Sunday, May 28, 2006
Report from Seville
Seville, where Asela, my Cuban friend, and I arrive by plane on Monday, May 22, has complications. The day before we leave Valencia, I notice that Lonely Planet (I have photocopies of its pages covering each of my destinations folded in half-size manila envelopes) says that hotel prices in Seville are double those in other parts of Spain. Therefore our 74€ double room (78€ on weekends, reserved through the Bookings site) turns out to be centrally located in what is a backpackers' hostel that includes some rooms with private baths--but almost no furniture other than the beds, just a rudimentary bedside table. Luckily our room has three beds, so the extra one becomes a catch-all. Also luckily, we get free continental breakfast (to which I add a tangerine from the supermarket) and the room for storing backpacks has a computer with Internet connection in it, which guests are free to use. I find myself doing email before breakfast because that's the only time the computer is free.
Another complication is the fact that my envelope with the Lonely Planet pages disappears the first day; I remember taking it out of my bag in the restaurant to check the list of veggie restaurants from the Happy Cow site, but when we return to the restaurant the next day, no one knows anything about my envelope. Luckily the hotel hands out an annotated map and there's a tourist magazine in the computer room. And yet a further complication is that Seville is building a metro and therefore its main avenue and a couple of its most important plazas are all torn up.
Despite the above, we early on locate (in the old part of town, where the street layout is like Toledo's) a restaurant offering the unlikely combination of Cuban and vegetarian food, both quite good, and I find myself photographing charming patios behind lacy wrought-iron doors. And in our wanderings we run into a museum too new to be mentioned by Lonely Planet, the Museo del Baile Flamenco (Museum of Flamenco Dance), which we discover the next day offers incredibly wide-screen videos of dancers demonstrating the various types of flamenco, exhibits of costumes, too much to read, and the chance to watch a class, which has me heel-and-toeing on the other side of the glass, attempting to imitate the teacher. There I pick up a little free publication with cultural listings and learn of a flamenco performance to take place later in the week in a bank's cultural center near our hotel, to which we go that afternoon to buy (front-row) tickets.
The performance, of the Compañía Blanca del Rey, is thrilling and inspiring because Blanca del Rey, who dances alone, is pushing 60, announces her retirement at the end, but is enormously vigorous and intense. Her second dance is with the bata de cola, the gown with a train, which whizzes around as she turns, stomps, and kicks, and her third and last dance is with an enormous fringed silk shawl (black with gold embroidery and fringe, her gown black), which at the outset appears to be attached to her gown but turns out not to be and which she swooshes and twirls, at times like a toreadora, with incredible facility. A man young enough to be her son is the company's other dancer (I have read a book on flamenco that says the most authentic performances are of a dancer dancing alone), who impresses with his turns as well as his tapateado, there are two guitarrists, who at one point do marvelous solos, and three male singers whose hands clapping are another instrument. The theater is small, and sitting in the first row we are only a few feet from the performers, and quite exhilerated from their performance.
Speaking of silk shawls, I have decided to buy one to hang on the wall, but having also decided that my limit is 100€ (and I actually pay 35€ more), what I end up with is a lot more modest than Blanca del Rey's, a triangle rather than a square and half of what would be a smaller square, black with multicolored embroidery (done by hand) in colors that include the salmon color of the paint on the wall.
The two big tourist attractions in Seville are the Cathedral and the Alcázar. We get our first glimpse of the Cathedral before hours when we get there before it opens to tourists to discover a door open for those going to mass. So I can sit and gaze at the enormous hunk of sculpted solid gold, scenes from the Old and New Testaments, that is the main altarpiece while pretending to be Catholic, and I can hear the booming of the organ. I have a parochial interest in this Cathedral because it claims to be the world's largest Gothic cathedral, and for many years I lived in Upper Manhattan around the corner from another cathedral that makes that claim, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine (Episcopal). Seville in any event wins out for impressiveness for having been constructed 500 years earlier, which gives it incredibly elaborate sacristies with gem-encrusted gold altar accessories and chapels with 15th-century sculptures. (We come back when it's open for tourists so as to have better light and to see the sacristies.) It also wins out for the Giralda, a high square tower built as part of the mosque that was destroyed to build the Cathedral, which was spared and adorned at the top with a belfry. It is easy to climb because there are 35 ramps instead of stairs, this so the caliph could ride up on his horse to call the faithful to prayer. The view of course is fabulous.
The Alcázar is a grouping of palaces based on a Muslim fortification built in the 9th century, expanded after the Christian Reconquest in the 13th century, with changes continuing into the 16th century. It is full of horseshoe arches and elaborately carved stucco, includes a room with a long rectangular pool flanked by sunken gardens, surrounded by arches. The gardens are extensive, with many fountains. Unlike the Cathedral, there is of course no way to enter before tourist hours, and although we get in line before it opens, the crowds are quite oppressive and get in the way of the view. Most of my pictures are of the upper half of the room to avoid the tourists; I find that waiting for a group to leave means only that another group will enter. (I am beginning to suffer from tourist fatigue, not being tired but being tired of being a tourist.)
We do an enormous amount of walking--south from the Cathedral to the Plaza de España, an enormous semicircular three-story structure of brick, tile, and marble constructed for the 1929 Iberian-American Espo, another day cross the Guadalquivir River on the Triana Bridge to wander in the neighborhood of that name, visiting ceramics shops, I shooting photos of church towers and flower-filled wrought-iron balconies, discovering that in the market the space above the stalls is covered with tiles in elaborate designs. By the Torre de Oro (Gold Tower), a defensive tower built by the river during the 13th century (a Muslim period), we board a boat for a one-hour cruise, not a resounding success because there are about a hundred kiddies on board, you can only hear the commentary if you stand directly in front of a speaker, and what you can see is mostly bridges. Walking by the river turns out to be more rewarding.
I am returning to train travel to get to Granada, my final destination in Spain, on Monday the 29th.
