Claudia in our Barcelona Apartment
View from our apartment
Outside door to our apartment building
Looking up at a nearby apartment building
Jim on a corner near our apartment
Church a block from our apartment
Mimes on Las Ramblas
Near Las Ramblas
Palacio near the base of Montjuic
At Barcelona's harbor
Exterior of the Palau de Musica Catalana
Interior of the Palau
Phoning British Air
One unfortunate incident: British Air lost Claudia's luggage, and, since our apartment in the Eixample district of Barcelona had neither a phone, a front desk, nor an onsite manager, we were forced to stay there until the luggage arrived, as whoever brought it would have to ring a street side buzzer to our room. It was finally delivered 41-1/2 hours after our arrival! Thus, for two days we were "prisoners" in the apartment and couldn't leave to explore that wonderful city. It was quite maddening!
As a result of British Air, we were forced to eliminate some Barcelona sites (such as the site of the Olympics and the Miro museum) plus a side trip we had wanted to take to Girona. We did, however, take a side trip to Montserrat - a stunning setting for a Benedictine monastery and church on the side of a very steep hill, which we ascended in a type of bucket (not for the faint of heart!). At Montserrat, we talked with three people who were employed by Cirque de Soleil, a Canadian about my age who is the artistic director for the company performing in Barcelona, a young female acrobat from Hungary, and her boyfriend from Brazil. The art director had quite an extensive conversation with Claudia about his career and his wife’s. She has been an opera teacher at both the Julliard and at Curtis School of Music. By the way, they, and many, many other people we met in Spain asked us about the upcoming presidential election, and, without exception, they were all strongly pulling for Barack Obama. At the church at Montserrat, we stood in a long line to approach, and eventually touch, the statue of the Black Madonna. Montserrat was especially fascinating for me because it was there that St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, went through a conversion process.
At Montserrat
We also spent most of a day in the beautiful seaport of Tarragona (population 75,000) visiting a former student of mine, Kelly Dickeson, who played the role of tour guide, showing us the sites of the city, including Roman ruins of an amphitheatre and of a chariot race course. It was really fun to reconnect with her and to meet her 1-year old daughter, Alexandra.
With Kelly in beautiful Tarragona
The people of Barcelona (and actually of all of Spain) were very pleasant and helpful throughout our entire trip.
Gaudi’s Casa Mila
A happy woman in Gaudi's Barcelona
Gaudi’s Casa Bottlo
Claudia really "cracked me up" twice on the trip. We were having lunch in a remote part of Parc Guell, watching these birds going in and out of a particular muddy hole. All of a sudden, she started laughing and said, "Others have searched the world over for this particular site, and we are the ones who have finally found it - the PIGEON HOLE!
Gaudi’s Parc Guell and the pillars under the parc
Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia at night
Sagrada Familia
Near the Picasso Museum
Barcelona skyline from Poble Espanyol
Still on the phone, 10 hours later
After almost a week in Barcelona, we flew with Spanair (not British Air, thank goodness) to Granada in the region of Andalucia in southern Spain. Where Barcelona has a population of about 1.7 million, Granada is a medium-sized city of about 240,000. It is a fascinating town with much to see. The Alcaceria, the old silk exchange from medieval, Muslim Granada, is now a twisting, intricate set of streets filled with shops of every kind imaginable. Claudia, of course, loved it, even though we were each accosted by gypsy women wanting to tell our fortune and, of course, be paid for it. The Gothic (with Baroque elements) Cathedral is HUGE and, like every other cathedral we saw in Spain, overly ornate. Near the Cathedral, we purchased scrolls with each grandson’s name written in Arabic letters. The Albaicin is the Arabic barrio near the Alhambra. We were warned not to wander around the Albaicin at night, and being the prudent people we are, we didn’t. The Plaza Nueva is filled with interesting restaurants (and people), it seems, at all times. But the highlight by far of Granada, and, frankly, of the entire trip was the Alhambra. It has to be one of the most fascinating sites in the world, and it is surely the most beautiful I have ever seen. Claudia echoes my opinion on this. It was built in the 1200s during the Nasrid dynasty of the caliphs, Ismail I, Yusuf I, and Muhammad V. The Nasrid palace is filled with stunning rooms with superb tile work, columns, ceilings, and fountains. Compared to the various Spanish cathedrals we visited, the architecture is much simpler, much less ornate, and, both of us agree, much more beautiful. Words cannot adequately express the beauty of the architecture (nor its sense of tranquility) nor of the Generalife, the nearby gardens. Another interesting section of the Alhambra was the Alcazaba, the Moorish military fortification. One must simply see the Alhambra, and it alone is worth a trip to Spain.
