At three o’clock in the afternoon, a group of Nordic tourists cross the Plaça España d’Écija of their own volition, given by the locals, academics on the matter of heat, but captive to the label of living in “La paella d’Andalusia”. The thermometer registers 37 degrees on a Thursday in April, an ideal month to visit Andalusia…
“Summer has come very early this year”, notes Belén, fourth generation of the churreria in the aforementioned square, where the Town Hall (under construction) is located. They dispatch from seven in the morning until one, or half past two, it depends on the day and the heat. Here is an unwritten rule of this city of 40,000 inhabitants, whose vast surface area (978 square kilometers) is nine times that of Barcelona (101 km): the heat alters business hours, half an hour up, half an hour down down
Living with heat, sweltering heat and extreme temperatures is an art and a school of life in Écija, a baroque city with an extraordinary heritage, overshadowed by the phrase “paella d’Andalusia”, a whole display of modesty because well could claim the title of “the pan of the European Union”. In August 1995 they reached 46.5 degrees…
“The heat, of course, explains a lot of things about Écija”, says Juan Méndez, 82, author of a book on local heritage in which details of the 11 towers, 22 gables and more than 100 bells from Écija, “a wealth beyond the clichés of banditry and temperatures”. The town planning, the configuration of the whitewashed houses and their courtyards, the food, the odd commercial hours or the deserted streets and squares at nap time, inevitable, when lead falls from the sky.
And to make fun of the heat and what life and the climate have to offer in Écija, located between Seville and Córdoba, with the “aggravation” of being in a valley, the Genil valley, which retains the heat and reduces the effect of the cool night.
– How does heat affect food?
– We drink a lot of gazpacho (Sevillian influence), a lot of salmorejo (Cordovese). And many bottles of Cruzcampo!
MarÃa del Mar talks and laughs, at the head of the Bersabé bookstore, another fourth-generation shop in the center of Écija, lively in the morning – on Thursdays, street market – and deserted from 1.30 p.m., when it sets up a kind of curfew, except for the tourists, whose faces conveyed suffering yesterday.
“We are getting to know Andalusia. We chose this month because they said that in the summer the heat is very strong… We expected 25 degrees at the most. No, we’re not changing plans”, says a sweaty and white-skinned Dutch couple in their sixties, in front of the palatial house of Lasso de la Vega, a few meters from the Garcilaso palace, not far from the Benamejà palace. .
The councilor responsible for Tourism and the Environment and candidate of the PSOE to retain the mayorship, Sergio Gómez Ramos, expresses Écija’s shock and dismay at this stereotype of “the paella of Andalusia”, created from the myth that you can fry eggs on the pavement of the squares, an occurrence like any other. It is understandable: the myth overshadows the historical and heritage dimension of Écija, “Baroque cityâ€, according to the signs welcoming the driver. And it hurts the desire for tourists to spend the night there, even though the competition from Seville and Córdoba seems insurmountable.
“We already know that we will not remove this label, but it is in bad taste because Écija has two thousand years of history and a wealth that does not come out of collation – points out the councillor-. Of course it bothers us, because it is profoundly unfair!â€.
With climate change and the rigors, we are all a little Écija, to paraphrase a fashion expression. A municipal employee laughs these days when she sees or reads that other towns exceed, by very little, but exceed the temperatures of Écija. Or they approach it and know what it is to suffer rigors. “Estos dÃas hay pueblos que están echando la pawa”, he quips with an amused expression.
On the other hand, the heat has given and gives notoriety to Écija, more than the olive groves and bell towers of a single wall, a city that sounds to all Spaniards, just like Calatayud, Lepe and Albacete, also victims of other sayings . “I think the important thing is that they talk about it, even if it’s to criticize”, says the co-owner of the Bersabé bookshop, the one in the two arms.
There is a pharmacy in Plaça España itself, and in the pharmacy, a friendly clerk, named José Luis, attends to the journalist in the absence of the owner, who, no doubt, has gone out to do business and will be back shortly.
– Is there any local medicine, any drug that sells more on days of extreme temperatures?
-Yes! Fresh water!
