(Spain, Final!)

 Okay, well, that was a noble attempt, but now it's, what? December 11? I've had no indications anyone is reading this and I have to confess that so much is going on elsewhere that I've abandoned the goal of chronicling this amazing trip in detail. I'll bullet list important memories here to summarize the rest of it, though. Just for me. 

• DAY VII
• Day at leisure to explore Sevilla, which we did, much to our delight. 
• Evening cooking class at a private apartment, hosted by our hostess, Patricia Terry, very relaxed and lots of good conversation and food
• DAY VIII
• Up early to meet driver and host, the incomparable Anna. 
• A drive through the Natural Park of Grazalema, almost all the way to the southern tip of Spain (~30 miles as the crow flies)
• a stop at an ancient but still functioning olive oil mill, Molino tradicional de aceite El Callejón
• another at a boutique cheesery, where we had to don shoe covers to protect the sanitary floors
• Lunch at a lovely local cafe in Ubrique, Cadiz region
• A final stop at a small winery, functioning for 6 generations, before the long drive back to our hotel, where we canceled our reservations at the hotel's Restaurante San Fernando and went out for tapas locally
• DAY IX
• Lazy morning at the hotel breakfast in the inner courtyard
• Transfer to Seville Airport via private driver and flight to San Sebastian
• Short chauffeured drive to the Hotel De Londres Y De Inglaterra on the beach, 3 floors up, in center of the building 

  

  Hotel De Londres

  
  
• A nap with our window open, then dinner at a tapas cafe a block away.
• Cocktails in the bar at the window overlooking the beach and sleep
• DAY X
• A drive up to Biarritz, France with our lovely guide, Esther 
• A walking tour of the tiny village of Pasajes and also one of Hondarribia, on the banks of the river Bidasoa, a natural frontier between France and Spain
• Lunch on the porch of Les Baigneuses de Biarritz, some tasty ribeye steak and veggies, overlooking the Bay of Biscay, maybe 80 miles south of Bordeaux
• Drive back to San Sebastian with an evening at leisure before dinner at Narru, beneath the Arbaso Hotel
• A casual walkabout back to retire at our lovely hotel room
• One morning I awakened to an amazing panorama off our balcony, a rainbow over the harbor, literally at our feet. I later completed a painting of it, which was fun to do but doesn't really convey its majesty:



"san sebastian rainbow", 18x24 acrylics on stretched fabric, by Scott Merrick, in the collection of the artist

• DAY XI
• La Rioja winery tastings and visits
• Tour and tastings at Bodega Toro de Oná, marvelous technology, the bug hotel (sketched later)

"bughouse" at Bodega de Toro Oná, Rioja, by Scott Merrick, pencil on paper, in the artist's collection

• Lunch at the architectural wonder Marques de Riscal Winery and Hotel Hiribidea
• Tour of Bodegas Tritium in Cenicero, with its ancient wine cellar and wines aged under the sea in clay bottles (we brought one home and it's still aging on our family room shelf
• Transfer via chauffeured car back to the Londes
• Cab to cooking class, private, just us and the young chef, at
• DAY XII
• We arose early to be packed up and breakfasted in the hotel before hailing a cab at 6:15 am to drive us to the train station (only about a mile away from the hotel
• By 7:20 am we were high-speed training to Barcelona (2 "comfort tickets" provided) 
• We met our guide and our driver who took us via that reliable black Mercedes to our boutique hotel in Barcelona, the 5-starr Serras, which proudly boasts of its home as Pablo Picasso's first studio
• Am afternoon nap after investigating the rooftop pool (maybe thrice the size of our hot tub at home), the Picasso Library, and our room itself, all was luxurious, even the enclosed view of the bustling alleyway beneath our room
• We canceled our reservations at Amar, just because it looked a bit too stuffy and formal for our mood. A trusted concierge in the Serras suggested a brief walk to Llamber, a charming restaurant where we sat at a two-top in the window overlooking the cobblestone pedestrian street. We continued to trust those recommendations, and we returned to Llamber for our last dinner in Spain. Again, a lovely walk home to Serras
• DAY XIII
• We slept in a bit and had our breakfast at the hotel -- breakfasts were always included at each hotel we stayed in and they were always stellar, setting us up for those long days of exploring
• From roughly 10-2 we toured the historical center of Barcelona with Marta. Marta was a doppelganger for Lee Ann's late stepmom, but she was very informative and  any discomfort was soon dispelled
• A brief stop into a museum which contained a beautiful diorama of ancient Barcelona
• Temple D'August
• The Dancing Egg fountain 
• The Picasso Museum, WONDERFUL
• Finished with Marta at Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar
• 3-7 Foodie walking tour with Regina 
• Poopy man store, cheesecake at Ixtar Pena, a stop at 
• DAY XIV
• We had a morning at leisure and discovered (once again via concierge) El Nou Ramonet, a little restaurant off the beach that was full of local families and smaller groups--LOVED that place and its food and hospitality:

