Fourth Annual
Honey Festival
On the 12th and 13th of May, the Honey Festival of Arnes,
Arnes is situated in
The elevation of Arnes is
Torre del Compte’s elevation is
I’m sure many of you are familiar with some of the names and pictures of the people in our village. Well, Lola (married to Manolo) is originally from Arnes and still has relatives there.
There was a maximum number of people for the class, but there happened to be a cancellation and Jordi was able to get in.
He thoroughly enjoyed the class and I think making candles will turn out to be his next hobby – after restoring old furniture and other wooden things such as trunks, tools, etc.
Jordi said the booths were set up for the 12th, but only a few actually had people and products in them. The festival actually started at 10:am on the 13th of May. Dignitaries were there to launch this year's Festival. (We skipped that part and arrived around 4:pm and stayed until approx. 7:pm – the Festival ended at 8:pm.)
This was the first time I had been to Arnes. However, I was not surprised to see that it too was a walled village. It seems all the villages around here were walled villages. They undoubtedly put up walls to keep the bad people out…....Hmmmm, not a bad idea. Maybe we should go back to that concept and put up the walls again.
You enter the village through an arch.
(Not a very impressive one.)
You didn’t have to go very far before you came to the first booth. They were selling cookies, cakes, and marmalade made with honey.
You turned the corner and there were booths as far as the eye could see.
We got there during the lunch break and not all of the booths were open.
Around 5:pm, the booths were filled with people giving samples of things made with honey. It was great!
Just about anything you could imagine was for sale today.
They had baskets -- all shapes and sizes.
There was liquors made with honey.
They had marmalade in different flavors made with honey, and pecans in honey.
Candles made with bee’s wax.
There were people demonstrating how their baskets were made.
There were soaps made with various scents.
(I don’t know if honey was added or not.)
There were sausages and paté.
(Again, I don’t know if they added honey in order to qualify for the “Honey Festival.”)
They were supervised by a couple of women who showed them how to paint the bee yellow, put on the black stripes, and finally the wings.
Soon, the village was buzzing with homemade bees!
The inside of the church is very pretty. It looks like it has recently been refurbished.
As you leave the side door, you are back in the Square.
The main square is on two levels.
There were a lot of tables and chairs for people to sit, have a drink and enjoy the pleasant temperature and sunshine.
Well......, I guess not everybody was happy.
This is Pablo, the son of Inma and Juan Carlos. The last time you saw him, he was a tiny baby sleeping while we were having a fiesta in the Plaza Mayor in Torre del Compte. He has really grown, and cute as a button!
Jordi and I decided to stroll through the village and look at the houses.
Suddenly, we found a Blacksmith (Herrero) working in another square.
We stayed and watched him for awhile.
While watching the Blacksmith, we heard a lot of noise coming down one of the streets.
It was a group of soldiers –
- A Captain leading the group,
- 1 soldier pulling a huge cannon....
....and 4 soldiers playing instruments.
They went to the edge of the square where the Blacksmith was -- then pointed the cannon in his direction!
It took the Captain a little while to load the cannon.
While the Captain was doing his job, the soldiers played more music.
With much fanfare, the Captain finally put a match to a fuse and shot the cannon.
Fortunately for the Blacksmith, there was no cannon ball in the cannon.
It just made a loud BANG! sound.
As the group of soldiers marched away with the cannon, Jordi and I continued our tour of the village -- but in a different direction.
There were many picturesque arches in the village. Some were like this one where a part of someone’s house is built over the street.
It made me wish I was a painter so I could paint some of these scenes.
We located a huge house on the corner of two streets. It had large windows (probably floor-to-ceiling) that looked like they had been recently replaced, plus a large stone arch at the front door.
On the keystone of the arch at the front door was a crest with the date 1589 on it. That old house has been there for 418 years!! I bet it is very pretty inside.
We finally ended up back at the archway where we entered the village. Again, a part of someone’s house was built over the arch. It looked much prettier from this side than it did when we entered the other side.
We carried the candles, marmalade, and other things we bought to the car and headed back to Torre del Compte.
The following day, Monday, we got strong winds, it turned cold again, and rained most of the day.