Another complication is the fact that my envelope with the Lonely Planet pages disappears the first day; I remember taking it out of my bag in the restaurant to check the list of veggie restaurants from the Happy Cow site, but when we return to the restaurant the next day, no one knows anything about my envelope. Luckily the hotel hands out an annotated map and there's a tourist magazine in the computer room. And yet a further complication is that Seville is building a metro and therefore its main avenue and a couple of its most important plazas are all torn up.
Despite the above, we early on locate (in the old part of town, where the street layout is like Toledo's) a restaurant offering the unlikely combination of Cuban and vegetarian food, both quite good, and I find myself photographing charming patios behind lacy wrought-iron doors. And in our wanderings we run into a museum too new to be mentioned by Lonely Planet, the Museo del Baile Flamenco (Museum of Flamenco Dance), which we discover the next day offers incredibly wide-screen videos of dancers demonstrating the various types of flamenco, exhibits of costumes, too much to read, and the chance to watch a class, which has me heel-and-toeing on the other side of the glass, attempting to imitate the teacher. There I pick up a little free publication with cultural listings and learn of a flamenco performance to take place later in the week in a bank's cultural center near our hotel, to which we go that afternoon to buy (front-row) tickets.
The performance, of the Compañía Blanca del Rey, is thrilling and inspiring because Blanca del Rey, who dances alone, is pushing 60, announces her retirement at the end, but is enormously vigorous and intense. Her second dance is with the bata de cola, the gown with a train, which whizzes around as she turns, stomps, and kicks, and her third and last dance is with an enormous fringed silk shawl (black with gold embroidery and fringe, her gown black), which at the outset appears to be attached to her gown but turns out not to be and which she swooshes and twirls, at times like a toreadora, with incredible facility. A man young enough to be her son is the company's other dancer (I have read a book on flamenco that says the most authentic performances are of a dancer dancing alone), who impresses with his turns as well as his tapateado, there are two guitarrists, who at one point do marvelous solos, and three male singers whose hands clapping are another instrument. The theater is small, and sitting in the first row we are only a few feet from the performers, and quite exhilerated from their performance.
Speaking of silk shawls, I have decided to buy one to hang on the wall, but having also decided that my limit is 100€ (and I actually pay 35€ more), what I end up with is a lot more modest than Blanca del Rey's, a triangle rather than a square and half of what would be a smaller square, black with multicolored embroidery (done by hand) in colors that include the salmon color of the paint on the wall.
The two big tourist attractions in Seville are the Cathedral and the Alcázar. We get our first glimpse of the Cathedral before hours when we get there before it opens to tourists to discover a door open for those going to mass. So I can sit and gaze at the enormous hunk of sculpted solid gold, scenes from the Old and New Testaments, that is the main altarpiece while pretending to be Catholic, and I can hear the booming of the organ. I have a parochial interest in this Cathedral because it claims to be the world's largest Gothic cathedral, and for many years I lived in Upper Manhattan around the corner from another cathedral that makes that claim, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine (Episcopal). Seville in any event wins out for impressiveness for having been constructed 500 years earlier, which gives it incredibly elaborate sacristies with gem-encrusted gold altar accessories and chapels with 15th-century sculptures. (We come back when it's open for tourists so as to have better light and to see the sacristies.) It also wins out for the Giralda, a high square tower built as part of the mosque that was destroyed to build the Cathedral, which was spared and adorned at the top with a belfry. It is easy to climb because there are 35 ramps instead of stairs, this so the caliph could ride up on his horse to call the faithful to prayer. The view of course is fabulous.
The Alcázar is a grouping of palaces based on a Muslim fortification built in the 9th century, expanded after the Christian Reconquest in the 13th century, with changes continuing into the 16th century. It is full of horseshoe arches and elaborately carved stucco, includes a room with a long rectangular pool flanked by sunken gardens, surrounded by arches. The gardens are extensive, with many fountains. Unlike the Cathedral, there is of course no way to enter before tourist hours, and although we get in line before it opens, the crowds are quite oppressive and get in the way of the view. Most of my pictures are of the upper half of the room to avoid the tourists; I find that waiting for a group to leave means only that another group will enter. (I am beginning to suffer from tourist fatigue, not being tired but being tired of being a tourist.)
We do an enormous amount of walking--south from the Cathedral to the Plaza de España, an enormous semicircular three-story structure of brick, tile, and marble constructed for the 1929 Iberian-American Espo, another day cross the Guadalquivir River on the Triana Bridge to wander in the neighborhood of that name, visiting ceramics shops, I shooting photos of church towers and flower-filled wrought-iron balconies, discovering that in the market the space above the stalls is covered with tiles in elaborate designs. By the Torre de Oro (Gold Tower), a defensive tower built by the river during the 13th century (a Muslim period), we board a boat for a one-hour cruise, not a resounding success because there are about a hundred kiddies on board, you can only hear the commentary if you stand directly in front of a speaker, and what you can see is mostly bridges. Walking by the river turns out to be more rewarding.
I am returning to train travel to get to Granada, my final destination in Spain, on Monday the 29th.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Report from Valencia
Valencia, where I arrived by train on Monday, the 15th of May, was a welcome change from the claustrophobia of Toledo--wide avenues, palm trees, plazas with fountains, attractive 10-story buildings with curved façades and wrought-iron balconies. And for the first time in four cities I found myself in a hotel room bigger than a monk's cell, with a carpet and a minibar for me to refrigerate my cheese.
But I came to Valencia not for the city but to see Asela, my Cuban friend, whom I met in June of 2003 during my first trip to Cuba when I rented a room in her house in Santiago, who has sent me an email almost every day since, and who is in Valencia visiting her three children, who live here because her ex-husband married a Spanish woman from here. This provides me with financial and culinary relief, as I can use the computer in the apartment of her elder daughter, where she is staying, and I can eat home-cooked meals there, not having to struggle to find something meatless.
Asela and I fall into a pattern of sight-seeing together mornings into early afternoon, then taking the bus to her daughter´s apartment (in a neighborhood that reminds me of Queens), where she cooks while I use the computer. We are a good pair for sight-seeing because she has a sense of direction and I am fearless about asking directions--most of the streets in central Valencia are on the diagonal, so it is easy to get disoriented. I discover that this region is bilingual in Spanish and Valenciano, which may be a dialect of Catalan or may be a separate language, it depends on whom you ask, and that things like street signs and the explanatory notes in museums are in both languages, or maybe just in Valenciano. (Valenciano reminds me of French in that it has the accent grave and the ç, but a lot of words end in t, as in institut.) Asela's daughter tells me that from grade school to university you can choose which language you want to study in.
