Hola familia y amigos!
Colin and I are back in Turkey after a great trip to southern Spain with the Haller Martins. I have lots of photos to share, so I'll just jump right into it. But first, a brief summary of the trip: Colin and I met Steve and Mar at Ataturk airport, then we flew to Madrid together, meeting Gene (Colin's mom's dad) at our hotel that evening. We left for Seville the next morning, were there for 5 days, including 2 day trips out--one to Cordoba, the other to Ronda. Our last stop was Grenada, we were there for 3 days, then took the train back to Madrid, where we got one last day of sightseeing.
It was a delicious and beautiful trip, full of Rick Steve's tours, tapas, and evening card games. I can now, very happily, say that I really like Spain, and I love travelling there. Especially with such good company.
On our first evening, we went for a walk through the center of old Madrid before dinner. Steve treated us to glasses of Amantillado (of course, from a cask) at this beautiful mercado off of Plaza de Mayor, very near our hotel.
Dinner was a very memorable combination of fried cod tapas, chorizo sandwiches, and 4 enormous iceberg salads. Lesson learned: only order 1 salad per table.
The next morning, we boarded a bullet train south to Seville. The scenery along the way was gorgeous--lots of olive groves, pretty little towns on hillsides, and the occasional castle or "giant" windmill to remind all of the chivalrous Don Quixote's rides through similar country.
In Seville, we stayed at a great 3-bedroom apartment in the core of the old city's pedestrian labyrinth. It was a very pretty place to get lost, though. Even in the middle of winter, the vines held colorful flowers, and palms peeked over tall walled courtyards and through twisted iron gates.
Every corner had tourist shops with your choice of postcards, kids flamenco dresses, and various bull knick-knacks.
Plazas with peaceful fountains appeared persistently, and everywhere you looked there were more and more orange trees, dropping their fruits for doves to pick at and kids to gleefully smash.
At the center of the old town is Seville's landmark: the Giralda cathedral and tower. The cathedral is the biggest Catholic church on Earth and the largest worship space in Spain. We toured its cavernous halls our first day in Seville. (After a fantastic lunch featuring more fried cod, croquettes, a spinach salad worthy of writing home about, tasty cheeses, and sangria). I think that Gene described the cathedral best: it's so big that you wonder where the church is. Impressive, no doubt, but hard to keep track of...
One very cool thing to see in the cathedral, though, was this: Christopher Columbus' tomb. "Cristobal Colon" is a pretty big deal in Seville since the city was the official disembarkation point for all New World treasure, crops and people. He brought a lot of gold, a lot of power, and a lot of history to this town and the whole Spanish nation, and thus his earthly remains are proudly borne by four larger-than-life Spainiards representing the 4 main regions of Spain.
After craning our necks upwards inside the church, we climbed the 35 ramps and 17 stairs to the top of its tower, and then we craned our necks downwards. We stayed for the ringing of the 4:30 bells, but no Quasimoto appeared (instead a neat little Dutch clock machine set the bells swinging).
After the descent, our group enjoyed sitting in the Cathedral's orange courtyard...one of the only remaining parts of the Great Mosque that used to be on the same sight. The other remaining part being the bell tower. The Christians added a fancy top to it, but it used to be a big Andalusian-style minaret. I really loved that tower (and the fact that it's Seville's most iconic building) because it reminded me so much of the beautiful square minarets that I've seen in Morocco.
The next day, the Haller-Martins and I went to our first royal palace of the trip: Seville's Alcazar. (See the minaret just across a plaza from the palace?) The Alcazar has a beautiful and intriguing combination of Andalusian (Moorish/Moroccan-esque) and Renaissance architecture. It is still used by HRM Juan Carlos's family when they visit Seville, but since they weren't around, we got to tramp all over the grounds.
Traditional Andalusian architecture, as I learned on Term in the Middle East, has 5 essential elements: water features, marble floors, wooden ceilings, meticulously carved plasterwork, and colorful (especially white, blue, green, yellow, orange-red) tile work. The last three elements (tiles, ceilings, and plasterwork) are all unified by a emphasis on beautiful repeating patterns and geometric tessellations. It was a real treat to see all the elements in action at the Alcazar and, later, the Alhambra palaces.
Alcazar's central courtyard: can you spot all 5 Andalusian elements?
Also note, Rick Steeve's chose this same shot for the front of his 2013 Spain book. :-)
As I mentioned, the Alcazar is a very interesting mix of high renaissance and Andalusian styles. This impressive hall, which looks to me like it could be right at home in Florence, is literally up some stairs off that central courtyard.
