Friday, April 26, 2013

Madrid to Lisbon

Friday, April 19, 2013


A redhead named Mario drove us in a black Mercedes van to the Madrid Atocha train station for the high-speed train ride to Cordoba. Clare had been thoughtful enough to book us into business class, so a cold breakfast consisting of yogurt, bread, sliced ham, sliced cheese and some minced, dried fruit was provided. Coffee was offered several times during our one-hour and forty-minute train ride.

We had a brief wait at the Avis rental counter while the couple ahead of us acquired their car. The VW Passat station wagon that Ken had reserved was not available, but we were able to stuff all our luggage except my backpack into the trunk of an Audi. We drove the half mile to the parking lot of the AC Hotel Cordoba Palacio, where we were to meet our local guide, Carmen. Ken’s Garmin GPS system proved extremely helpful, because my interpretation of my Google map’s directions would have had us going the wrong way entirely.

We were about an hour early for our rendezvous so Abby waited in the car, expertly parked in a shady spot, while Ken and I sampled the local tapas at a bar and grill in the Jewish Quarter of old Cordoba. Gail, not hungry, explored the city on foot while we ate on a patio under a shade tree.

Carmen found us, back in the parking lot, without any trouble. She has been guiding for about 16 years and has two young daughters. In addition to Spanish, she speaks English, French, Italian and German, all of which she can use to guide in. She prefers English, because more tourists speak English than any other language, and German because not many other guides are fluent in German.

We re-entered the Jewish quarter and Carmen took us to a synagogue built in 1315, one of only three medieval synagogues left in Spain, the other two being in Toledo. It’s a small building, measuring just 23 feet by 21 feet, but it still has its women’s and children’s gallery and a niche in the east wall defining the ark where the Torah would have been kept. By 1884, it had been converted to a church badly in need of repair. When the covering of plaster was removed from the walls, the Mudejar arabesques from 1315 were revealed. The building was quickly declared a national monument. When Ken or Gail would ask Carmen to confirm their understanding of the purpose of certain parts of the building, she would reply, “Es-actly.” We all grew to love that expression.

Carmen then led us through the streets of the Jewish quarter to courtyards arranged in the Moorish style, with cobblestone floors sloping toward a central well or cistern with greenery around it. Today the greenery is usually an orange tree. Carmen explained that the oranges are of a bitter variety, so that they will decorate the tree longer. Carmen pointed out the windows covered with jute shades, so many that I started calling it the juteish quarter.

We learned about Maimonides, who was from Cordoba, but spent most of his life in other parts of the Caliphate. He is known today as a philosopher and Hebrew scholar; during his lifetime he was also a highly-respected physician. The Jewish quarter is replete with statues and many other references to him.

Carmen led us out of the Jewish quarter toward the mezquita (mosque) of Cordoba. We passed through a wall next to a Christian bell tower that encases the former minaret, through a leafy garden and into a forest of 850 columns surmounted by ornate capitals taken from the Visigoth church that had preceded the mosque. The arches of the original columns consist of red brick alternating with limestone to give them a striped appearance. Even newer arches built entirely of limestone are painted to look like the old arches.

Carmen folded her copy of the brochure to illustrate how the church was constructed in four stages. Abd ar Rahmann I (756-88) bought the site from the Visigoths, demolished their church, and replaced it with a mosque about one-fourth the size of the present one. Al Hakam II (961-76) enlarged the mosque and added the prayer niche in the east which, through an oversight, faces east rather than directly toward Mecca. The last addition to the mosque, in 987 by Al Mansur, more than doubled its size.

Some misguided Christians, on the authority of Charles V, built a cathedral inside the mosque in the 1520’s. Charles had never seen the mosque and, when he arrived to examine the new cathedral exclaimed, “To build something ordinary, you have destroyed something that was unique in the world!” Inside the church, in the Altar del Santisimo Sacramento, is an interesting depiction of the Last Supper, in which Mary Magdalene has her head resting on Jesus’ shoulder. It reminds me of Dan Brown’s interpretation of Da Vinci’s Last Supper in the The Da Vinci Code.

Once outside the mosque and cathedral, we walked over for a look at the Roman Bridge. Abby spotted, as Ken had earlier, a lizard scurrying for cover. Carmen commented that the water in the Guadalquivir River is high, after all the rains they had had in March and early April. We paused long enough for a photo on the Calle des Flores on the way back to our car. We bought a Diet Coke for Carmen at a café outside the old city wall, ate a snack, and then we made our farewells.

At Carmen’s recommendation, we took the scenic route to Granada, the two-lane highway rather than the four-lane, shorter in distance but longer in time. We passed several villages built around small castles on the top of a hill. In most cases, the church was outside the castle, but in one instance, the castle was large enough to have the church inside. It was scenic country, mostly olive groves with opportunities along the way for tourists to buy olives, olive oil or gasoline.

Ken’s GPS system, which by now had been given the name of Carmen the Garmin, took us on a very circuitous route through the narrow streets of old Granada to the Hotel Hesperia Granada. After checking into our rooms, we walked to a local restaurant run by Maria Mariquilla and named after her. Ken had monkfish, I had duck and Abby and beefsteak, all of them in delicious sauces prepared by Maria’s husband, the chef. Gail had another of her surprise salads, with ingredients that were not listed on the menu. We got back to the hotel at about 11:00 and fell quickly asleep. Or rather, relatively quickly, considering the bar next door was having a very cheerful party that spilled out into the street, and our window was definitely not soundproof.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Our Granada guide, Robert, met us in the hotel lobby prompted at 9:30. Although born and raised in Spain, he has a perfect English accent because his mother is English. He’s about 5’10” tall, with a slim build and receding short brown hair. He was wearing a jeans jacket, a black knit vest, white shirt, blue chinos and tennis shoes. He walked Ken and Gail to a point where they could easily walk to the Alhambra, and then flagged a taxi for Abby and me to ride with him. I was glad for the taxi, because the citadel sits on the side of a very steep hill.

