Dancing horse

The Romería in Lobres is not well publicised, but I stumbled across a mention of it on Facebook which reminded me of last time. Which turns out to be 2017; it doesn't seem that long ago. You can read the linked entry for a description of the event, which has changed little since then. There were mules pulling the Virgin instead of oxen, and less dancing. But to make up for that this horse joined in.

It was a beautiful sunny day, like last time, but I took fewer photos. There's a small Flickr set mostly featuring shiny Andalusian horses. The (better) photos from the previous occasion are here.

At least we knew to take a picnic this time. It was a slow two-hour amble to the picnic site and once we'd eaten and strolled about admiring the horses and collecting pine cones, it only took us an hour to walk back, in the blazing sun. Fully justified in buying ice creams when we got back to Almuñecar.

There's a classical music festival on in Salobreña at present. It was also little publicised but some digging established that on the opening night (last night) there was an illustrated talk about the history of flamenco at a hotel just outside Salobreña which is hosting the artists and masterclass pupils. So S and I went along. It was longer than I expected ... as in, nearly two hours. But I was able to understand almost all of it, albeit suffering comprehension fatigue by the end. It was interesting anyway.

This evening we went to a concert by a chamber orchestra from Málaga, conducted by Alexis Soriano, the director of the festival, in Salobreña's auditorium. It was excellent, a program of Arvo Pärt, Britten, Villa Lobos, and the world premier of Soriano's own composition, Dos Islas. Short pieces, good musicians, a pleasure to listen to. There are further concerts all week, by the students of the masterclasses; it turns out this is the first edition of the festival and it seems to have got off to an excellent start.