Visiting Hogueras: La Florida Portazgo

So this year's Grand Prize Winner in the Categoría Especial is a repeat offender, they took the cake last year as well (and it's only their 4th year in this category)! Designed by Vicente Martínez Aparici, with a budget of 130 000€, the chosen theme was "Què faries si anara a acabar-se el món?" (What would you do if the world were to end?).


The monument is composed of various allegories representing the end of the world, through symbols such as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. According to Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the president of the Categoría Especial Jury particularly admired the "composition" and the concentration of figures "in perfect equilibrium" within this Hoguera, which defines the "essence of the fiesta". Personally I think what also helped this Hoguera (as opposed to my favourites Calvo Sotelo and Hernán Cortés) was that it follows a purer Alicante style of a dominance geometric shapes and lines (as opposed to the curvier figures in Hernán Cortés, reminiscent of the Fallas in Valencia). For a look at the people's reactions on hearing the good news, check out the pictures in this blog (I think it's by a local reporter).


First a couple of amusing scenes, such as a critique against popular "diets":


One thing I enjoyed about this Hoguera is that the notes that accompany each figure (present in all hogueras) were trilingual! So I don't need to do any translating! ;o)


How about this one?


How many of us have dreamt of doing this? Please let me know when the end of the world is nigh so I don't miss my chance! :p


Of course, when we think Biblically, "End of the World" brings one word to mind: Apocalypse! And as it says in the Bible (thx Wikipedia for the quotes!):

"And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword."

"And I beheld, and lo a white horse; and he that sat on him had a bow: and there was given unto him a crown, and he departed as conqueror and to conquest."

"And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand."

"And I beheld, and lo a pale horse; and he that sat on him was called Death, and Hades followed with him."

So where does this lead us if we can't make the cut for...

...uh-oh...

ouch!

Visiting Hogueras: Infantiles

Hey! So far these posts have been pretty much all about the big kids! What about the youngsters in this city?! Well, they have their place too (and not just carrying flowers to the Virgin). Each Hoguera chooses a young Belleza Infantil and an Hoguera Infantil (for the children) is built right next to the big one! When the time comes to burn it the Belleza Infantil will light the fuse and burn her Hoguera before it's the big one's turn.

And here are some pics of a few of them (I always forget these, oops! Some of them are quite beautiful!). As before we'll start off with the 3rd Category.

First off Hoguera Alicante Golf with the theme "L'Olimp del Foc" (Fire Olympia):


Here's the infantil for Hoguera Av. Costablanca Entreplayas (my neighbourhood, another fitting submission for World Oceans Day!):


And the Hoguera Explanada Puerto Postiguet with the theme "Zooil-logic" (Illogical Zoo) in which a family upon a visit to the Zoo discovers that something's not right...


On to the "Categoría Especial" with the Hoguera Port d'Alacant:


and the Hoguera Calvo Sotelo showing us the path "Del Olimpo a les fogueres" (from Mt Olympus to the Hogueras).


Here's an Ode to Superheroes at the Hoguera Hernán Cortés:



And finally, my favourite at the Hoguera Florida Portazgo (big winner in the adult category), a celebration of all the local holidays in Alicante.

Bellea as a mermaid...
holding the Fire of Hogueras:


A Christian and Moorish soldiers from the Fiestas de Moros y Cristianos


Participants in the Holy Week processions


The Three Kings (who bring gifts to children at the Epiphany, no Santa Claus here!)


The Romería a la Santa Faz


The Gigantes y Cabezudos (from the parade the other day!)


and if you can understand Spanish, here's a tale about several of them:

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!)

Potter Wednesdays: The Chamber of Secrets

Enemies of the Heir Beware!

The Chamber hath once again reopened its doors and the evil within shall strike down those unworthy to grace the halls of Hogwarts!

O.k., I'm going to start by saying this is my least favourite Harry Potter novel, and so ditto movie (no reflection on the quality of the film or the adaptation or anything else, I just didn't care for the original story!). In fact the movie got on my nerves in such a way as I'd say makes it a very faithful adaptation of the novel! ;o) I couldn't stand the character of Gilderoy Lockhart (but bravo Kenneth Branagh, great job!) the new DADA teacher (defense against the dark arts), and Dobby is very annoying!


So in the spirit of whining and complaining, I'm going to start out with things I didn't like... such as: isn't this also the book with the terrible Halloween party with all the ghosts? (haven't read them in a while, I might have that mixed up) If so that would have been an awesome scene to watch! And I missed the scenes where they steal the ingredients of the Polyjuice Potion from Snape's cupboard! What's the use of having introduced Harry's invisibility cloak in film 1 if they don't use it as much as in the book? And that was definitely not my idea of what a basilisk should look like! Haven't they read any Greek mythology?! Also -and big point here- the book managed to portray very well how bad Harry felt that many of his classmates turned on him and suspected him of being the Heir of Slytherin since he spoke Parseltongue (while Fred and George enjoyed it immensly! "Watch out! Heir of Slytherin coming through!")... in the movie there were barely a few annoying looks and whispers! Plus I wanted to see the History of Magic class with its ghostly professor who could probably kill you of boredom with his droning voice, I wanted to see the class wake up and pay attention when Hermione manages to break the monotony by quizzing him about the Chamber of Secrets (and not in McGonagall's class!).

Still... it was the last movie to feature a quidditch match between Slytherin and Gryffindor so there is that going for it... And kudos for welcoming in Ginny Weasly, poor girl should have known better than to mess with a book that has a mind of its own! Who said books weren't dangerous? ;o) Was also fun to get a peak into the Weasly's house (although we didn't get to stay long enough, snif!).

Favourite moment: Snape disarming a cocky Lockhart in the duelling lesson!

EXPELLIARMUS!

Next week, my favourite (I think) in the series: The Prisoner of Azkaban! :o)