Lepanto is the Italian name for the Greek port of Naupaktos, where a famous naval battle took place in 1571 in which a coalition of Christians trounced the Ottoman Empire. (Actually, there were also battles in 1499 and 1500, but since the Europeans lost to the Turks, we tend to quietly forget them.) The Christian victory in 1571 is attributed to Our Lady of the Rosary (la Virgen del Rosario), so every two years, Barlovento stages a re-enactment of the battle as part of the annual fiesta in August. Even better – they do it on dry land.
This sounds delightfully silly, so I was very keen to see it.
Yup, it’s silly.
The original battle involved something like 80,000 men, which is almost the population of the whole island. So I was expecting a cut-down version. Heck, Shakespeare did battles by having one man come on stage and say, “Imagine the battle…”
Barlovento had a rather good toy castle with about 12 visible defenders, and the sultan gave a speech about the original battle. Then a ship came up behind the castle. At this point I realised that I was in the wrong position to see the naval battle, but I got to see the sails of the two ships waving over the tree tops.
They had lots of dramatic bangs which threw dust up into the air – I think they must have buried explosives in advance.
Eventually, of course, they Christians won, and took all the Muslims prisoner.
They had a brief pause to wash the dirt out of their mouths, so I went around the back.
At that point, I finally got a good look at the Christian ship.
Then the victors marched their prisoners into the village.
(I’m sure it’s against the Geneva Convention to force a prisoner along with a pike when he’s already got a sword stuck through him.)
They took the prisoners to the church, where, surprise, surprise, they all converted to Christianity – politically correct NOT! But then I’m sure that somewhere there’s an equivalent Muslim fiesta which ends with all the Christians converting to Islam.
Altogether, a rather good laugh.
Of course the fiesta carried on with music in the plaza and dancing long into the night.
I don’t know if it’s just me or if perhaps everybody else experiencing issues with your site.
It appears like some of the text in your content are running off the screen. Can somebody else please comment and let me know if this is happening
to them as well? This might be a problem with my web browser because I’ve had this happen previously.
Kudos
Oh my goodness! Impressive article dude! Many thanks, However I am going through issues with your RSS.
I don’t understand the reason why I cannot subscribe to it.
Is there anyone else having similar RSS issues? Anybody who knows the answer
will you kindly respond? Thanx!!
Hi this is kind of of off topic but I was wondering if
blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have
to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding
knowledge so I wanted to get guidance from someone with experience.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Hello there! Quick question that’s completely off
topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly?
My weblog looks weird when viewing from my iphone4.
I’m trying to find a template or plugin that might be able to
resolve this problem. If you have any suggestions, please share.
Cheers!
Superb blog! Do you have any tips for aspiring writers? I’m hoping to start my own website soon but I’m a little lost on everything.
Would you recommend starting with a free platform like WordPress or go for a paid option? There are so many
choices out there that I’m completely confused ..
Any recommendations? Bless you!
Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I’ve truly enjoyed surfing
around your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your rss feed and I hope you
write again very soon!
Hmm it appears like your site ate my first comment (it was super long) so I guess I’ll
just sum it up what I submitted and say, I’m thoroughly
enjoying your blog. I as well am an aspiring blog
writer but I’m still new to everything. Do you have any recommendations for beginner blog writers?
I’d certainly appreciate it.
My website: Miami Gardens traffic school
No matter if some one searches for his necessary thing, so he/she wishes to be available that in detail, so that thing
is maintained over here.
Here is my web page smith mountain lake waterfront property
It’s an awesome paragraph in support of all the online users; they
will get advantage from it I am sure.
My blog :: watercolor invitations diy
hey there and thank you for your information – I have certainly picked up something new from right here.
I did however expertise a few technical issues using this website, since I experienced to reload the web site
many times previous to I could get it to load properly.
I had been wondering if your hosting is OK? Not that I’m complaining, but slow loading instances times will often affect your placement in google and can damage your quality
score if advertising and marketing with Adwords. Anyway I’m adding this RSS to my email
and could look out for a lot more of your
respective exciting content. Ensure that you update this again very soon.
Here is my site :: things for kids to do in long island