Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin March 31

FEATURE ARTICLES: "Easter kicks off in Spain" while "Airports reveal their summer schedules"

The days are getting longer as we approach summer; the weather is getting warmer with wonderful sunny days forecast for the Easter holidays; the nights are brighter, in some cases looking almost as bright as the daytime as fierce forest fires light up the hilltops and mountainsides of Spain.

While the good weather is a blessing for those hoping to spend their spring break soaking up some rays on the beach or by the pool, the lack of rainfall has meant that the wildfires which hit Spain every summer have come earlier than expected this year.

Firefighters are tackling dozens of blazes in Lugo, Cantabria and Asturias in the north of Spain; the ongoing fire in Castellón and Teruel that has forced nearly 2,000 people to be evacuated from their homes; and smaller fires in Murcia’s Cieza and Malaga’s Yunquera.

The dry conditions, which are already causing water shortages in some parts of Spain, are worrying so early on in the year, and are creating a tinderbox situation in the Spanish countryside that has experts worried for what might lie ahead for this summer. Last year was already the most destructive on record in terms of the amount of land burnt up by forest fires, and there are fears that 2023 could be even worse.

It’s not letting the Spanish put a damper on their Holy Week celebrations though, and the country is gearing up in full force for Easter, not least of all with the announcement of summer flight schedules which begin this month and next...

A Holy Week

Easter is nearly upon us. In fact, for some, it’s already upon us as a few early-bird towns and cities around Spain, such as Cartagena, have already started their first religious Easter processions and taken this Friday March 31 – the Friday of Sorrows – as a bank holiday.

The main dates for the public holidays this Easter are Maundy Thursday (also known as Holy Thursday) on April 6 and Good Friday on April 7. These two days are national holidays across the whole country, and as always each town or city with its own Ayuntamiento is allowed two extra holidays per year to take at a time of their choosing.

For most though, the Holy Week, or ‘Semana Santa’ as the Spanish call it, is the first major celebration of the year after the Three Kings Christmas holiday in early January. So it’s a big event and lots of people look forward to it eagerly. But do you know what actually happens at Easter in Spain?

In Spain, they don’t do the Easter Bunny and there are no egg hunts where children have to search out chocolate Easter eggs. All of those customs that we’re used to come from the celebration of this time of year as the beginning of spring, whereas the Spanish still retain Easter as a time of religious fervour when they remember the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made when he died on the cross.

Sure, you can find Easter eggs in some supermarkets since, as in most things, the forces of globalisation and ‘Hollywoodisation’ of cultures across the world has meant that the Spanish are not ignorant of nor averse to catering to the more consumerist elements of their traditional Catholic holidays.

But for the most part, Easter in Spain remains a time of processions through the streets, when the ‘nazarenos’ in their robes and pointy hats march solemnly along and the faithful carry icons of the Virgin Mary and the Crucifixion of Christ.

Every town has their own way of doing it. Some dress in red, others in purple, a few in white or blue, but for a lot of foreign visitors the outfits remind them of a certain racist group from the southern US… in reality, the regalia they wear is a sign of deep respect and represents the unique spiritual history of the locals; sometimes the faithful, who belong to the brotherhoods that organise the processions, walk barefoot in the streets as a penance; in some places, the procession must be observed in strict silence while in others dramatic, passionate wailing is not only permitted, but expected. Elsewhere, it’s not unheard of for the men and (less frequently) women carrying the statues to break for a quick, refreshing beer in a bar halfway!

Whatever the case, if you’ve never been to see an Easter procession in Spain before, it’s highly recommended as there’s nothing else quite like it.

And if you’re looking for something typically Spanish to eat at this time of year, why not ditch the Easter eggs for a torrija? It’s very common at Easter and is a kind of French toast made by dipping bread in milk and eggs, frying it and dousing the whole thing in sugar and honey. Best dipped in a nice café con leche.

Another similar tasty sweet treat is the deep-fried fritter known as a ‘pestiño’, which is usually flavoured with anis and orange, or you can try a ‘Mona de Pascua’ bread cake.

