On the Move - Spain - Part II
Apr. 5th, 2002 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetWith the adrenaline rush fading along with the time pressure of the morning,
Jason and I continued west along the Costa del Sol through Torremolinos, a
bleak tourist town that did not seem on cursory inspection to have improved
since my last visit. We stopped at a McDonald's outside Marbella for a
quick lunch and headed on toward Gibraltar. The town on the Spanish side of
the border is called "La Linea," an amusingly appropriate name for the place
where one has to queue to enter and exit the country. We sat in line for
about half an hour before being waved through at the sight of our US
passports. We drove across the airport runway and into town.
The guidebooks had been emphatic about the terrible parking situation
in Gibraltar and had urged us to park in La Linea and walk over the border,
but it had clouded up and was windy and cold and I wasn't interested in
carrying our packs that far. So it was with great satisfaction, after
following the signs to our hotel through tiny, winding streets up the hill,
to arrive at the Elliot Hotel to find an ample car park for hotel guests.
We checked in and were very pleased with our room, which included a
queen-sized bed, lovely furniture and a view of the sea. Jason turned on
the TV to see what channels were available and we got sucked in by the
original pilot of "Battlestar Galactica" for twenty minutes or so before
marshalling our energy to explore the town. We wandered up the hill a bit
and then along Main Street, which was completely shuttered for the day and
partially under construction. We stopped in briefly at King's Chapel
attached to The Convent, a former Franciscan monastery. It has been the
official residence of the Governor of Gibraltar since the Brits took control
during the War of Spanish Succession in the 18th century. Continuing out
through the Southport Gate, we paused by the Trafalgar Cemetery, where we
were accosted by a minivan tour driver looking to fill up his bus for the
last tour of the day. This was exactly what we'd been looking to find, so
we piled in along with a Finnish couple and their ~11 year-old daughter.
Our guide drove us up to the entrance of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve and
let us out to take pictures from the spot marked with a bronze plaque
commemorating Gibraltar's ancient identity as one of the Pillars of
Hercules. Having bought our tickets into the reserve, the guide loaded us
back into the van and we continued up the Rock to St. Michael's Cave. A
natural cave of stunning beauty, it was outfitted as a hospital during WWII,
but was never needed. Today, in addition to allowing tourists to wander
around and admire the intricate rock formations, they also have an
auditorium where concerts are held during the summer. Audience members
would want to bring along good hats, since the water that created the cave's
beauties is still actively seeping through the ceiling.
Leaving the cave, we continued on up the Rock to a spot where one of the
packs of "Barbary Apes" congregate near a feeding station. They are
actually tail-less monkeys, or macaques, native to Morocco and Algeria, who
were apparently brought to Gibraltar by the British in the 18th century.
They are said to be a symbol of British sovereignty on the Rock and it is
told that if they disappear, so will the Brits. When numbers were dwindling
in the early 20th century, Winston Churchill gave the order that they should
be fed and maintained and their numbers have swelled to over 200 living in
five packs all over the Rock. They are not shy and allow people to get
quite close to them, although tourists are warned not to touch them and risk
a bite. We saw about ten monkeys, including two babies. They have pale fur
that looks soft and disturbingly bare, flattened bottoms. They seemed
entirely bored with us, but we were thrilled with them.
Our pictures from that spot are not exclusively of the monkeys, as this was
the point at which you can look down to see the waters of the Mediterranean
on the left and the Atlantic on the right. Gibraltar is considered the
dividing point, even though it is not the southernmost point of the
penisula--that's further west, back in Spain. The winds there were fierce
and we enjoyed watching the seagulls playing in it, flying into the gusts so
as to hover in the same spot. The views weren't spectacular and we could
only barely see the mountains across the straight in Africa, because of the
weather. Still, there is something exciting about standing on one continent
and looking at another. There was a bizarre cloud formation, with a line of
clouds approaching the Rock from the south and seeming to turn black as they
touched its peak, before continuing on in a regimented column over Spain.
Descending from that point, down switchback roads so steep and narrow that
our driver made three-point turns at the curves, we reached the Moorish
Castle, which has dominated the landward approach to Gibraltar since 1333.
The only section accessible today is the Tower of Homage, which contains a
display of various typical Moorish artifacts--including Berber and Arabian
rugs and translations of phrases from the Koran painted throughout the
castle--and the room used as a miniature mosque during sieges. The castle
withstood ten sieges during its history, thanks in part to a very deep well
supplying fresh water to the defenders.
We were dropped off back at the Trafalgar Cemetery and wandered around it
for a few minutes. Although named in honor of the British victory against
Napoleon's fleet off Cape Trafalgar, only two of the people buried there
died from that battle.