The tile work in the floor just off this hall (below) shows how the architects mixed the elements and styles of the existing palace with Renaissance royal tastes.
Terracotta Borders + Repeating geometric patterns in traditional colors (on the floor instead of the walls, which is weird) = A Uniquely Seville Solution
After touring the palace itself, we got to wander through the Alcazar's famous gardens.
Above: the Pool of Mercury, with its famously enormous fish (reminiscent of the monsters in Istanbul's Byzantine Cistern)
Below: The precisely trimmed hedges and slender palms of the royal gardens.
Next on our agenda was the Plaza de Espana--what would have been the center of Seville's great Ibero-America Expositon (world's fair).....if it hadn't been scheduled for 1929. The stock market crash of the same year meant that it wasn't quite the party that Seville had hoped for, but apparently it was success enough to help solidify Seville as the center of Andalusian culture in the 20th century.
The Plaza de Espana, though strangely empty, still has some very nice gondolas you can rent to tool around its moat, and the typical musicians (spanish guitarists, violins) in various corners, nooks and crannies, to make the experience very pleasant for visitors.
The Plaza is famous for its beautiful tiles on the bridges over the canal (below) and in the bench-like alcoves created to honor each of the provinces in Spain.
After a typically Sevillian lunch of tapas and (several tiny) beers, we went to Seville's hallowed bullring: Plaza de Toros. We joined the dual-language tour and got to see the ring itself (above: where the fight occurs, below: the Prince's box. Best seat in the house.) as well as memorabilia and art related to Spanish bullfighting as a cultural event.
After the museum, Gene got a Spanish sombrero, we all played cards back at the house, and we all went to bed with tired feet.
The next day, Sunday, was Ronda. We took a very comfortable morning bus to the "white hill town" of Ronda--famous for its incredible views over and its amazing bridge.
Our next day, Monday, was Cordoba. We took a morning train to the city and headed straight for the Cathedral. According to the pamphlet we got, this was originally a church, but I first learned about it as a mosque, when I was in Great Con. When the Ummayyid's ruled over this part of the world, they built a mosque so beautiful it first rivaled, and then surpassed, the greatest works of Damascus. Their kingdom was known for tolerance, and Christians, Jews and Muslims thrived in Cordoba. One of the city's most famous sons is Maimonides (who I was reading in Great Con when we learned about the mosque), who argued that one can be both a pious believer in God and a seeker of philosophical and academic truth....among many other very wise and true things. We got to rub Maimonides' shoe later in the day--a tradition which is said to giver the rub-ber a bit of extra wisdom. Fingers crossed!
Then, as you continue to walk around, you discover interesting little places where the architecture (e.g. the ceiling) was changed. We found the mosaic mihrab, which was tiled by Byzantine (Christian) specialists brought in from Istanbul....
Then, you get to the center of it all and find, there in the very middle of one of the most mesmerizingly beautiful mosques I've ever seen, is one of the most fantastic churches I've ever seen. It's tall, white, stones sweep/push/rise up out of the arches, drawing the eyes of visitors and believers to a fantastic ceiling, beautiful icons, and a whole new feeling of brightness and God's majesty. (God's closeness and mystery perhaps being what you'd just been pondering in the sea of columns...) It's a great church.
After we finished craning our necks, we wandered a bit through the Jewish quarter of Cordoba (where we found Maimonides' statue and a totally underwhelming Cordoban specialty pastry), and then we went back to Seville for lunch at Los Coloniales (supposedly the best restaurant, or at least tapas, in the city). After lunch our group split up, and Colin and I did some shopping and a little more exploring in the newer parts of town. After our usual cards in the evening Colin, Gene and I joined Sevillians for tapas and some spirited conversation at a local bodega.
The next day was our last in Seville, so we started it out with a nice walk down to the Guadalquivir River. Never learned how to pronounce that one. On the other side of the river we found some tile shops and pretty views of the city.
Lunch that day was at a place recommended by both Rick Steeves and the Lonely Planet. It was something like the Hotel Mallory in Portland--a somewhat sagging, formerly grand hotel. Now it gives a local school of hospitality its lunch hour, so the 4-course meal food is pretty pretty good and pretty cheap. One standout memory: the amount of chocolate sauce that all the desserts came swimming in, and the fact that Colin finished all of everyone's. (eww...?)
After lunch, we walked back home through the now-familiar streets of Seville and just before getting home stopped in for the last tour of the day at the Casa de Pilatos--the house of a still prominent noble family in Seville. The guided tour was so-so and the hand-held walking information do-dads were totally boring, but we still had fun, and the place was objectively gorgeous.
