I am from a small town near Valencia, Spain, named Algemesí. With a population of about 27,000, its economy is basically rural. The town is located in a natural park, L’Albufera, which is a big swamp surrounded by rice fields and which has numerous species of birds and fishes.
If I had to define my hometown with a word I would say oranges. Yes, Algemesí is one of the most important production centers of oranges and you can find our fruit all around the world.
The climate is mild with scarce rainfall, except for October, and hot summers. The sea, mountains, and vegetation are pretty much like in California.
The origin of the town is Islamic. The town was part of the Islamic kingdom of Al-Andalus, was conquered by the Catalonians, and converted to Christianity in the thirteenth century. That is why we speak both Catalan and Spanish, the language of the kingdom that dominated the Iberian Peninsula from the sixteenth century.
Algemesí has a couple of things to offer in spite of its rural predominance: churches and religious festivities. Algemesí’s nickname is “The little Vatican”! The feast of the Virgin of Health (Mare de Déu de la Salut) is the event of the year. During three days the entire town is devoted to its patron saint and celebrates her with dances and masses. Yeah, I know, it doesn’t sound fun, but it is. Even if you don’t believe, the folklore and the whole paraphernalia are beautiful. We also have bullfighting after that.
To sum up, Algemesí isn’t the most popular travel destination, but it is worth a detour. If you happen to be close by, stop there and eat one of the delicious pastries that we have to offer or eat some of our oranges. I swear they are good!!
4 comments:
It's not surprising for me that your hometown is very famous with orange. In Turkish, we use the word "portakal" for orange. It means exactly the country Portugal. It's clear that we took the orange fruit from Iberica Peninsula. Since Spain is a part of it, it's very normal that you have tasty oranges.
I think we have a variety of oranges in the store we simply can "valencias." Since I am a native of California, I try to eat oranges from there, but I also like to pick out valencias when they arrive.
Of course, when I visited Valencia, I didn't know about the small town of Algemesí. I enjoy visiting small towns though, and hope I´ll have the opportunity next time I go to Spain.
What about the origin of the word 'Algemesí'? I think it's Arabic... I wonder what it means...
Algemesí is a lot of beautifull.
The organges, miss Pepa, fogassetes and the Muixeranga is more important tradittion.
Friends we are invitattion go on to Algemesí.
Wellcome to Algemesí!!!!!
parapheralia, what a beautiful word!!
somebody told me that Algemesí could come from the Arabic name of Thursday (Gemesi). 'Al' is an article (the), so maybe Algemesí means the place were there was a market on Thurdays... but I think there are other theories that for sure are more accurate...
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