We discover that the National Ceramics Museum, in the baroque Palacio de Marqués de Dos Aguas, has incredibly elaborate baroque stucco work surrounding its entrance and sumptuous carriages and room furnishings in the two floors below the (historical) cercamics exhibit. In the Plaza de la Virgen what looks like an enormous carpet appears on the outer wall of the church by the exuberant fountain whose central reclining figure representrs the local river. It turns out to have been made of dried flowers and represents the Virgen de los Desamparados, to whom the church is dedicated. The Cathedral, a misture of architectural styles, has its main altar shielded by a dropcloth and its dome concealed by scaffolding, undoubtedly in preparation for the visit by the Pope for a conclave on the family here in July. In the plaza near the Cathedral is a branch of the chocolatería in Salamanca where I discovered the joys of their incredibly thick hot chocolate with churros, which of course I introduce to Asela. The central market is enormous, an Art Nouveau work of cast iron, brick, and glass. Across the street is the Lonja de los Mercaderes, a 15th-century building whose interior is an enormous colonnaded hall, once a commodities exchange, now a free tourist attraction. Another stunning Art Nouveau structure is the train station, for some reason called the Estación del Nord although it is at the south end of the city center. The Barrio del Carmen, the oldest part of the city, has narrow streets going every which way, a café that serves green tea and two vegetarian restaurants, and from all the renovation going on is clearly in a state of rapid gentrification. The botanical garden is a green oasis of peace and relaxation.
One afternoon Asela´s oldest daughter drives us to the part of the port set up for the America's Cup, a three-year event happening here, and then through a nature reserve to a lagoon that combines the salt water of the Mediterranean with the fresh water of the river. On the way back we pass the spectacular super-modern architecture of the new City of Arts and Sciences, a museum complex. Another day we go to Sagunto, a nearby town where Asela´s son lives, and clamber around the sprawling Roman ruin known as el Castillo before eating a vegetarian comida prepared by him, including for dessert the first pineapple and watermelon (also cherries and strawberries) that I have had since leaving Mexico. Yet another excursion takes us by tram to the city beach, where the sand is not white and the water is not turquoise, but it is a very relaxing excursion and gives me an opportunity to say that I have seen the Mediterranean.
The Metro here is super-modern, without advertising, with escalators that don't run when no one is on them but start again when you step on them and with doors that a passenger has to open (which I sort of resented until I realized it was another energy-saving feature, i.e., the doors don't open when no one needs them). In what seems related to my earlier observation of there being no muchachos shining shoes, it occurs to me here that none of my hotels has had a bell boy. Either the man at the desk brings up my suitcase or I do it myself, in either case saving on a tip.
My next transition, on Monday to Seville, is the first of two by air, thanks to a low-cost airline that flies from here to there.
But I came to Valencia not for the city but to see Asela, my Cuban friend, whom I met in June of 2003 during my first trip to Cuba when I rented a room in her house in Santiago, who has sent me an email almost every day since, and who is in Valencia visiting her three children, who live here because her ex-husband married a Spanish woman from here. This provides me with financial and culinary relief, as I can use the computer in the apartment of her elder daughter, where she is staying, and I can eat home-cooked meals there, not having to struggle to find something meatless.
Asela and I fall into a pattern of sight-seeing together mornings into early afternoon, then taking the bus to her daughter´s apartment (in a neighborhood that reminds me of Queens), where she cooks while I use the computer. We are a good pair for sight-seeing because she has a sense of direction and I am fearless about asking directions--most of the streets in central Valencia are on the diagonal, so it is easy to get disoriented. I discover that this region is bilingual in Spanish and Valenciano, which may be a dialect of Catalan or may be a separate language, it depends on whom you ask, and that things like street signs and the explanatory notes in museums are in both languages, or maybe just in Valenciano. (Valenciano reminds me of French in that it has the accent grave and the ç, but a lot of words end in t, as in institut.) Asela's daughter tells me that from grade school to university you can choose which language you want to study in.
We discover that the National Ceramics Museum, in the baroque Palacio de Marqués de Dos Aguas, has incredibly elaborate baroque stucco work surrounding its entrance and sumptuous carriages and room furnishings in the two floors below the (historical) cercamics exhibit. In the Plaza de la Virgen what looks like an enormous carpet appears on the outer wall of the church by the exuberant fountain whose central reclining figure representrs the local river. It turns out to have been made of dried flowers and represents the Virgen de los Desamparados, to whom the church is dedicated. The Cathedral, a misture of architectural styles, has its main altar shielded by a dropcloth and its dome concealed by scaffolding, undoubtedly in preparation for the visit by the Pope for a conclave on the family here in July. In the plaza near the Cathedral is a branch of the chocolatería in Salamanca where I discovered the joys of their incredibly thick hot chocolate with churros, which of course I introduce to Asela. The central market is enormous, an Art Nouveau work of cast iron, brick, and glass. Across the street is the Lonja de los Mercaderes, a 15th-century building whose interior is an enormous colonnaded hall, once a commodities exchange, now a free tourist attraction. Another stunning Art Nouveau structure is the train station, for some reason called the Estación del Nord although it is at the south end of the city center. The Barrio del Carmen, the oldest part of the city, has narrow streets going every which way, a café that serves green tea and two vegetarian restaurants, and from all the renovation going on is clearly in a state of rapid gentrification. The botanical garden is a green oasis of peace and relaxation.