• 

  El Nou Ramonet

• There's more, including a foodie tour with Albert, @stuntmanbarcelona on Instagram, then a lovely afternoon with Aina, @thepaellamama, driving up to Alberti Noya, Spain's first fully organic winery
• Shipping a case of Cava and wines home to dear old Nashville
• The final day, flying home via Chicago
• Our first less than cordial welcome in Chicago
• Home!

I have overlooked some things, misplaced some, and done a few much less justice than they deserved, but yeah, the chronicle is done. Yay. 

Sevilla and the Alfonso XIII: (Spain, Part VI)

So, a month has passed since posting last, but I remain determined to persevere. 

Since last post I have 

• camped overnight at Cheatham Lock and Dam Campground
• enjoyed a tasting "tour" at Nashville Barrel Company
• journeyed to Smith County for Matt and Anitra's annual (my first) "CAMP-o-REE" and slept three nights on their mountain ridgetop, enjoying new friends and music and that big ol' Harvest Moon
• completed my destined-to-be famous painting I call "friendly monster"

camping at the dam

Harvest Moon Oct 2023

friendly monster

I have also continued work on my artworks website, "scottmerrickdotme" where if you just have to make an offer on an original SGM (I don't put prices on my work, but I am for sale) , there's a contact form to do so. Just click the screengrab below to visit.

But a chill Sunday morning it is, here at Chez Merrique, and I'm a'gonna drink some coffee (half-caff, French Pressed) and get 'er done before memories of the trip of a lifetime have receded into another cavern of past experience so far they are unfetchable.

Ah, Sevilla. Seville, you say tomato I say tomato. I like the "y" pronunciation, and you can make your own mind up with help from a brief YouTube video on the topic.

One of my favorite aspects of this journey was that everytime we set foot in a new accommodation, we were pleasantly surprised in good ways. This place, the Hotel Alfonso XII, a Luxury Collection Hotel, was well named. It was, in a word, opulent. Shoutout again to RH Travel Design! We checked in after leaving our black-suited driver and his new black Mercedez after having been picked up at the train station. He had been proficient in English and described some of the buildings we passed en route, many of them remnants of the World Expo in 1992, regal and beautiful. Inside, a young man who checked us in was Belgian with great English, and he explained when we told him where we were from that he spent a year as an exchange student with a family and at school right down the road in Franklin, TN. One world. 

A funny aside, we got up to our hotel room and it was set up with two queen beds and we were unable to make any lights work. I took the (opulent) stairway down the two floors to the desk, where the clerk from Brussels explained that we had to slip the card door key into the slot at the room entrance. That also activated the AC unit which defaulted to a default setting upon its card being removed. It's clearly an environmentally friendly system which also shuts to default when the double balcony doors were opened. Smart. As opposed to us, LOL.

At the end of my most recent Spain post, I shared the first photo in the large Google album I took while I sat in the Lobby as we had awaited our luggage being delivered to our lovely room. There are a lot of Sevilla pics, because we LOVED Sevilla. We got to the room in late afternoon, so I think we may have napped, then awakened and gone in search of dinner. We got a few hints from the concierge, then stepped out into the City. Hungry, we turned down a side street past the post office, as directed, to find a couple seats at a newly opened tapas eatery, Postiguillo. It was crankin' busy, and we enjoyed some delicious tapas with a wine and a beer, Estrella Damm, of course. A couple pics:

My love at Postiguillo

It began raining just before we finished up our meal, and of course we did not bring rain gear to dinner, so we braved the steady downfall and pulled off a side alley into a cute little restaurant/bar called Vuella for cover about halfway to the hotel. Wine and beer, of course, were mandatory as we waited out the hard rain then made the rest of the way "home" through a light drizzle. 

My love being cute in the Spanish rain

We took the lift up this time, which of course was opulently appointed:

Opulent private ride to our Opulent room

We turned in early, watching an episode or two of "The Diplomat" on Lee Ann's Macbook before sleeping well. I awakened early, as usual, and we took our time bathing and dressing to head down for a lovely breakfast, served in the bar. We were hungry, and the offerings did not disappoint, Cava and all.

Breakfast at the Alfonso XIII

The lobby on our floor of the hotel. Cozy, eh?

