Just about every travel guide I’ve read about Spain or the Costa Blanca has left me confused and frustrated when it comes to Moraira.
Indeed, almost every entry I’ve found so far has been short and somewhat underwhelming.
“This once sleepy fishing hamlet…” they normally begin, before listing a few beaches.
Even the photo they choose is normally the same: a row of houses with front doors opening onto the beach. From there, it’s all downhill. A charming, family-friendly town, superb beaches, spectacular cliffs, etc, etc.
All true. All done. Everything is correctly written and it just lacks the proverbial bullseye. Not to mention that some travel writers in ancient times failed to protect their “sleeping fishing hamlet” article.
All in all these articles have reduced Moraira to just any ex-pueblo anywhere on the Med and that’s a shame as anyone who lives nearby will clearly know that Moraira is not.
She is royal. Named for a princess no less, a Will go the Moor or so legend has it.
Photo: Wikipedia.
Moraira surely deserves better writing when writers such as Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn spent summers here, or our own crime novelist Chester Himes chose to end his days here.
Surely they had no trouble finding the right words to do justice to this charming neighborhood?
What makes Moraira special may be too ethereal to capture and lock down on one page, but when asked, people have their own ideas.
It’s the sun, the air quality, the food, the traditions and, often, the local people. And generally, they all like the lifestyle and its slow and easy pace.
Everyone has an opinion. But what makes the place special is subjective and personal even though there are common similarities. Everyone has their own Moraira.
Photo: Wikipedia.
My Moraira is not by the sea. It is tucked away in a plot of fallow land well beyond the vines to the rear of the large car park.
It is an orange tree and to steal a sentence; it is an orange tree standing ‘where no orange tree has the right to be’. Except it is. However, he got there, he has more right to be there than you or me. Head up into the hills now and, after weeks of rain, the valley down from Benitachell to Moraira is blanketed in layer upon layer of vibrant greens.
As she stretches to reach for the stars at Punta del la Estrella, Moraira’s spoons are shielded from the Cap d’Or in a rich blanket of green velvet. Our princess is in bed.
My Moraira is not blue skies and seas. My Moraira has burst into new life with every possible shade of green shimmering and changing from hour to hour and standing defiantly in the middle of it is my orange tree.
No one can doubt the changes he has seen. Like so many other Spanish towns, Moraira has been transformed into living memory.
Some say such progress hasn’t always been beneficial when small hamlets and towns have to work hard to protect their heritage and identity – it’s also their uniqueness that makes them special.
While it’s clear that such drastic changes have been good for tourism and therefore good for the economy, it could be argued that once you’ve seen a seaside promenade, you’ve seen them all, but so, to steal another quote, how else is a girl to make her way in this world?
This is not the case for Moraira, although with rumors of a smugglers’ tunnel under the castle, she could still be a lady with darker secrets.
It was the small town that could and did, and it did it on its own terms.
The number of visitors bears witness to this. No harmonized sidewalks for her. His terrain simply does not allow it. No high-rise hotels or endless concrete buildings either. It will not be forced to be created by man.
She is a Natural beauty standing proud because someone had the cojones stand up and say no to more progress.
It may also be a legend, of course, but I was told that it was the farmer who owns the vines and the land that my outdoor orange tree has claimed as his own.
Amanda Bourne (pictured above) runs Polly’s bookshop in Moraira, while her son runs a sister shop in Javea.
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