Cómpeta

A bit farther away from the sea than we are staying, we find the hillside town of Cómpeta. As you can see above, it is spread across the side of several hills. It is clearly a place with lots of ex-pats (most noticeably English) but it is not a tourist destination. It is a town for people to settle and live. As a result, at the street level, it is not so picturesque. Or perhaps, it was the lack of a clear blue sky above that made the town feel a bit more ordinary.



The high point for us was the Parroquia Nuestra Señora de la Asunción. A small, simple church, but quite pretty. It was pretty dark inside with on a couple lights on over at the right side of the transept. This picture was taken with the camera resting on the rear pew for stability.

The rest of the church images are all handheld. All but one is at 1/15 second exposure. I think the image stabilization works pretty well. what do you think?

At the time I visited, there was only one other person in the church. She was sitting quietly (in meditation or prayer) while I used my rubber soled shoes to gently move about to avoid disturbing her. I switched to the electronic shutter and was able to stay very quiet.

The altar is interesting here. This parrish was established in 1505 by a decree of Isabella of Castile (married to Ferdinand). Yet, the altar piece is modern. It does seem a bit out of place in this 500 year old church.

Across town, we stopped by to see the local cemetery. This is an interesting place. There is only mausoleums here. I suppose when you live on a hillside, space is at a premium and using it for burial is not smart. This is the first cemetery we've visited that is only mausoleums. From the size and shape of the vaults, it also seems that cremation is not common here.