The Alhambra at night, viewed from the Mirador de San Nicolas
A garden inside the Alhambra
A pool in the Nasrid Palace of Alhambra
Granada as viewed from Alhambra’s Alcazaba (Military Fortress)
Inside Alhambra’s Nasrid Palace
The Generalife
At Alhambra’s Generalife gardens
We spent two nights in Granada, staying at the pleasant Hotel Triunfo (with a most helpful young lady at the desk). Oh, I forgot to mention that the first night in Granada, we took a bus ride up into the Albaicin to the Mirador de San Nicolas for an absolutely stunning nighttime view of the Alhambra. Pictures will hardly do it justice.
Claudia finds a new man while shopping in Granada's Alcaceria
One evening, as we were walking back from our dinner at the Plaza Nueva, we witnessed a crazy scene. Close to a hundred young men seemed to be chanting in unison in a narrow alleyway near the Plaza, so we went to investigate. They had set up a sort of human gauntlet through which cars had to pass very slowly, and they were then yelling and banging on the cars. It was basically a bunch of beer-drinking, rowdy college age guys having fun, but it had the potential for disaster. And there was no way any of the cars could possibly turn around, as the street was less than the width of a car and a half. We watched for a while and then decided we had seen enough. I wonder how it turned out.
On our last morning in Granada, we visited the Monasterio de la Cartuja (Cartusian Monastery). It had a typically ornate chapel, and most of the paintings were gruesomely grotesque (or grotesquely gruesome). I know nothing about the Cartusians, but I intend to someday look up St. Hugo and St. Bruno on the Internet.
Outside the Cartusian Monastery
We picked up our rental car at the Granada train station for the beginning of our seven-day parador tour. Paradors are old castles, monasteries, fortresses, hotels, etc. that have been purchased by the government and turned into top-rate, five star establishments. This chain of hotels was started during the Franco dictatorship as a way of financing the restoration and upkeep of historic Spanish buildings. Franco definitely did SOMETHING right!
I made the mistake (you’ll learn why later) of agreeing to pay for a full tank of gas up front and thus not having to worry about filling it on returning it a week later in Cordoba. We then drove from Granada to Malaga, a trip of about one and a half hours, traversing rural scenes filled with olive trees.
On the ride to Malaga
Malaga is a seaport city of about 560,000 on the Costa del Sol coast of the Mediterranean. We wound the way up a hill to our first parador, and the view from our room was absolutely stunning. We looked down on the sea, the seaport, and the city, and directly below us was a bullfighting ring. The season ended recently, and, even though I would have had reservations about doing so, I probably would have attended a bullfight, but Claudia definitely would not have.
The seaport of Malaga as seen from our parador room
The seaport
The Malaga bullring (seen from our room)
We walked from the parador to a nearby Palacio, past Malaga’s version of an Alcazaba, and way down to the city below where we viewed an ancient Roman archeological dig site. After returning via taxi to the parador, we watched an amazing sunset on the Mediterranean. All in all, Malaga was, despite its idyllic setting, our one stop in Spain with which we were the least impressed.
Our rental car parked near the Malaga parador
A happy couple in Malaga!
Our next parador stop was Ronda, a city neither of us had ever heard of. We followed the Mediterranean for an hour or so and somehow missed the proper turnoff up towards the mountains and Ronda. Before turning back, however, we took a quick bare-footed walk into the Sea, basically just so we could say we had done it.
The drive up to Ronda was the most spectacular part of our driving “week” in Spain. It kind of reminded me of driving up from the Bay Area towards South Lake Tahoe. The town of Ronda, population less than 40,000, was founded by the Celts and straddles the spectacular El Tajo Gorge cut by the Guadalevin River. The bullring, built in 1785, is considered the oldest bullfighting plaza still in use in Spain and was a favorite haunt of Hemingway’s and of Orson Welles who also lived in Ronda for a while. His ashes are buried in an old well there.
