Ermita de VInaros re-visited

This morning, Michael drove me down to Alcocebre this morning to join a group of people rehearsing for next Friday's service of Nine Lessons and Carols. Michael and I have been assigned the task of singing a solo verse of 'We three Kings of Orient are.', a first for me this one. A few doors away from the parish church of St Cristobal, where Anglican services in Alcocebre are held, a former surf and internet shop is being renovated prior to occupation by 'El Camino', the chaplaincy's drop in centre and shop in this part of the world. It has three times as much space as the existing shop, a more versatile arrangement than the current place. It's a credit to the worshipping community here to have assessed the need and seized the opportunity to undertake this development. I'm sorry I won't be here to celebrate the opening of the new premises early in the New Year.

After weekend shopping this afternoon, I drove to the Ermita de Vinaros to the west inland from town. My last visit here was in the summer two years ago for the Chaplaincy united Eucharist. I also cycled there from the chaplaincy house, a round trip of twenty kilometres, and when Eddie and Ann and Clare came over to join me for a holiday, we had lunch there. Unfortunately, I've not had a bike to ride this time. 

Now the Ermita is only open in daylight hours, and there are few visitors to the bar, restaurant or church. There are few leaves on the plane trees that provide summer shade. If anything, the colours of the fields and orchards of the coastal plain are more vivid than in summer, due to the growth after autumn rains. It's been a cloudy day with a veil of lingering mist muting the colours somewhat, but making for an atmospheric landscape as the sun descended to the horizon.

Being there on my own, I had time to look around the entire domain, which I hadn't previously. There's a Via Crucis ascending to a hill with ten metres tall cross on top of it. Beyond this is a higher mound with a ruinous platform on it. It looks as if the Via Crucis once ended up there, as reinforced concrete remains of the base of a previous cross are still at the platform centre. The reason for the sorry state of the mound is evident from a walk around the perimeter. Excavation has revealed ancient building walls and foundations of an earlier settlement on this site. The platform for the original cross would have been constructed in the early twentieth century, and there may have been less awareness of or interest at that time in what was out of sight under the ground. 

I took photographs, and lingered in the fast cooling air to watch the setting sun throw shafts of golden light through the pine woods that cloak the hillside away from the dwellings facing the sea plain. It was a moment to savour. Photographs are here.