And Now It's Home

And Now It's Home, Yes, Martos is now our home & will be forever, we even have prepaid funeral plans here so no more England, not that we could afford it there anyway.

Martos is a great town, perched on the edge of a giant lump of rock, & clinging to the sides of it, & which is called La Pena, Google translates this as The Pain or The Sorrow or possible The Pity, if you have tried to climb it you would know why!

Martos is basically an agricultural town, massively dependent on Olives, in fact it is said that the best olives & therefore the best olive oil in the world hails from here but it is so much more, One of the large industrial areas at the bottom of the town in anchored by Valeo one of the world largest manufacturers of lighting for cars and of course we have Mercadona, Carrefour & a large Dia & Dia Express as well as loads of
Chinese bazaars.

Most of the bars offer free tapas, I'm sorry for the coastal people who have to pay for tapas, it's mostly free here, in fact, haven't found one that charges yet. A whole street Pierre Cibie (Known locally as the street of Trees) is pretty much just bars & restaurants & flipping amazing choices, La Tiza being the best there (IMHO) The street
is totally closed during one week in August for a celebration of San Bartolome & fills with street markets & fairground rides in the street & also in the park adjoining. Charlottes is also good & a 5 min walk from our little piece of heaven.

Our little piece of heaven, they say you cant buy happiness, well we did, Casa Happiness has a sign over the door saying Felicidad so there. It is in the old part of town which is great if you want to go down into the town proper but a killer in summer walking back, fortunately a bus ride is less than one Euro anywhere in town to anywhere else and  a taxi (Candy Taxi highly recommended) is 5 Euros.

The earliest records of Martos seem to be around 250AD when it was called Tucci, but was obviously

Tucci

established much earlier & after which we have named one of our locally rescued dogs and there are many Roman blocks some around & in the Library & loads built into the base of the town hall.

There is a ruined castle which is somewhat odd (for a history buff anyway) as the locals seem to have built their houses on & around it. I know that many ruins in Europe were scavenged for the stones but the Martenos have taken it to a whole new level. The castle seems to have been established as part of the walled city around the mid 13th Century & enlarged & changed many times over the next couple of centuries, Several towers still remain but as I say, they seem to have been incorporated directly into local houses.

 

The first picture shows the best tower It has a rubble tube from a window where restoration is taking place, the next photo shows the remains of someones bathroom, there used to be a shower head, now removed, built into the castle wall, The third & fourth photos show houses still built on & against the wall & another tower, I guess the original inhabitants of the town did not want to use space on which they could grow another few olive trees!

There is more to this town than I could fit into this one blog, I've already hinted at the doors in a previous one, still got to do windows, the wrought iron work, the windows, the tiny cobbled streets one of which fooled one of our Rescue Dog vans! & the roundabouts but these are all for another day.

Hasta Luego