November 30th A Cathedral day

Today we went to see the main cathedral of Seville, as I mentioned earlier it’s the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and second only to St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London in square footage.   Did I mention it’s really big?   The main things to see in this cathedral are the tomb of Christopher Columbus and the Giralda bell tower.   One small disappointment of our visit was that the main altar piece is being restored and therefore is behind a curtain.  It’s interesting that Columbus tomb is above ground, evidently at some point he became quite disillusioned with Spain and did not want to be buried in Spain.  So in the typical fashion of governments and lawyers they have his remains propped on the shoulders of four kingly statues representing the four major kingdoms of Spain at the time so he’s not technically buried. 

The Giralda bell tower is truly impressive, it was originally the minaret for the grand mosque of Seville when the Moors ruled over Spain, but after the re-conquest of Spain it was converted to the present bell tower.  It is 98 meters in height (approx. 300 ft) and was designed by the Moors such that a man could ride a horse to the top, so you walk up a ramp.  All along the way are openings in the walls that allow you to see out over the tops of the city and close up views of the church architecture.  At the top is arguably the best view in all of Seville, at least until a new office tower being constructed to the west is completed.  

 

After viewing the cathedral we went back to El Patio St Eloy and had the assortment of tapas and a plate of grilled gambas, and like yesterday it did not disappoint.  We walked back to the hotel along the river walk and watched a literal flotilla of sculls, kayaks, and racing canoes plying up and down the river.  Tomorrow we will visit the Alcazar and the river again.

November 29th Beautiful day in Seville

Today we caught the train from Granada to Seville; it’s sort of interesting in that Granada is a dead-end destination for the train.  We backtracked on the rails for an hour to the town two stops back and then turned and went west.  It appears that Spain is building a new high speed rail bed into Granada and perhaps out of it for the future.  Anyway as I said we started west towards Seville through olive orchards that ran almost without ceasing all the way to Seville and as far as the eye can see from train on both sides.   Interestingly we saw only 2 or 3 crews harvesting them so I’d guess that those are the early ripening trees because all the trees are laden with olives.   We arrived about noon and got to our hotel very quickly, it’s located directly across the street from the Alcazar and very convenient.   Once we got unpacked we headed out on a perfectly sunny and warm day and into the ancient section of town where we spent the afternoon. 



We didn’t venture into any buildings other than a restaurant for lunch but concentrated our efforts on walking around the old town.  Once again, it is a maze of narrow streets and colorful buildings with iron balconies extending out over them and flowers blooming everywhere.  The citrus trees are heavy with ripening fruit however they are the bitter oranges used for marmalade and not really edible.   I made that mistake once on my first visit to Phoenix many years ago, at Christmas; I saw all the fruit on the trees and decided to have a fresh orange.  It was so bitter and acidic that my mouth burned for over an hour, what a total waste unless you like bitter orange marmalade.  We wanted to try a lunch at the restaurant suggested to us by Pablo the chef who owns and runs La Cuadrilla in Madrid.  That’s the restaurant in which we had the lovely Thanksgiving Day meal.




Anyway he said to find El Patio San Eloy and have lunch there so we did.  What a fun place this is, I think it must be mostly locals because it’s such an eccentric little place, they specialize in Montaditos which are little sandwiches.  They always have close to 20 different types of sandwiches on hand and you order them by the piece or in groups of 4 or 6 different varieties.  After looking at the menus we decided that we would try the sampler plate of 6 sandwiches along with sampler of tapas (we think 7), but when I got to the counter to order I saw how big the little sandwiches were and quickly changed the order to a sampler of 4 and decided to wait on the tapas until we finished first plate.  Good plan as it turns out because the 4 sandwiches were very tasty and substantial; however we wanted to try some tapas so I got two tapas as a second course.  We plan to go back and get another sampler again but with a more realistic view towards ordering next time.  


A charming trait of this restaurant is that one end is a gallery of tiled steps, sort of like an outdoor theatre, where you set your food on the step next to where you sit and eat it picnic style.  Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy so we will tour the cathedral, which is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and third only to St Peter’s in Rome and St Paul’s in London in floor space.   Christopher Columbus is buried here so it will be our effort to close the loop on all of the main characters in the 15^th century rediscovery of the Western hemisphere.