That same evening, the Haller-Martins and I went to see a quintessentially Sevillian event--the flamenco. Our show was at a cultural center, and featured a fantastic guitarist, a male singer and the star of the show, the dancer. The performance was all-around passionate. The dancer's feet were blazing, the singer's cries and claps had pain and joy, the guitarist was incredible. Though everybody's job looked totally exhausting to do, they seemed like they really loved it.
After the show, we all walked over to the Plaza de Mayor and its "waffle" where we paid to take the elevator to the top floor for a view of the city by night. After that, we trekked to a new part of town to have tapas/dinner at the oldest bar in town. The meal was huge and rather greasy, a too-big feast of tapas and fried foods, a bit disappointingly removed from the actual bar. We totally got touristed into a back corner, and instead of really giving us menus (which granted we wouldn't have been able to read) our waiter just kept bringing us more and more food. After all the meals were tallied, this was the one the group liked least. Considering that it was still really okay, is a sign of how good the food was everywhere else.
So the next afternoon, we took the train to Grenada and then a set of taxis to our apartment in the Albayzin neighborhood. Our apartment was really nice, comfortable (though chilly), and it had a fantastic view of the Alhambra palace. (Above)
We got an early start the next morning (Thursday) and headed up, uphill to the Alhambra palace. The Alhambra is actually a complex of buildings, rather than a single palace, and it has a history too long to long to relate here. In summary, for several centuries it was the capital and royal residence of the Andalusian (Muslim) rulers, but then in 149x it was conquered by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and became part of their Catholic kingdom. The King and Queen kept the Alhambra the way it was, but later descendants built new buildings and continued to tinker with the gardens.
My favorite parts, though, were the old Islamic quarters. The buildings there were filled from floor to ceiling with that same 5-part Andalusian architecture. Amazingly complicated geometric patterns, beautiful stucco carvings, fantastic calligraphy, and everything on a grid! ...it was such a treat for a girl who still fondly recalls her Geometric Patterns in Islamic Art class from college.
One of the most famous parts of the Alhambra is its Lion Courtyard. The lion fountain (above) used to function as a clock by sending water out from the mouth of one of its lions each hour....that is until the curious conquering Christians took the clock apart apart to investigate how it worked, and then couldn't figure out how to put it back together.
Columns and plasterwork in the Lion Courtyard.
Fantastic 8-pointed star ceiling over a perfect cube room. (Floor to ceiling plaster and tiles, with a fountain running out.)
It was a totally beautiful day at the Alhambra, but it was a bit cold. After we finished up in the main Moorish palace, we visited the archeological museum, the bookstore, and then we braved the long walk over to the Generalife (Sultan's summer palace) and its gardens. The gardens were nice, but since we were there in the winter, not too much was blooming. I'm sure that Dad and Grandpa Bishop would have appreciated the way they trimmed ramparts into the hedges.
After the Alhambra, we went to Granada's Cathedral. It was large adn white, with very pretty stained glass and a huge (4000+ pipe organ). Steve said it was his favorite Cathedral he'd ever seen. That's pretty high praise, coming from someone who's been to the Vatican and many of Europe's most famous churches!
Lunch that day was late but great. We ate "typical Grenadan food"--including dishes like pastela and tagines that seemed awfully Moroccan to me--and drank some pretty good wine at a friendly restaurant in our neighborhood.
After linner, Colin and I went up to the Plaza de San Nicolas for a sunset view of the Alhambra and the beautiful mountains behind it.
Friday was our second and last full day in Grenada. Since we'd already seen Grenada's "big" sights, we spent the day walking around various neighborhoods, finding a little Grand Bazaar even more touristic than Istanbul's, buying some terrible pudding from cloistered nuns, hearing an unamplified call to prayer, and relaxing and enjoying the sunshine on our terrace.
Our last sunset view of the Alhambra.
Our journey ended back in Madrid. We got there Saturday afternoon and went back to our Hotel Plaza Mayor. Soon, though, we were back out the door headed for lunch at a great place we just found by walking in and seeing a table for 5. After lunch, Colin, Steve and I went to one last royal palace. It was big, fancy, and Rococo enough to make many jealous...and others rather ill. One of my favorite rooms, though, was the throne room, below, which has a cool 3-D ceiling mural and 2 pretty great-looking thrones. After the palace, we went to the Prado Museum for its 2 free hours (6-8, daily) and then home to the hotel for a gourmet dinner of pizza and 5 euro wine, over one last game of cards.
And thus ended a great trip, and one of my longest blog posts ever. Thanks, Steve and Mar! We had a great time!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment