Stones

Well, you probably know by now about my fascination for stones (specially those made by our fellow humans of yore).

These are some samples of some stones I have photographed in my last safaris:

This is a ponte romana do Bao (the Roman Bridge in O Bao), in my hometown, a medieval bridge constructed following the examples of Roman bridges in the Province, like those in Lugo (Lucus Augusta) and other places, in Gallaecia, Hispania. It's a beautiful bridge that crosses the river Cobo, and for a long time was the only means to easily transport animals and loads from the harbor towards the center of the parroquia (parish): Nowadays there's a new, bigger, car-ready bridge closer to the river mouth and a bigger one for the train, that cannot be seen on the picture. The other only way of crossing the river (and not getting soaked, that is) was a stones way that crossed it, and only when the tide was low (it's covered in high tides). That's my S.O. over the bridge, who graciously offered herself as a way to compare its size. I took the picture from the middle of the river as it flows as we can see in the picture when the tide was (very!) low, in some rocks that were handy. There's a sign, a snake, made on the right pillar, between the holes you can see in the bigger picture (click it to zoom in) but you'll probably won't be able to detect it. I will probably try and get better pictures for you all to enjoy. The snake (and other marks) are probably the architect's signature of some kind.

Next if the castle of Manzanares El Real, in Madrid, a beautiful medieval castle in the mountain range of Madrid, which has been partially restored and where the current Estatute of Autonomy of Madrid was signed in June, 1982. In a way, it looks like a fairy tale castle, it's quite cute, actually. The place dominates a huge plain with lakes and ways towards the 4 directions.


Finally, we went to a concert last Saturday, where a quartet called Shir gave a recital of classical shefardi romances (shefardis were the Jews who lived in Spain --kingdoms of Castilia and Aragon at the time-- before they were expelled by the so-called Catholic Kings in March, 31, 1492; romances where the traditional, popular poems and songs of the time) and other traditional jewish songs, thus they sung in Mozarab (or español yudió), in Yiddish, Hebrew and English (I think), in a beautiful scenario: the Temple of Debod, in Madrid. The temple was created ca. 2200 BCE by Pharaoh Ptolomeus IV Philopator, and transported to Madrid in 1968 after the rescue missions to protect the remains in the site where the Great Dam of Aswan is nowadays. Here's a picture of it when the night fell and the lights were on. I'll probably write an entry about it later on, with more pictures and so, I'd like to go in daylight and visit its insides!


As for the rest, I'm reading a book by a Catalan author, Martí Gironell, who first published it in Catalan (Els pont dels jueus) in its Spanish edition (El puente de los judíos, "The Bridge of the Jews") about the construction of the medieval bridge of Besalú, in Girona, Spain. Here's a picture courtesy of Wikimedia:
As you can see in this picture (and others on the net, Panoramio has a good deal of them) I must say it's a really beautiful bridge, indeed! The book's providing interesting, and it came in an interesting time, because I was planning about writing the story of the bridge in O Bao in galician for the next Nanowrimo... However, I have hardly found any information about its origins, so I guess it will take longer to research than I'd liked... Next Nano will have to go by another subject, but it's in my mind, anyway (not comparable, but my bridge is also very nice ;-)

Well, and I'm slowly learning my driving rules: it's fairly boring!

Revolt! is also shaping slowly, but actually even slower than I'd like, to be sincere. In my defense, it's very hot during the nights, and I'm tired of not sleeping well, and I'm thinking about driving (myself nuts, that is!).

I'll try to give it a boost, though...

Take care! KALLISTI!