Jason convinced me that we should go take a look at the "100 Ton Gun" before
returning to the hotel, so we walked quite a ways out past the shipyards,
only to find that it is not visible from the street and the gates to it had
shut for the day. We sat for a while in a cannon notch of an old battery
that is now a car park, looking out over the water, before turning back
toward the center of town. It was interesting, as we walked, to notice the
little touches of Britain--like post boxes and telephone booths and the
accents of some of the passersby--transplanted here and looking somewhat out
of place amid the palm trees and tropical flowers. All the flags in town
were at half-mast, in honor of the passing of the Queen Mum the day before.
Since Jason was slightly sick--mostly just sniffles and lethargy--and since
very little in town was open, we had decided to eat in the Palm Court at the
hotel. We were firmly on the Spanish schedule of eating around nine or ten,
so we stopped into an internet cafe a block from the hotel. Jason went back
to the room after an hour to work on his laptop, but I stayed for a second
hour, catching up on email and news, including obituaries for the Queen Mum.
My favorite description of her was "a bonbon in a frilly cup" and my
favorite anecdote was the time she called down to the mostly-gay palace
staff to ask "is there an old queen down there who would bring a gin & tonic
to the old queen up here?"
Back at the hotel I called steve briefly and then we went down to dinner.
The dining room was fairly deserted, but we had a nice meal of scallops
seared with five-spice powder, served on a bed of leeks with herbed
butter, and fillet steak. For dessert we split an almond parfait, which was
light and lovely. Jason talked to his mother, in Salmon for her mother's
funeral the day before, and then we went to bed. With the grey weather and
illness sapping our energy, it seemed like a very long day. Fortunately,
the bed was very comfortable, contributing to Jason's pick of the Hotel
Elliot as his favorite of the trip.
On Monday morning we had breakfast at the hotel's buffet, which was very
crowded with athletes, in town for tournaments of both ice hockey and
soccer. The ones I talked with in the elevator happened to be from Dublin.
Sting sings "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone," and it certainly seemed
that John & Sonja had taken our sunshine with them. We left Gibraltar under
heavy cloud and encountered rain as we drove up the coast toward Cadiz, so
apparently they don't manage to make it all stay on the plain. It did give
us a chance to play with a feature of the car that Jason had discovered in
the manual: the variable-speed setting on the windshield wipers is
automatic, somehow sensing the heaviness of the rain and adjusting fairly
appropriately to the needs of the moment. We also enjoyed the vast ranks of
modern windmills arrayed on many of the ridges to catch the ocean breeze.
We made our way out to Cadiz, dropped off the car and took advantage of the
car park's toilets--a fine tradition I would like to encourage throughout
the world--before heading into the older section of town. The intermittent
rain was becoming heavier, so we were glad to duck into a cafe in the
cathedral square to share a salad with tuna and shrimp and a platter of
fried seafood.
On my previous trip to Spain we had stopped in Cadiz only for lunch and I
had hoped to see more of the town on this visit. Unfortunately, all the
tourist sights were closed on Mondays and the weather made a stroll through
the old quarter a bleak proposition. The rain failed to let up while we
were at lunch, so we simply walked back to the car and waved goodbye to
Cadiz. Up the road in Jerez, the weather had cleared a bit and we were able
to take a tour of the Gonzales y Byass "bodega" where they make brandy and
sherry, including Tio Pepe, the best-selling dry sherry in the world. It
was interesting to see their facilities and gain an understanding of the
process. We also saw the amusing-but-disturbing sight of mice drinking
sherry left out for them in a wine glass with a little ladder propped up
against it. It makes a cute picture, but our guide admitted in an aside to
Jason and me that cirrhosis of the liver gives them a life expectancy of
three months or less. We tasted Tio Pepe and their Soberano sweet sherry,
but decided that neither of us liked either of them enough to buy a bottle.
Continuing inland, we arrived in Seville. Jason did a marvelous job of
navigating us through the maze of tiny streets in the old part of town to
reach the Hotel Cervantes. Parking had been promised and one of the staff
came out to direct me. That was a real challenge. From the street I had to
make a hairpin turn between two dumpsters filled with construction rubble to
enter the elevator just barely wider than the car. Exiting the elevator, I
then had to turn about 270 degrees in order to back into the corner spot.
The guy from the hotel kept insisting that I not look around me, but focus
on him and he did give me excellent direction and got me into the spot.
Whew!
The hotel upstairs was beautiful, with a marbled lobby that reminded us both
of our boat on the Nile. Our room overlooked a patio at the back, that was
covered with a glass roof, but open to the air high up on the far side, over
the building next door. We were back to single beds, but they were
reasonably comfortable and we had a pleasant stay there.