After breakfast, we met our guide for the day, Virginia, in the Alfonso lobby downstairs. She was every bit as interesting as had been each of our guides, and she took us into and through the oldest Royal Palace still in use, the Real Alcazar de Seville. According to its website's History page, it was initially ordered built in 913 AD. 

The compound which makes up the Royal Alcazar of Seville was founded in the early Middle-Ages, when the ancient Roman city of Hispalis, the Spali of Gothic times, evolved to be re-named Ixbilia. According to the most trustworthy sources, it was at the beginning of the tenth century – in 913, to be specific – that the Caliph of Cordoba, Abdurrahman III an-Nasir, ordered new government premises, the Dar al-Imara, to be built on the southern flank of the city. Previously, the ruling al-Andalus powers had been seated inside the Low-Roman-Empire city centre, not far from the Hispalis Mosque, where the Collegiate Church of El Salvador now stands.

I can now proudly say that I visited Ixbilia. Subsequent ruling cultures added to and revised (a unifying cross-cultural pattern in this fantastic city) until we see what we saw that day. About midway through our tour of it, Virginia had us stand and look into what was once the throne room, and asked us if we recognized it. We did not, but now we plan to revisit Game of Thrones and enjoy having been at the site where such, dare I say "opulent", a set was reimagined in fictional history. Watch a behind the scenes video from HBO for episode 42 of Game of Thrones. I took a load of pics at the palace, but you can see similar ones in the Google Maps entry for it, in the Reviews section. Of course you can see mine in the big ol' España Google Album from our trip.

Virginia took us through the historic Jewish district, as we marveled at the understated but clearly visible richness of the architecture, then we made our way back to our Alfonso. Our last location with her was the Cathedral de Sevilla, a massive structure whose history repeats the multi-cultural architectural patterns of so many iconic buildings in Savilla, and where I learned where much of the precious metals taken from the Americas by the Spanish invaders went. This structure is all silver and gold plated, and much of it solid, y'all:

Alter de Plata at Catedral de Sevilla

We also saw "the" burial place of Chris Columbus, the only one of the three worldwide burial places  that has been DNA verified to contain at least some of his remains, reportedly about the quantity of a fingernail. That's a story in and of itself.

We parted ways with our Virginia and instantly discovered that we were both starving. Casa Robles to the rescue! 

NOTE: Weesh, this was a long day. I'm taking a stretch and coming back to finish. My butt's getting sore from sitting and my dog is fed up with me sitting and typing and clicking! I'm going to go ahead and publish this and come back after to finish it. There's only an afternoon walk, a nap, an almost private Flamenco music and dance show, a failed dinner reservation and great stumble-upon dinner recovery to come!

I'm back. Let's power through this together. After the awesome late lunch  (not late for Spain!) we had scheduled an "Afternoon at Leisure." That it was. We moseyed back to our hotel and laid down for a nap or two. We both snoozed, and awakened refreshed and ready for our 6:00 to 8:00pm Flamenco show at Pura Esencia, a ten-minute walk from the hotel, over the Guadalquivir River bridge. We ate a snack at a little cafe next door, which was memorable only because we ate at a little table on the sidewalk and there was a raucous group of young men inside playing foosball. We thought at first that the yelling came from a group watching a soccer game on television, but when I went inside to pay the bill I laughed at the truth.

We didn't realize how intimate Pure Esencia would be; but we had our tickets, which included two drinks apiece, and were tickled that the place had seating only for 14. The guitar player opened on the tiny stage just a few feet away from our tiny table, and he was brilliant. A male singer came out and ended his guitar-accompanied set with the entrance of a powerful male dancer, then came onstage the female dancer (everyone was in traditional clothing) who set the little "crowd" on fire. Such drama, such rhythm, such beauty and tradition. It was exciting, fun, and a new memory made. Here's a 32 second snippet Lee Ann grabbed:

We had plenty of time before our 9:30 pm dinner reservation at Recoveco. It was to be a bust. We moseyed across the beautiful bridge to our hotel, then grabbed a taxi to the heart of Sevilla. Its website bills it as spacious, cozy and warm for a dynamic sensory experience. Refurbished with respect for the traditional Sevillian architecture and suitable for a lunch or dinner where the tranquility in the enjoyment of the food and the professional attention is the protagonist. Well, we found it none of those. We were seated in a very small two-top inside what was essentially a tiny room off the lobby of a hotel. There was a couple across from us, who never spoke to one another the entire time, but the place was pretty much otherwise empty. During pre-planning we had grown the expectation of an open, rooftop dining space with lovely views. The server took his time getting our order for a beer and a wine, took his time delivering them, and took so much of his time getting back with food menus we stood without a word and walked back to the hotel lobby receptionist who had first directed us to the restaurant. We asked to see the rooftop space, were told they were booked there for the night but we could take the elevator up just to look. The receptionist was professional in demeanor but the manager who escorted us up on the elevator was curt and unfriendly. It was indeed a lovely looking place. We left. While walking away, we were both a bit flaming mad. Lee Ann's cell phone rang, and it was Recoveco. They wanted a credit card payment for the two drinks. Ha. Can service get any worse? She gave it to them. 