One afternoon Asela´s oldest daughter drives us to the part of the port set up for the America's Cup, a three-year event happening here, and then through a nature reserve to a lagoon that combines the salt water of the Mediterranean with the fresh water of the river. On the way back we pass the spectacular super-modern architecture of the new City of Arts and Sciences, a museum complex. Another day we go to Sagunto, a nearby town where Asela´s son lives, and clamber around the sprawling Roman ruin known as el Castillo before eating a vegetarian comida prepared by him, including for dessert the first pineapple and watermelon (also cherries and strawberries) that I have had since leaving Mexico. Yet another excursion takes us by tram to the city beach, where the sand is not white and the water is not turquoise, but it is a very relaxing excursion and gives me an opportunity to say that I have seen the Mediterranean.
The Metro here is super-modern, without advertising, with escalators that don't run when no one is on them but start again when you step on them and with doors that a passenger has to open (which I sort of resented until I realized it was another energy-saving feature, i.e., the doors don't open when no one needs them). In what seems related to my earlier observation of there being no muchachos shining shoes, it occurs to me here that none of my hotels has had a bell boy. Either the man at the desk brings up my suitcase or I do it myself, in either case saving on a tip.
My next transition, on Monday to Seville, is the first of two by air, thanks to a low-cost airline that flies from here to there.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Report from Toledo (not Ohio)
Everyone says that Guanajuato is just like Toledo, which is why I included it in my itinerary. I don't regret the choice, but I disagree with the characterization. Sure, Toledo is full of little streets going every which way, but it is much more claustrophobic than Guanajuato, its buildings being four or five stories high above those narrow streets instead of two or three, and it's much less colorful, with almost everything being some shade of brown instead of the riot of color that characterizes Guanajuato. And of course it's a medieval city with a pronounced Muslim influence.
I've always said that I have no sense of direction and in recent years no memory but that I get by when traveling by not being shy about asking directions. Here the problem with asking directions is that that passer-by is probably another tourist; I find myself going into stores to be sure that I'm talking to a native. The maze is so bewildering that I generally ask several times between my starting point and my destination, especially since someone is likely to say "Todo recto" (straight ahead) when the street later on forks in two directions.
They call Toledo the city of three cultures (Jewish, Muslim, and Christian), but it´s very clear which culture won out, with a mosque called Mesquita del Cristo de la Luz and a synagogue named Sinagoga Santa María la Blanca. Such places became churches, despite not having the usual shape, after Moslems and Jews were expelled, until some point when apparently for the sake of the tourism that is clearly the city's main economic activity they were restored and become museums.
The main plaza here, called the Zocodover, has an irregular shape, low stone walls that become benches with wrought iron at the back on three sides, buildings with cafés in front on two (a McDonald´s in one of them), trees, two newstands, not especially attractive, especially after the magnificent plazas in Madrid and Salamanca.
The day after my arrival (the day of my arrival having been devoted to finding the main plaza and the supermarket) I check out a tour that is not happening as scheduled, visit a mosque near my hotel that jams an impressive number of columns and arches into a very small space, and then run into a train on wheels (no track necessary) in the Zocodover and decide to take its tour in hopes of getting better oriented. For logistical reasons, it turns out that its route is mostly on the edges of the city, from where one can see what´s really attractive about Toledo--the ancient stone walls, high arching stone gates (one with two green-tiled towers), castles, bridges, country estates called cigarrales, the panorama with the Cathedral and the Alcázar predominating.
In the afternoon I have a small adventure for a practical purpose. One of my preparations for this trip was to order a pants suit from Magellan´s, which turns out to be wonderfully comfortable, of a silky-soft synthetic fabric, a light brownish-grayish color, with a label that insists it be professionally dry cleaned. At first I am worried that it will get dirty on the flight over, but for two weeks I am lucky. Then I note a small stain on the lapel, which Wash ´n´Dry, my travel remedy, fails to get out, so the only thing to do is ask at the desk about a tintorería. Unfortunately, it turns out, the dry cleaner´s two blocks away is closed for renovation and the alternative is to venture into the new part of the city. The man at the desk whips out the map the hotel stocks and traces the route, assuring me it will be a pleasant 10- to 15-minute walk.
After initial fears that I will never find it, I decide this will be my excursion for the afternoon, and I set out just before 5, when stores reopen after the midday meal break. My first landmark is the Plaza de la Estrella, which I had acquired the impression was downhill from the hotel but turns out to be uphill. (Yes, Toledo is like Guanajuato in being hilly.) It takes me four or five attempts, walking down, asking, walking up again, almost giving up. Once having found the Plaza de la Estrella the rest is much easier, and I am soon on a wide boulevard surrounded by everything the old city is not--wide sidewalks, streets in a grid, new buildings, and a sense of spaciousness. I find the tintorería 40 minutes after I set out, dismayed that I will have to do without my beloved suit until Saturday.
The following day I plunge into the maze and the tourist attractions (operating on my own because the tourism folks don't give tours and the commercial ones are very expensive), starting with the Cathedral. Unlike Salamanca's Cathedral, whose exterior is more impressive than its interior, here the outside (Gothic) strikes me as ugly but the inside is overwhelming. My favorite part is the coro (choir stalls), where the intricacy of the carving (wood below, stone above) is extraordinary, as are the organs. The main altarpiece (Flemish Gothic) is stunning, as are the stained-glass windows, especially the rose window. The sacristy is a museum, a combination of art gallery and museum of religious artifacts, including what must be the most massive and intricate gold-and-silver monstrance ever made.
Toledo was the city of El Greco, and seeing his luminescent elongated subjects takes you beyond the Museo de El Greco (where I found myself miffed by his placing the Alcázar on a cloud at the bottom of his view and map of Toledo). You can see 18 of his paintings in the sacristy of the Cathedral and several more in the Museo de Santa Cruz. His most impressive work is in the Iglesia de Santo Tomé, a church that has made itself into a one-painting museum. It´s an enormous work depicting the burial of the Count of Orgaz, a 14th-century beneficiary of the Church at whose burial St. Augustine and St. Stephen are said to have descended from heaven to place the count in his tomb. The opulence of their vestments is breathtaking and its brightness is in great contrast to the ethereal nature of the heavenly scene above.
One of the two remaining synagogues (a church and barracks between 1492 and 1877), with lovely Mudejar decoration, is attached to the Museo Sefardi, explaining and illustrating the lives of Sephardic Jews, which (especially as an ex-New Yorker) leaves me depressed because it treats them as the exotic Other.