After a nap, we headed out to explore Seville by night. It was relatively
warm and we enjoyed making our way through the labyrinth on foot. We walked
around the cathedral and the Alcazar and out to one of the boulevards of the
modern city, where we stopped in briefly at an internet cafe. We checked
out several of the restaurants recommended by our guidebooks and ended up at
the Casa Robles. I had a plate of ham and lamb cutlets that were tasty, but
served with a sauce that was too gluey for my taste. Jason started with
roasted peppers with cod fish (the famous "bacalao") followed by a delicious
dish called "Cazuela Tio Pepe," a mix of mushrooms, shrimp and ham baked in
a sherry sauce that was wonderful when soaked up with bread. The waiter
convinced us to try their dessert sampler, with small bites of about six
different variations on cheesecake and mousse-cake. Then we strolled back
to our hotel through the quiet alleyways to map out our plan for the next
day.
In the morning, after a quick breakfast in the hotel's buffet, we walked
over to the Casa Pilatos, a 16th-century merchant's "mudejar" style mansion
supposedly built according to the same plan as the home of Pilate in
Jerusalem. This is one of the second-tier attractions of Seville, but I
would rate it as a must-see. In style it is very much like what we saw at
the Nasrid Palace of the Alhambra and although smaller in scale, it is much
better preserved. The intricate plaster moldings on the upper walls
maintain the geometric patterns of the Moors, while leaving out or stylizing
the Koranic verses. The tiles covering the lower walls are more elborately
painted and somehow manage to mix patterns without creating a sense of
chaos. The main stairway is crowned with an intricately carved dome. The
whole thing is built around a lovely colonnaded patio, with gardens at the
back of the house brimming with exuberant bougainvillea. We didn't have
time to wait for the next tour of the upstairs rooms, but perusing a
souvenir guide we saw that the upper section was decorated in a more typical
Renaissance style and we weren't especially disappointed to miss that.
We hurried through the cobbled streets, dodging cars and scooters, to reach
the Alcazar just as it opened at 10:30am. We eschewed the audio guide and
made our own way through the Patio of Lions, Hall of Justice and Hall of
Ambassadors to the Mudejar Palace, built for Pedro the Cruel by Moorish
workmen in the mid-14th century. We vastly prefered this delicate
architecture and intricate decoration to the baroque stylings of the Palace
of Charles V next door. We did enjoy the lovely gardens, but did not spend
much time wandering there.
Our last stop was the cathedral--since it didn't open until 11:00--and this
was our favorite church in Spain, as well as being the largest. Somehow it
achieved a much more vital and welcoming atmosphere than the cathedrals of
Barcelona, Madrid, Toledo and Granada. One of the most intriguing sights is
a temporary one, the collar of steel rings surrounding two of the columns in
the nave that are currently under repair. But there were very interesting
elements of the permanent structure, as well, including the back of the
choir, which is made of different marbles pieced together. The overall
impression of that wall reminded us both of the pietra dura inlaid desks
made in Florence. One of the treasuries is an oval neo-classical
masterpiece, supposedly designed by Michelangelo for a project in Italy that
was never built. The cathedral also houses the tomb of Christopher
Columbus. One of its claims to fame is the largest "retablo" or altarpiece
in the world, depicting 45 scenes from the life of Christ carved in wood and
framed in gold. We did not climb the Giralda, the church's belltower that
was the minaret of the Great Mosque that previously occupied this site,
since Jason's knee was hurting and we were pressed for time.
Fortunately it was much easier getting out of the hotel's parking lot than
it had been to get in. We had hoped to leave Seville at noon, but given all
we'd accomplished we were happy to be driving out of the city by 12:30pm.
We made good time to Cordoba and there was good signage directing us to the
Hotel Alfaros, which had a much more easily navigable car park beneath it
than we'd encountered in Seville. We dropped off our bags, admired the
lovely courtyard and wished it were warm enough for the pool to be
inviting. Then we headed out into the old quarter of town, known as the
Juderia for the Jews who lived there until their expulsion from the country
in 1492. We found baguette sandwiches and patatas ali oli (potato salad
with garlic) at a cafe outside the walls of the Mezquita before heading into
what is probably my favorite place in all of Spain.
Cordoba was the capital of Roman Spain (under the name "Corduba") and
continued to be a major city under the Visigoths. They tore down the temple
of the Romans to build a church, which was torn down in its turn by the
Moors, who built the second largest mosque in the Islamic world using
columns taken from both Roman and Christian buildings. Begun in 780, the
mosque was expanded until its forest of columns numbered over 1200 by the
turn of the last millennium. After the reconquest of Cordoba, the mosque
was converted into a cathedral, by building chapels around the outer walls
and a nave into the center. Charles V is said to have remarked on seeing
the finished product "you have destroyed something unique to create
something commonplace," and more than one of our guidebooks labelled it an
abomination. While it would certainly be nice to see the mosque
unadulterated, it is probably its conversion that has allowed it to remain
standing at all, and if they had to do it, they did it well.