We settled down, walked sort of pointlessly through the streets, and were drawn to loud and wonderful jazz playing somewhere. It turned out that it was issuing from a humongus sculpture/building affectionately known to residents as The Mushrooms. 

Known as "Las setas" ("The Mushrooms"), it is the largest wooden structure in the world. Opened in 2011, the work of German architect Jürgen Mayer is 26 metres high. The structure is made up of six large parasols in the shape of mushrooms, and it affords fantastic views of Seville from the walkway/viewing point. There is also a restaurant. The Antiquarium is situated in the basement, containing important Roman archaeological remains. The area in which it is built includes a market and a raised square where different kinds of events take place. From https://www.spain.info/en/places-of-interest/metropol-parasol

By Anual - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17308935

The music was top-notch and we listened for a good while, basking in the cool night company of the throngs of locals and tourists. We were getting hungry though, so we strolled some more in what we thought might be the direction of  the Alfonso and lo and behold, right across from the Mushroom we spied a cute little place called La Malvaloca. We sat at a cheery little two-top, in a buzzing environment that was anything but sterile (see above) and had a lovely little tasting meal of tapas with wine and beer. Our walk "home" was relaxed and chatty and fun and we held hands the whole wild--yes, I was that old American with the beautiful young bride walking in a bubble on a Spanish Boulevard. Cherish the time.

Okay! We took a cab home, had a tasty adult beverage in the Alfonso bar, slept like drunken babies, and I awoke the next morning to write down some notes and preview the day's (Sunday's) itinerary before embracing it with the love of my life on this trip of a lifetime. Here's what I could see across the opulent room as the morning Sevilla light filtered in to welcome us to its Spanish loveliness.

My lovely denying the morning light :)

It was going to be another relaxing day. Yay. See you for day seven, next post.

Cordoba and Sevilla Day 1: (Spain Part V)

 OkaaaaaaAAY,

If you have read this far, please forgive me for rambling. If you intend to read further, please extend your forgiveness into that furtherness. It's taken me over seven decades to develop my voice, and whether you like it or would rather leave it, it's my voice. I love you either way.

Speaking of love, we felt a lot of it in Spain. As I may have mentioned, we had few to none encounters with crankiness, rudeness, or fear in our three weeks in España. It took until our arrival at the airport in Chicago on our way home to meet admittedly overworked, underpaid, and clearly unhappy service people. We also had our first egregiously overpriced food and beverage there. But that's for later. Now's for now!

The train ride:

We packed up the next morning since we had until 11:00 to meet our driver. Yes, another very nice black-suited man in a new black Mercedez. A note about packing and transitions: my wife is great at the former, and surprisingly great at the latter on our trip. We travel exceedingly well together. I hope to do more of it. Our next trip will be a week in Denver at Christmastime, and both our grown children and both of their partners, their people, will also be there at Jim and Amy's historic home across from University Park. But I digress. Lee Ann had purchased packing bags into which we could separate shirts, shorts, undergarments, etc. for easy packing and unpacking. It works like a charm and I highly recommend it. For our 3 weeks, I carried a backpack and she a carry-on and we had two large zippered pieces of luggage. I also carried a gig bag containing my Kala tenor ukulele, which I did play of an evening once in a while. 

View out our window as we left the vast plains of Spain and neared the south-central hill country 

A final and predictably delicious breakfast in the room off the courtyard, and we headed out to the lobby where we met our driver and headed just a mile or two away from the hotel to the train station. For the uninitiated, we learned by doing. There was no gate number on our travel information and there's a reason for that: gates are not announced until 30-20 minutes before boarding. I don't know exactly how that gate assignment gig works, but I am certain I never want to have to do it! After asking someone in a uniform, we learned that crucial fact and chilled out before a monitor screen until our gate was announced. In Madrid one has to get to the gate with one's luggage, queue up in a line once the destination's gate is announced, then get down a 45 degree escalator with it all and into the assigned train car. We did so, and were seated in our premium seats, ready to go. Here's the text from our travel info:

Note: There is NO luggage assistance to help with your luggage inside or outside the train at Madrid-Puerta de Atocha train station. Your driver cannot access the platform without a valid train ticket.