November 28th Albayzin or the Souk

Today we spent our final day in Granada visiting the ancient Muslim quarter, called Albayzin.  It sits on a hill across the river valley from the Alhambra, and is much older.  The original fortress was situated on this hill and the old town built up on the hill below it.   It’s a maze of narrow lanes only fit for foot traffic where you have to be on guard against small cars and scooters in those places where they are allowed; but for the most part it’s only foot traffic.   It has a fairly checkered reputation at night but is very safe during the day.   We walked up following a path I had laid out on a map, or so we thought, but it only took about two blocks to be totally off track so we just kept climbing and still came out at the same place.  At the top is the favorite site for viewing the Alhambra across the valley and I must say it is impressive from there. 

However it’s only one of many places where you can get extremely attractive views across to the Alhambra, so I took many of them as the light changed during the day.  The whole hillside is covered with ‘carmens’ which are houses in this quarter and they are stacked up one on top of the other all the way up the hill to the first summit.   Further up the hill above the houses are located many cave dwellings where counter culture and the Roma people (Gypsies) live.   All in all it’s a fascinating part of the city and very appealing.  At the end of the day we walked back to center of town and went to the Capilla Royal, which hold the remains of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Alhambra is where Boabdil, the last Spanish Sultan surrendered the last of Al Andalus to Ferdinand and Isabella and quitted Spain for North Africa. It’s also where Columbus made two pitches for his voyage in search of a western passage to India and we all know how that turned out.  Isabella built the chapel to serve as the mausoleum for all Spanish monarchs but her great-grandson Phillip 2^nd bankrupted the nation building El Escorial and monarchs were then buried there.  We’ll be visiting El Escorial in the next couple weeks and report back.

Ferdinand (l) & Isabella (r)

November 27th Debbie does Alhambra (that’s Warren’s comment…)

Just an addendum from the distaff side of this crew: I’d really looked forward to seeing the Alhambra and especially the gardens (a real surprise, I’m sure, to my friends.) We got a nice early start with the light just getting good when we got to the entry. Just past the turnstiles we were greeted by the nicest of welcomes – one of the local cats, obviously in desperate need of a couple of good pats. We obliged, and Warren got a picture. How lovely to get a cat-fix! (We ran into other cat residents later, but these, although willing to hustle over when you sat down on the hope of a donation of food, were wary and unwilling to be touched.) DO NOT mention this to Mapie.

We continued on up into the Generalife gardens and every section of it just got better and better. I was so delighted at how many things were still blooming. Amazingly there were iris (!), and roses, salvia and lavender, marigolds and ageratum, not to mention orange trees heavy with fruit, persimmons hanging like Christmas ornaments on bare limbs, and the last of the granadas (pomegranates) for which the city is named and which are its symbol. One of the downsides of winter travel is not seeing the gardens at their best, but one of the positives is being able to see them in quiet and at leisure. We got to a lovely walled garden at the summer palace with a Moorish tiles, a plashing fountain, little bathing birds, blooming roses and even a another caretaker cat, and we had it totally to ourselves for over fifteen minutes, to just sit in the sun and enjoy. I never dreamed I’d get to see the Generalife in such “privacy.”

   

We spent several hours wandering through the various Alhambra gardens. Everywhere are the famous Moorish fountains. Fountains in all sorts of shapes, scalloped, incised, plain, quiet fountains, noisy fountains, and still basins. One will start high up from a ferny grotto cut into a rock wall, then its water will be channeled down through tile “gutters” (such a negative word for these beautiful little sparkling, chuckling streams) through the gardens down to a lotus shaped fountain under a trellis, and then from there through the gutters to another bowl shaped vessel with a splasher in the center set among tall tree roses, back into more channels down to a basin among low rosemary hedges, on into more channels and lastly into a long shallow still fish pond with water lilies.

And the paths among the hedged gardens – they’re rocks about the size of a lemon or lime, set on edge to channel the rain away, and set in patterns, geometric or floral or heraldic. The bright autumn leaves are lying on them in drifts, and the reflections from the water play and dance across the textures of the rocks and the leaves and an occasional fallen flower petal.

 

Gertrude Jekyll, the famous British gardener, talked about having “garden rooms” each with its own character and with views into the next “room.” These Moorish gardeners appear to have perfected this art at least 600 years ago, since much of the layout and planning of these gardens dates from then. These Alhambra gardens are some of the oldest in Europe. We walked though one garden room after another, each with its own plantings, each with some special feature whether a fountain or view or tree.

I realize I’m going on for too long, but these gardens just delighted me. Warren took picture after picture and I’m going to be glad for every one.