One enters the Mezquita from the Patio de Naranjos, still filled with orange
trees and fountains, where the Moors performed the ritual ablutions before
prayer. The cool, dark maze of columns, topped with double-tiered arches,
is a peaceful and meditative space. Wandering amid the columns, one
eventually notices the Christian chapels around the edges of the space,
filling in the arches that once opened onto the patio. At the back of the
mosque is the mihram, which amplified the imam's words and supposedly
indicated the direction of Mecca. This one is off-course, pointing too far
south, but its ceiling--carved from a single block of marble--and gold
mosaics are lovely. In the center of the building is the cathedral's choir
and high altar, which are fairly restrained as these things go. I had told
Jason how wonderful the Mezquita is and I was very pleased that he seemed to
appreciate it as much as I do. Leaving the mosque, I was struck by how the
columns inside echo the pattern of the orange trees in the courtyard,
another indication of the Moors' integration of nature with their
architecture. From outside, the intrusion of the church is more obvious
than from inside, with the dome rising up from the flat-roofed mosque and
the minaret sheathed in a Baroque shell to create the church's belltower.
We walked over to the Alcazar and stood in line there for a while. We were
surprised by how cheap the entry fee is (1.87 euros--you find a lot of odd
numbers these days, because they were required by law to convert from their
former currencies without changing the actual prices). Once we got inside,
we realized that although the gardens are very lovely, there is almost
nothing left of the palace built for Alfonso XI in the early 14th century.
What is left houses a collection of Roman mosaics and a sarcophagus
unearthed in the area. We admired the towers and descended to the fairly
shabby Arab-style baths before going on our way.
Our last stop was the Museo de Arqueologia, built around a lovely colonnaded
patio and displaying artifacts of the Moorish and Roman civilizations in
Cordoba. One of the interesting things about the city's history is the trio
of famous philosophers born there: Seneca of Rome; the Moorish physician,
Averroes; and the Jewish scholar, Maimonides. According to our guidebooks,
Cordoba was the most wealthy and brilliant city in Europe during the Dark
Ages and is only now beginning to recover from it's slump as a backwater
under the Christians with modern industrial and tourist development.
We passed the time between tourist sites closing and restaurants opening
with a lovely nap back at the hotel. Emerging into the evening, we
investigated a few dinner options before going with El Caballo Rojo. They
brought us complementary glasses of a sherry much nicer than Tio Pepe and a
little plate of fish goujons. My starter was a cold cream of vegetable soup
garnished with chunks of Iberian ham, while Jason had the gazpacho. He
adventurously tried one of the dishes in the "local specialties" section of
the menu, duck stewed with almonds, and although he wasn't thrilled with the
flavor of the first bite, the taste grew on him and he was glad to have
ordered it. I couldn't pass up my last chance for solomillo--served with
fried potatoes and a red pepper sauce--and it was almost as good as the
first one I'd had back in Bilbao. With it we enjoyed the house wine, which
was the best we'd had on our whole trip. Despite the temptations of the
dessert trolley, we skipped the sweets and headed back to the hotel for our
last night in Spain.
In the morning, having breakfasted at the hotel's buffet, we managed to be
in the car and on the highway by 10:00am, as we'd hoped. With only a couple
of pitstops, we made it to the Madrid airport to drop off our car right at
2:00pm. We checked in for our flight with a guy on his second day and went
through security to find sandwiches for lunch. I strolled around the duty
free area without finding anything I needed, while Jason had a very
productive hour on his laptop. We were on a bigger jet for our flight to
Heathrow and the seats were comfortable enough that I slept the whole way,
only waking up for a perfect view of Windsor Castle on our final approach.
We landed right on time and zipped right through Immigration, but then had
to wait about twenty minutes for our flight to be assigned a baggage
carousel. Once bags started to appear, however, our packs were in the first
ten. We headed down to the tube where we were surprised to find no train
waiting and we had another ten-minute wait before the last leg of our
journey. Once on board, Jason handed over the laptop and I typed up the
Bilbao portion of our trip for the third time, having given up on posting it
from Spain after losing the first two attempts.
We arrived back at the flat to find it still outrageously yellow and with
an entryway full of mail. We split up to check email and, due to my mistake
in turning off the forwarding to my web-accessible account, when Jason sent
the draft of the report from his laptop to mine, it got deleted. So I hope
you find the opening section very polished, as this is my fourth version of
it.
So now we're home and enjoying the prospect of being here for at least a
couple of weeks before heading out again. We're planning to see a movie
with a friend on Sunday and to attend the Queen Mum's lying-in-state on
Monday before they haul away the very old dear. Otherwise we have no plans
and that's a fine thing.