Fodor’s calls the Alhambra the last bastion of Moorish presence on the Iberian peninsula, and so does everyone else. Mere words cannot do it justice; neither can photographs. The man who did do it justice was named Jose Garcia, a one-armed Spaniard who defused some of the French explosives that were meant to destroy it in 1812 as Napoleon’s troops withdrew. Because of his bravery, three of the Alhambra’s more important buildings were saved. Unfortunately, many more were destroyed. Only stubs of the walls remain of the destroyed buildings.

Construction of the Alhambra began in 1238 under the first Nasrid ruler of Granada, Ibn el Ahmar. It was completed in 1391. Just 101 years later, in 1492, it would be surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella. One of the more beautiful spots in the Alhambra is the Patio de los Arranyanes, where a pool of still water reflects the myrtle hedges and arabesque arches of the surrounding courtyard walls. A hydraulic system – still in use today after 700 years - brings cold, clear water from the Sierra Nevada to the pools, streams and flowers of the Alhambra.

We lingered in the Patio de los Leones, where a dozen lions support a large stone basin of water in
the center of a courtyard surrounded by arches of arabesque design. Between the arches are domes of mocarabe, molded plaster evocative of hanging stalactites and originally painted in vibrant colors. Why stalactites? The prophet Mohammed hid in a cavern from his enemies early in his career. The stalactites are symbolic of God’s grace in keeping him from harm during the period he spent in the cavern.

A plaque commemorates Washington Irving and his writing of Tales of the Alhambra on site in 1829. For 38 years, since I was last here, I have wondered what he did to deserve such a plaque. I learned today that his writings helped to revive interest in the crumbling citadel and led, at least in part, to its ultimate preservation. Who says that one person cannot make a difference?

We climbed even further uphill to the Generalife, the summer palace of the Moorish rulers. This was a cooler, higher-elevation, more verdant location where the Nasrid rulers could escape in the summer from the heat and hurly-burly of the official court in the Alhambra below. We developed an even greater appreciation for the gardens and flowers of the Moorish rulers and the aqueducts that kept them verdant.

We said goodbye to Robert for the day. Abby and I had lunch at Restaurante La Mimbre just outside the Alhambra while Ken and Gail walked downhill into the Muslim quarter. We had a brief siesta and then met up with Ken and Gail in the hotel lobby at 5:15 p.m. We walked a short distance to the Granada Cathedral, commissioned by Charles V in 1521, but not completed until 1714, just a bit after his death. Fodor’s says that old hymnals are displayed throughout, but does not mention that
the extra-large hymnals are in plain chant, an early version of music notation that could only be read by monks and other learned members of the choir. This is the fourth-largest church in the world. Only St. Peter’s in Rome, St. Paul’s in London, and the cathedral of Seville (our next stop) are larger.

After the cathedral, we once again traveled from the sublime to the ridiculous. We went around the corner to Subway, where Gail and I each had “Baby subs,” small sandwiches for just 1 Euro each. Ken and Gail then showed us the highlights of the Muslim quarter, where we saw a bachelor party go by with the prospective groom dressed as a “nun” and his friends
dressed as “monks.” With nonsense words such as “la la,” they were singing the tune to “Yankee Doodle.”

We had supper at “Oliver,” an authentic Spanish restaurant not far from our hotel. Abby and I shared the Paella mixta, Ken had lamb chops, and Gail had a lettuce salad with tuna. This seemed to be the first salad that did not surprise her with ingredients that were not listed on the menu. After a delicious meal, we returned to the hotel and sank into bed.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

We met Robert in the hotel lobby. He climbed into the passenger seat of our Audi A4 and then Ken drove the five of us to the Alpujarras, a collection of villages set precariously on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains. This was the final domain of the last Moorish king, Boabdil, after he surrendered Granada. In 1568 the Moors staged a rebellion that was brutally suppressed by Phillip II. All were forced to convert to Christianity and were relocated. The area was resettled by soldiers from Galicia, who were given the homes of the Moors as payment for their service. The residents still continue the formerly Moorish occupation of weaving rugs and blankets, as wells making baskets, blankets and other handicrafts.

Our first stop was at Lanjaron, 29 miles from Granada, a spa town famous for its mineral water that flows from the melting snows of the mountains. We went inside the spa to see its many product offerings – hot baths, showers, mud packs (both blanco and chocolate), massage, manicures, and much more. Water can be purchased with natural effervescence or, from separate taps, with various minerals in it. However, the water that cures constipation requires a prescription from a physician!

We drove all the way up to Capileira, the highest of the High Alpujarras, We found a coffee shop where we could buy coffee and Lanjaron mineral water to sip while we ate the local pastry, torta alpujarrena, a round flat quick-bread pastry about 10 inches in diameter with a thin coating of granulated sugar. Gail pronounced it perfect, and the rest of us quickly agreed.


As we sat there enjoying the fireplace, Ken noticed a man at the bar drinking a whiskey-colored drink poured from a glass decanter. Robert told us that the drink is a young wine (vino joven in Spanish) known locally as costas. Abby and I offered to buy a bottle so that we could each have a taste, but Ken said that would be a mistake, because it might not taste good; we should have a sample first. Robert bought a glass for us to share and we each had a sip. Ken was right. This wine has never seen the inside of a barrel. It smelled like cider and had a VERY grapey flavor. Must be an acquired taste.

As we walked around town, we went down narrow lanes and around corners that were far too tight for automobiles. We passed through a lane where a roof had been built across it to connect two buildings. Robert paused to point out the local style of roof construction – round natural wood beams about five inches in diameter span the load-bearing walls. These beams are spaced about eighteen inches apart and sticks about an inch in diameter are laid across them. Then several layers of slate are laid across the sticks and arranged to shed water. The final layer is very fine gravel barely coarser than sand. In some cases the resulting ceiling is left white and in other cases it is varnished or left in a natural state.

Robert found a vantage point where we could look over the valley and see the other two towns in the High Alpujarras, Trevelez and Pampaneira. Streams of meltwater flowed through the town, channeled between stone walls. As we left town to drive down to Pampaneira, we noticed the unique style of their chimneys. Made of stucco, they are shaped so that there are four prongs at the top. Across the prongs the builder lays a large piece of slate with a cone-shaped blob of stucco stuck on top. It makes a distinctive, but clearly functional, chimney. I wonder if these chimneys could have inspired Antoni Gaudi’s chimneys atop Casa Mila.

