IF YOU'RE in the Comunidad Valenciana any time between now and the early hours of March 20, you may notice an awful lot of noise and colour on the streets. It's the season for the region's biggest festival,...
Chiming out: The southern village stuck in 2021 for eight more months
27/12/2021
ANOTHER year passes at breakneck speed, grape sales in Spanish supermarkets rocket – tradition dictates that you eat one at each of the 12 'bongs' at midnight – and everyone on earth tries to remember a time when celebrations of any nature didn't have Covid hovering in the background like a dark shadow blocking out the fairy lights. Starting at 11.00 mainland Spain time on Friday, December 31 with the Pacific island of Tonga, and finishing a mere 892 kilometres east at noon on Saturday, January 1 in American Samoa on the other side of the date line, every country on earth marks the New Year as we know it, or the end of the final day on the Gregorian calendar.
Except for one village in the province of Granada.
Home to just 712 people, Bérchules, nestling in the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and a stone's throw from the nearest ski station, will be ignoring the chimes again at the dawn of 2022, just as it has for the previous 27 years.
Why no grapes and cava for Bérchules?
Like many towns, villages and cities in Spain, Bérchules used to hold an outdoor New Year's Eve celebration where locals would stand in a square and eat their 12 grapes – representing the 12 months of the year to come – as they listened to the church bells chime the hour.
Nowadays, these celebrations are more likely to involve a large television screen showing the countdown on Spain's mainstream channels, TVE (channel one), La 2, Antena 3, La 4, Telecinco and La Sexta, or homing in live on the Puerta del Sol square in central Madrid.
The Puerta del Sol clock is Spain's equivalent of the UK's Big Ben, insofar as its bongs are considered to mark the official start of the year, and crowds have been hanging out there for decades to munch their grapes in time with the bells every December 31.
Even last year, 10 months into the pandemic, they did so, but socially-distanced.
Since the dawn of television in Spain – a luxury not all homes had until at least the 1970s or even 1980s – those not going out have typically been glued to the screen at the precise moment of the beginning of the year, just like households almost everywhere else on the globe.
Except Baker Island, a US territory, which 'sees in' the New Year at 13.00 mainland Spain time on January 1, but as it's uninhabited, there's nobody to celebrate it.
Bérchules was doing pretty much what the majority were doing late at night on December 31, 1994, waiting for the clock on live TV, when a power cut shut down their screens and left them in the dark.
It lasted several hours – long enough that the village could not hold its usual outdoor party and nobody could catch the chimes unless they were near enough to hear the church bells.
“New Year's Eve didn't happen that year, so local businesses and the mayor suggested celebrating it later on in 1995 instead,” explains Antonio Castillo, head of a local fiesta society.
“They decided to see in the 'New Year' in summer instead, since there was more daylight and warmer weather.
“In the end, they all agreed that it would be celebrated over the first weekend in August.”
The tradition stuck, and for more than a quarter of a century now, Bérchules has knocked Baker Island and American Samoa off their pedestal for being the last territory on earth, and the last inhabited country on earth, to see in the New Year.
Antonio Castillo's group is, in fact, called the 'Bérchulera New Year's Eve in August Association', or ABNEA (authors of the second picture above), and it organises open-air events for the night in question every summer.
What to see and do in Bérchules
With another eight months of Bérchules' year left, you've still got at least another three to take a skiing break in the Sierra Nevada in 2021 if you're staying in this mountain hamlet.
Set in the Alpujarra hills, nature and hiking are always an option, including a visit to the Agria spring, found in a bend in the river Guadalfeo, and the quaint whitewashed houses with their flat roofs, winding and steep lanes through the village centre, are a living picture-postcard scene typical of the southern region of Andalucía.
Another natural spring, known as the Las Carmelas, is said to be a Mecca for anyone seeking true love: According to legend, unattached people who drink from the clear, chilled source will meet their soulmate within a very short time.
All rural activities ranging from the most energetic – potholing, climbing, abseiling, and mountain-biking – to those suitable for the averagely fit such as skiing, water-skiing (on the river), pedalo trips (also on the river), scuba-diving, sailing, walking, quad and canoe trips, have plenty of potential and local tourism information offices, hotels, and other companies catering to visitors can organise these outings for you, with the necessary guides, instructors and transport.
In fact, the longest circular walking trail in the whole of Spain can be found in the rural outskirts of Bérchules – the GR-240 Sulayr Footpath.
Sulayr was the Sierra Nevada's name during the seven centuries in which the population in the southern half of the mainland was predominantly Arab, and translates as 'Mountain of the Sun'.
Traces of this Arab past can be found in the San Juan Bautista, or St John the Baptist, parish church – it was built on the site of an old mosque post-Inquisition, over the 16th and 17th centuries, so its architectural style is largely European Baroque or Neo-Classical, but the bell tower is mudéjar, a technique that evolved among the few remaining Muslims following their community's expulsion or forced conversion to Catholicism. Left much poorer than when they were in the majority, these Muslims who managed to avoid the ethnic cleansing only had inferior-quality building materials at their disposal, such as wood and mud-brick – but the result of their creativity with scarce resources is a network of some of Spain's most attractive historical buildings that are highly-acclaimed visitor magnets today.
If you have your own transport or are able to plan public conveyance in advance, the city of Granada, replete with ancient Arab influences, streets full of souks that would look more at home in Morocco than in Andalucía, and of course, the iconic, world-renowned Alhambra Palace (above), are just 108 kilometres away, or less than an hour and a half by car along the A-44 and A-348 motorways.