“A man is not from where he is born, but where he chooses to die.” (Orson Welles)
Our Ronda parador
Our parador (a magnificent building) was at the very edge of the gorge and at one end of the “new” bridge – the Puente Nuevo built in 1761. The gorge itself is over 120 meters deep, and the cliffs on both sides were filled with nesting (and very loud) birds. It was quite a sight – and a little acrophobic to look down upon!
Inside our Ronda room
Ronda’s “New” Bridge
An elderly woman in Ronda
A walk of a few hours around the town was just perfect enough to see the major sites. During our trek, we got into a conversation with Guntar, a man walking three dogs. His English was sans accent, and even though he was German, he had lived in Tucson for a long time and now in Ronda for many years. Every question we asked him about Ronda, he had something negative to say. We eventually discerned that he was not only a pessimist, but full of B.S. as well. He told us, for instance, that Hitchcock’s “The Birds” was filmed at the Puente Nuevo (It was actually filmed in Bodega Bay, California). He was correct, however, in telling us that Ronda was the headquarters of the Inquisition, and we chose NOT to visit the town’s torture museum!
St. Francis and Godzilla in a Ronda park
As opposed to Guntar, here’s what Hemingway had to say about Ronda:
“There is one town that would be better than Aranjuez to see your first bullfight in if you are only going to see one and that is Ronda. That is where you should go if you ever go to Spain on a honeymoon or if you ever bolt with anyone. The entire town and as far as you can see in any direction is romantic background… If a honeymoon or an elopement is not a success in Ronda, it would be as well to start for Paris and commence making your own friends.” (Ernest Hemingway, DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON, 1932)
As the readers of this journal can probably surmise, we loved Ronda!
Our drive from Ronda to Cadiz was another beautiful one, again taking about two hours (the various paradors on the tour set up for us by Totally Spain (our agent, Belen, was phenomenal!) all seemed to be about that distance apart). Along the way, we took a little detour into one of the “White Villages,” Arcos de la Frontera, and I somehow ended up on a windy uphill street with only about a foot clearance between the car and the walls on both sides. That was scary!
One of the White Villages
I mentioned earlier (in the "pigeon hole" episode) that Claudia hit my funny button twice on our Spanish adventure. As we were in a rural area approaching Cadiz, I noticed a field of low-lying bushes that seemed to have something white and puffy on them. I asked, "what are those." Her reply was "cotton - UNLESS MARSHMALLOWS GROW ON BUSHES." Rather corny, I know.
Our third parador stop, and the first one covering two nights, was Cadiz, A city of approximately 155,000 inhabitants, it is considered to be the oldest continuously-inhabited city in southwest Europe and has a history as a very important seaport. Unlike Malaga, it is not on the Mediterranean but on the Atlantic.
Our first impression of Cadiz, as we drove through the new part of the city, was not the greatest, but that eventually changed. When we arrived at the seaside parador, Claudia’s first reaction was that it wasn’t as spectacular as those in Malaga or Ronda and that she was becoming a “parador snob.” Actually, it was a beautiful, old seaside, five-star hotel where the king and queen stay when in Cadiz. Boy, had we become spoiled!
At our Cadiz parador
As we were walking through the old part of time, looking for a restaurant, we were amazed that they were all closed, and it was definitely past siesta time. I overheard some young gals speaking English (it turned out they were exchange students from the University of Washington), and they informed us that the shops and restaurants were closed because it was the feast day of Maria de la Rosario, Our Lady of the Rosary, the Patroness of Cadiz, and that there was a big parade beginning soon.
Colorful Cadiz buildings
We found the site of the parade – a very narrow street (they are ALL narrow in the older parts of Spanish cities – since they all predate the car), and we “camped” in front of the entrance of a pub to watch. For the first hour or so, it was rather boring, with groups of men (and a few women) – all well dressed – marching slowly by, each person carrying a metal staff and each group of ten or so following a flag-type banner. We concluded that each group represented a different parish. It was ironic that it was over 90% men, as the Spanish churches are “filled” with women, not men, at the Sunday masses.