In Pampaneira, Robert led us to a spring-water community laundry, where there are eight very old
slate-lined concrete basins, each of which can be fed by a channel of spring water running down the middle. Pieces of slate can be used to divert water into your basin, or to let it flow past. Abby and Gail pretended to do laundry at two of the basins. A few minutes later, a Spanish tourist did the same.

We found a shop where rugs are woven by using a hand-operated loom. We watched as the operator pulled leather straps to drive the shuttle back and forth across the loom. We did not see rugs any nicer than the blue-striped one we had bought in Capleira, which we will take to the cabin.

Outside, Robert encouraged us to drink from the Fountain of San Antonio, which bears a sign claiming that drinking its water will help us to find love. For those already married, Robert suggested that it may have the qualities of an aphrodisiac, so we all drank heartily. There were large clumps of wisteria and little yellow roses in profusion throughout Pampaneira. We found it hard to say goodbye to the High Alpuharras.

Back in Granada, we said adios to Robert and set off in search of lunch, it being 3:00 p.m., considered by Spaniards to be the perfect time for lunch. Ken led us to a little square that was holding an art fair today. It turned out that the west side of the square is also lined with restaurants. We stopped at Restaurante Casa Cristobal, whose sign advertised that it offered typical Grenada cuisine. Abby had fried chicken breast, Ken had steamed langoustines, Gail had grilled squid and I had octopus steamed with potatoes, Galician style. Abby and Gail started with salads and I had my first gazpacho of the trip. Muy rico! At the art fair, Abby and I bought a small print of the Myrtle Patio in the Alhambra from a young, bearded artist.

After a brief siesta, we took a taxi to the Sacromonte area for a flamenco show. Thirty-eight of us watched six performers in a small, arched-roof venue known as a cueva or cave. Three women and one man danced flamenco, two of the women sang solos, and a man played guitar. The male dancer was tall and thin, with long brown hair pulled back in a pony tail. He wore a dark suit and black shoes. After a while the suit coat came off to reveal a sweat-soaked light blue embroidered shirt. The women wore traditional flamenco dresses in black, blue and green with polka dots. The man danced the finale and was more powerful and energetic in his moves than the women. Rhythmic clapping, finger snapping, castanets and singing were all part of the show. The dancers at one point invited people to dance with them, and Gail joined in. We left feeling fully entertained. As we waited for the taxi, I took photos of an illuminated Alhambra in the darkness.

Monday, April 22, 2013

At 9:00 a.m. we loaded ourselves and our luggage into the car for the drive to Ronda, a small city between Granada and Seville that has been popularized by both Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles. Ronda straddles a ravine, 360 feet deep and 210 feet across, which separates La Ciudad (the old Moorish city) from El Mercadillo (the new town). The elevation at the top of the ravine is 800 meters, about 2500 feet, so it is cooler in the summer than Seville, which is closer to sea level. On the way into town, Ken got some driving tips from Ronda’s motorcycle police, at no extra charge, on how to negotiate its traffic circles.

We met our guide, Armando, at the Parador de Ronda and walked to the Puente Nuevo (New Bridge), built between 1755 and 1793. At 360 feet above the Guadalevin River, it replaced an older bridge that had collapsed. Armando stated that it is not true that people were thrown off the bridge during the Civil War. However, a large room under the bridge was used as a jail for political prisoners during the Civil War.

Armando walked us to Palacio de Mondragon, which dates from Moorish times. According to Fodors, it was the residence of Ronda’s Moorish rulers. Its foundations were Roman in origin. Upstairs is an interesting museum that traced the archeological history of the area from Iberian to Phoenician to Roman to Moorish times. We then walked to Santa Maria La Mayor church, whose bishop had built residential quarters for himself on the front of the church after an earthquake. Inside were some more plainsong hymnals, such as we had seen in Granada.

We then went to Casa Bosco, overlooking the valley between Ronda and the mountains to the south. An interesting light fixture in the dining room showed winged creatures with light bulbs in their mouths. Senor San Juan Bosco willed his house to the Catholic church upon his death in 1888 and, in so doing, founded the order of Salesians. This was a classic example of a Spanish house from the early modern period.

We walked back across the bridge, where a bride and groom were having their pictures taken, to the bullring, which dates to 1785. The bullring is used only during Ronda’s May festival, and again in September during a tribute to Francisco Goya, who made many sketches of bullfights. Armando came alive and this point; it became clear that he is a fan of bullfighting. However, he recommended that we see some bullfights on television before attempting to see one in person. He showed us the stables where the bulls are kept before the fights, and then took us to the bullfighting museum underneath the seats of the stadium.

Armando led us to a small sculpture of a bull and explained the anatomy of bullfighting. The picadors
use their lances to cut tendons in the back of the bull’s neck to prevent him from lifting his head. This action by the picadors also separates the bull’s scapulas from its ribs, which allows the matador’s sword to find its way to the bull’s heart.

After lunch at a tourist restaurant, we walked to the car and began
the drive to Seville. Along the way we made an impromptu stop at the Castille de las Aguzaderas, which had been used to defend the Moorish kingdom of Grenada from the kingdom of Castille and its forces around Seville. We were definitely off the beaten path in rural Andalusia!

Our drive into Seville was much easier our drive into Granada – no narrow, twisting streets to negotiate. Our hotel, NH Plaza de Armas, was on a major street just across the Guadalquivir River from the ring road. Ken had chosen an easy route into town. We had a dinner of tapas at the Giralda tapas bar near the cathedral. They did not seem to have our reservation, but had plenty of tables available. We sat out on the sidewalk. While Abby and Gail had salads, Ken and I had tapas of pork, rabbit, cod, ratatouille, and fish spread. Delicious!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

We met our guide, Virginia, in the hotel lobby at 9:30 a.m. Virginia, with brown hair pulled into a pony tail, is in her early 30’s and has a three-year-old daughter. She was dressed in a medium-gray blouse, a maroon-and-gray patterned skirt and dark gray tights. We walked through the Plaza Nueva to the Alcazar, a Mudejar palace built by King Pedro I (1350-69). It looks like the Alhambra, which was a Moorish citadel, but this is a Christian palace, built by Moorish workers from Granada. The Alcazar is still the official residence of the King and Queen of Spain when they are in town.

