El Gastor

We went out today to attend a Flamenco Festival in a village called "El Gastor", which is about 15kms south of Olvera, 30 minutes drive. We arrived in the village, parked up and proceeded to walk around. The absence of bunting or music was a clue to something not being quite right but undeterred we carried on, eventually arriving at the tourist office. We went in and enquired about the festival, attempting to say that it had been advertised in a local magazine, to be met with "Que, que" (what). The lady in the office turned to the local policeman who happened to be standing over her PC who also looked a bit bemused."Que". It was fairly obvious by now that the mag had got it wrong, so we left with a smile, a "lo siento" (sorry) and carried on to explore the village. The picture below is of the approach to El Gastor.

The festival was apparently to commemorate the 100th birthday of a great local flamenco guitar player, a plaque and statue in whose honour we found in a park on the outskirts of the village.

The picture below shows the village square with the "Ayuntamiento" (Town Hall) on the right with the church of "Corpus Christi" just behind it.

The streets were decorated with lots of window displays, tubs and hanging pots of flowers. They look nice now but will really bloom in a month or so.
A couple of canaries out in the sunshine.

We stopped for a bit of lunch at a bar and ordered coffee's with some tapas.

We selected four dishes of herring, potato salad, mixed salad with what tasted like horseradish sauce and a russian salad plus two coffee's. Delicious, and all for eight euro's (£6) We liked El Gastor. A very pretty and clean village. Shame about the Flamenco Festival though. We will probably hear through the grapevine that it was on but we were there at the wrong time of day. Never mind, always next time. The picture below is of Olvera taken on the road back from El Gastor.

And finally, thanks to our ex-neighbour Philip Booth in Ruscombe, Stroud, Gloucestershire for adding us as a link to your blog, Ruscombe Green. We have a very fond affection for Ruscombe and still retain some smashing friends in the area. We hope you enjoy reading about Olvera and the area in which we now live.

Linked posts:Market day