I finally made it!
Last Saturday evening I went to the Palau de Altea. It’s strange how you can live somewhere for many years, pass a particular building numerous times per week but never actually been inside it. This huge venue has a capacity to seat one thousand people and over the years hosted numerous concerts, congresses, exhibitions and plays with a number of stars such as Julio Iglesias and Jose Carrera taking to its enormous stage.
Altea has always been a town that attracts artists, painters, writers and musicians and is home to the Department of Fine Arts of the Universidad Miguel Hernández in Alicante and the Music Conservatory. The old town is very bohemian and a tourist magnet, with its whitewashed houses – reminds me of the quote made famous by Henry Ford “you can have any colour so long as it is black”! All the houses here are painted white in the old town – the polar opposite of Vila Joiosa on the other side of Benidorm, where they resemble a Dulux colour chart, with every single one painted a different colour. Residents can even apply for a grant to help pay towards the cost of painting the façade to ensure that they look pristine. The town hall obviously appreciate that looks matter.
It is certainly a town I and probably many here take visitors to see, parking up by the Palau and walking up the cobbled streets to the top, where the iconic blue domed church stands, visible from miles – or should I say kilometres around. You’ll regularly see people standing in the middle of the street with the church in the background, having their photograph taken … yes we also probably did it when we first arrived here too! The streets surrounding the church are full of restaurants, bars and a few shops selling the normal tourist stuff – ceramics, candles, jewellery, trinkets, clothes etc. Personally, I never tire of hiking up there, especially in the summer months when they have the craft market stalls in the square.
So back to my first venture into the Palau where I went to watch Virsky – a Ukrainian dance troupe currently on tour. Being of Ukrainian heritage it was of particular interest and bought back many happy memories, watching some of the traditional dances – ones that throughout my teens I also performed. Dance and songs were very important to my parents’ cultural heritage and subsequently, my upbringing. I also sang in a choir as a soprano and we would perform at various concerts up and down the length of the UK, wearing our embroidered blouses which I still have somewhere.
The dancers in Virsky really were pretty spectacular though and the applause and cheers they received after every dance spoke volumes. The last dance they performed was the Hopak, a traditional folk dance where they all stand in a semi-circle clapping and then take turns to dance either individually or in pairs in the middle. The men’s movements are obviously far more daring, energetic and adventurous, with the mid-air Cossack splits and squats recognised by most of the audience. There were scores of costume changes throughout the evening – boy they must have had a sizeable tour bus just to accommodate those alone never mind the 60 odd dancers!
It really was a most enjoyable evening but they really must sort of the parking there. If you consider the capacity, therefore estimate how many cars could potentially be arriving you can work out that it was a little bit of a struggle finding a space but that would be my only criticism. The bar prices were very reasonable – a bottle of water – it is dry January after all, was only one euro. Can you imagine what the price at the Royal Albert Hall or Royal Festival Hall in London would be… I am still recovering from hearing that a glass – not a bottle of wine in Covent Garden cost £9!
I will definitely be checking out the listings of what else is going on there this year and hope that it doesn’t take me another decade before I venture in again.
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