Tourists enter the Alcazar through the Lion’s gate into the Courtyard of the Lion. Virginia led us into the room where the Spanish court approved Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to America. We paused to enjoy many examples of Mudejar architecture throughout the palace. We encountered a patio with a long pool in the middle and orange trees on the side that is reminiscent of the Myrtle Patio at the Alhambra, but was actually built earlier by a Christian king. What an interesting puzzle is the history of Spain!

We wandered through gardens redolent with myrtle and acanthus, to a hydraulic organ, whose notes are generated by water pressure rather than air. Upon leaving the Alcazar, in the Plaza de Banderas, we encountered a bride and groom having their wedding pictures taken, even though their wedding was about a month ago. We then walked
down Calle de Juderia into the Jewish quarter. Abby, Gail and Virginia found some flamenco dresses that interested them. Virginia led us to a square where the painter Bartolome Estaban Murillo had been interred in a church before it burned to the ground. None of his remains were recoverable after the fire.

Virginia walked us down Calle Reinoso, the narrowest street in Seville, not even wider than a sidewalk. We went to the cathedral, which includes a tower that has been replicated in the Country Club Plaza of Kansas City, Seville’s sister city. As a native of the Kansas City area, I have seen the tower many times, but did not realize that it is a replica of the Giralda, the tower in Seville, which was originally the minaret of a mosque. When the cathedral was built on the foundation of the mosque, a bell tower was added to the top of the minaret to give it the appearance it has today. At the top of the bell tower is a large weather vane that spins in the wind, which is the meaning of the word “Giralda.”

Virginia paid our admission fee to enter the world’s third-largest church; only St. Peter’s in the Vatican and St. Paul’s in London are larger than the Seville cathedral. This large gothic edifice is not cross-shaped like other churches; it’s rectangular to conform to the foundation of the mosque. The most notable feature of the interior is the tomb of Christopher Columbus, whose remains were moved several times before coming to rest here. Curiously, on a few grams of Columbus’s remains are actually in the tomb, but they have been genetically tested and found to match his known descendants. However, a church in Santo Domingo also claims to house his final remains, which are now awaiting genetic testing.

Virginia walked us most of the way to Plaza Encarnacion, where Abby ordered a Greek salad and I ordered tapas at a sidewalk café called Spala. Ken and Gail stopped by 20 minutes later; they had stayed behind at the cathedral to climb the ramps to the top of the Giralda. We chatted with three young men in their late 20’s and early 30’s from Los Angeles who were at the table next to ours. They took our picture with Ken’s camera and we shared our sangria with them.

Abby and I took a taxi back to the hotel while Ken and Gail took a walk. After a brief siesta, we went up to the cathedral to meet up with Ken and Gail for a horse-and-carriage ride around the old city, ending up at Plaza de Espana, the site of a 1929 exposition or world’s fair. A large, rococo, semi-circular building there has been a set for the Lawrence of Arabia movie and one of the Star Trek movies. We asked some passers-by to take pictures of us and, in exchange, we took pictures of them. Afterwards, we took a taxi to Plaza del Altozano to see the other, less touristy, side of the river.

Abby and I walked back across the river to Merchant’s Malthouse, an Irish pub on Calle de Canalejas, not far from our hotel. We took the best seat in the pub to watch the semi-final of the European Champions League soccer match between Bayern-Munich and Barcelona. We ate nachos and a Greek salad until the end of the first half, when we walked back to the hotel to see the rest of the game. Bayern-Munich won handily.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

We met Ken and Gail in the lobby at 9:00 for our day-trip to Jerez de la Frontera. Our first stop was the Real Escuela Andaluza del Arte Ecuestre (Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art). The school operates on the grounds of a 19th century palace, now empty except for an excellent museum of equestrian history in the basement. Our guide, Mathilda, walked us through some stables, across a street and into a carriage-and-harness museum. We looked at a carriage from the late 18th century that is used for special occasions by the Spanish royal family. It was last used during the wedding of the king’s daughter in the 1990’s. We saw a video of her and her groom leaving the church where they were married, not unlike the recent marriage of William and Kate in the British royal family.
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We sat in the stands in the training and performance center and watched horses and riders practice their dressage. It all seemed very elegant, while at the same time harking back to a bygone era when horses were much more important than they are today. We learned that there are three types of instruction at the school, classical dressage, vaquero dressage, and carriage driving. Each horse learns only one type of activity. We looked at some vaquero saddles, which have very large, metal stirrups to protect the vaqueros’ feet from bumping into cattle and brush as they ride the range.

After a brief stop at a local coffee shop for a café con leche and a snack, we headed over to Lustau Bodega, known for its sherry, for a wine tasting. The English word “sherry” is derived from Xerez,
the Moorish name for Jerez. Fino (dry) sherry is made by adding alcohol, in the form of brandy, to the wine to allow only one type of wild yeast to grow in the barrels. It is this yeast that gives sherry its characteristic flavor. To make medium-dry sherries such as amontillado or oloroso, more alcohol is added, which kills some of the yeast and allows the wine to oxidize, increasing its complexity and darkening its color. The sweetest sherries are made by first spreading the grapes out to dry in the sun, which concentrates their sugar. At any given time, more than 500,000 barrels of sherry are aging in Jerez’s bodegas.

We tasted some sherry and ate some tapas-like snacks – Spanish omelet, almonds (salted as well as chocolate-covered), some sliced Iberian ham and chorizo sausage, as well as olives. We all agreed that the amontillado and oloroso were the best; the finos were too dry and the dessert sherries were too sweet.

