Larry here...

Just so he could say it was “our” blog, Larry has decided to add an entry. Here it is…


Larry here – finally wrestled the keyboard away from Dot so I could get a word in here. Actually, she has been doing a really great job blogging and I think we will enjoy the memories here for years to come. By the way, for any of you “would be bloggers” out there, it is not easy – Dot is blessed with a good writing style but it was still a lot of work.

Since Dot has done a very thorough job of describing the sights, I’d thought I would provide some of the “behind the scenes” happenings that reminded us that we were “not in Kansas anymore”. Some seem quite comical now (in hindsight), but were quite confusing/frustrating/exciting at the time.

We arrived in Nice (France) pretty much on time a little after 8 AM, knowing we would have to wait until noon for the France exchangers to arrive from Provence and meet us at the airport restaurant. It was a long four hours, and by noon we were looking at each new arrival as our potential exchangers. It was even more intense by 1PM – recall that we had parked our car at the Boston airport and were to meet these people and exchange car keys, directions, etc., and at present we had nothing!! Finally Dot approached a lady sitting next to us to see if we could pay to use her cell phone to call our exchangers. But the lady did not speak English, only Italian and French, so Dot’s fine French came through for us and we contacted our exchangers to learn that they were severely delayed in traffic and should be there around 1:30. By 2PM we were beginning to discuss alternatives when they arrived and all was well !!

I couldn’t begin to describe our initial road navigation attempts in France !! Ironically, after we finally got the hang of it (and realized that signs at a 45 degree angle meant to go straight), we came to realize that the roads were indeed very well marked. However, there was an implicit assumption that you knew French geography because everything was marked with a city along the route, but it could be some really remote city (LYONS), or the next small town along the road, so sometimes that would make us scramble – that’s why we came to love the traffic circles – you can go around a few times while the navigator figures our where these various cities are located.

Parking in France could get an entire book – suffice it to say that Dot’s dad would have been very proud of how well he taught her parallel parking – she got into spaces that were about the same size as the car! The other sometimes scary driving issue was being able to see your destination in the city (in fact being able to drive by it several times) but never figuring out how to get into it !

After spending months trying to learn Spanish, I arrived in Valencia (SPAIN) only to discover that everyone speaks a local language (that they are trying to keep alive). Even the various signs are in the local language, which was just enough like Spanish to really confuse me. By the time I got to Madrid (where they do speak Spanish on the streets), I was too confused (except perhaps after a few drinks) !

Gibraltar was great – we parked on the Spain side and walked across the border. Trying to feed the parking machine there as an experience. It only took coins (no problem we had plenty) and we needed just 5 Euros, so we started putting them in. Hmm, it doesn’t take the 2 Euro coin, but we have two ones and “tons” of shrapnel, so no problem. Opps, it also doesn’t take 50 cent coins, now we are putting in 20 and 10 and 5 coins (about half of which is rejects for unknown reasons. We finally get to 4.90 (after what seemed like 50 coins) and we notice we still have several left, so we are in. The next coin in causes the entire set of coins to be rejected with a “too many coins” notice!! I then (reluctantly) followed Dot’s original suggestion and went to get change for a 5 Euro note. It took 5 one Euros coins with no problem.

After two months traveling around Europe, I think I might finally be at the point of realizing that the retirement thing is pretty darn good !!

Reflections on a Wonderful Trip

As we prepare to leave Madrid and end our wonderful 8 week 'vacation' in Europe, it seems appropriate to write some final thoughts about this fantastic experience.

First of all, I need to give a big cheer for Home Exchange.  We have successfully completed three home exchanges - using the cottage at Cape Cod as our exchange.  This has given us free lodging for the entire time except for the final two days in Madrid.  We also had full use of a car for touring except for the two and a half weeks in Nice where we really didn't want or need a car.  It was perfect.  We used the cars to make day trips frequently and to make overnight trips (5 nights in southern Spain and 2 inbetween Provence and Nice).  All in all we spent 10 nights out of 60 hotels, which we found to be extremely inexpensive and wonderful.  We stayed in 4 star hotels all of which cost less than $100 a night.  We even had free calls to the US for 5 out of the 8 weeks from our exchange homes.  Amazing.

What we learned about home exchanging is to be more selective about the exchanges both in terms of the specific location and the homes.  While these worked well in most regards, they could have been better.  The Chateauenard location was perfect but the home could have been better.  The Nice location was also perfect and the apartment was comfortable but not really well equipped for making alot of meals.  The apartment in Valencia was wonderful - clean, modern, very well equipped but we fairly quickly exhausted what there was to do in Valencia, so our 6 day trip to Andalucia in southern Spain worked very well.  All in all we have gotten to see and experience a great deal of Mediterranean France and Spain on this trip and that was our goal.