Spain travel this April

While the Spanish Easter holidays from work are just the two days mentioned before, and the schoolkids get one week off, the UK and German Easter break this year is for two weeks, from April 1 to 16.

So, over the next couple of weeks there will be a lot of British and northern European tourists flocking to Gran Canaria, Mallorca, the Costa del Sol and other popular parts of Spain for a vacation in the sun.

It is hoped that this Easter tourist numbers will finally back up to nearly what they were before the Covid-19 pandemic. The facemasks are gone on Spanish trains and planes, and now you only need to wear one at the doctor’s or the pharmacy, basically.

But there are other travel woes for holidaymakers that may affect vacation plans this April.

Far from learning from the mistakes of last year, when passengers in both the UK and Spain suffered massive disruptions in airports, it seems that the authorities are once again making life very difficult for holidaymakers.

Before the mid-term breaks have even begun, British Airways has already been forced to axe more 300 flights to and from Heathrow Airport in anticipation of security worker strikes. Staff working in Terminal 5 of the UK base will down tools for ten days between Friday March 31 and Sunday April 9, and BA has said it has no choice other than to cancel 5% of its scheduled flights.

During this period, Terminal 5 will have to rely on volunteers and contingency staff and, while the industrial action mainly affects BA passengers, travellers on other airlines will surely also feel the backlash and numerous delays are expected.

British Airways, however, has committed to refunding affected customers or putting them on another plane within 24 hours.

Not long after the BA strikes (hopefully) reach their conclusion, the airports will again be thrown into disarray when Border Force staff in the UK impose work stoppages on Friday April 28 in a demand for higher pay and better pensions. Some 13,000 Civil Servants in all have voted to go on strike and in this case, the airport authorities are urging passengers to use the e-gates if they can to speed up what is inevitably going to be a lengthy security process.

The unions representing the Border Force staff are well aware that their strikes “have already caused serious disruption” but they’re hoping that this industrial action, scheduled right before the May Bank holiday weekend, will heap the pressure on employers.

CEO of the Advantage Travel Partnership, Julia Lo Bue, said that while similar Border Force industrial action before Christmas resulted in minimal disruption, holidaymakers should still double check with their agent or airline if they are scheduled to fly on April 28.

If it wasn’t bad enough trying to navigate through the airports, mouthy Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has warned that flights are going to cost us more as well. The budget airline boss forecasts that plane tickets are going to cost between 10% and 15% more this year thanks to a surge in demand, particularly from the US market which is more active since the Covid pandemic.

Last year, O’Leary bluntly told customers that the days of the 10-euro flight are over, explaining that prices would have to be hiked up to compensate for inflation, the increasing cost of jet fuel and of course, higher wage demands from cabin crew, pilots and ground staff.

Mr O’Leary said: “There’s going to be a second year of low double digits price inflation, because there is no capacity.

“I think this year there is a reasonable prospect… [during] the summer average air fares will be up 10-15% again.”

The average price of a Ryanair flight is currently around 40 euros, and this would bump up to almost 50 euros with the 15% increase.

Murcia

It’s official. The start of the high season – at least as far as the Region of Murcia International Airport is concerned – has begun, and they have revealed what will be the 19 destinations you can fly from and to at the Corvera airport this summer.

There are five domestic destinations within Spain on Corvera’s summer flight roster this year, which runs from March 25 until the end of October. Those will be Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Palma de Mallorca, Menorca, Asturias and Santander.

The remaining 14 destinations are international airports and include new flights operated by Ryanair and easyJet to London Luton and Manchester airports, in addition to the regular connections to Dublin, Birmingham, Bournemouth, East Midlands, Glasgow Prestwick, London Stansted, London Gatwick and Bristol.

Meanwhile, Air Arabia continues flying to Casablanca and Oujda in Morocco and TUI keeps its flights to Bruges and Antwerp in Belgium. There are also two charter flight destinations – Prague in the Czech Republic and Luxor, Egypt.

But what has most people miffed are the destinations that are NOT included. Aside from the glaring oversight of not flying to, for instance, Newcastle or anywhere in the Netherlands, there are four destinations that passengers used to be able to fly to and which will no longer be available this year: Bilbao in northern Spain; Brussels in Belgium; and Oslo and Bergen in Norway.