We piled into the car so that Ken could drive us to Arcos de la Frontera, the westernmost of the Andalusian pueblos blancos. At one point along its steep, narrow and winding streets, I got out of the car and walked backwards in front of it to direct Ken through some tight places. No problema! Ken parked in a very tight parking spot in front of the church in Plaza de Espana, the highest point in town except for the castle. We got out of the car and looked out over the Guadalete River valley hundreds of feet below. Abby and I paid the two-Euro admission charge to enter Santa Maria de la Asuncion church, to hear Handel’s Messiah being played on the sound system inside. We found a 14th-century fresco and the usual altar pieces and reliquaries around the walls of the church.

In our rented Audi A4, we crept out of Arcos’ narrow streets and made our way back to Seville. Our two couples took separate routes to Spala, our favorite restaurant in Plaza de Encarnacion. I had grilled dorada (bream), Gail had grilled squid, Abby had Moroccan chicken, and Ken had braised pork. A TV in the restaurant kept us up to date on the Dortmund-Real-Madrid Champions League semi-final match, which Dortmund eventually won. It appears there will be an all-German European Champions League final. Tomorrow – Lisbon, Portugal.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Ken called our room at 9:20 to say that they were ready to drive to Lisbon. We crammed our luggage into the trunk and headed west and then north on a beautiful four-lane divided highway. Ken drove first, and then I spelled him for a couple of hours until we got to a BP gas station in Lisbon, where I turned the wheel over to him again. I had been so impressed with his driving in the narrow, winding streets of Granada that I thought he should drive in Lisbon, as well.

With only a couple of minor detours, the GPS system guided us to Hotel Heritage Avenida Liberdade in the heart of Lisbon. We checked into the hotel and then walked down Avenida Liberdade toward the waterfront until we found a restaurant and bakery that had mouth-watering pastries and baked goods in its window. Abby and I had grilled pork sandwiches, Ken had a grilled chicken sandwich and Gail had a salad. We then took a taxi to Castelo S. Jorge, an 11th-century Moorish castle that overlooks the city from its perch hundreds of feet above the port.
We arrived at 3:45, just 15 minutes before an English-language guided tour of the castle began. Daniela and Bruno were the two guides for our group of just 10 people. We learned that Lisbon was first settled by Phoenicians in the 7th century B.C. They were followed by Romans who arrived in the 2nd century B.C. One thousand years later, in the 8th century, the Moors arrived. Then in 1147 Afonso became the first king of Portugal by driving the Moors out of Lisbon, with a little help from the Second Crusade.

In the great earthquake of 1755, the palace and other buildings inside the castle were destroyed. Many of the buildings were rebuilt, but the palace was not.  The king by this time was living in a palace downtown, in a location by the waterfront now known as the Praca do Commercio. However, his palace had been destroyed by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami; he built a new palace on higher ground, but not as high as the castle. In 1910 the castle was declared a national monument. What a great way to begin our visit to Lisbon! We had an overview of Portuguese history, and great views of Lisbon from the castle battlements.

For supper we walked a block or two from the hotel to a restaurant named Servejaria that specialized in beer and seafood. Abby and I selected a crab out of the tank in the front of the store, which we shared. We ate the crab claws and legs with the help of a mallet provided by the restaurant to break the shell. The body of the crab had been emulsified into a sauce that tasted of mustard that we ate on toasted baguette. A delicious end to a delightful day!

Friday, April 26, 2013

After a very slow elevator ride, we met our guide, Isabel, in the lobby at 9:30 a.m. We drove to Belem, a neighborhood in western Lisbon on the waterfront. We parked the car and walked past the Presidential Palace to the Coach Museum, a spectacular museum of horse-drawn coaches, carriages, cabriolets, and so on. The museum’s display starts with their oldest coach, which was owned by Philip II (Philip III of Spain) in the late 16th century. It has not been restored, and still has its original velvet and leather. We saw three coaches that had been commissioned by King John V in a mission to Pope Clement XI to persuade him to appoint a Portuguese cardinal. The coaches were used for a grand procession in the Vatican, were dismantled and shipped to Portugal, and then were never used again. Isabel reported that the mission was successful.

We again walked past the presidential palace and its ceremonial guards with drawn swords and horsetail helmets to the Hieronymites Monastery, construction of which was begun in 1502 and completed later that century. Inside the monastery is a large gothic church that contains the tomb of Vasco da Gama. The Portuguese crown had seized and disbanded the monastery in the 19th century to obtain its wealth and property. Today, it is a museum. Cruise ships docking nearby made it a rather busy place. The cloister of the monastery had gargoyles in the shape of a pig and a cricket. We walked to a pastry shop with a very large dining area that had originated the custard tarts that are a Lisbon specialty. We watched trays of hot custard tarts being taken out of the oven, and then, moments later, we were eating some. Wow, are they good!

We drove to the Tower of Belem, built to commemorate the expedition of Vasco da Gama, and to protect the Lisbon harbor. Some of the original cannons are in place inside the tower, as is a gargoyle in the shape of a monkey playing a fiddle.

We said goodbye to Isabel at the Maritime Museum. We paused in front of a map of the Portuguese voyages of discovery in the late 15th and also the 16th centuries. Abby noted that the zigzag course that da Gama took near the Cape of Good Hope was similar to our drive to our hotel in Grenada. We saw models of the square-rigged and lateen-rigged caravels that had made up da Gama’s fleet.

The most interesting part of the museum was the display of royal barges. We saw the Big Barge, built by King John V in 1728 that was manned by 60 oarsmen. The most ostentatious barge was the Royal Barge built by order of Maria I in 1778, also manned by 60 oarsmen. It was last used in 1957 to transport Queen Elizabeth II of Britain on the Tagus River.

The exhibit concluded with a display of three seaplanes. One of them was the first airplane to cross the South Atlantic Ocean, and did so in 1922. Another one was an American-made Grumman – we have a canoe made by that manufacturer – and was in service from 1942 to 1952.