Jason and I continued west along the Costa del Sol through Torremolinos, a
bleak tourist town that did not seem on cursory inspection to have improved
since my last visit. We stopped at a McDonald's outside Marbella for a
quick lunch and headed on toward Gibraltar. The town on the Spanish side of
the border is called "La Linea," an amusingly appropriate name for the place
where one has to queue to enter and exit the country. We sat in line for
about half an hour before being waved through at the sight of our US
passports. We drove across the airport runway and into town.
The guidebooks had been emphatic about the terrible parking situation
in Gibraltar and had urged us to park in La Linea and walk over the border,
but it had clouded up and was windy and cold and I wasn't interested in
carrying our packs that far. So it was with great satisfaction, after
following the signs to our hotel through tiny, winding streets up the hill,
to arrive at the Elliot Hotel to find an ample car park for hotel guests.
We checked in and were very pleased with our room, which included a
queen-sized bed, lovely furniture and a view of the sea. Jason turned on
the TV to see what channels were available and we got sucked in by the
original pilot of "Battlestar Galactica" for twenty minutes or so before
marshalling our energy to explore the town. We wandered up the hill a bit
and then along Main Street, which was completely shuttered for the day and
partially under construction. We stopped in briefly at King's Chapel
attached to The Convent, a former Franciscan monastery. It has been the
official residence of the Governor of Gibraltar since the Brits took control
during the War of Spanish Succession in the 18th century. Continuing out
through the Southport Gate, we paused by the Trafalgar Cemetery, where we
were accosted by a minivan tour driver looking to fill up his bus for the
last tour of the day. This was exactly what we'd been looking to find, so
we piled in along with a Finnish couple and their ~11 year-old daughter.
Our guide drove us up to the entrance of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve and
let us out to take pictures from the spot marked with a bronze plaque
commemorating Gibraltar's ancient identity as one of the Pillars of
Hercules. Having bought our tickets into the reserve, the guide loaded us
back into the van and we continued up the Rock to St. Michael's Cave. A
natural cave of stunning beauty, it was outfitted as a hospital during WWII,
but was never needed. Today, in addition to allowing tourists to wander
around and admire the intricate rock formations, they also have an
auditorium where concerts are held during the summer. Audience members
would want to bring along good hats, since the water that created the cave's
beauties is still actively seeping through the ceiling.
Leaving the cave, we continued on up the Rock to a spot where one of the
packs of "Barbary Apes" congregate near a feeding station. They are
actually tail-less monkeys, or macaques, native to Morocco and Algeria, who
were apparently brought to Gibraltar by the British in the 18th century.
They are said to be a symbol of British sovereignty on the Rock and it is
told that if they disappear, so will the Brits. When numbers were dwindling
in the early 20th century, Winston Churchill gave the order that they should
be fed and maintained and their numbers have swelled to over 200 living in
five packs all over the Rock. They are not shy and allow people to get
quite close to them, although tourists are warned not to touch them and risk
a bite. We saw about ten monkeys, including two babies. They have pale fur
that looks soft and disturbingly bare, flattened bottoms. They seemed
entirely bored with us, but we were thrilled with them.
Our pictures from that spot are not exclusively of the monkeys, as this was
the point at which you can look down to see the waters of the Mediterranean
on the left and the Atlantic on the right. Gibraltar is considered the
dividing point, even though it is not the southernmost point of the
penisula--that's further west, back in Spain. The winds there were fierce
and we enjoyed watching the seagulls playing in it, flying into the gusts so
as to hover in the same spot. The views weren't spectacular and we could
only barely see the mountains across the straight in Africa, because of the
weather. Still, there is something exciting about standing on one continent
and looking at another. There was a bizarre cloud formation, with a line of
clouds approaching the Rock from the south and seeming to turn black as they
touched its peak, before continuing on in a regimented column over Spain.
Descending from that point, down switchback roads so steep and narrow that
our driver made three-point turns at the curves, we reached the Moorish
Castle, which has dominated the landward approach to Gibraltar since 1333.
The only section accessible today is the Tower of Homage, which contains a
display of various typical Moorish artifacts--including Berber and Arabian
rugs and translations of phrases from the Koran painted throughout the
castle--and the room used as a miniature mosque during sieges. The castle
withstood ten sieges during its history, thanks in part to a very deep well
supplying fresh water to the defenders.
We were dropped off back at the Trafalgar Cemetery and wandered around it
for a few minutes. Although named in honor of the British victory against
Napoleon's fleet off Cape Trafalgar, only two of the people buried there
died from that battle.