It was true, but like anything, the second time we would do it, it was much easier. Something about undone experiences and their done "next times," yes? 

Trainfood, eggplant, tasted a little better than it looked and kept me alive

The two hour train ride was largely uneventful but absolutely beautiful. It reminded me a little of the UHaul truck drive my son Colin and I had experienced the previous summer, with the vast plains, agricultural vistas turning hilly and inspirational in scope; and I slept a little, listened to my book (Dragonfly in Amber from the Outlander series--big recommend) with airpods from my phone. It is in fact a high speed train, but caveat: it stops frequently along its route. In relatively short order we were in Cordoba. 

Off the train we were greeted by a porter with a cart and our guide for the day, Carmen. She was in character and professionalism similar to our other wonderful guides, and I doubt if I will ever hear the word "jello" without remembering her. Explanation to come.

First stop, Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos, "Castle of the Christian Monarchs".

After winding our way through the castle, which contains some reconstructed murals originally created as flooring, on the walls, we toured the garden.

We left the garden and strolled up the street by the river to view the ancient Roman bridge built there. 

Then we made our way past the former gate into Cordoba, where we took a comprehensive tour of the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba. There are some great pics in the Wikipedia article, but I want to share this one, snapped by Carmen:

Not on Wikipedia, this little huggy pic hints at the majesty of the architecture, containing substantial stylistic contributions from Visigoths, Romans, and finally, Christians.

We learned that it was one of the first sites of the Spanish Inquisition and that its construction as a fortress for the Goths began in the year 785. It underwent many changes and additions as the various cultures controlled the city. Carmen also took us through the Jewish neighborhood. Cordoba has a long history and it is nothing short of fascinating. 

Oh, Jello: When we were walking up into the city from the river and the famed Roman Bridge, Carmen noted that the walls and streets all had a yellow tint, from the clay by the river that was used to construct them. "I love the jello, everywhere," she said. It made us smile every time she said it that way!

We parted ways with Carmen a few blocks later, and our driver, cordial and pleasant and knowledgeable, hauled us on into Sevilla, where we checked into opulence. A pic of the lobby and the courtyard in our hotel, which we would love, where I took my first picture in Sevilla:

Lobby of the Alfonso XIII, a Luxury Collection Hotel (5*)

I will pick back up next post with our hotel and evening in Sevilla, and continue on into the following day of our trip of a lifetime. Stay well, safe, and spoil yourself. This from a couple who has done it. Cheers.

Madrid Day 4 (Spain: Part IV)

I awakened late, for me, on June 1. It was a beautiful sunny Thursday morning, our fourth day in España.

Lee Ann lay buried in the luxurious zillion count sheets of our king-sized bed. Well, it was actually two doubles pushed together with a bigger-than-king-size mattress pad. I spent some time at the little balcony enjoying the street sounds and watching folks across the tiny street awakening and opening their own balconies to the glory of their city. Stretching, breathing the air thousands of miles away from my native Tennessee. 

The balconies in Spanish cities are small affairs, perhaps 18 inches deep and a little wider than the doors and their windows. I don't recall who mentioned it first, it was likely our Pablo, but some structures have rounded bottom railings to accommodate the puffy dresses of the aristocracy. The other thing I learned is that if you look up, they recede every so slightly in from the street from the second floor to the top. This is to let in the light, as streets in the city centers, the oldest parts of the city, are very narrow. It was also interesting that the lower floors were the most prestigious, as they afforded more visibility on their balconies during pageants or  other events that brought city dwellers into the streets. This is particularly evident in the many squares peppering the city centers.

We took our time freshening up and enjoying the luxurious bathroom design, which featured a luxurious (there's that word again) bathtub with a shower encased in a glass chamber through which one could see the opulent bathroom. 

Bathroom bliss at Palacio de los Duques Gran Melia in Madrid

We had nowhere we had to be until 7:45, when we would meet up with Beltran in the lobby for a tapas hop around the city. So our second breakfast it was, and we took it in a different room, which bordered a lovely inner courtyard garden which later would be filled with conference attendees in socializing mode. This morning we couldn't help but notice that the crisply uniformed servers all very pretty women, wore their hair in uniform tight buns; and all of them, to a one, carried an air reminiscent of the pretties in the classic Robert Palmer "Addicted to Love" video. This would be magnified when what looked like outside talent hostesses appeared when the Fortune 500 conference moved in that night, and those women, uniformly tall and brunette, all wore tight black uniforms and deep red lipstick. That song was in my head for the rest of the week, until it was erased by the beauty of San Sebastian. WARNING: Don't click the link in that title or it will be in yours all day.

