Dead Marsh Spectres and Santander

   The Dead Marsh Spectres were a gift from good friends. These old miniatures are very nice, I really like them. They have an interesting special rule, the "A Fell light is in them"!

   Next stop of our trip was Santander. The port city of Santander is the capital of the historical region of Cantabria situated on the north coast of Spain. 

Palacio de la Magdalena

   The Palacio de la Magdalena is an early 20th-century palace located on the Magdalena Peninsula of the city of Santander. Construction of the palace was initiated in 1908 by the local government for the purpose of providing a seasonal residence for the royal family of Spain. 

A downtown building

Los Raqueros

   Los raqueros were poor orphans, who during the 19th and the beginning of 20th century, dove to gather coins from the bottom of the sea that passengers of the departing ships had thrown.   

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!

Thatched house and the Palacio del Marqués de la Conquista Real of Cantabria

   Another house is ready! I will have a village soon! For this one, I used the same materials and followed the same technique, more or less, as for all the previous houses. 

   Next stop of our trip was Arce of Cantabria. We stayed at the Palacio del Marqués de la Conquista Real. The building dates back to the 18th century. The main house was built for Roque Herrera Sota (1678-1753), knight of Santiago, colonel and captain of the regiment of the Royal Conquest, the first Marquis of the Royal Conquest. It has a private chapel dedicated to the Virgen de la Soledad, with a single nave built in 1659.

El Palacio.

The Gate is a protected monument nowadays. 

My wife and the parking of the Palacio.

And the garden.

   That's all for today! Stay tuned for more!

Barrow Wight and Gijón de Asturias

   A while ago I bought a couple of old Lord of the Rings box sets from the local store and the owner gave me one of the Barrow Wights as a gift. It is really a very nice miniature.

   To continue with our trip, next stop is Gijón de Asturias. A very nice port city of the northern Spain. The old part of the town has plenty sidrerías, where we tasted the famous sidra de Asturias. It is a low alcoholic drink with a strength 3 to 8% vol. One of the most outstanding characteristics is the way they serve it. They pour it in the traditional manner, in very small quantities from a height into a wide glass, with the arm holding the bottle extended upwards and the one holding the glass extended downwards. This technique is done to get air bubbles into the drink.

Puerto deportivo de Gijón

Rey Pelagius and the Palacio de Revillagigedo

Colegiata de San Juan Bautista

Casa Paquet

Iglesia de San José

My wife in front of a Sidrería 

A statue of empty sidra bottles!

and me!

   That´s all for today! Stay tuned for more!

Battlefield hedges and Cedeira of Galicia

   Model hedges for battlefields are easy to make. For mine I used three different colours of bushes, medium green, dark green and forest green. I glued them on black stripes of foam-board and then on four long pieces of MDF. The reason why I did it was to give some height to the foliage to look more like bushes. I made also four corners. I added some little rocks, three small trees and a wooden door to brake the monotony of the bushes.

Hedges

Black foam-board stripes, the door and the rocks.

Then I added sand and little rocks.

The same for the corners.

 

Ready!

   Next stop of our trip is Cedeira, a nice town in Galicia. Near this town is Vixia Herbeira, one of the highest sea-cliffs in Europe. It is 621 meters high.

   One spot of this cliff is called "O Cruceiro". There one can see the monument, a Cross and a plate dedicated to Leslie Howard, who was an English actor, one of the movie idols of the 1930s. Probably, he is best remembered for playing Ashley Wilkes in "Gone with the Wind" (1939). Howard was active in anti-German propaganda and rumored to have been involved with British Intelligence, sparking conspiracy theories regarding his death in 1943 when the British airliner on which he was a passenger was shot down over the Bay of Biscay.

   Nearby Cedeira is the site of San Andrés de Teixido, a pre-Christian pilgrimage site, with a holy well. Parts of the chapel at San Andrés dates back to the 12th century. 

The church of San Andrés de Teixido.

The yard of the church.

   All villages of the area have hórreos. An hórreo is a typical granary mainly in Galicia and in Asturias, built in wood or stone, raised from the ground by pillars ending in flat staddle stones to avoid the access of rodents. Ventilation is allowed by the slits in its walls. Similar barns on staddle stones are found in Southern England. I think hórreo is a nice idea as a terrain piece!

An hórreo

and another one.

That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!