Jason convinced me that we should go take a look at the "100 Ton Gun" before
returning to the hotel, so we walked quite a ways out past the shipyards,
only to find that it is not visible from the street and the gates to it had
shut for the day. We sat for a while in a cannon notch of an old battery
that is now a car park, looking out over the water, before turning back
toward the center of town. It was interesting, as we walked, to notice the
little touches of Britain--like post boxes and telephone booths and the
accents of some of the passersby--transplanted here and looking somewhat out
of place amid the palm trees and tropical flowers. All the flags in town
were at half-mast, in honor of the passing of the Queen Mum the day before.
Since Jason was slightly sick--mostly just sniffles and lethargy--and since
very little in town was open, we had decided to eat in the Palm Court at the
hotel. We were firmly on the Spanish schedule of eating around nine or ten,
so we stopped into an internet cafe a block from the hotel. Jason went back
to the room after an hour to work on his laptop, but I stayed for a second
hour, catching up on email and news, including obituaries for the Queen Mum.
My favorite description of her was "a bonbon in a frilly cup" and my
favorite anecdote was the time she called down to the mostly-gay palace
staff to ask "is there an old queen down there who would bring a gin & tonic
to the old queen up here?"
Back at the hotel I called steve briefly and then we went down to dinner.
The dining room was fairly deserted, but we had a nice meal of scallops
seared with five-spice powder, served on a bed of leeks with herbed
butter, and fillet steak. For dessert we split an almond parfait, which was
light and lovely. Jason talked to his mother, in Salmon for her mother's
funeral the day before, and then we went to bed. With the grey weather and
illness sapping our energy, it seemed like a very long day. Fortunately,
the bed was very comfortable, contributing to Jason's pick of the Hotel
Elliot as his favorite of the trip.
On Monday morning we had breakfast at the hotel's buffet, which was very
crowded with athletes, in town for tournaments of both ice hockey and
soccer. The ones I talked with in the elevator happened to be from Dublin.
Sting sings "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone," and it certainly seemed
that John & Sonja had taken our sunshine with them. We left Gibraltar under
heavy cloud and encountered rain as we drove up the coast toward Cadiz, so
apparently they don't manage to make it all stay on the plain. It did give
us a chance to play with a feature of the car that Jason had discovered in
the manual: the variable-speed setting on the windshield wipers is
automatic, somehow sensing the heaviness of the rain and adjusting fairly
appropriately to the needs of the moment. We also enjoyed the vast ranks of
modern windmills arrayed on many of the ridges to catch the ocean breeze.
We made our way out to Cadiz, dropped off the car and took advantage of the
car park's toilets--a fine tradition I would like to encourage throughout
the world--before heading into the older section of town. The intermittent
rain was becoming heavier, so we were glad to duck into a cafe in the
cathedral square to share a salad with tuna and shrimp and a platter of
fried seafood.
On my previous trip to Spain we had stopped in Cadiz only for lunch and I
had hoped to see more of the town on this visit. Unfortunately, all the
tourist sights were closed on Mondays and the weather made a stroll through
the old quarter a bleak proposition. The rain failed to let up while we
were at lunch, so we simply walked back to the car and waved goodbye to
Cadiz. Up the road in Jerez, the weather had cleared a bit and we were able
to take a tour of the Gonzales y Byass "bodega" where they make brandy and
sherry, including Tio Pepe, the best-selling dry sherry in the world. It
was interesting to see their facilities and gain an understanding of the
process. We also saw the amusing-but-disturbing sight of mice drinking
sherry left out for them in a wine glass with a little ladder propped up
against it. It makes a cute picture, but our guide admitted in an aside to
Jason and me that cirrhosis of the liver gives them a life expectancy of
three months or less. We tasted Tio Pepe and their Soberano sweet sherry,
but decided that neither of us liked either of them enough to buy a bottle.
Continuing inland, we arrived in Seville. Jason did a marvelous job of
navigating us through the maze of tiny streets in the old part of town to
reach the Hotel Cervantes. Parking had been promised and one of the staff
came out to direct me. That was a real challenge. From the street I had to
make a hairpin turn between two dumpsters filled with construction rubble to
enter the elevator just barely wider than the car. Exiting the elevator, I
then had to turn about 270 degrees in order to back into the corner spot.
The guy from the hotel kept insisting that I not look around me, but focus
on him and he did give me excellent direction and got me into the spot.
Whew!
The hotel upstairs was beautiful, with a marbled lobby that reminded us both
of our boat on the Nile. Our room overlooked a patio at the back, that was
covered with a glass roof, but open to the air high up on the far side, over
the building next door. We were back to single beds, but they were
reasonably comfortable and we had a pleasant stay there.