The Museo de Santa Cruz is having a temporary exposition of art from convents in Castilla-La Mancha executed during what they call the century of El Quijote (1530-1650). When I go to the permanent exhibition I see a sign about guided tours to the temporary exposition, ask, am told I will have to add myself to a group and that one is scheduled to visit at 1 the next day. What they don't tell me is that the group is composed of 6th graders, who of course aren't capable of being quiet in a museum. I learn about how the different orders of monks wore differently colored and styled habits (reminding me of the different traje típico worn by different groups in Guatemala, according to one theory because the Spanish assigned them) and that members of the gentry financed the monasteries and convents, but I break off and continue to the ceramics exhibit (thinking about the conflict between Dolores Hidalgo and Puebla over which city could call its ceramics Talavera) before the kiddies are finished.
Like Salamanca, Toledo has a Roman bridge, which I go to to photograph and cross in hopes of getting a panoramic view from the other side. Although the Alcázar is prominent, the Cathedral refuses to show itself. (The Alcázar is a fortress--then Muslim--dating from the 10th century converted by Franco into a military museum, now closed for renovation, which is why I haven't talked about visiting it.) Later I ask at the desk of my hotel about where to get a good view to photograph and am told about the Iglesia de los Jesuitas, which has converted its towers into a tourist destination for the view. I go and ascend (being grateful that it's not a spiral staircase, which at that height makes me anxious), take pictures, but stiff feel that's not the kind of view-at-a-distance I was looking for. On Sunday, my last day, I cross the Roman bridge again and go to the right, rather than uphill to the left, theorizing that I'll run into a view of the Cathedral if I walk far enough. I'm wrong because the road (and a well-barricaded sidewalk) veers off to the left, no longer following the river that is the boundry on three sides of the city; I then see people walking on a sidewalk on the city side of the river set into the side of the hill and think that might lead to something interesting, so I cross back and walk on it, but there's nothing to see but the other half of the river, so I decide to consider it all a pleasant walk on a pleasant Sunday morning.
Odds and ends: It turns out there is a terrifying aspect to Toledo--walking down one of its narrowest of narrow no-sidewalk streets with an SUV coming, pointing its side-view mirror at you. It reminds me of my first visit to Taxco (another city without sidewalks), only more so. I would like to get polished the dressier of the two pairs of shoes I brought, shined in the Jardín in Guanajuato just before I left but now showing signs of wear. Evidently the Spanish shine their own shoes or just don't bother--the man in the cybercafé tells me there are muchachos shining shoes on the street in Madrid (I didn't see any) but not in Toledo. Or maybe it's a matter of not showing social inequality on the street. I am thinking I need a better souvenir of my trip to Spain than the two long-sleeved T-shirts (one saying Universidad de Salamanca on the back) I have acquired because the weather in Madrid and Salamanca was cooler than I expected. After inspecting many store windows I part with 25€ for a miniature clock in the shape of a guitar in the gold-and-black style called damasquinado, this to put on my desk so as to know the time when my computer is turned off. I could of course have bought a suit of armor or at least a sword, on display in store windows throughout the tourist part of town.
I am feeling satisfied with my itinerary of one week in each destination, which gives me time to know the place well and not feel I have to dash to get in all the required attractions. I am also very happy with Spanish train travel--it seems to me to be the most comfortable means of travel I have experienced (that excludes ocean liners), and the bathrooms on Spanish trains are first-rate.
Monday of course is travel day and I am off to Valencia, a 35-minute train ride to Madrid followed by a three-and-a-half-hour ride from Madrid to Valencia.
I've always said that I have no sense of direction and in recent years no memory but that I get by when traveling by not being shy about asking directions. Here the problem with asking directions is that that passer-by is probably another tourist; I find myself going into stores to be sure that I'm talking to a native. The maze is so bewildering that I generally ask several times between my starting point and my destination, especially since someone is likely to say "Todo recto" (straight ahead) when the street later on forks in two directions.
They call Toledo the city of three cultures (Jewish, Muslim, and Christian), but it´s very clear which culture won out, with a mosque called Mesquita del Cristo de la Luz and a synagogue named Sinagoga Santa María la Blanca. Such places became churches, despite not having the usual shape, after Moslems and Jews were expelled, until some point when apparently for the sake of the tourism that is clearly the city's main economic activity they were restored and become museums.
The main plaza here, called the Zocodover, has an irregular shape, low stone walls that become benches with wrought iron at the back on three sides, buildings with cafés in front on two (a McDonald´s in one of them), trees, two newstands, not especially attractive, especially after the magnificent plazas in Madrid and Salamanca.
The day after my arrival (the day of my arrival having been devoted to finding the main plaza and the supermarket) I check out a tour that is not happening as scheduled, visit a mosque near my hotel that jams an impressive number of columns and arches into a very small space, and then run into a train on wheels (no track necessary) in the Zocodover and decide to take its tour in hopes of getting better oriented. For logistical reasons, it turns out that its route is mostly on the edges of the city, from where one can see what´s really attractive about Toledo--the ancient stone walls, high arching stone gates (one with two green-tiled towers), castles, bridges, country estates called cigarrales, the panorama with the Cathedral and the Alcázar predominating.
In the afternoon I have a small adventure for a practical purpose. One of my preparations for this trip was to order a pants suit from Magellan´s, which turns out to be wonderfully comfortable, of a silky-soft synthetic fabric, a light brownish-grayish color, with a label that insists it be professionally dry cleaned. At first I am worried that it will get dirty on the flight over, but for two weeks I am lucky. Then I note a small stain on the lapel, which Wash ´n´Dry, my travel remedy, fails to get out, so the only thing to do is ask at the desk about a tintorería. Unfortunately, it turns out, the dry cleaner´s two blocks away is closed for renovation and the alternative is to venture into the new part of the city. The man at the desk whips out the map the hotel stocks and traces the route, assuring me it will be a pleasant 10- to 15-minute walk.