If you can’t get over to visit the Region of Murcia this summer then, you might be interested to learn that Los Alcázares, one of the most popular holiday spots to visit on the Costa Cálida, has launched a website where you can take a free, 360º virtual trip of the town to allow people to get to know places of interest there.

With this new tool, armchair adventurers can take a virtual tour of the La Encarnación Spa, the Torre del Rame, the Mining Train, the Monument to the Fisherman and the Balsas de Los Diegos, among other well-known local points of interest. And, as it’s an open project, new monuments and locations are being added all the time.

Further north in the Region, Jumilla is one of Murcia’s three main wine-producing towns, along with Bullas and Yecla, which means they have loads of enormous vats there to store the stuff. Well, there was much excitement recently as one of these wine vats – the size of a house – was caught on camera exploding dramatically and flooding the whole of Jumilla’s Avenida de Murcia with red wine.

Depósito de vino en la bodega García Carrión en Jumilla (Murcia ) .. #Reventon 👇 pic.twitter.com/lDIfXUizD7
— MalasPulgas (@El__Kanalla__) March 24, 2023

The vat belonged to well-known red wine brand Don Simón, famous for its cheap plonk the company is based in Jumilla but sold all over Spain and abroad. Stunned onlookers watched and filmed the event as the enormous wine vat spewed its contents like a boozy volcano. Alas, there was no chance to dance in the fountain or grab a glass and fill up as the workers managed to have the mishap cleaned up in no time.

For events coming up soon in Murcia, check out our EVENTS DIARY:

Spain

News has broken this week of a worrying and curious golf scam targeting British tourists in Spain. It seems that keen-eyed thieves have set their sights on foreign visitors, hoping to make a euro or two while unsuspecting players hit the tee boxes.

This is becoming an increasing problem on the island of Mallorca, where one UK holidaymaker recently had an expensive Swiss watch and a large amount of cash swiped from his golf bag. The robbers operate by drilling new holes and moving flags to secluded areas where they can rifle through the players’ bags and steal their belongings. The criminals locate the fake holes close to the road so they can make a quick getaway.

This kind of scam is far from unique to the Spanish islands, with golfers across the Costa del Sol reporting similar incidents.

One regular British golfer posted a warning on social media:

“It is much more typical for thieves to try to steal your belongings while you are actually out on the course, and not in the vicinity of the clubhouse where there are generally more people around.

“These thieves are not fools. They carefully pick particular holes on the course to operate on, in particular holes where you park your buggy next to the green, and they carry out the theft while you are busy on the green, probably with the buggy not in plain sight.”

On the other hand, there’s some good news for our pockets this week since Brussels has agreed to extend the ‘Iberian exception’ – an agreement that allows Portugal and Spain put a price cap on natural gas used for electricity production, and a mechanism that has helped to keep energy prices relatively low for households and businesses.

It was originally due to end in June, but the Iberian exception will now continue running until December, although the Spanish government is already contemplating possible price caps of between 45 and 50 euros per megawatt hour for next year too.

Spain’s Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, was in Brussels this week to meet with her counterparts and skin and hair was expected to fly as the Member States discussed the fraught topic of hydrogen production.

Last month, Spain’s nose was put firmly out of joint when the EC came down on the side of France and voted in favour of including low-carbon hydrogen produced with nuclear power in the directive to encourage renewables.

As part of the objective of climate neutrality of the European Union by 2050, nations are trying to replace natural gas with renewable and low-carbon gases.

Alicante

The Costa Blanca is one of the most popular areas that expatriates come to when they move to Spain, which unfortunately means it is also one of the places with the most crime linked to foreigners, both as perpetrators and victims.

There was a very sad case last Sunday of a 64-year-old British woman who was found dead in her Orihuela Costa home with multiple stab wounds. It was a neighbour who called the police to report a disturbance in the early hours of Sunday morning, and when they arrived, they found the woman’s husband trying to flee the scene.

Also British, the 69-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder, and the case is being treated as an act of gender violence by police, the first of its kind this year in Alicante province. The man himself had a stab wound to his own stomach, presumably made by his wife after a disagreement.