The weather has been terrific.  I think we had just two rainy days in the entire 60 days.  That's pretty incredible.  It has been very hot most of the time but sunny.  The sun here is somehow stronger than at home.  When you step out into it, you immediately feel it on your skin much more than at home.  In another week or two I think I would become a real blonde at the rate my hair is bleaching out.  We both have very good tans.

It is impossible to summarize (or even recall) all of the wonderful and interesting sights we have seen.  This was the primary reason for this blog (as well as to share the experience with friends and family who were interested).  There have been lots of castles and cathedrals on our itinerary, but also lots of dips in the Mediterranean and quiet strolls observing what is the same and different between Spain, France and home. 

Some of the most memorable experiences include walking down Gibraltar, sailing in the Med at Antibes, walking along the Med into Monte Carlo, and revisiting old haunts from when we lived in France for 4 months. We have learned alot about the history of Spain and France and even the roman empire and the Moor occupation of Spain.  It has been fascinating.

I have come to the conclusion that globalization of culture is occuring at a pretty good rate.  Being in Madrid doesn't feel particularly foreign.  If you didn't pay attention to the signage you could easily convince yourself that you were in NY or Washington DC. I find this to be kind of a shame. This is slightly less true in France where more effort has been put into maintaining their cultural differences and their heritage.   I liked the excitement of the foreigness and the discovery of the differences.

But it is time to go home.  We have been away long enough.  I miss my friends and family.  I miss my dogs alot and I miss just being able to justify sitting around doing nothing for a while (here we hated to waste the opportunity so we were pretty constantly on the move.)

One last word about my wonderful husband who has been beside me the entire time.  We have been each other's best friend for many years, but being alone together on this trip has allowed us to really connected in new ways.  We have really enjoyed each other's company.  What a nice bonus!

Thanks for sharing our journey with us.  I hope you have enjoyed it.

Madrid Flamenco

On Saturday night in Madrid we took in another flamenco show.  We were curious to what extent it would be the same as the one in Seville and we wanted to see it once more while in Spain.  It was a terrific show at Casa Patas.  We almost didn't make it there.  We had made reservations (fortunately) but they told us to be there at ten of 9.  It took us longer to get into town (having to switch metros and walk a bit on either end of the trip) and we arrived pretty much at 9 fearing we had missed the opportunity.

However, no problem and as it turns out they save tables for people with reservations.  Using good Las Vegas etiquette, Larry handed the maitre'd ten euros with the tickets and he took us to what I think was probably the best table in the entire room.  The raised stage was in the corner of the room with tables along two sides.  We were sitting right at the open corner.  They were practically dancing on our table. That was a well spent ten euros for sure. 

Before coming to Spain I had somehow thought flamenco dancing was alot of whirling and skirt swinging and happy. It really isn't at all. It is very inense and fierce. The singing was similiar to last time and still very emotional.  We were allowed to take pictures without flash but it was hard to get any that weren't blurry because they were moving to fast.  The movements are choppy and staccato. he poses struck are strong and awkward looking. The faces had very fierce expressions most of the time - especially the woman dancer.  They danced together very briefly.  It was mostly solo dancing accompanied by clapping.  There was less stomping this time.  There were two guitar players this time and the guitar playing was really, really nice.

Wonderful show!  Great seats!

Madrid is Fabulous

Madrid is a really, really beautiful city. We have been metro-ing around and it is a really big city with beautiful parks, lots of squares with fountains and statues of men on horses.  We searched in vain Saturday morning for a tourist office - found one that was shut for renovations and another was closed because it was Saturday. We gave up eventually and just bought tickets on the hop-on, hop-off tourist bus. This is one of those double decker buses where the top is open.  It affords a fabulous view of the buildings as you go by and was a great way to see the city without wearing out our feet.

The building in the top left picture above is the ColonTowers.  Very strange looking.  The one in the top right corner was designed by the same person who designed the World Trade Centers.  The bottom two pictures are representative of the various 'gates' and fountains that are all over the city.

There are two major squares in Madrid (see below). The Plaza Mayor is the old plaza.  It was used for everything from bull fights to festivals and was the site of the famous Spanish Inconquisition.  We had dinner there twice as it is filled with outdoor cafes.  The second major square is the Puerto del Sol which is equivalent to Times Square in NY city.  We passed through there last night around midnight and it was hopping and packed full of people.

There is a lovely cathedral in Madrid which we went through.  It was NOT overly decorated and actually had modern art stained glass and a beautiful iron (?) door.  The ceilings were beautifully painted.