After initial fears that I will never find it, I decide this will be my excursion for the afternoon, and I set out just before 5, when stores reopen after the midday meal break. My first landmark is the Plaza de la Estrella, which I had acquired the impression was downhill from the hotel but turns out to be uphill. (Yes, Toledo is like Guanajuato in being hilly.) It takes me four or five attempts, walking down, asking, walking up again, almost giving up. Once having found the Plaza de la Estrella the rest is much easier, and I am soon on a wide boulevard surrounded by everything the old city is not--wide sidewalks, streets in a grid, new buildings, and a sense of spaciousness. I find the tintorería 40 minutes after I set out, dismayed that I will have to do without my beloved suit until Saturday.
The following day I plunge into the maze and the tourist attractions (operating on my own because the tourism folks don't give tours and the commercial ones are very expensive), starting with the Cathedral. Unlike Salamanca's Cathedral, whose exterior is more impressive than its interior, here the outside (Gothic) strikes me as ugly but the inside is overwhelming. My favorite part is the coro (choir stalls), where the intricacy of the carving (wood below, stone above) is extraordinary, as are the organs. The main altarpiece (Flemish Gothic) is stunning, as are the stained-glass windows, especially the rose window. The sacristy is a museum, a combination of art gallery and museum of religious artifacts, including what must be the most massive and intricate gold-and-silver monstrance ever made.
Toledo was the city of El Greco, and seeing his luminescent elongated subjects takes you beyond the Museo de El Greco (where I found myself miffed by his placing the Alcázar on a cloud at the bottom of his view and map of Toledo). You can see 18 of his paintings in the sacristy of the Cathedral and several more in the Museo de Santa Cruz. His most impressive work is in the Iglesia de Santo Tomé, a church that has made itself into a one-painting museum. It´s an enormous work depicting the burial of the Count of Orgaz, a 14th-century beneficiary of the Church at whose burial St. Augustine and St. Stephen are said to have descended from heaven to place the count in his tomb. The opulence of their vestments is breathtaking and its brightness is in great contrast to the ethereal nature of the heavenly scene above.
One of the two remaining synagogues (a church and barracks between 1492 and 1877), with lovely Mudejar decoration, is attached to the Museo Sefardi, explaining and illustrating the lives of Sephardic Jews, which (especially as an ex-New Yorker) leaves me depressed because it treats them as the exotic Other.
The Museo de Santa Cruz is having a temporary exposition of art from convents in Castilla-La Mancha executed during what they call the century of El Quijote (1530-1650). When I go to the permanent exhibition I see a sign about guided tours to the temporary exposition, ask, am told I will have to add myself to a group and that one is scheduled to visit at 1 the next day. What they don't tell me is that the group is composed of 6th graders, who of course aren't capable of being quiet in a museum. I learn about how the different orders of monks wore differently colored and styled habits (reminding me of the different traje típico worn by different groups in Guatemala, according to one theory because the Spanish assigned them) and that members of the gentry financed the monasteries and convents, but I break off and continue to the ceramics exhibit (thinking about the conflict between Dolores Hidalgo and Puebla over which city could call its ceramics Talavera) before the kiddies are finished.
Like Salamanca, Toledo has a Roman bridge, which I go to to photograph and cross in hopes of getting a panoramic view from the other side. Although the Alcázar is prominent, the Cathedral refuses to show itself. (The Alcázar is a fortress--then Muslim--dating from the 10th century converted by Franco into a military museum, now closed for renovation, which is why I haven't talked about visiting it.) Later I ask at the desk of my hotel about where to get a good view to photograph and am told about the Iglesia de los Jesuitas, which has converted its towers into a tourist destination for the view. I go and ascend (being grateful that it's not a spiral staircase, which at that height makes me anxious), take pictures, but stiff feel that's not the kind of view-at-a-distance I was looking for. On Sunday, my last day, I cross the Roman bridge again and go to the right, rather than uphill to the left, theorizing that I'll run into a view of the Cathedral if I walk far enough. I'm wrong because the road (and a well-barricaded sidewalk) veers off to the left, no longer following the river that is the boundry on three sides of the city; I then see people walking on a sidewalk on the city side of the river set into the side of the hill and think that might lead to something interesting, so I cross back and walk on it, but there's nothing to see but the other half of the river, so I decide to consider it all a pleasant walk on a pleasant Sunday morning.
Odds and ends: It turns out there is a terrifying aspect to Toledo--walking down one of its narrowest of narrow no-sidewalk streets with an SUV coming, pointing its side-view mirror at you. It reminds me of my first visit to Taxco (another city without sidewalks), only more so. I would like to get polished the dressier of the two pairs of shoes I brought, shined in the Jardín in Guanajuato just before I left but now showing signs of wear. Evidently the Spanish shine their own shoes or just don't bother--the man in the cybercafé tells me there are muchachos shining shoes on the street in Madrid (I didn't see any) but not in Toledo. Or maybe it's a matter of not showing social inequality on the street. I am thinking I need a better souvenir of my trip to Spain than the two long-sleeved T-shirts (one saying Universidad de Salamanca on the back) I have acquired because the weather in Madrid and Salamanca was cooler than I expected. After inspecting many store windows I part with 25€ for a miniature clock in the shape of a guitar in the gold-and-black style called damasquinado, this to put on my desk so as to know the time when my computer is turned off. I could of course have bought a suit of armor or at least a sword, on display in store windows throughout the tourist part of town.
I am feeling satisfied with my itinerary of one week in each destination, which gives me time to know the place well and not feel I have to dash to get in all the required attractions. I am also very happy with Spanish train travel--it seems to me to be the most comfortable means of travel I have experienced (that excludes ocean liners), and the bathrooms on Spanish trains are first-rate.
Monday of course is travel day and I am off to Valencia, a 35-minute train ride to Madrid followed by a three-and-a-half-hour ride from Madrid to Valencia.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Report from Salamanca
With Salamanca (two and a half hours from Madrid by train, arriving midday Monday the 1st of May) it is love at first sight. The Plaza Mayor, designed by one of the Churriguera brothers, creators of the superbaroque style I have so loved on churches in Mexico, is even more splendid than Madrid's, the same type of huge square encircled by buildings four stories high with portales and enormous arches, but this one in sandstone, not brick, with bells and a clock, medallions adorned with busts of the famous, and lots of baroque curlicues--and everywhere you look in this town there are baroque curlicues on façades and spires and domes, everything a color between mustard and beige. Cafés with tables in the plaza of course, my first stop the tourist office for a map and pamphlets, with a negative reaction to the walking tours--here they cost 6€ and have a minimum group size of 14, whereas in Madrid the old-age discount price was 2.60€ and the groups were four or five.