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ANOTHER year passes at breakneck speed, grape sales in Spanish supermarkets rocket – tradition dictates that you eat one at each of the 12 'bongs' at midnight – and everyone on earth tries to remember a time when celebrations of any nature didn't have Covid hovering in the background like a dark shadow blocking out the fairy lights. Starting at 11.00 mainland Spain time on Friday, December 31 with the Pacific island of Tonga, and finishing a mere 892 kilometres east at noon on Saturday, January 1 in American Samoa on the other side of the date line, every country on earth marks the New Year as we know it, or the end of the final day on the Gregorian calendar.
Except for one village in the province of Granada.
Home to just 712 people, Bérchules, nestling in the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and a stone's throw from the nearest ski station, will be ignoring the chimes again at the dawn of 2022, just as it has for the previous 27 years.
Why no grapes and cava for Bérchules?
Like many towns, villages and cities in Spain, Bérchules used to hold an outdoor New Year's Eve celebration where locals would stand in a square and eat their 12 grapes – representing the 12 months of the year to come – as they listened to the church bells chime the hour.
Nowadays, these celebrations are more likely to involve a large television screen showing the countdown on Spain's mainstream channels, TVE (channel one), La 2, Antena 3, La 4, Telecinco and La Sexta, or homing in live on the Puerta del Sol square in central Madrid.
The Puerta del Sol clock is Spain's equivalent of the UK's Big Ben, insofar as its bongs are considered to mark the official start of the year, and crowds have been hanging out there for decades to munch their grapes in time with the bells every December 31.
Even last year, 10 months into the pandemic, they did so, but socially-distanced.
Since the dawn of television in Spain – a luxury not all homes had until at least the 1970s or even 1980s – those not going out have typically been glued to the screen at the precise moment of the beginning of the year, just like households almost everywhere else on the globe.
Except Baker Island, a US territory, which 'sees in' the New Year at 13.00 mainland Spain time on January 1, but as it's uninhabited, there's nobody to celebrate it.
Bérchules was doing pretty much what the majority were doing late at night on December 31, 1994, waiting for the clock on live TV, when a power cut shut down their screens and left them in the dark.
It lasted several hours – long enough that the village could not hold its usual outdoor party and nobody could catch the chimes unless they were near enough to hear the church bells.
“New Year's Eve didn't happen that year, so local businesses and the mayor suggested celebrating it later on in 1995 instead,” explains Antonio Castillo, head of a local fiesta society.
“They decided to see in the 'New Year' in summer instead, since there was more daylight and warmer weather.
“In the end, they all agreed that it would be celebrated over the first weekend in August.”
The tradition stuck, and for more than a quarter of a century now, Bérchules has knocked Baker Island and American Samoa off their pedestal for being the last territory on earth, and the last inhabited country on earth, to see in the New Year.
Antonio Castillo's group is, in fact, called the 'Bérchulera New Year's Eve in August Association', or ABNEA (authors of the second picture above), and it organises open-air events for the night in question every summer.
What to see and do in Bérchules
With another eight months of Bérchules' year left, you've still got at least another three to take a skiing break in the Sierra Nevada in 2021 if you're staying in this mountain hamlet.
Set in the Alpujarra hills, nature and hiking are always an option, including a visit to the Agria spring, found in a bend in the river Guadalfeo, and the quaint whitewashed houses with their flat roofs, winding and steep lanes through the village centre, are a living picture-postcard scene typical of the southern region of Andalucía.
Another natural spring, known as the Las Carmelas, is said to be a Mecca for anyone seeking true love: According to legend, unattached people who drink from the clear, chilled source will meet their soulmate within a very short time.
All rural activities ranging from the most energetic – potholing, climbing, abseiling, and mountain-biking – to those suitable for the averagely fit such as skiing, water-skiing (on the river), pedalo trips (also on the river), scuba-diving, sailing, walking, quad and canoe trips, have plenty of potential and local tourism information offices, hotels, and other companies catering to visitors can organise these outings for you, with the necessary guides, instructors and transport.
In fact, the longest circular walking trail in the whole of Spain can be found in the rural outskirts of Bérchules – the GR-240 Sulayr Footpath.
Sulayr was the Sierra Nevada's name during the seven centuries in which the population in the southern half of the mainland was predominantly Arab, and translates as 'Mountain of the Sun'.
Traces of this Arab past can be found in the San Juan Bautista, or St John the Baptist, parish church – it was built on the site of an old mosque post-Inquisition, over the 16th and 17th centuries, so its architectural style is largely European Baroque or Neo-Classical, but the bell tower is mudéjar, a technique that evolved among the few remaining Muslims following their community's expulsion or forced conversion to Catholicism. Left much poorer than when they were in the majority, these Muslims who managed to avoid the ethnic cleansing only had inferior-quality building materials at their disposal, such as wood and mud-brick – but the result of their creativity with scarce resources is a network of some of Spain's most attractive historical buildings that are highly-acclaimed visitor magnets today.
If you have your own transport or are able to plan public conveyance in advance, the city of Granada, replete with ancient Arab influences, streets full of souks that would look more at home in Morocco than in Andalucía, and of course, the iconic, world-renowned Alhambra Palace (above), are just 108 kilometres away, or less than an hour and a half by car along the A-44 and A-348 motorways.
Related Topics
You may also be interested in ...
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