Costa Blanca and Valencia

Noelle Vickers very kindly invited me to stay with her and her husband for the weekend. Some of you might know of Noelle as the lady who set up Cultural Bloomsbury, a networking organization that has really flourished and has over a hundred people meeting every month to share information in this part of London. She has now moved to the sunny Spanish province of Almeria, (one hour south of Valencia) and is slowly setting up an English teaching course that offers total submersion in our language: http://www.llww.eu/business-english.html

The Noelle’s live next to a village called Pedreguer. When I arrived the village was enjoying 10 days of fiesta, so we went to check it out. Bull running is better known in Pamplona, but it is practiced in other parts of Spain, so I was excited to see up close and personal. There was quite a lot of waiting around and not much happening, but the locals take this opportunity to catch up with family and friends and everyone has a really good time.

When the bulls did arrive, they ran up and down the street getting more and more annoyed, the men had a chance to show off their bravura and then the animals where led away. Getting this close to a bull makes you respect them a whole lot more!



Noelle, also found some craftsmen for me to go and see. She first took me to see the guitar maker Francisco Bros: www.guitarrasbros.com

While we talked and looked around there was a Cuban musician checking out the latest instruments and tuning them. Luis Bros produces Classical, Cuban and Flamenco guitars. He showed me the difference between the different instruments, it was great to be able to hear the different styles of music.

We also went to see a local sculptor called Toni Mari. There are very few metal sculptors in Spain. Although I have seen a bit of pubic sculpture on the motorways and would be interested to find out how they are commissioned. Toni received us in his office, which was more like a sauna, and talked about how he had been lucky in doing what he likes and earning money out of it. www.tonimari.es

He also acknowledged that most of his clients where foreigners who had settled here. He admitted that the Spanish did not appreciate sculptor as much, but commissions where coming from the council and this was increasing. He is a man that makes the most of any opportunity and believes that what you give you get back. He offers apprenticeships to anyone who asks and told me he would be delighted to help share his work with anyone interested. There was no defensiveness or cynicism, if anyone copied him, he said; he would take it as a compliment! Wish more of us where like Toni.

On Sunday it was time to go to Valencia. I had booked myself into a large hotel slightly on the outskirts, bad idea, they are really ugly and you have to get the tube to get into the old town to see the attraction of this big city. After resting for a day and doing a little retail therapy, I decided to go and look up a company Katherine Beauchamp (of ‘Cole and Son’) had recommended to me. I did not have access to the internet at this hotel so I did not know what to expect. I got a train to the outskirts, where the large country house used to be, the rich red earth in these parts, grows citrus fruit, watermelons, dates, nuts, spices and much, much more. You can see why the Arabs fought so hard to keep these lands. I pictured El Cid coming all the way from Zamora to win his battles here in the south.

Garin is a textile manufacturer and when I arrived at the factory, I did not expect to see what I saw. Inside they have 15 looms that are still in use producing the most sumptuous woven silks you can imagine.

I spent 3 hours looking around with the Marketing Director. Garin is a family owned company that was set up in the early 19th century, I met the 8th generation, Elena, in her office. They have worked with the National Trust, Hampton Court, the Bolshoi….it goes on and on, but the main clients for the hand woven silks still come from Valencia. Women buy the material to make the traditional Valencian costume.


Considering the price of these works of art starts at 6000€ per square meter, you have to have a lot of national pride to want a costume for the Ferias. www.garin1820.c0m

The other thing I did while I was here was go to the famous Ceramic museum. Valencia is famous for three things Silk textiles; it was one of the three main producers in the 17th and 18th century (together with Florence and Istanbul) until a pesticide and a flood destroyed the Mulberry trees of this region in 1860.

Ceramics; the region produced vast quantities for all of Europe, now only a few villages produce pottery. And the third craft is jewelry which had a distinctive style, borrowed from the gypsy community and in turn originating from India.

Anyway, the Ceramic museum is as famous for the house in which the pieces are exhibited, as it is for the collection itself – well worth a visit and one of the few restored vernacular buildings I have seen.

Next to the Cathedral is a small craft market, specializing in needlework, lace making, embroidery and knitting. I have not seen one like it and was pleased to hear it is being restored.

I left just as Valencia was starting to warm on me.


With this project I am struggling to separate artistic craft and functional craft – it should be both, but inevitable personal taste dictates what stands out more.