Back up at the room, we made a plan for the day. We had purposely made this day a "day of leisure" to explore on our own and get a nap after an early snack dinner to shake off our jet lag and prep for our tapas adventure. It was in the low 80s and sunny, and explore we did. Pablo had told us that though the marketplace in the Old City was inarguably historic and interesting, there was one in another part of the city that the nannies and mothers shopped which was worth exploring for its lush wares, so we took a cab to Mercado de la Paz, walked around there, marveling at the fresh food, and then walked back to to hotel through the park, where a huge book fair was taking place, with hundreds of publisher stalls and hundreds of people. All the books were, of course, en Español. 

From Mercado de la Paz. Beautiful stuff.

"once a fish"

At the hotel, down we went for another little nap after playing the only games of Bananagrams we would play on the trip. I, of course, lost every game.

Up from our nap, we dressed, got presentable, and headed downstairs to meet our guide for our next scheduled event, "Evening Tapas Tasting with a Local Insider." Beltran Caruncho is another charming human--gracious, well spoken, and knowledgeable to a tee. He took us to four places for four very different dining experiences. He had planned to pass through the open market but decided to pass since we had already been through it on our own. That would allow us more time at the other destinations. They were: 1) Sala De Espiece, 2) XXXXXXXX  3) Restaurante La Castela, and 3) Taberna & Media.

Briefly now, Scotty me boyo, briefly:

Beltran, our guide par excellence!

Sala De Despiece was so brilliantly alive that if it had not been for Beltran we may have been completely overwhelmed. He described the restaurant, the clientele (apparently completely local excepting ourselves ) as we drank our beverages and could not stop smiling. We sipped a class of wine or two while we were pampered as celebrities down at the far interior by a tapas creation station. It all shows in the Google album I made just of the Beltran tapas hop because we had a great deal of pic and some interesting video from that night. 

Our second tasting was at the vibrant hot spot El Doble. It was casual, bustling, bright, loud, and jovial, and the garlic butter sauteed shrimp was to die for. Beltran told us that locals called the torn fresh bread we called (in Tennessee parlance) a "soppy," a "Spanish submarine." Hilarious, and omg delicious. Here's a good time for you to open that google album, if you have not thus far. You'll see that shrimp I mentioned and hear the din yourself! FUN. 

Lee Ann opined that the owner looked a little grumpy, and Beltran agreed, adding that he only smiles when posing for pictures with customers/admirers. I'm not sure because I see he smiles a bit in the video and he was immensely gracious when asked for a pic. Here's that admirers food groupies photo with us and Jesus! :)

Big smiles at El Doble

From there we walked to Restaurante La Castela, Beltran telling us about the Michelle Obama visit in 2016. She wanted local tapas and refused to allow Security to clear the place out for her visit. She wanted to dine with the people and feel that oh so comfy vibe that the place is famous for. There are pics from our dining there, and a couple good videos, at the Google album of the Beltran tapas hop, but here's one memorable snap behind the bar just before we departed. I recall we had oxtail for the first time; but, for sure, not the last!

The crew at La Castela!

We closed our night out around midnight, at the bar at another popular tapas foodery nearby. Amazingly, it was full at midnight. Not amazing to Beltran, since a portion of the culinary-loving Madrid population is just midway through their own tapas hops around that time. I honestly have no memory of what we ate there. We may have just had a cocktail, a night-hat, a closer. There was a full restaurant, cozy as can be, around the corner from the bar, but we sat at the bar and debriefed with our new best friend Beltran. It had been lovely. 

We parted ways, grabbed a cab back to the land of the giant Velasqueses, maybe watched some of The Diplomat on Lee Ann's laptop (an aside: most of the hotels we stayed in had clunky interfaces for streaming media on the room displays. Be sure to have several electrical convertors if you venture to Spain (and a you-friendly laptop for media). We snuggled together and slipped into dreamland.

Tomorrow we would be Leaving on a Jet Train. JK, but listen, just for fun. No: we would be leaving on a high-speed train ride to Cordoba, then to Seville via automobile. Yes: another black Mercedes, another driver, two new guides, and another glorious couple of stops on that trip of our dreams.

Catch ya later.

Madrid Day 2 (Spain: Part III)

What the...

It's 12 August, 2023 and I haven't even gotten started, not really, with our second day of our 17 day journey across Spain. Hmmmmm.

