Unexpectedly, I was the princess in the tower!

I once heard someone saying: “Remember that life’s most beautiful flowers often grow in the most unexpected places”. Cannot remember who it was, but that person was right.

Many times, while living in Alicante, Spain, we decided to take our car and drive without establishing the exact place we wanted to visit. By doing this, we got to know the most wonderful corners of the province. Banyeres de Mariola was one of them.

Banyeres -as it’s usually called- is a little less than an hour drive from Alicante. There are 7000 inhabitants and as a curiosity, 7000 cars registered in the town. It’s small and almost everyone would say it’s an ordinary little town but the castle in the middle is what changes it. The busy road from Toledo to Denia passed through it, protected by various castles, and was therefore the scene of frequent raids between Moors and Christians. That is why its first inhabitants decided to build their houses on top of the hill, next to the castle walls, looking for shelter and protection. In those times it was madness to settle in the open countryside. However, the main modus vivendi of Banyeres was always milling. For centuries, the waters of the Vinalopo river have moved up to fourteen mills of all kinds: oil mills, wheat mills, paper mills… And this prosperous town now produces paper, plastics and textiles. There are famous esparto grass growers, who still continue to handcraft all kinds of bags, hats and other esparto accessories.

The oldest part of the town, a group of low houses, is the closest to the castle gates. The horizontal streets have formed like rings around the hill, while the vertical ones form slopes that sometimes they have to be climbed with steps that seem endless! The last inhabitants to arrive had to build, down the hill, in places far from the castle and, therefore, more exposed to Moorish attacks. Today, however, there are hardly any old houses to be seen and even these appear so renovated that anyone would take them for new.  Definitely Banyeres may be just a cluster of houses nestled around the castle, but what a magnificent sight from its castle! Looking back, one can imagine a grateful town under the protective mantle of James the Conqueror, who took the castle from the Moors in the 13th century, making the region a land of Christians forever. It would not be difficult to recall the warning bonfires lit on top of the tower by the castle guards when they saw from the watchtower a party of Saracens approaching the town, the frantic ringing of the bells and the commotion of the good people gathering belongings and provisions in a hurry to run to take refuge with their children within the walls of the fortress, which resisted, I am sure, numerous attacks and sieges. History always haunts us, marks us, teaches us and explains to us, among other things, that nothing unites more than a common enemy.

In the castle, you can find a fantastic statue of Saint George, killing a dragon to save the beautiful princess. Being in the highest tower of the castle -those who know me already know I am very imaginative. Being there, I felt myself as the princess, seeing from the height a terrible dragon who was coming to kidnap me and all of a sudden, see Saint George in his big horse – obviously the Saint George in my mind looked exactly as my husband – become the winner of an intense fight. He turned to look at me. His armour gleamed in the sunlight, and his eyes locked with mine. He dismounted his horse and climbed the spiral staircase of the tower, each step echoing like a heartbeat. When he finally reached me, he took my hand, by his touch I realised his hands were quite small, as from a child… and yes, it was our son’s hand, tiny and cold, I looked at him, coming back to reality, to hear his complaints he needed a toilet urgently!!!!

As Brian Tracy, the Canadian-American motivational speaker once said, the distance between dreams and reality is called action. I was daydreaming as the princess but was called into action in the twinkling of an eye!