Parade honoring Our Lady of the Rosary
The Bishop of Cadiz
All of a sudden, a group of seminarians rounded the corner, followed by priests and the local bishop who (and I give him some credit for this) stopped to bless and talk with anyone in a wheelchair. Claudia caught the eye of one young priest, and he handed her a holy card of the patroness – I’m thinking because she’s so cute! Then appeared a statue of Mary in a flowery float carried by about eight football player sized guys with only their shoes protruding out from under the float. It was actually quite impressive! We got a big kick out of the fact that right in front of us, four big guys replaced four very sweaty guys who then entered “our” pub for a quick beer. The parade ended the way it had begun – with a band. The whole experience was quite serendipitous (as was another one we later had in Madrid).
Our Lady of the Rosary, Patroness of Cadiz
Three sweaty carriers of Mary, just finishing a beer
The U.W. girls had suggested a particular, fairly inexpensive, outdoor tapas restaurant, Gotinga, nearby. We took their advice. I was previously unfamiliar with the term “tapas,” but it basically refers to a variety of small-plate appetizers that one can order instead of an entree. The best part of the meal was actually the discussion we had with the three young people at the next table. There was a young man, about 23, from Toronto, a 25-year old gal from Montreal, and a 23-year old young woman from Belgium. They had all just met each other that day at a youth hostel. The Canadian gal told us that for 15 euros a day (about $22), she had a bed, breakfast, and, at some hostels, even a dinner. We probably paid about that much for the mint on the bed at the paradors! (I’m exaggerating, of course, but not much.) The guy was just finishing up three and a half months (financed by his grandmother, we garnered) of such traveling around Europe, and he said this is the third straight summer he has done as much. What a life!
Regarding the paradors – they are generally very elegant, with big, well-furnished rooms, very nice lounges, bars, sitting rooms, and restaurants, and their breakfasts are to die for! The selection and quality of the food is something else (eggs, sausage, bacon, ham, Spanish tortilla, yogurt, cereals, every kind of fruit imaginable, breads, other meats, juices, coffee, tea, a large variety of pastries, etc., etc., etc.) Claudia was especially impressed that the coffee was brought directly to the table in silver pitchers, along with a second pitcher filled with warm milk. We definitely “loaded up” at breakfast and even made sandwiches and snacks to “sneak out with” for lunch. It’s a good thing that we walked everywhere, or who knows what would have happened to our waistlines!
Another interesting fact about the paradors – one has to put his room key (actually a card) into a slot inside the door to operate the electricity in the room. It’s a clever energy saving device.
Back to Cadiz – one funny incident happened in the parador. Claudia wanted me to get some ice for her tonic, and so I tried to mimic what I wanted to a maid out in the hallway. I thought she finally understood but realized my misconception when she brought me some shampoo. I laughed, went down to the lobby, and returned with a plastic cup filled with ice. I showed it to the maid, and she got quite a kick out of it.
We took a bus tour of Cadiz (something we also did in Granada and, later, in Madrid) to see the highlights and to discover what places we wanted to revisit on our second day in that seaport. We decided to walk to a nearby beach, Playa de la Caleta. The sand there was very fine, and the beach was extremely clean. I even went swimming for a few minutes in the Atlantic!
We walked along the beach, picking up interesting rocks and pieces of sea-smoothed glass from which we will probably make a mosaic, and we walked out a long pier to a fortress, Castillo de San Sebastian which, unfortunately, was closed at the time.
Cadiz beach
Off the Cadiz beach of Playa de la Caleta
Locked out of the Castillo de San Sebastian
One last point before leaving Cadiz – the palm trees in front of our parador were filled with colorful and very noisy parrots, as were the trees in the beautiful park next to our hotel.
1000-year-old tree in Cadiz
Night five of our seven-night parador tour was scheduled for the little town of Carmona – a strange location, as Carmona is not that interesting, but it has the advantage of being within about a half-hour drive from Seville, a gorgeous city.
On the road to Carmona
The drive from Cadiz to Carmona took longer than expected, and we actually were lost for a short time in the little town of Alcala de Guadaira. The parador at Carmona turned out to be the most spectacular of all. After climbing a steep, narrow street, we had to pass through a rock arch to enter the cobblestone parking area for the parador. It is a recently converted Alcazaba (military fortress) and has phenomenal views of the bucolic valley below. The interior of the parador was absolutely classy!