We took a taxi back to the hotel, and made arrangements to ride a tour bus around town. We even purchased a ticket from the hotel’s front desk. However, when we tried to board the bus, we learned from the driver that he was almost finished with his route, and the last bus had already passed by. Instead, we got a refund for our ticket and took a taxi to Praca do Comercio, a large square by the waterfront. In this square stood the royal palace, until it was flattened by an earthquake and tsunami in 1755. The new royal palace was built on higher ground, leaving this space open to be the large, public square that it is today.

Reunited with Ken and Gail at the hotel, we walked across the Avenida da Liberdade to the Gloria funicular, which dates to 1885. A funicular in this case is an electric street car that climbs an 18% grade. The body of the car is level, at an 18% angle with its wheels that ride on streetcar tracks.


In the Barrio Alto at the top of the funicular we found a restaurant with a friendly waiter who spoke English, French and Portuguese and probably several other languages. I ordered grilled sardines, reportedly a very Portuguese dish. These were not canned sardines, but large, fresh ones, grilled whole. They had the characteristic flavor of sardines, but without the salt and oil that characterize canned fish. The night cooled rapidly, but the waiter insisted on keeping a window open, on orders from the restaurant’s owner. If the purpose was to keep the kitchen ventilated, we didn’t mind, and we were warmly dressed.

Back at the hotel, we made our farewells with Ken and Gail. Our flight home early the next morning was uneventful, in contrast to our flight to Barcelona earlier. The four of us had a great trip together. Even though we had different interests and preferences, we were good decision-makers and everyone showed a degree of flexibility that would make seasoned diplomats envious. We even began planning our next trip together – to Turkey in 2015.

The highlights of the trip for me, aside from the wonderful company of Abby, Gail and Ken, were the Alhambra in Granada and the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, one a thousand years old and the other still under construction. Although we saw a lot of churches, none can compare with the soaring beauty and natural, catenary shapes of the Sagrada Familia. Although we saw a lot of Moorish architecture, none can compare with the still pools, fragrant myrtle hedges, and sinuous Arabesques of the Alhambra. In a way these two buildings are bookends for Spain. The modern, arching, golden-domed church in Catalonia to the north, and the Moorish citadel perched on the side of a hill overlooking the flamenco cuevas in the more rural south. Abby and I would go back to Spain, perhaps to live there for a while, to become more familiar with the cadence of the language and the rhythm of a life where dinner is at 2:30 and supper consists of nibbling on tapas by moonlight in a sidewalk café or in a quiet restaurant. We liked Portugal, too, but life in Lisbon seems more familiar. Life in Spain is lived more slowly, later in the day, and with a Mediterranean ambiance that warms the soul.


Thursday, April 18, 2013

Toledo and then Madrid again

Wednesday, April 17, 2013


David, our driver, met us outside the hotel at 9:00 a.m. He was able to pull his black Mercedes van up to the door of the hotel because the hour was not yet 11:00 a.m., when the street is turned over entirely to pedestrians. David is about six feet tall, 30, and with close cropped hair. He was born in Belgium and moved to Madrid at the age of 10. He drove us the 55 miles to Toledo, a walled city that was the capital of Spain, or at least of Castille, until the 1460’s, when the capital was moved to Madrid.

We met our guide, Fernando, at the Puerta de la Bisagra taxi stand. Fernando is about 5’8’’ tall, with short brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a blue denim jacket, khaki pants, and red-rimmed glasses. He was very soft-spoken and would occasionally refer to himself in the third person.

Toledo, a settlement in ancient times, is perched on an easily defensible hill within a large bend of the Tagus River, so that it is surrounded by water on three sides. Romans took control of the city in 192 B.C. In medieval times, a wall was built across the only side not protected by water, and the Puerta de la Bisagra was the main gate through the wall. Whoever controlled the city also controlled the only nearby ford that would allow an army to cross the river.

We drove around the east side of the city to a parador, a government-owned four-star hotel, on the south side of the river overlooking the city. Fernando pointed out the Alcazar, the cathedral, the Muslim quarter and the Jewish quarter to us. We then drove around the west side of the city to the Puerta de la Bisagra and entered the Jewish quarter. David stopped the van at a church called San Juan de los Reyes, so we could get out and begin our walking tour of the city. By chance, a TV series was being recorded on site, with actors in 15th-century costumes. One of the lead actors is a friend of Fernando’s and agreed to have his picture taken with us.

We walked to a 12th-century synagogue with the curious name of Santa Maria la Blanca. After the forced expulsion/conversion of Jews in 1492, all the synagogues were turned into churches. This former synagogue is still known by its later, Christian name. The synagogue was designed and built by Moorish residents of the city, as evidenced by the keyhole arches supporting the roof of the church. The capitals of the columns are decorated with reliefs that remind be of fiddle-head ferns.

When Fernando became aware of our interest in synagogues, he led us down the Calle de Samuel Levi to the Sinagoga del Transito. Samuel Levi, the king’s treasurer, financed this synagogue in the 14th century. The interior is decorated with elaborate Mudejar decoration, which contains no depictions of people or animals. Around the walls are Hebrew inscriptions glorifying God, King Peter “the Cruel” and even Mr. Levi. Supposedly, cedars were imported from Lebanon to build the synagogue, giving it something in common with the First Temple in Jerusalem. Within the synagogue is the Museo Sefardi, a fascinating exhibit of Sephardic Jewish culture, including Torah cases, descriptions of wedding celebrations, and circumcision instruments.

We walked through the narrow streets to the gothic cathedral. Because Toledo was the medieval capital of Spain, its archbishop was primus inter pares, first-among-equals of all the Spanish bishops. The cathedral amply displays his status. The treasury of the cathedral is a small museum of gold and silver religious devices and ornaments, many of them still used today. The most striking example was an enormous monstrance, a device for holding the host during communion. The larger monstrance is built around a small one said to have been used for communion with Isabella (and Ferdinand.)

Behind the altar is a display of biblical scenes done in wood that has been painted and gilded. Fernando’s favorite is the Assumption of the Virgin, where only the lower third of her body is shown as she ascends into the clouds. A room behind the altar contains pictures of each and every archbishop, going back in unbroken succession to the late second century. The Toledans either had unheard-of preservation of historical records, or a facile willingness to fill in missing details. Fernando seemed to think it was the latter. On the back wall of this room is a fresco of Christ raising the naked dead at the time of the Second Coming.

