Posts Tagged ‘martes de campo’

Today is martes de campo (country Tuesday), a holiday for those of us who work in Oviedo. It was in early May last year and it was chilly… this year it isn’t.

The UV index around midday was 8 (in the UK I thought it only went up to 5… ah well, maybe I’ve got my data from a different scale). The sun was a little fierce so I kept to the shade as I wandered with my camera. In Parque San Francisco, in the city centre, people began queuing for bollos preñados (bread baked with a chorizo inside) and wine… the traditional picnic fare for today. There was a bigger queue at the Saturn van (Saturn is a big electronics retailer, think Dixons) for their free straw hats.

Bands of pipers marched through the streets, followed by bands of other stripes, cuban, jazz and the like. The sun made a big difference.

I sat on the grass watching the goings on, with a bottle of cider (if I’m going to have a bottle to myself, cider is a better choice than wine), practicing my pouring and munching on chorizo-y bread.

Days off are lovely.

Martes de Campo Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias.

The local freesheet said that Tuesday had been marked on a lot of calendars since the beginning of the year. It’s called Martes de Campo (or La Fiesta de la Balesquida, or el Día del Bollo). I asked a student a while back what happened and she said that you go to the country and eat a Bollo, a bread roll stuffed with a chorizo, you drink wine or sidra and… well that was it really. At nine this morining there were some really loud rockets from the park two blocks away, that carried on every hour or so until 2. In the park the Balesquida was underway, this, I gathered is a form of skittles/bowling where the solid wooden ball is thrown underarm, high into the air, towards the skittles, which are in a set on sand. The ball is thrown with a spin and doesn’t bounce very much. It looked pretty hard. There was a lot of folk music, a few marching bands wandering round the park, the members of the Oviedo Balesquida club had a huge marquee and were dishing out Bollos and wine like there was no tomorrow. The paseo del Bombé (the wide French style boulevard in the park) was packed. Young and old were tucking into their Bollos, chatting away, having a fine time. And it’s only a holiday here in Oviedo. If you live here and work in Gijón for example, you’re out of luck… but you’ll get your holiday some other time.

The Bollo I had was lovely, warm and the chorizo juice was like blood from a fine rare steak… I needed paper towels for my greasy greedy chin…

I think, like Jorge said, we’re gonna need a thicker rope….