I'm gonna drop it, I think. 

Well.

Okay. No. Here goes...

View from our Palacio balcony

We awakened in our lovely hotel and made our way to the hotel bar where we filled our plates with lovely food and sat at a lovely table. It took another day before we realized we could get breakfast to order, but honestly the buffet was quite, well, lovely.

We enjoyed a delicious breakfast, then met our first guide in the hotel lobby. Pablo was gracious, funny, and smart, and he immediately said he'd flipped our day (we had two tours with him that day) so that we were going to the Prado in the morning, not in the afternoon as our schedule predicted. The lines at the National Palace were overflowing with tourists and school groups and his experience told him this was the thing to do. I loved him already. I'm a fan of flexibility, and the wonders of the day proved him right. The Palace was only a few blocks from our hotel, and we passed it by for later, heading instead to the Prado. Indicative of Pablo's teacher mind-set (he has a masters degree in Art History), here is my first picture taken on our first guided tour in Spain:

Pablo's first pop quiz: "What kind of tree is this?"
Answer: 

If you will notice the severely trimmed older growth, it's the result of Storm Filomena, the disastrous snow storm at the break of 2021 which crippled the city with the biggest snowfall in over 50 years, resulting in over 150,000 trees being destroyed or severely damaged. Estimates were that over 450,000 more trees were damaged or killed in the surrounding woodlands, including the National Forest that snuggles up to the western boundaries of the city. Once Pablo had focused our attention to that, we saw evidences of it throughout the city. We continued to walk and chat, briefly and only briefly to discuss American politics and Spanish political divide, strikingly similar to ours with its ultra-conservatives and liberals/leftists. The players change but it really is all about money and power wherever you go, isn't it? The story of the current King Filipe VI, a powerful cultural icon but politically not so, and his dethroned father the former king, is just fascinating. Here's a good related article from BBC. Consider it a teaser. You're welcome.

Let's see. We wended our way through Madrid's streets, making our way to the Prado. Along the way we stopped at a hilltop park to view a panorama of the city to the west. Of course I had to try to capture it but the pano does not do justice to the vista of city and not-too-distant National Park.

I've already blogged about the Prado visit, but if you missed it, here. The time we spent there was focused and immersive and couldn't have been better. I can't imagine just buying a ticket and being overwhelmed by it all. Thank you, again, Pablo. 

Then there was that little happy accident where Velazquez's "Los Meninas" completely stole my focus and then again in the roomful of derivative paintings in the Picasso museum the next day, all inspired by that Velazquez. An epiphanous series of events.

One thing I neglected to mention in the earlier post was the final stop within the Prado. We had walked the museum in a focused way, and I really enjoyed watching the painters copying the masterpieces. Pablo told us they got a museum pass for something like two months and could store their work within in between visits to paint/study/copy. Here's one artist working on a reproduction of a big Rubens:

Now that's a fearless artist! Copying Rubens' "The Judgement of Paris" in the Prado. 

Finally we descended stairs to visit the Goya "Black Paintings" exhibit. I have no photos but this was another intensely moving experience for me, and the story behind them is another fantastic learning experience. I suggest you click on over to Wikipedia for that. Pablo related the story of Francisco Goya's embittered isolation in a country house and his use of the walls in the house for canvases upon which the near-deaf painter expressed just that: despair and embitterment. The story of the reclamation of these works of art is in itself a fascinating read. All 14 of them are available for viewing online at the above-mentioned Wikipedia article.  Here's the one that brought tears to my own eyes, but you may have a dark favorite of your own.

Goya: Dog

I know it's a dog. But there in the company of the other thirteen despairing images, it hurt in context.

We parted company with our guide and lunched in the square of a nearby neighborhood and had some good grub.

After lunch, we met back up with him outside our hotel for round two of the day. The Royal Palace:

The official website has this to say by way of introduction:

"The Royal Palace of Madrid is the largest in Western Europe and one of the largest in the world. With over 135,000 square metres and 3,418 rooms, it has witnessed centuries of Spanish history. It is one of the few official seat of a Head of State that is open to the public. Almost 2 million visitors come every year to discover its rooms, works of art and treasures that are unique in the world."

You know, I don't think I'll go into great detail about that tour, but it was, as expected, liberally described by Pablo as we toured, from the multitude of clocks, to the reappearance of Hercules statuary and other art featuring him in many of the rooms, to the giant painting of current King Felipe VI and the story behind his marriage to his wife, formerly a national news anchor. The official website is maybe a little clunky to navigate but it has very detailed information and images of the vast collection of historical objects in the building. Well worth the time for us. 