After lunch at a café, we said goodbye to Fernando and told our driver, David, that we wanted to see Picasso’s Guernica at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. He happened to have tickets to the museum, which he gave to us at no extra charge. What a great guy! Guernica was commissioned by the Republican government of Spain in 1937 for a world’s fair in Paris to draw attention to the Republican cause and to raise money to defend the Republic. Its subject is the bombing of innocent civilians in the town of Guernica by the German Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War. I have wanted to see it
since studying the Spanish Civil War in college. The painting never saw Spanish soil until 1981, when it came to Spain from a museum in New York, where it had been moved to avoid the ravages World War II.

We ate supper at a delightful restaurant called “La Kitchen” in the Chueca neighborhood. I had wondered about the Spanglish name until we met the chef, a charming Scotsman who had lived in Eagan, Minnesota, for eight years before moving to Madrid. Ken asked him for recommendations, which we followed religiously. I had squid stuffed with pig’s trotters, which is the best squid ever. Abby had curried hake and Ken had grilled croaker (also known as drum), while Gail ate a salad. The chef sent us each a piece of the best black pudding I have ever tasted and limoncello, a bright yellow digestif. Ken and Gail walked off in search of hot chocolate while a taxi took our aching feet back to the hotel for a warm night’s sleep.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Our guide, Mencia, and driver, John, met us in the lobby of the hotel at 10:00 for a walking tour of some upscale neighborhoods. One of our first stops was Mercado de la Paz, where the now-familiar Iberico hams were hanging by their hooves in the butcher shops. One of the fishmongers had a bright-pink octopus on display, as well as some live crayfish. Another store had beans, lentils and chick peas in every size, shape and color imaginable, and a few that weren’t.

Mencia led us into Loewe’s, a women’s fashion store that specializes in handbags. On the lower level, Loewe’s has a display
of artworks based on “ordinary” objects – hats, shoes, glassware, and so on. In this display the hats are torero hats, or caballero hats from Cordoba, and the glassware is already beautiful in its own right. Nevertheless, it was an interesting exhibit of unusual art. We then got a very tasteful sales pitch for an 1800-Euro handbag with titanium fittings. I asked if it would go on sale, and was quoted a price of 1600 Euros. Hmmmm. Maybe next year.

Mencia then led us to a very upscale chocolate store called Cacao Sampaka. She purchased two very very rich cups of hot chocolate for Ken and me that tasted like liquid chocolate, and very high quality chocolate at that. You could buy a selection of 16 single-bean chocolates for 11.50 Euros. The beans are from Papua New Guinea,
Venezuela, Grenada, Ecuador, Cameroon, Costa Rica, and such places. There were bottles of single-malt Scotch whisky placed strategically around the store to solidify the analogy of single-malt to single-bean. I purchased a box of assorted single-bean chocolates and marveled at the exquisite flavor of each.

At Mercado de San Anton Abby purchased a Tomate Kumato, a variety of tomato she had found in Barcelona and had been trying to rediscover every since. Mencia walked us to Estado Puro in Plaza de Santa Ana for lunch, where she bade us farewell. Just a few minutes later, we were joined by Clare, our delightful (and very professional) travel agent from Made for Spain with a charming Glasgow accent. We had a wonderful lunch while we visited with Clare,
who had personally made all our arrangements for our Spanish vacation. I ate a very tasty stewed tripe, a traditional Madrid dish, while Ken had some spicy potatoes, Abby enjoyed a Caesar salad, and Gail had some roast chicken. Clare was a very convivial lunch companion who couldn’t have been more polite or more professional.

After saying good bye to our friend, Clare, we took a taxi to the Royal Palace, which Christina had recommended to us two days earlier. The Palacio Real is roughly the same age as Versailles Palace in France, but had not been looted and pillaged by the French Revolution, so more of the furnishings and fixtures are still in place. Abby and I rented the audio guides, which helped to explain the many rooms in the Palace, including the armory, which includes many suits of armor created for Charles V and his son, Phillip II. Although the royals no longer live there, the Palacio Real is still used for important state functions. It would be a beautiful and grand setting for them.

Abby and I taxied to the hotel for a siesta before heading out to El Botanico, a local restaurant near El Prado and across the street from the Royal Botanical Gardens. Because of a police-enforced detour, and a small amount of confusion, we arrived at the gardens at 7:45, just as they were closing for the day. We were thus reminded of the European custom of actually cutting off admission to public places 15 minutes before the nominal closing time.

El Botanico Restaurante is right across the street from the entrance to the Royal Botanical Gardens, so we arrived at our 8:30 dinner reservation a bit early. The waiters had limited English and were a bit overworked, but nevertheless
managed to take care of our every need. We had a very tasty beef-and-potato appetizer that was followed by a main course of rice, herbs and seafood that was definitely NOT paella, or so we were told. We enjoyed the quarter moon and the crystal-clear, 70-degree Madrid spring weather so wonderful that it should be bottled and patented. A brief taxi ride took us back to our hotel for a brief chat with Ken and Gail and then to bed. Tomorrow, Cordoba and Granada.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Madrid

Monday, April 15, 2013


Our driver, Paco, drove us to the Barcelona airport at 7:30. A much younger driver, Javier, met us at the Madrid airport, and pointed out the snow on the mountains around Madrid. He felt that it had been very cold in Madrid. We told him about the cold in Minnesota, which left him speechless for a few moments. The weather was sunny and in the 60’s, which felt wonderful to us.