Thanks to a recommendation on an Internet forum, I am staying in a pensión of only six rooms, a renovated apartment one flight up, just 25€, down the street from the Plaza Mayor, a bigger and prettier room (wrought-iron headboards) than I paid 60 for in Madrid, a tiny baño without the amenities.
Salamanca is a university town, the university dating from the 13th century, its most famous feature being a 16th-century carved sandstone façade of plateresque filigree featuring Fernando and Isabel surrounded by religious and mythological creatures and coats of arms. After gazing at the façade you can tour old lecture rooms and the chapel around a cloister, spectacular mudejar ceilings in the halls. Then you climb a stairway elaborately carved on the side to reach the library, dating from 1509, a plastic wall at the entrance of which keeps you from entering, so you peer at the masses of ancient books and the many globes.
The other university, private and religious, the Pontifical University, is a 20th-century institution housed in a 17th-century building erected by the Jesuits, with a magnificent cloister and adjoining a church, La Clerecía, with magnificant chirrigueresque gold altarpieces.
Salamanca is also blessed with two cathedrals, the old and the new, the old built between the 12th and 15th centuries, the new from the 16th to the 18th. The new cathedral (Gothic with baroque adornment), more from the outside than from the inside, is exhilerating and overpowering, with its huge bulk and its delicate stone-carved adornments. It lacks elaborate gold altarpieces but does have elaborately carved choir stalls and two beautiful, gold-encrusted organs, and to the side of the front of the pews is what looks like a wide podium but turns out to be a slanted mirror to see the incredible Gothic ceiling without straining.
The centerpiece of the much smaller old cathedral (Romanesque outside, Gothic inside), which abuts the new one and is entered from it, is a magnificent 15th-century altarpiece of 50 paintings with gold trim (beautifully restored) depicting scenes from the life of Jesus, with the final judgment painted overhead. In between the two cathedrals is an entrance that takes you to a self-guided tour of towers, which gives you a view of this masterpiece from above. As you ascend further you´re on an outside platform with a view of the cathedrals, the city, and the Tormes River, and then continuing up you´re on a ledge (with railing) inside and high above the central nave of the new cathedral.
Near the cathedrals is the Casa de las Conchas, a 15th-century Gothic palace whose original owner had the façade covered with conch shells carved in stone, the conch being used in coat of arms of his wife. The building, whose original patio is still intact, now houses the public library.
Then there are convents--the Convento de San Estéban immense and with a church the equal of the Clerecía, a kiosko in the patio surrounded by its huge cloister, you enter a room and lights go on and music plays, there are many captions about how the Dominicans went to the New World to evangelize early on, the Convento de la Dueñas much more modest, with lots of wood, a pretty patio with lots of pansies within a five-sided cloister, the nuns selling sweets (I buy some cookies).
The mystery deepens as to how Spaniards stay thin--they do chocolate caliente con churros, hot chocolate (which at the Chocolatería Valor is incredibly thick and sticky) with elongated donuts. (My concern about losing weight has vanished since I discovered this mid-morning treat.) They seem more informal, or less elaborately polite, than the Mexicans--when you walk into a store or museum it´s ¡Hola! not Buenos días. On the other hand they raise their umbrellas at the first hint of rain, which a Mexican would never do.
Eating vegetarian is less of a struggle here than in Madrid. There is a restaurant near the University that offers a menú with gazpacho as the first course and stuffed eggplant as the second, there is another one around the corner that offers platos combinados, some of which are veggie, and when I go off in search of the Roman Bridge I pass a vegetarian restaurant, which turns out to serve a lovely comida. Because the Spanish have no dark beer (the only kind I drink) and because wine is an option with a menú, I am drinking wine with comida instead of beer with cena. In the elegant market it is striking how the stands selling meat or fish greatly outnumber the stands selling fruits and vegetables; in any event, I discover a supermarket with a better selection and with whole-wheat half baguettes. In the produce section the dispenser of plastic bags has above it a dispenser of plastic gloves with a sign asking you to use them to select your produce (I think of the Frutería Torres on Calle Alhóndiga in Guanajuato).
A book fair starts on Saturday, which I tour, but I am pining for some easy reading in English, and I find and buy The Da Vinci Code in a bookstore, thinking of how the movie may never make it to Guanajuato. On my early evening stroll by the book fair, I run into a clown entertaining the kiddies with balloons at a nearby plaza, then hear a band marching by and follow it, only to come upon a second and then a third band, all coming out by a little church called the Capilla de la Vera Cruz, with a sign indicating it is the 500th anniversary of the Vera Cruz. Inside the capilla is a massive gold altarpiece and a large silver cross mounted on a wooden platform with handles, which presumably will be processioned later on.
Crossing the Plaza Mayor at midday Sunday, I hear music, which turns out to come from a man banging on a drum and simultaneously playing a recorder, which it turns out is accompaniament to three 60ish couples dancing facing each other, a sedate dance with occasional turns, one of the men playing castanets. A little later, the platform in the plaza by the book fair is hosting a band concert. And still later, opposite my pensión there is a puppeteer whose puppet is playing the violin (well, not really; the music is recorded) while two little dogs wag their tales.
In a free weekly magazine for Salamanca and environs, I read about a program to find employment for gypsies (the program, translating, "accompanies the candidates to the companies to avoid the feared racist prejudice") and that the Senegalese association of Salamanca is sponsoring its fourth cultural week of lectures, round tables, a photography exhibition, and a soccer game.
Just outside the centro histórico, I should mention, there are plentiful five-story apartment buildings, but built in the same color as the historical buildings, plain with black wrought-iron balconies, all blending in well.
