A visit to our favourite potter

Tinajas Moreno León is a pottery in Torrejoncillo North of Caceres, about 1 hour 20 minutes from Finca al-manzil.
http://tinajasmorenoleon.com/en/
 It is well worth a visit, one of the few potteries, alfarerias, still making the huge clay storage pots called tinajas. For hundreds of years the same family have been digging the clay at Torrejoncillos and making these wonderful vessels. Most days of the week one can visit and see the whole process from lumps of clay to the finished articles towering over the busy potters.
Not only do they make traditional tinajas but all manner of pots for home and garden at surprisingly reasonable prices. 

Although they do not make small domestic kitchen articles they have a fine stock bought in from other potters in Spain and Portugal. Some very pleasing shapes, sturdy terracotta caseroles, baking trays, jugs, platters and bowls. I have bought many of my kitchen pieces there, always in constant use, they seem to improve with age, gaining a lovely patina after many a succulent dish has been slowly baked and enjoyed straight from the pot, they are perfect for the hearty rustic dishes of Extremadura.
Here are some freshly made clay ovens drying before being fired in the massive kilns.

Here is a poster advertising the pottery, they have used an image from one of Fernando Gallego's  stunning retablos, this one can be seen at Ciudad Rodrigo. The miracle at the wedding feast of Cana, water into wine, just look at those tinajas, obviously made in Extremadura since Roman times and here portrayed at the end of the 15th century.

 I like this image of tinaja transport in the 1930s, in this manner these huge pots were taken to the nearest rail transport and then on to bodegas all over Extremadura

The visit to the pottery can be combined with a visit to the monastery of Palancar which is on the way, see my post about the monastery http://finca-al-manzil.blogspot.com.es/2009/12/short-trip-to-very-small-monastery.html

Also just a few kms further on from the pottery is the interesting old town of Coria with some lovely walks along the Alagon river http://www.spainisculture.com/en/destinos/coria.html

A HAUNTED PLACE IN PORTUGAL- FADAGOSA THERMAL BATHS

Last Saturday we dropped Lucy and Ivani off at Evora train station and continued further North to one of our favourite places, Marvao.  Unfortunately it was the annual Feria de Castaños, the chestnut fair which seemed to be attended by the whole of the Alentejo and beyond, there was even a bus from Zafra. We decided not to get involved with the crowds as the whole point of Marvao is the slow pace of life, almost from another age. Still good to see that a few times a year it gets busy, very well organized with private cars banned, the only way up to the village is by walking or taking a designated bus which parks outside the walls.

We decided to re-visit somewhere that we had discovered years and years ago on one of our rambles whilst living in the Alentejo.  The old thermal baths of Fadagosa established at the beginning of the XIX century, popular with Portuguese and Spanish people afflicted with rheumatism, skin diseases and gout. The baths flourished until a steady decline in the 1930s until they fell into disuse and ruin by the end of the 1950s.

Today the ruin is complete with fallen roofs, shattered floors and splintered doors. Only the strong cobalt blue of the remaining woodwork retains some colour amidst the decay.

 

 

Because of the strong spring which still gushes from the ground the whole area is inundated causing prodigious growth of sumac and brambles, some evidence of an orchard still remain with a few straggly orange trees.

The atmosphere is haunting, what stories of hope, cure and death might echo through the long corridors and waft around the still remaining marble baths. A little piece of Portuguese social history in this remote corner of the Alentejo.