Carmona parador
View from our parador window
Parador dining room
Parador reading room
Parador entrance
A street in Carmona
Since the town of Carmona (population of about 28,000) had little to offer, we immediately drove into Seville. The gas gauge was getting low, so Claudia convinced me we needed to get some gas. At the station, there was a button I pushed which I thought said “10 liters,” (less than 3 gallons) but, before I knew it, I almost filled the entire tank, a mistake that cost me about $65 two days later. Gas, by the way, came to almost $6/gallon.
Seville is a fascinating city, and, unfortunately, we were only able to spend about six to eight hours there. We visited the Alcazar, a fabulous, old Arab fortress somewhat similar to the Alhambra, and we intended to visit the huge cathedral, but it was already closed, and so we instead shopped for souvenirs for friends and family. Across from the cathedral, we spotted a Starbucks, and Claudia shouted, “There MUST be a God!” When we were having a tapas dinner at “El Tres de Toro,” a drunk, elderly lady was bothering customers out on the street portion of the restaurant, and she was escorted away. The other surprise we noticed was that about one out of five people in the downtown area was accompanied by a dog (“pero”), and people even brought their dogs into restaurants with them. We would never witness that back in the good old U.S. of A.
At the Alcazar in Seville
Inside Seville’s Alcazar
In the Alcazar
A garden in the Alcazar
We definitely wish we had had more time to explore Seville, a beautiful city with a population of about 700,000.
Reflecting pool in the Alcazar
Cathedral of Seville (one of the world's largest)
On the main street in Seville
An intersection in Seville
A street in Seville
A Seville plaza
"Swinging" (or "in chains") in Seville
At an outdoor cafe in Seville
The next morning, after another huge breakfast at the Carmona parador, we left for the hour drive to Cordoba, our last parador stop. The parador there, similar to the one in Cadiz, was a big, old hotel on a hill, and, being the parador snobs again, we would barely give it five stars. Now keep in mind that our apartment in Barcelona might have been a three star (with a stretch), and our upcoming apartment in Madrid was a definite step down from that. I would thus rank the paradors in this order: Carmona, Ronda, Malaga, Cadiz, and Cordoba.
Cordoba is an interesting old city with a population of around 350,000. The obvious high spot of our visit there was the Mezquita, probably the world’s most famous mosque. Its columns date back to the Roman and Visigoth periods, and in the center of the Mosque, a cathedral was built when the Catholic kings drove out the Moors in the late 1400s. Thus, there is the interesting contrast between the Christian and Muslim elements in the same building. When I say “building,” I am referring to a huge structure – probably at least three football fields in length and one football field in width. It is stunningly beautiful, and next to the Alhambra, the most beautiful structure I have ever seen.
Cordoba’s Mesquite (Mosque) at night
Inside the Mesquite
Cordoba’s Mosque
A Mesquite window
Which (or who) is more beautiful?
In the "tessoro," treasury (the monster and the monstrance)
On a Cordoba street near the Hammam
Also in Cordoba, we wandered through the Juderia (Jewish section), ordered a tapas of rabo de toro - bull’s tail (it sounds disgusting, but it was excellent, reminiscent of a very tender pot roast), got caught in an absolute downpour and had to purchase umbrellas (even though we already had two back in our suitcases) at the huge Corte Ingles, and had an expensive (but worth it!) Turkish bath at the Hammam. It was a dark, marble-floored series of rooms with columns and alternating baths of cold, warm, and hot pools, ending with a sauna. The ceiling above the largest pool (the warm one) was open to the gorgeous night sky. After three or four cycles through the various pools, we ended with a twenty-minute massage. By the time we were done, all we wanted was a pillow and a place to sleep! Wow, was it nice!
The next morning, we had to deliver the rental car to the Europcar drop off point at the Cordoba train station. The tank was over ¾ full, but we had already paid $88.30 back in Granada for the privilege of returning it empty. I tried to argue the point, but it was futile, as we had signed a contract a week earlier in Granada. That little mistake cost us about $65. Oh, well – c’est la vie (or whatever the Spanish equivalent is).