Our friend, Ken, was waiting for us outside our hotel, Petit Palace Londres, in central Madrid. We exchanged hugs with him and, later, Gail, when we got to our room. Their room adjoins ours. We walked to a Museo de Jambon (Museum of Ham, a chain of restaurants) near the Plaza de Puerta del Sol, where I practiced by Spanish by purchasing a couple of ham sandwiches. Abby had stayed in the room to rest a sore knee, so I took a sandwich and a small bottle of water to her. Then Ken, Gail and I walked about a mile to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Even though it’s not the Prado, Thyssen-Bornemisza is a very good museum. There are several Picassos, including Man with a Clarinet, Harlequin with a Mirror, and Bullfight. There’s a very funny Marc Chagall painting entitled, “The Cock,” which depicts a young woman riding a horse-sized rooster with her arms wrapped lovingly around its neck. There is also a Rembrandt self-portrait, but my favorite is
the Hans Holbein of Henry VIII which is on the cover of a biography that I have read. I thanked Ken and Gail very sincerely for finding this jewel of a museum, less than a mile away, that we could visit on our first day in Madrid.

At 8:00 p.m. we met our guide, Alonso, in the hotel lobby for walking tapas tour, sampling local tapas specialties. Alonso is slim, six feet tall, about 40, and has two children ages 6 and 3. He has dark hair, thinning on top. His father was a professional diplomat for the Spanish government who had been stationed for a while in the United States when Alonso was a child, so his English is very good. Our first stop was Casa Labra, the oldest bar in Madrid, dating from 1860, where we had tapas of marinated tuna and also cod mixed with a creamy cheese and deep fried.

Our next stop was a roofed, open-air market – Mercado San Miguel, which Fodor’s calls a “gourmet nirvana” – that specializes in tapas. At stalls within the market, you can buy single portions of either tapas or beverages, and then stroll around the market to find other things to sample. It’s perfect for a tourist or Madrileno who is looking for either lighter fare or appetizers and drinks before a meal. My favorite was the salt cod on small pieces of toast with a tomato relish on top. We also ate a tuna jerky on toast that was not everyone’s cup of tea, but I enjoyed it.

Our last stop was Lhardy, a tapas bar founded as a restaurant in 1839. (You can look it up on line.) Here we had a sit-down meal that consisted of various dishes to share. We started with a very small cup of consommé that was delicious. My favorite
dish was slices of octopus and potato with a very tasty sauce. The waiter also brought some Iberica ham that was out of this world – much, much better than anything found at the Museo de Jambon, for example. Our last dish before dessert was a vegetable tart that was possibly the best way ever devised to eat zucchini, onion and eggplant. We ended with a dessert of “fried milk,” little clusters of sweet, creamy cheese that had been deep-fried. Alonso walked us back to our hotel where we sank into our beds in contented sleep.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

We met Christina in the hotel lobby at 9:30 for our guided walking tour of the old quarter of Madrid and the Prado Museum. Christina is in her early 50’s, with short, dark hair that is turning grey. To our surprise she had an American accent. She had been born in Paris to Spanish Civil War refugees. At the age of two her family had moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, were her father had taught physics at the University of Virginia until she reached the age of 14, when they moved back to Europe. She had been in the advertising business for 22 years before switching to guiding tours just over nine years ago. She has a degree in history and was a perfect guide because of her deep knowledge and love of Spanish history. With her American accent, she was easily understandable.

It’s difficult to summarize our walking tour of the old quarter. What came through the strongest was Christina’s love of Spanish history and her distaste for the victorious Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. We walked past many churches and medieval buildings on our way to the Royal Palace, which Christina said was definitely worth an extended visit later in our stay. In the Plaza Mayor, we were approached by a group of high school students, all of them boys, who had been assigned to practice their English on unsuspecting tourists. Two of them read from a prepared script as we answered their questions. We told them that we liked Madrid and would like to return again some day for a visit. Christina, who had separated from us to get some maps of the old quarter, rushed over, fearing they were pick-pockets. When she saw their age, she knew we were okay.

From the Plaza Mayor, the five of us took two cabs to the Prado Museum, which is ranked along with
the Louvre in Paris, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as one of the best art museums in the world. Although its collection of masterpieces by Rubens, Rafael and the Dutch masters (including Rembrandt) is amazing, its forte is Spanish artists such as Goya, El Greco and Velasquez. Christina spent some time on all of these, except for El Greco, which she said we would see plenty of in Toledo.

Christina took us first to the Annunciation of the Virgin by Fra Angelico. She explained that it was painted on wood in tempura paint, and had neither the oil-based paint nor the sense of perspective that characterized later, Renaissance painting. Nevertheless, the colors were vibrant and Fra Angelico had attempted to make the painting life-like. Our next stop was Descent from the Cross (ca. 1435) by Roger van der Weyden. This is an example of the early use of oil paints, which allowed more vibrant colors than the tempura paints of the Fra Angelico period. The setting was the removal of Jesus’ body from the cross, but the characters were dressed in the costumes of wealthy 15th-century Flemish merchants. Thus the painting would appeal to the wealthy art patrons of the period, at least those in Flanders.

We then moved on to Tintoretto’s Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet, with its elegant sense of perspective; the Garden of Earthly Delights by Heironymous Bosch; and the Three Muses by Rubens; finishing with Las Meninas by Velazquez and the Third of May by Goya. We looked at many other masterpieces in El Prado’s collection, and it is impossible to summarize them all.

After temporarily departing El Prado, we took a taxi to our lunch reservation at a nearby restaurant. Abby and I then took a taxi back to our hotel for a siesta, while Ken and Gail walked around Madrid and visited some mercados (open-air markets). At 5:45 we re-grouped again at El Prado for a visit with El Greco, Rembrandt, Raphael, and certain other masters that we had missed in the early afternoon.

After bidding farewell to El Prado, we walked into Parque del Buen Retiro (the Good Retreat) where we found a café where we could sit and watch couples in love rowing boats on a small pond. Highly-sculpted cypress trees guarded a set of steps leading up to the pond. A clown in a rowboat entertained the other rowers, at least those who could be distracted from their girlfriends and boyfriends in the boats. We felt like characters in a French Impressionist painting.

We walked to La Cesta, a restaurant just a half-mile away, where we had the best meal so far in Spain. I had braised ox tail, Ken had grilled squid, Abby had duck meatballs and Gail had a large salad, all of them accompanied by first courses of scallops, asparagus and salmon. Abby and I took a taxi back to our hotel near Puerta del Sol, while Ken and Gail walked back. A perfect end to a perfect day! Tomorrow, the medieval capital - Toledo.