the monument... complicating my shots! argh!!!


Can anyone I.D. the musicians? ;o)


Coming up: the Grand Prize winner Florida Portazgo and my two favourites Oscar Esplà (4th place, with some gorgeous dancers) and Hernán Cortes (3rd place. Life is a game of chess! featuring the Spanish Royals and Obama!)