The train ride from Cordoba to Madrid was quick, considering that the AVE train moved along at about 220 m.p.h. The ride was very smooth and quiet, and we had an interesting conversation with the two people near us. They were a late 60ish mother from Detroit and her late 30s son from Chicago. At first, I didn’t like him (he was very “Chicago”), but my opinion changed fairly quickly.
We caught a taxi at the Atocha train station and had a wild ride, which took at least twenty-five minutes (and cost 21 euros – about $32) to Aparthotel, a kind of dumpy, but clean, hotel about six blocks off of the Gran Via, probably the busiest street in Madrid. Later, after we got to know the city, we walked from the train station to our apartment, again in about twenty-five minutes, and when I asked the person at the desk what a taxi ride from the train station to the apartment should have cost, he said about six euros. That was the second time we felt really “ripped off” in Spain, and it was one of our three negative experiences, along with the British Air fiasco and my mistake at the gas pump.
Many people had told us that Madrid paled in comparison to Barcelona, and so, to be frank, we were not expecting much from Spain’s capitol and largest city (3.3 million), but we were pleasantly surprised. We loved the interesting architecture of many of the very large buildings in the heart of downtown.
The best sites were the Prado Museum, El Retiro (a massive park near the Prado which reminded me of Golden Gate Park), The Reina Sofia Museum which houses Picasso’s spectacular masterpiece, Guernica, the Palacio Real (the royal palace which I found much more beautiful and interesting than the gaudy opulence of the palace of Versailles outside Paris), and the Sol District in general.
Near the exit to El Retiro
A garden in El Retiro
Lake in El Retiro
The Prado, by the way, is huge, and it would take at least a week to really view all of it – much like the Louvre in Paris. We were fortunate that the day we went to the Prado, there was a special Rembrandt exhibit, and it was excellent. I particularly liked, even though it was grotesque, his painting about Samson being blinded by the Philistines, and I also enjoyed his depiction of Balthazar’s feast. After about an hour and a half in the Rembrandt rooms, we chose specific works pre-selected by Claudia, e.g.: many works by El Greco, Velasquez’s “Los Meninos,” Goya’s “3rd of May,” Goya’s “Maja” (the clothed version, as the naked version was on loan to an exhibit in Paris, darn it), another Goya painting about Saturn devouring his child, Fra Angelico’s “Anunciation,” and Heironymus Bosch’s famous triptych “Garden of Earthly Delights.”
Outside the Prado
Rembrandt's "Blinding of Samson" at the Prado
Painters copying the Masters in the Prado
Similar to our serendipitous experience with the parade in Cadiz, our first night in Madrid happened to be October 12, a huge national holiday in Spain called El Dia de la Hispanidad (the Hispanic Day). It celebrates the first day that Christobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) actually set foot in the Americas. In the morning, there is a huge military parade in the Plaza de Colon, but we were on the train from Cordoba at the time. But that night, there is a parade of the Americas. It was about a three-hour wild celebration of all the countries in South America (and some in Central America) with Spanish heritage. There were floats from Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, the Canary Islands, Cuba, and others I’ve forgotten. The floats were very festive, with many flowers, and loud music, and behind each float were dancers from the various countries in native clothing. After each float would pass, people from each country would come out of the crowd (a crowd of at least 20,000) to follow their country’s float. It was quite a sight and quite an event.
Parade of the Americas, October 12
Viva America!
Luckily for us, we found a spot to watch the parade next to a young woman originally from Cuba. Arianna’s English was good, much better than that of her husband, Javier. She was originally a lawyer in Cuba, and she got very excited when the Cuban float came by. We really hit it off with the two of them and spent the entire three hours in pleasant and interesting conversation. At the end of the parade, they gave us their phone number and said to call them with any questions we might have about Madrid. Situations like that really make a trip all the more special!
Arianna and Javier, our Madrid friends
Madrid's Atocha Train Station
El barbero diabolico
Our Madrid "3 star" (no way!) apartment
During our Madrid stay, we took a full day side trip by bus to Toledo – a good choice, although we sat near a couple, approximately our age, real estate agents from Mesa, Arizona, who hated everything about democrats and the democratic party. Claudia chose to sleep (or feign such a state), and I actually carried on a “discussion” with them. The first thing we did in Toledo was ditch them to have lunch, and Abe, a retired history teacher from Toronto with a German accent, fortunately joined us. He was a definite world traveler type, and he gave us good advice on what to see in Toledo.
