Natural Heritage of Valencia and Valencian Community: A Visit to "Les Agulles de Santa Agueda", Benicasim and castellon, Official Tourist guided Visits.

This summer we had the opportunity to guide a mountain group to "Agulles of St. Agatha" in the natural park of Desierto de las Palmas.

 The amazing surprise come early for everybody because of its micro-reserve of Mediterranean flora from one side, to the other for the most remarkable religious past about the presence of the order of Carmel since ancient times with poetical names. As the word "desert" which alludes to the soul in mystical language struggling to meet God in solitary places for praying, known as hermitages in the mountain. And the last reason because of the mixture of pink and grey stones that gives to it an special colour during the dawn break and sunset with splendid overviews of the Mediterranean Sea from this natural Platform

Bahía de Benicassim desde el Bartolo

The name of the highest peak, "bartolo" (729mt) owes its name to the brother Bartolomé. One of the most famous monks who lived here, of which it is said he used to enjoy during springtime the landscape at the top and have a nap or siesta.The second important formation are Santa Águeda needles"with its pinkish and reddish forms that give a particular ghost charm by its presence next to the intense blue of the sea and the soft green of the palms and Mediterranean plants. This pink-colour formation comes from the Triassic, about 250 million years ago, as a conglomerate of Red stones (rodeno) resting on grey slates. Its pyramid shapes, pointed cusps and angled slopes formed by Triassic red and pink sandstones makes them so striking and responsible for its name of Agulles (spires).

 

Pink finger-like agulles

Organ-tube agulles

The name Santa Agueda was not given by a geologist but by an imaginative carmelite order religious man who lived once in the area. Santa Águeda was a martyr of Catania, in Sicily, in the first centuries of Christianity, in the mountains of Sicily. He was born in Palermo towards 230aD, a fervent Christian with whom he felt in love Quintian, Governor of Sicily. Agueda fled to Catania but Quintilian captured her and applied the torment in her body. Among the instruments needles were used to destroy the breast of the poor Virgin. San Peter appeared in her cell in jail to heal her. But she finally died February 5h of the year 251. According to some witness Etna volcano erupted one year later at the same day. In the vicinity of les Agulles is located an Hermitage in honour of two feminine saints, the hermitage of Les Santes,dedicated to Santa Lucia and Santa Agatha,restored in 1617 by the bishop of Cabanes, a nearly town.. 

Hermitage of Les Santes

 It was a priest of Cabanes, who recommended the Carmelite order to found in the desert of las Palmas around 1698. Saint Lucia is the patroness of a healthy sight and Agatha, a patroness and advocate of women. Some festivals area dedicated to St. Agatha in the Iberian Peninsula confirming her role as defender against any abuse concerning gender equality, as in Castile where ladies are given the batons for a day.

We finish this blog talking about the origins of such curiosity name as Agulles of Santa Agueda Spires of Saint Agatha). Twin chest-shaped mountains are common in the Iberian Peninsula. In this case, should it be a religious member who baptized them as dedicated mountains to Saint Agatha to relate them to the nearby Hermitage. And the form of "needles" of course remind us the instruments of torment with which Sicilian executioners wanted to deprive the santa of her feminity. If we look from the agulles to the Bartolo's mountain we can observe that the peak recalls as the head of the Virgin while the needles should look like a body lying down towards the calmed waters of the Mediterranean sea while receiving her martyrdom.    

The big spire

Smaller spire formations

The Monte Bartolo, 200 meters high, gives us amazing views around the 180 km of the Valencian Gulf from the river Ebro mouth at north mouth to the Montgo mountain at Javea to the south . In front of us the silhouette of Columbretes Islands. Behind us the first Hermitage ruins and the current Carmelite convent. A joy for the senses. A real trip to cultural Valencia and Castellon.