The pair had been living in Spain since 2017, and the man had already been investigated for alleged domestic violence crimes in 2019. However, the case was dropped by the Guardia Civil in 2020 when the victim, his murdered wife, failed to make a complaint at the time.

Orihuela Town Hall held a minutes’ silence this Tuesday, and flags were flown at half-mast in honour of the victim.

State-owned rail company Renfe has started its Avlo high-speed, low-cost train service this Monday, which now runs twice a day between Alicante and Madrid, stopping in Albacete, Cuenca and Villena, and offering tickets for just 7 euros.

Not to be outdone, private competitor Ouigo will begin its own high-speed trains on that route exactly a month later, on April 27, with their own ticket prices starting at 9 euros, a price they have promised will not increase further down the line.

As well as Renfe and Ouigo, a third rail company, Iryo, will also start operating high-speed trains between Alicante and Madrid from June 2, meaning passengers have not only many more options but that the increased competition will hopefully drive prices down and keep them down in the long term.

Andalucía

This week marked a great milestone for Malaga capital as two stations of the two metro lines of the Costa del Sol’s main city finally opened in the city centre this Monday after a 14-year wait.

Malaga has had an underground subway for 17 years now, and for most of those the line stopped in El Perchel, outside the city centre – a real pain for those coming into the city from outside. Although it was just an extra kilometre of track that needed to be built, the work was plagued by such problems as having to go under the Guadalmedina River and the discovery of archaeological remains on its route.

Now, though, there are new stops on Avenida de Andalucía and on the Alameda Principal, which the President of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, explained at the inauguration will mean a reduction of about 5,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year and a significant reduction in traffic by avoiding 3.5 million car journeys each year.

What’s more, he also announced an additional discount on the train fare, so that if you buy a travel pass, each journey will now cost just 33 cents. This extra 10% discount is extended across all municipal buses and metros in the whole of Andalucía, meaning that total ticket prices for these forms of public transport are now an appetising 60% off.

Plans are also in the works now for the Malaga Metro to arrive at the Hospital.

More exciting transport developments along the coast in Cadiz, as the ‘Kingsway’ Gibraltar Airport Tunnel was finally opened this Friday, linking the Rock with the Cadiz town of La Línea de la Concepción after nearly 15 years of delays.

Until now, cars had to drive across the airport runway to get in and out of Gibraltar, and traffic had to be stopped at least 15 times a day to allow planes to land and take off. Now, though, motorists will have to go under the airport, while cyclists and pedestrians can still use the above-ground runway crossing.

The original contract to build the tunnel dates back to November 2008, but work was halted for five years due to legal disputes. But now it’s complete, it’s actually quite the work of ingenious architecture. Modern traffic systems are in place to monitor the road 24/7 to avoid traffic jams and, in case of emergency, workers in the control tower will be able to communicate directly with drivers in the tunnel over a public address system.

You may have missed…

Five typical sweet treats for Easter in the Region of Murcia.
Simple ingredients, simple cooking and simply delightful results to round off your Semana Santa lunches!
Europol most wanted fugitive arrested at Madrid airport after 10 years on the run.
After a decade on the run, a Hungarian fugitive, one of Europol’s Most Wanted, has been arrested at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport, Spain.
Brit property owner in Alicante unable to sell due to government over-valuation.
Brit Ali Singer bought her Alicante villa back in July 2022, moving with her husband to the Costa Blanca for a new life in the sun, but the Spanish Land Registry doubled the estimated property value, making the taxes due on the plot alone unfeasibly high.
SOS Los Barrios dog pound in Cadiz buys new land for shelter after repeated flooding.
A dog pound in Andalucía’s Los Barrios which takes in and cares for animals in the Campo de Gibraltar is raising funds to move to a new location after enduring years of flooding every winter.
Spain votes to swap its Día de los Santos Inocentes to April 1 like the rest of the world.
The Spanish Congress has officially passed into law a motion that will change the Día de los Santos Inocentes gag holiday, previously held on December 28, to April 1 as it is in much of the English-speaking world.

That’s it for another week, then. Thanks for reading this far, and there’ll be further to read next week.

See you then!

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