After a nap, we headed out to explore Seville by night. It was relatively
warm and we enjoyed making our way through the labyrinth on foot. We walked
around the cathedral and the Alcazar and out to one of the boulevards of the
modern city, where we stopped in briefly at an internet cafe. We checked
out several of the restaurants recommended by our guidebooks and ended up at
the Casa Robles. I had a plate of ham and lamb cutlets that were tasty, but
served with a sauce that was too gluey for my taste. Jason started with
roasted peppers with cod fish (the famous "bacalao") followed by a delicious
dish called "Cazuela Tio Pepe," a mix of mushrooms, shrimp and ham baked in
a sherry sauce that was wonderful when soaked up with bread. The waiter
convinced us to try their dessert sampler, with small bites of about six
different variations on cheesecake and mousse-cake. Then we strolled back
to our hotel through the quiet alleyways to map out our plan for the next
day.
In the morning, after a quick breakfast in the hotel's buffet, we walked
over to the Casa Pilatos, a 16th-century merchant's "mudejar" style mansion
supposedly built according to the same plan as the home of Pilate in
Jerusalem. This is one of the second-tier attractions of Seville, but I
would rate it as a must-see. In style it is very much like what we saw at
the Nasrid Palace of the Alhambra and although smaller in scale, it is much
better preserved. The intricate plaster moldings on the upper walls
maintain the geometric patterns of the Moors, while leaving out or stylizing
the Koranic verses. The tiles covering the lower walls are more elborately
painted and somehow manage to mix patterns without creating a sense of
chaos. The main stairway is crowned with an intricately carved dome. The
whole thing is built around a lovely colonnaded patio, with gardens at the
back of the house brimming with exuberant bougainvillea. We didn't have
time to wait for the next tour of the upstairs rooms, but perusing a
souvenir guide we saw that the upper section was decorated in a more typical
Renaissance style and we weren't especially disappointed to miss that.
We hurried through the cobbled streets, dodging cars and scooters, to reach
the Alcazar just as it opened at 10:30am. We eschewed the audio guide and
made our own way through the Patio of Lions, Hall of Justice and Hall of
Ambassadors to the Mudejar Palace, built for Pedro the Cruel by Moorish
workmen in the mid-14th century. We vastly prefered this delicate
architecture and intricate decoration to the baroque stylings of the Palace
of Charles V next door. We did enjoy the lovely gardens, but did not spend
much time wandering there.
Our last stop was the cathedral--since it didn't open until 11:00--and this
was our favorite church in Spain, as well as being the largest. Somehow it
achieved a much more vital and welcoming atmosphere than the cathedrals of
Barcelona, Madrid, Toledo and Granada. One of the most intriguing sights is
a temporary one, the collar of steel rings surrounding two of the columns in
the nave that are currently under repair. But there were very interesting
elements of the permanent structure, as well, including the back of the
choir, which is made of different marbles pieced together. The overall
impression of that wall reminded us both of the pietra dura inlaid desks
made in Florence. One of the treasuries is an oval neo-classical
masterpiece, supposedly designed by Michelangelo for a project in Italy that
was never built. The cathedral also houses the tomb of Christopher
Columbus. One of its claims to fame is the largest "retablo" or altarpiece
in the world, depicting 45 scenes from the life of Christ carved in wood and
framed in gold. We did not climb the Giralda, the church's belltower that
was the minaret of the Great Mosque that previously occupied this site,
since Jason's knee was hurting and we were pressed for time.
Fortunately it was much easier getting out of the hotel's parking lot than
it had been to get in. We had hoped to leave Seville at noon, but given all
we'd accomplished we were happy to be driving out of the city by 12:30pm.
We made good time to Cordoba and there was good signage directing us to the
Hotel Alfaros, which had a much more easily navigable car park beneath it
than we'd encountered in Seville. We dropped off our bags, admired the
lovely courtyard and wished it were warm enough for the pool to be
inviting. Then we headed out into the old quarter of town, known as the
Juderia for the Jews who lived there until their expulsion from the country
in 1492. We found baguette sandwiches and patatas ali oli (potato salad
with garlic) at a cafe outside the walls of the Mezquita before heading into
what is probably my favorite place in all of Spain.
Cordoba was the capital of Roman Spain (under the name "Corduba") and
continued to be a major city under the Visigoths. They tore down the temple
of the Romans to build a church, which was torn down in its turn by the
Moors, who built the second largest mosque in the Islamic world using
columns taken from both Roman and Christian buildings. Begun in 780, the
mosque was expanded until its forest of columns numbered over 1200 by the
turn of the last millennium. After the reconquest of Cordoba, the mosque
was converted into a cathedral, by building chapels around the outer walls
and a nave into the center. Charles V is said to have remarked on seeing
the finished product "you have destroyed something unique to create
something commonplace," and more than one of our guidebooks labelled it an
abomination. While it would certainly be nice to see the mosque
unadulterated, it is probably its conversion that has allowed it to remain
standing at all, and if they had to do it, they did it well.