November 27th We get to see the Alhambra

Well today is finally the day we get to tour the Alhambra.  A couple weeks ago I purchased tickets online and we got our reserved time.   We’ve been assigned a time of 13:00 which means we can go in as soon as it opens in the morning and see all the sights except for the Palacio Nazaries, which is where all of the famous Islamic architecture is located.   Our weather reports said that today would be rainy but when we woke up there was not a cloud to be seen, however it was perhaps the coolest morning since we’ve been in Spain.  In order to maximize our time at the site we decided to take a taxi up to the entrance and it was the right decision.   We got into the site around 9:00 am and spent the four hours before our entry time seeing the Generalife Palace & Gardens, the renaissance Palace of Carlos I, and the ruins of the old Moorish fortress.   At 12:30 we lined up for our entrance and were among the first in for our time slot.  When we wandered out at nearly 3:00 we were completely entranced.  The Alhambra is an attraction that rates with the Taj Mahal, at least for us, as a must be seen place.  It is among the most compelling places I’ve ever been.  Even at this time of year so many plants are in bloom and everywhere you look is another water feature.    There are pools, flowing channels, small waterfalls, and fountains everywhere.  Once we entered the Nazaries Palace we were transported to the Moorish world of the 5^th to 13^th century, though primarily from the 11^th century onward. 


 It’s pretty amazing that the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand & Isabella, and even their progeny didn’t let their militant Catholicism destroy this beautiful site.   One must remember that without the Islamic philosophers and intellectuals that European culture would most likely have lost all contact with the ancient Greek and Roman thinkers - they didn’t call it the Dark Ages for nothing.  We particularly loved the Courtyard of the Lions because it now looks much as it must have when first created by the Moors in the 1300’s.  In the last few years they conserved the 12 lions, rebuilt the fountain and repaved the whole courtyard in marble. We feel extremely privileged to be able to see it in a completed state.  I want to create another entry next week showing many more pictures of the Alhambra, and Deb wants to create an entry highlighting the plants and flowers, so stay tuned.  

Tomorrow we go to the old Moorish neighborhood which should be very interesting as well.

November 26th Travel to Granada

Today we caught the 9am train to Granada, it was cloudy with light rain in Madrid and stayed cloudy for the whole 4 hour trip but we were able to see a good bit of the countryside.  It’s very green and quite mountainous once you leave the high central plains, it’s also quite temperate.  When we got to Grenada I left my jacket at the hotel and only took a sweater for out afternoon walk in the old part of town.  This is a university town and there are students all over the old town since it abuts on the north side.  We walked through a series of small plazas and eventually found a place to eat lunch.   For only the second time I have to say that lunch was okay; with the only special about it being my first Spanish gazpacho.  It was the most garlicky soup I’ve eaten so far and was quite good.   The architecture in the old area is really quite interesting with much of it affiliated with the university.  Tomorrow is the Alhambra!

Medieval Islamic Caravanseri 

   University Building Entrance

 

November 25th Getting ready for Granada

Saturday was a library day to catch up on email and blog not much else to report there.   But today since we’re leaving for Granada tomorrow I had to go over to Atocha station to get our train tickets to go from Granada to Seville on Thursday.   Deb wanted to do a cleaning of the apartment since we’ll be gone for a week.   As I got to the bus stop I saw a sign saying that there were going to be demonstrations from Plaza Cibeles to Puerta del Sol.  I needed to go to Cibeles then walk to Atocha for the tickets so I was concerned but it turned out to be no problem.  While buying my tickets for Seville, I also got the last set of tickets using our Spain Travel Passes.   We decided to go Bilbao in mid-December and see the modern art museum designed by Frank Geary and spend a couple days in the North of Spain.  When we return from Bilbao we will only have 2 weeks before we have to leave.

Our beautiful bakery angel, she speaks Ingles and is an actress working on a Spanish TV series in Alicante

November 23rd A walk in Lavapies

Today was bright and find so we decided to take a walk through an area just south of the Plaza Mayor called Lavapies.  Before Lavapies we had another lovely walk through the Retiro, and amazingly we came across the beginning of lilacs coming into bloom, unbelievable!  Lavapies is one of the working class neighborhoods of Madrid; it has many of the African, Chinese, and Indian residents as well as young working people.   It’s a little run down and gritty but it has many interesting buildings and small businesses selling items associated with the various cultures.  Deb wanted to shop a bit so I headed over to Antonio Sanchez a little bar/restaurant that has been in continuous business since 1827 and features lots of bullfight memorabilia for a couple of canas.

A little graffiti added to broken plaster (very witty)

After our walk we spent another couple hours at the Prado, viewing the balance of the Goya artworks we had yet to see.  To see the scope of change and breadth of Goya’s body of work is truly impressive.  It seems to me that he had three pretty distinct periods in his painting.  He did portraits of the aristocracy, the paintings associated with the Madrid uprising against the Napoleonic invasion of the early 1800’s, and finally what are termed his black paintings; like Saturn eating his children.   We came back to the apartment around 7:30 and had a nice quiet meal at home.   Monday we are leaving for a week’s tour of Granada and Seville, so we need to start getting ready for that.