Monday I go to Toledo, which involves my most complicated transition. Aside from having to take a train to Madrid and a second train from Madrid to Toledo, the train to Madrid arrives in one of its two train stations and the train to Toledo leaves from the other, so I will be taking a commuter train in between.
Thanks to a recommendation on an Internet forum, I am staying in a pensión of only six rooms, a renovated apartment one flight up, just 25€, down the street from the Plaza Mayor, a bigger and prettier room (wrought-iron headboards) than I paid 60 for in Madrid, a tiny baño without the amenities.
Salamanca is a university town, the university dating from the 13th century, its most famous feature being a 16th-century carved sandstone façade of plateresque filigree featuring Fernando and Isabel surrounded by religious and mythological creatures and coats of arms. After gazing at the façade you can tour old lecture rooms and the chapel around a cloister, spectacular mudejar ceilings in the halls. Then you climb a stairway elaborately carved on the side to reach the library, dating from 1509, a plastic wall at the entrance of which keeps you from entering, so you peer at the masses of ancient books and the many globes.
The other university, private and religious, the Pontifical University, is a 20th-century institution housed in a 17th-century building erected by the Jesuits, with a magnificent cloister and adjoining a church, La Clerecía, with magnificant chirrigueresque gold altarpieces.
Salamanca is also blessed with two cathedrals, the old and the new, the old built between the 12th and 15th centuries, the new from the 16th to the 18th. The new cathedral (Gothic with baroque adornment), more from the outside than from the inside, is exhilerating and overpowering, with its huge bulk and its delicate stone-carved adornments. It lacks elaborate gold altarpieces but does have elaborately carved choir stalls and two beautiful, gold-encrusted organs, and to the side of the front of the pews is what looks like a wide podium but turns out to be a slanted mirror to see the incredible Gothic ceiling without straining.
The centerpiece of the much smaller old cathedral (Romanesque outside, Gothic inside), which abuts the new one and is entered from it, is a magnificent 15th-century altarpiece of 50 paintings with gold trim (beautifully restored) depicting scenes from the life of Jesus, with the final judgment painted overhead. In between the two cathedrals is an entrance that takes you to a self-guided tour of towers, which gives you a view of this masterpiece from above. As you ascend further you´re on an outside platform with a view of the cathedrals, the city, and the Tormes River, and then continuing up you´re on a ledge (with railing) inside and high above the central nave of the new cathedral.
Near the cathedrals is the Casa de las Conchas, a 15th-century Gothic palace whose original owner had the façade covered with conch shells carved in stone, the conch being used in coat of arms of his wife. The building, whose original patio is still intact, now houses the public library.
Then there are convents--the Convento de San Estéban immense and with a church the equal of the Clerecía, a kiosko in the patio surrounded by its huge cloister, you enter a room and lights go on and music plays, there are many captions about how the Dominicans went to the New World to evangelize early on, the Convento de la Dueñas much more modest, with lots of wood, a pretty patio with lots of pansies within a five-sided cloister, the nuns selling sweets (I buy some cookies).
The mystery deepens as to how Spaniards stay thin--they do chocolate caliente con churros, hot chocolate (which at the Chocolatería Valor is incredibly thick and sticky) with elongated donuts. (My concern about losing weight has vanished since I discovered this mid-morning treat.) They seem more informal, or less elaborately polite, than the Mexicans--when you walk into a store or museum it´s ¡Hola! not Buenos días. On the other hand they raise their umbrellas at the first hint of rain, which a Mexican would never do.
Eating vegetarian is less of a struggle here than in Madrid. There is a restaurant near the University that offers a menú with gazpacho as the first course and stuffed eggplant as the second, there is another one around the corner that offers platos combinados, some of which are veggie, and when I go off in search of the Roman Bridge I pass a vegetarian restaurant, which turns out to serve a lovely comida. Because the Spanish have no dark beer (the only kind I drink) and because wine is an option with a menú, I am drinking wine with comida instead of beer with cena. In the elegant market it is striking how the stands selling meat or fish greatly outnumber the stands selling fruits and vegetables; in any event, I discover a supermarket with a better selection and with whole-wheat half baguettes. In the produce section the dispenser of plastic bags has above it a dispenser of plastic gloves with a sign asking you to use them to select your produce (I think of the Frutería Torres on Calle Alhóndiga in Guanajuato).
A book fair starts on Saturday, which I tour, but I am pining for some easy reading in English, and I find and buy The Da Vinci Code in a bookstore, thinking of how the movie may never make it to Guanajuato. On my early evening stroll by the book fair, I run into a clown entertaining the kiddies with balloons at a nearby plaza, then hear a band marching by and follow it, only to come upon a second and then a third band, all coming out by a little church called the Capilla de la Vera Cruz, with a sign indicating it is the 500th anniversary of the Vera Cruz. Inside the capilla is a massive gold altarpiece and a large silver cross mounted on a wooden platform with handles, which presumably will be processioned later on.
Crossing the Plaza Mayor at midday Sunday, I hear music, which turns out to come from a man banging on a drum and simultaneously playing a recorder, which it turns out is accompaniament to three 60ish couples dancing facing each other, a sedate dance with occasional turns, one of the men playing castanets. A little later, the platform in the plaza by the book fair is hosting a band concert. And still later, opposite my pensión there is a puppeteer whose puppet is playing the violin (well, not really; the music is recorded) while two little dogs wag their tales.
In a free weekly magazine for Salamanca and environs, I read about a program to find employment for gypsies (the program, translating, "accompanies the candidates to the companies to avoid the feared racist prejudice") and that the Senegalese association of Salamanca is sponsoring its fourth cultural week of lectures, round tables, a photography exhibition, and a soccer game.
Just outside the centro histórico, I should mention, there are plentiful five-story apartment buildings, but built in the same color as the historical buildings, plain with black wrought-iron balconies, all blending in well.
Monday I go to Toledo, which involves my most complicated transition. Aside from having to take a train to Madrid and a second train from Madrid to Toledo, the train to Madrid arrives in one of its two train stations and the train to Toledo leaves from the other, so I will be taking a commuter train in between.