We bid farewell to Pablo, hit the hotel for a quick nap, arose and cabbed to our dinner reservation at Lobito De Mar, an upscale but casual fine dining experience and a project of famed chef Dani Garcia. I'll admit we may have been too tired to really enjoy that first epicurean stop, but it was fine, and I loved the foodery's commitment to the oceans of the world. We had some awesome shrimp on tableside-prepared guacamole, hake, a fish new to me, and I believe that's sea bass in the last shot. Here's a menu for your perusal.

And here's a quote from me, jotted down online while I was still attempting to keep up with notes on places visited on Google Maps: "Interesting small place with reservations, sat at a small 2-top, had hake for the first time. Good service, but I don't know, a little fussy and maybe I was not really caught up from flying. Sort of a fuzzy memory of not having enjoyed it as much as I perhaps should have."

Taking a pass on dessert, we caught another cab home. There are ~60,000 cabs in Madrid and it's really the way to go if you don't have to go far. Every single cab driver was nice and hospitable. Only once or twice in our cabbing experience did we feel we were taken circuitous routs to inflate the cost, but that may have been a reach since we didn't know the traffic in Madrid, which seems active pretty much all the time and is riddled with tiny tiny streets. 

I'll stop here, as my lovely daughter and her lovely husband are coming over in a few minutes so my lovely wife can join us out somewhere for a lovely dinner after her lovely day of work. Stay lovely and morrrrrrre later!

Madrid (Spain, Part II)

Before we get to Day 2, we should comment on the rest of our first day in Spain, dontcha think?

It was quite fine. 

Checking into the Palacio went well. We sat in chairs in the lobby of the Palacio de los Duques Gran Melia underneath an imposing mural of the aforementioned Marguerite and checked in. We were, of course, tired from our transatlantic flight and, maybe partly influenced by the freely flowing Cava during the process, we simply said yes when asked if we wanted the upgrade to access for a "private room" lounge on the lobby floor with tapas and an open bar. Breakfast was also included but we went for that upgrade. I think it was a good thing but Lee Ann thinks we should not have done it. We did use it several times and it was relaxing and mostly very private. It also hosted our one and only Bananagrams games on the trip.

We were led to our room and it was beautiful. Pretty spacious, a beautiful 3rd floor balcony view of Madrid, and a huge portrait of just the Marguerite. We spent some time in the room unpacking and, adhering to advice we had been given about jet lag, fiddled about the room before walking down the street to a music store suggested by our hotel baggage handler on seeing my uke, then on through charming graffitied streets lined with small cafes and shops to the Royal Palace (which we would tour on day 2), awash with tourists but not in a crowded way, on down the hill past the Senado de Espanol, classical buildings, a square where a group of Asian dancers were being filmed in front of a fountain. Finally, maybe an hour after leaving the hotel, very very tired, we made our way through narrow streets and alleys back to hotel, on the way to the room checking out the hotel's rooftop:

Back in the room, we ordered room service food, a roasted avocado with rice and a club sandwich on naan with unripe red tomato and something like cheese wiz (fries were good but how can you screw up fries?) and a beer from the mini-bar (I could not find opener in the room so I pried it open with a table knife). It was the only truly disappointing meal we were served on our trip. We slept for 2 hours, per jet lag advice, arose and walked again, this time after soliciting the direction of Catherine, our concierge on duty (Grace's shift was over). Catherine's advice led us to picturesque and charming streetways thronging with pedestrians, to Marketplace San Miguel, the tourist version of a market, but cred-heavy because it was built on the bones of the first marketplace in Madrid. 

I got an Estrella Damm beer 

"Spain's Beer," Estrella Damm

(my fave Spanish beer so far) and Lee Ann had a glass of a nice white wine. We found it interesting how one would get a glass at one vendor then leave the empty anywhere in the market. We learned later that the vendors sorted all that out at the end of each night. We wended our way through crowds of tourists and (some) locals enjoying tapas at the market, then returned to Daniel's oyster bar booth where we split 8 freakin' delicious oysters.

Marketplace San Miquel, Madrid, ES

Getting tired, but just happy to be out in the world together, we  walked back to hotel in light but steady rain, stopping in at the Royal Church of Saint James and Saint John the Baptist in the Plaza de Santiago (https://bit.ly/churchofjamesandjohn).

We stopped at that "private room" and realize we were too zonked to go to Four Seasons Hotel so we cancelled our reservation (our dinner the next night was one of several gourmet restaurants run by Dani Garcia and his first had been at that hotel). Up to the comfy room, we passed out. I am so in love with my honey.

Next, Day 2. Really.