Roman arch at Via Augusta

Jose Vicente Niclos

Tourist Official Guide, Pt. Of Apit

Bibliogrhapy: 

Vicente Sos Babyat, El valle de Miravet y “Les Agulles de Santa Agueda” (sep. Del Boletín de la Sociedad Castellonense de Cultura t. xxxv e. octubre -Diciembre 1959.

Juan Emilio Prades,  Eremitorio de les Santes, Cabanes: Costumbres y paisajes Bel

An orange Around the World

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Did you know where does it come from the name “orange” and other curiosities of Valencia?

The name “orange” comes from the old Provencal auranja meaning "golden color-like", which results in Spanish naranja. The term would come from Indian languages like Sanskrit which contains the prefix naru/nari which in the sense of “fragrant”. Then golden-color and fragant-smell are the two most important qualities of this exotic fruit. In German, another name is "Chinish apple" (Apfelsinne). Oranges were known in the Middle Ages since they came from Persia and bitter- orange ornamented gardens and patios of Andalusian style. In the fifteenth century sailors brought the first sweet orange to Portugal and Spain around 1560. It came first from India to african lands as Mombasa (Kenya). Were they small varieties such as tangerine or mandarine?

                                        Orange production in the world, 2010

The truth is that in Valencia, specifically Carcaixent tradition exists according to which around 1781 the priest Vincent Monzo begun to dedicate dry-land to cultivate the first commercial orange fields. He had tasted first the oranges from the nearby closter of a Dominican sisters convent and liked the taste. That same year he asked the the pharmacist Jacinto Bodi to bring back some small Lemon Tress from Murcia in order to make a graft of tangerines on them., of neighboring Murcia feet of sweet orange grafted lemon. This day was to born the sweet big orange of an appreciable size. The notary of the town Carlos Maseres, join the venture, and create the conditions for exploitation in irrigated lands and the basis for export through the port of Denia, Gandia and Valencia to northern Europe, as well as by railroad since 1855.

The orange and the Mediterranean diet

The best known varieties begin in Seville and Valencia, with tangerine and clementine, follow with the Navel, Navelina and Sanguine crops and end by June in Valencia itself with the variety Late (or Navel-Late).
The most recognized variety because its flavor is the Navel orange. Its origin is worth a look back to History. The Spanish and Portuguese navigators from the sixteenth century carried the Orange to South America. Three centuries later, in 1820, in another monastery, this time in Brazil, there was a second mutation resulting in the "orange-navel", whose main feature was that at the base of the fruit, just to the other side of the peduncle , a small atrophied orange that resembles a navel appeared. The Brazilian monastery became a source of continuous cuttings because otherwise there was no genetic variation at the tree. Next was developed a new one, called "naveline" with a crust easy to peel and the aforementioned "navelate". 

                                                   

                                                                                 

                                                                                   Navel Orange

Carcaixent, Algemesí and Alzira, the river Xuquer Bank (“Ribera alta) offer top quality oranges of this kind.

With regard to its marketing should be mentioned that as well as in Andalucía some British families reamined after the war against Napoleon, as those names like “Osborne” and “Domec”. In Valencia the same happened with other families, some of Irish origin, as the “Trenor” one, who engaged in the export of this “golden fruit”, obtained large tracts of land and and ascended in social status getting wuch titles as “Marquis”. They finnally bought a well-known monastery of name “San Jerónimo de Cotalba”, protected in past times by the Borjas Family.
Orange also has been the subject of artistic designs around the world to show how nice and tasteful orange circles the world.

                      

Small Orange-Snake

                                                        Orange designed by a Mexican artist

Finally at our tour around this region, we made a short stop at the “Huerto de Maseres” and -why not?- at an splendid lunch at the leisure area surrounding the Garden of Soriano. Is it not like an italian Tuscany in Valencia?

             

                  "Hort de Soriano"                                      "Hort de Masseres"

Overview on the "soriano" valley

                                                                                       

Thousands of foreigners visit this land why don't you?

Guided Tourist Visits to Valencia, Spain

Jvn