November 23, 2012, Friday Deb’s various musings.

Well, you knew it was inevitable: I’m going to talk about gardens and plants and parks and green stuff. I’ve been so pleased to see how many little (and big) green spaces there are in Madrid. I start getting withdrawal symptoms if I can’t get around plants often enough, and I really miss my Denver garden and my Guffey “garden,” but fortunately Madrid has much more in the way of greenery than I had expected.

Speaking of expectations, we had read about Madrid’s “bitter cold winters.” One of our Madrid guidebooks, written by a Brit who should know about bitter winters, mentions them repeatedly. However, when I got here the plants started telling me a different story. There are all sorts of palms here, and oleanders and much more California-ish plants than I had anticipated and they were all saying “bitter winters – ha!” And they were right. It gets cool certainly and there’s a definite chill in the air, but hardly bitter. Of course, December is yet to come, but these plants couldn’t survive any sort of hard freeze. A snow maybe but not a hard freeze. So our worries of a really bitter winter have been allayed.

So back to plants and parks. There are parks all around our neighborhood. We keep finding more as we walk. They all get lots of use, especially by the kids and dogs. The playgrounds are full of little people after school and on weekends, and the dogs love their parks. Some of the dogs just start to bounce as they get closer to the park entrances. The dependable ones get to be released from their leashes when they get to the park, and you can tell that they can just hardly wait. But even off the lead, they’re remarkably well-behaved, not bothering strangers and usually friendly with each other. People do a really good job of cleaning up after their critters, too. For such a huge city, with so many countless dogs, the place is remarkably clean.

I’m seeing many plants I recognize, but dozens I don’t. And it’s amazing what is blooming now. We went for a walk yesterday and I planned our path to go through our favorite big park, the famous Retiro. As we walked in, I spotted one of the many Retiro cats, basking in the sun under a patch of bushes (with donated food and water nearby). As I looked closer at both cat and bushes, I recognized that the bushes were lilacs, and amazingly, some of them were just starting to bloom. In November! We walked around, making sure not to disturb the cat who kept a wary eye on us but didn’t move. The lovely scent of the white lilacs confirmed their identity. I have no idea if they normally bloom here now, or if it’s global warming, or just a special little microclimate in that bed.

The season for petunias and other soft annuals have apparently passed since the city gardeners are methodically replacing those plantings with masses of pansies and ornamental kales. But the big flowering “bushes” that I finally figured out are tiered geraniums are still blooming away, and the occasional “last roses of summer.” And the leaves are falling on the lawns and pavements and into the fountains. Many of the fountains have been turned off for the winter. I’m thinking that the maintenance of them with all the leaves coming down would just be overwhelming. But I’m missing their sound as we walk. The Moors had it right with their integration of water and gardens. Interesting that Retiro uses a system of tiles to irrigate, straight out of Moorish tradition.

I could go on and on about the plants, like how much I enjoy seeing Acanthus – straight out of Greek architecture – growing everywhere. And hedges of rosemary. And Moorish maze gardens edged with boxwood. But enough already!

A short final word on a different topic: yesterday on our walk we popped in MacDonald’s to try the MacIberica sandwich. I had said I would, and time is getting shorter, so off we went. We got the sandwich (pork, olives, cheese, and tomatoes on a sort of hoagie bun), fries, a beer and four little macaroons for about 10 euros. The sandwich was tasty – nothing to complain about – and the fries were good as always. But here’s the rub for me. For 20 cents less than that 10 euros, we can get a three course meal, first and second courses, a dessert and a half bottle of wine at any of our favorite little restaurants. For example we went to a little place Norm had recommended, La Caudrilla, a couple of days ago. Warren had an omelette with asparagus and bacon, followed by a chicken done with a sauce of red fruits, currents, raspberries, blackberries, etc. and sautéed potatoes, accompanied by a nice bottle of house red wine and bread. Dessert was a house made sorbet of fresh raspberries. And this was the same price as the MacDonald’s… Somehow I don’t think I’ll be headed back to Mickey D’s for a while.  Warren’s note:  Deb doesn’t mention her meal with a first course of a salad of greens, mango, and cherry tomatoes; followed by a second course of fresh baked cod with aioli and saffron.  Then we had another course of boletus mushrooms and foie gras sautéed in Pedro Ximenez cooking sherry.  (You may recall our experiences with that from an earlier post).  WooHoo what a meal!