One enters the Mezquita from the Patio de Naranjos, still filled with orange
trees and fountains, where the Moors performed the ritual ablutions before
prayer. The cool, dark maze of columns, topped with double-tiered arches,
is a peaceful and meditative space. Wandering amid the columns, one
eventually notices the Christian chapels around the edges of the space,
filling in the arches that once opened onto the patio. At the back of the
mosque is the mihram, which amplified the imam's words and supposedly
indicated the direction of Mecca. This one is off-course, pointing too far
south, but its ceiling--carved from a single block of marble--and gold
mosaics are lovely. In the center of the building is the cathedral's choir
and high altar, which are fairly restrained as these things go. I had told
Jason how wonderful the Mezquita is and I was very pleased that he seemed to
appreciate it as much as I do. Leaving the mosque, I was struck by how the
columns inside echo the pattern of the orange trees in the courtyard,
another indication of the Moors' integration of nature with their
architecture. From outside, the intrusion of the church is more obvious
than from inside, with the dome rising up from the flat-roofed mosque and
the minaret sheathed in a Baroque shell to create the church's belltower.
We walked over to the Alcazar and stood in line there for a while. We were
surprised by how cheap the entry fee is (1.87 euros--you find a lot of odd
numbers these days, because they were required by law to convert from their
former currencies without changing the actual prices). Once we got inside,
we realized that although the gardens are very lovely, there is almost
nothing left of the palace built for Alfonso XI in the early 14th century.
What is left houses a collection of Roman mosaics and a sarcophagus
unearthed in the area. We admired the towers and descended to the fairly
shabby Arab-style baths before going on our way.
Our last stop was the Museo de Arqueologia, built around a lovely colonnaded
patio and displaying artifacts of the Moorish and Roman civilizations in
Cordoba. One of the interesting things about the city's history is the trio
of famous philosophers born there: Seneca of Rome; the Moorish physician,
Averroes; and the Jewish scholar, Maimonides. According to our guidebooks,
Cordoba was the most wealthy and brilliant city in Europe during the Dark
Ages and is only now beginning to recover from it's slump as a backwater
under the Christians with modern industrial and tourist development.
We passed the time between tourist sites closing and restaurants opening
with a lovely nap back at the hotel. Emerging into the evening, we
investigated a few dinner options before going with El Caballo Rojo. They
brought us complementary glasses of a sherry much nicer than Tio Pepe and a
little plate of fish goujons. My starter was a cold cream of vegetable soup
garnished with chunks of Iberian ham, while Jason had the gazpacho. He
adventurously tried one of the dishes in the "local specialties" section of
the menu, duck stewed with almonds, and although he wasn't thrilled with the
flavor of the first bite, the taste grew on him and he was glad to have
ordered it. I couldn't pass up my last chance for solomillo--served with
fried potatoes and a red pepper sauce--and it was almost as good as the
first one I'd had back in Bilbao. With it we enjoyed the house wine, which
was the best we'd had on our whole trip. Despite the temptations of the
dessert trolley, we skipped the sweets and headed back to the hotel for our
last night in Spain.
In the morning, having breakfasted at the hotel's buffet, we managed to be
in the car and on the highway by 10:00am, as we'd hoped. With only a couple
of pitstops, we made it to the Madrid airport to drop off our car right at
2:00pm. We checked in for our flight with a guy on his second day and went
through security to find sandwiches for lunch. I strolled around the duty
free area without finding anything I needed, while Jason had a very
productive hour on his laptop. We were on a bigger jet for our flight to
Heathrow and the seats were comfortable enough that I slept the whole way,
only waking up for a perfect view of Windsor Castle on our final approach.
We landed right on time and zipped right through Immigration, but then had
to wait about twenty minutes for our flight to be assigned a baggage
carousel. Once bags started to appear, however, our packs were in the first
ten. We headed down to the tube where we were surprised to find no train
waiting and we had another ten-minute wait before the last leg of our
journey. Once on board, Jason handed over the laptop and I typed up the
Bilbao portion of our trip for the third time, having given up on posting it
from Spain after losing the first two attempts.
We arrived back at the flat to find it still outrageously yellow and with
an entryway full of mail. We split up to check email and, due to my mistake
in turning off the forwarding to my web-accessible account, when Jason sent
the draft of the report from his laptop to mine, it got deleted. So I hope
you find the opening section very polished, as this is my fourth version of
it.
So now we're home and enjoying the prospect of being here for at least a
couple of weeks before heading out again. We're planning to see a movie
with a friend on Sunday and to attend the Queen Mum's lying-in-state on
Monday before they haul away the very old dear. Otherwise we have no plans
and that's a fine thing.