Toledo
We walked to the Cathedral, where we spent an hour, and it was another in the line of massive, some ways spectacular, and overly ornate Spanish churches. Its reredos was unbelievable! The Cathedral also included a museum, with probably twenty or more El Greco paintings, and others by Van Dyck, Titian and Goya. I am not a huge fan of Spanish painters, as they are all so dark.
Toledo Cathedral
Inside the Toledo Cathedral
Cathedral monstrance
Reredos in Toledo Cathedral
We wanted to visit El Greco’s home, but it was closed, so, instead, we visited the Transito Synagogue (hey, we’d already been in enough churches and mosques) with its Sephardic museum. Claudia enjoyed the synagogue, and I found it moderately interesting.
Toledo is a beautiful walled city, with a population of 79,000, set on a hillside above the Tagus River. Its skyline is beautiful, made famous by a painting by El Greco.
Our last night in Madrid we spent at the Hotel Convencion Barajas, near the Madrid Barajas International Airport because our flight to London was at 7:00 a.m., and we would have to be at the airport by about 5. This hotel was a definite step up from our other Madrid hotel, and I might even give it 3.8 stars!
Various buildings in downtown Madrid
Very unfortunately, though, Claudia started to not feel well that last night, and for all of the flight home (and frankly, for about eleven days more after arriving at home), she suffered from the worst case of flu she has ever had. Fever, chills, achy all over, very tired – she had it all. I suffered from a significantly more minor case and had quite severe diarrhea for about three days. As Claudia said, thank God it happened on the last day and really didn’t ruin our trip of a lifetime.
Strikers protesting at Santander, Spain's largest bank
Madrid street mimes
Two "hatted" people at a bus stop in Madrid
Museo de Jamon, a mirror, and an artsy Claudia picture
A happy American couple, ready to say “adios” to lovely Spain
We flew from Madrid to London (about a two and a half hour flight) and then had about a three-hour layover at Heathrow before our flight to San Francisco. During the layover, I went to the British Air customer service desk and told them about our luggage saga and how it had ruined our first two days in Spain. I asked them for some compensation – such as a seat upgrade at least for Claudia, as she was feeling so poorly, and I knew the twelve-hour flight was going to be hell for her. Of course, nothing came of my request, and so I have written a nasty letter to British Air for which I am awaiting a reply.
Wouldn’t you know it – in Heathrow, I heard someone yell, “Mr. Willis!” That has been a common occurrence for me over the years, not surprisingly, as I taught for thirty-five years at the same high school. It turned out to be Kelly Dickeson, the young woman who had shown us around Tarragona. She, her husband Oscar, and their baby Alexandra were heading to somewhere in the midwestern U.S. for her sister’s wedding. What a small world!
We walked in the front door at 1050 Lomitas Avenue at 6 p.m., twenty-two and a half hours after waking up in Madrid. It was the by far the worst day of a very wonderful three weeks.
A final word about Spain - I would rank the cities we visited in this order: Barcelona, Granada, Seville, Madrid, Ronda, Cordoba, Cadiz, Montserrat (not really a city), Toledo, Tarragona, Carmona, and Malaga. Actually, they were all interesting, except for the last two. As far as the sites in Spain, everyone should see Granada’s Alhambra, followed by the mosque in Cordoba, and the setting at Montserrat.
Beginning about a year ago, Claudia and I decided to take a trip to celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary and my having lost about one hundred and forty pounds. We talked about possible destinations and finally limited it down to Ireland or Spain. We are both of Irish heritage. Also, when we asked Erin (who spent half of her junior year of college in Valencia, Spain), and Kenon, (who spent all of his junior year in Florence, Italy) what was their favorite country in Europe (and they had both traveled extensively), they both said “Ireland.” When we asked why, they said, “the beautiful countryside, the very, very friendly people, and the pubs.” We then asked them about cultural sites, and they both paused and paused. At that point, we decided on Spain, especially considering Claudia’s interest in art. I think we made the right choice!
"Customer Service, Please" (with British Air, that seems to be an oxymoron)
1 comment:
Jim, what a beautiful trip - thanks for sharing it! I will certainly see Europe someday.
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