Morella, Castellón
Morella is an ancient walled city located on a hill-top in the province of Castellón, Valencian Community, Spain. The town is the capital and administrative centre of the comarca of Els Ports, in the historic Maestrat (Maestrazgo) region.
There are traces of settlement by the Iberians, succeeded by the Greeks and Romans, Visigoths and the Moors. From the early 17th century to the Spanish Civil War, the town was often fought over, due to its strategic situation between the Ebro and the coastal plain of Valencia. Morella is part of the Taula del Sénia free association of municipalities.
Every six years the citizens celebrate the Sexenni, a commemoration of the town's recovery from the plague in the seventeenth century. Tourism now plays an important part in the local economy, along with agriculture. In the 20th century the town and surrounding area became depopulated, a trend that has only been reversed in the early 21st century. The population of Morella in 2008 was 2,854, having declined from a figure of 7,335 in 1900 (INE).
Podcasts:
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by Sparklehorse
More Yellow Birds
by: Sparklehorseis your jewellery still lost in the sand
out on the coast, or rushed into the brine?
you left your rings on the shoreline
so you wouldn't lose them swimming in the shallows
a plastic shovel, soft sweaty children far from home
on vacation not unlike your very own
and the Captain Howdy lit upon my shoulder
and he left me with sulphur and rooms full of headaches
I fell in with snakes in the poisoned ranks of strangers
please send me more yellow birds for the dim interior
will my pony recognise my voice in hell?
will he still be blind, or do they go by smell?
will you promise not to rest me out at sea
but on a fiery river boat that's rickety?
I'll never find my pony along the rolling swell
a muddy river or a lake would do me well
with hints of amber sundowns and moody thunderstorms
a sunken barge's horns, with the cold rusty bells