By Professor Peter Jones MBE
One of the delights of being a tourist is to discover a new understanding about a region or an area, something of the culture and how that culture has been developed. These unexpected experiences provide stories that often highlight new understandings and special memories.
Recently I had the opportunity to visit the Spanish port of Gijon on the north Iberian coast, where I encountered not just one unexpected tourist experience, but two. The second of which was not in the guidebook.
Gijon is the home of Asturian cider or ‘sidra’. A very striking sculptural piece sits on the quayside made of ‘sidra’ bottles as testament to the economic and cultural importance of cider to this part of Spain. This Asturian cider has a protected designation of origin (PDO) and regularly produces circa 55 million litres a year, most of which stays in and is consumed in the area.
It can only be made from 22 local varieties of apple and is traditionally fermented in wooden barrels, but the unexpected is not just in the unique cider itself, but the method of its pouring.
Many sidrería, also known as chigres, are found throughout the region where the art of pouring is an essential piece of theatre. To achieve the fullest flavour, the cider is poured from a great height into a wide-mouthed glass. The cider falls into the glass causing froth to form (espalmar) which also ensures the correct degree of oxygenation, unlocks the flavour, and brings out the natural aromas.
Another tourist attraction in this 3,000-year-old port is the Batería de Santa Catalina. A hill fortification that sits on a bluff, looking out to sea with a commanding aspect over the harbour entrance.
Much of its current form was built in 1806 or earlier and being in regular military use throughout its history up until 1989. It would have housed many different types of gun batteries and remains in excellent condition and is a much-visited tourist site. As with the cider it had the capacity to reveal the unexpected, in this case a Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) hand-grenade ‘la Granada De Mano’.
The unexpected discovery was not by a detectorist, but my wife Susan. Noticing what appeared to be a brown pine cone in an area of newly trimmed grass by one of the battery emplacements, she picked it up remarking to me “what is a pine cone doing up here, where there are no trees?”
This thought was very quickly replaced by “whoops, this looks like a hand grenade”.
I knew it must be safe because Susan had already picked it up. The firing pin lever on the top of the grenade was also missing, but the real giveaway was that the explosive chamber was empty. That was the closest that I had been to a grenade since my army training when most of the grenade training consisted of throwing dummy versions. Real ones, being expensive and non-returnable.
Susan said that grenade had a very tactile feel, and rather than replacing it decided to take it back to the ship. On the way back to the port we encountered and enjoyed the sidrería experience. As we sat and sipped, we displayed our find prominently on the table, the waiter described it as a ‘bomba’ which needed no translation.
The bomba on the table did not attract much attention until we arrived at the security check-in to board the ship. Presenting it to a security guard created probably the most excitement they had all week, given this was a cruise terminal.
The Guardia Civile were summoned, and the young security guard, had of course, photographed the grenade, googled it, and identified it as an “Impartial Grenade” imported by the Republican Army in 1936. It was called the Impartial because it was equally dangerous to both sides, both to the thrower, and if he was lucky and escaped danger then the recipient.
The Guardia Civile photographed the bomba, and our ship boarding passes and referred the matter to much higher authorities. How this grenade turned up in the grass of a gun battery on a promontory overlooking the harbour at Gijon, is a complete mystery. We speculated that it may have been buried and subsequently made its way to the surface, only to be partially revealed when the grass was cut. But that was entire speculation, it had probably been there since the Spanish Civil War itself.
Its future is equally unknown, instead of being one of our tourism artefacts to go with our collection of seaglass, it remains quite rightly where it was found in Gijon. The Chief of the Guardia Civile deemed it a prohibitive item to be taken on board and it was taken to the police headquarters, where I suspect it is now adorning the Chief of Police’s desk. I did suggest it might be presented to the local Museum along with our names as the finders. Our concern though, is that our names and copies of our boarding passes are somewhere in the Spanish police system. Will we end up on a Spanish border force watchlist?
These were unexpected tourist experiences, all on the same day that have certainly created memories and stories that will be recounted many times. Fortunately, our visit to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao the following day, passed off without incident.