The cathedral is right across from the magnificent royal palace.  The royal family doesn't actually live there anymore but it is used extensively for special functions.  We went through it, but no photos were allowed.  It is reportedly the largest palace in western Europe with something like 2800 rooms.  We only saw about 40 of them.  The parade grounds in front of the palace are used each year for the king to review the troops.

The inside was amazing but hard to describe.  It was very baroque and over decroated with much gold guilding, dark tapestries, and every square inch of walls and ceilings covered with something - paintings, silken walkpaper, porcelain.  It was quite gaudy.

Attached to the palace was a royal armory (again no pictures) but it was incredible - two huge rooms of men and horses in full polished armor.  I've never seen anything like it.  It is hard to understand how they could move at all with all that stuff on.

Yesterday we took a very nice cable car ride over a huge park to the western side of the city.  (We do love to go on 'rides').

The city is filled with green spaces and open areas, making it very lovely.  On our way back to the tourist bus we walked through a lovely park which had some formal gardens and also had the remains of an Egyptian temple at the end of it.

Apparently Spanish engineers provided significant help to Egypt when they were building the Aswan Dam.  To thank them, Egypt gave them the remains of a temple that lay in the flood plain for the dam.  They packed  to up, sent it over to Spain and reconstructed it in this park.  Amazing stuff.

Every Sundays there is a huge flea market in the old part of the city.  It goes for blocks and is one of the largest in Europe.  They have been holding it for several hundred years, I think.  It was lots of clothes, jewelry, leather goods and souvenirs and was packed with people.  There was even an area where people were trading cards - soccer cards, maybe?

Today we also visited one of the many world-class art museums that are here.  I choose the Museo de Thyssen-Bornemisza because it had a good selection of art from Europe and America.  We only spent about an hour in there as it was nearly closing time but it was amazing to see all these famous painters I studied in art classes as a child: Van Gogh, Picasso, Degas, Monet, and a zillion others I can't recall off the top of my head.  Although we do not tend to linger in art museums, I have to admit I really enjoyed this one very much.

We wondered through the Retiro Park on our way home this afternoon.  It is the Madrid equivalent of Central Park and is filled with statutes, lawns, flower gardens, and has a big man-made lake in the middle where lots of people were rowling around.  The park was very well used.

We are both really glad we spent as much time in Madrid as we did.  It is an exceptionally beautiful city.  It reminded us quite a bit of Washington, but it is much larger and the buildings are more spectacular.

Train Trip to Madrid

We took the train to Madrid Friday.  It was well over 100 degrees in Valencia and waiting for the train was a lot like sitting in an oven.  We met a very nice young woman from England who was also headed to Madrid on a later train.  She was on crutches with her ankle bandaged.  Turns out she had been at the Tomatina in Bunol which we had considered attending.  She said it was really a blast - very intense.  She got tackled and was on the ground for some of it.  Afterward everyone goes to the river and jumps in to clean off the tomatoes.  She jumped off a bridge and hit a rock with her foot - breaking a toe and spraining an ankle.  She said it was SO WORTH it - the tomatina was such a great experience.  After talking to her, we were still somewhat glad we hadn't gone - a little too intense for us old folks.

The train ride was interesting.  Unfortunately, it was not a high-speed train.  That would have really been fun.  Spain is a fairly flat, arid place and lots of developed farmland.  There wasn't much to see.  We had brought our lunch and had a lovely picnic on the way...very European!

Two day in Madrid and then home.  We are ready!

Beach Day...YEAH!!

After some debate yesterday about what to do today, we decided on the beach.  The other option (which I think would have been insane) was to go to the 'tomatina' festival in Bunol, a small town about 35 kilometers from Valencia.  For 1 hour from 11 in the morning until noon, people throw tomatoes at each other - like 20,000 tons of tomatoes.  I had read about it in the guidebook.  When we asked for details yesterday at the tourist Information office, the girl actually laughed and said 'Oh no, you don't want to go to that.  It is for YOUNG people.'  Well, I hadn't wanted to participate so much as see it.  They estimate that 40,000+ people attend and you really can't attend without participating.  After reading details on line about having shirts ripped off, needing to be hosed off before heading home, getting groped, not to mention the tomatos (snorkle masks are recommended), we reached the adult decision NOT to go, but it was touch and go there for a little while.

So this morning, we headed south from Valencia to experience the beaches of the Costa del Blanco.  Like the Costa del Sol a little further south, this area is a primary vacation target for many in Europe.  We had seen the beaches north of Valencia (Costa del Valencia) and were pretty unimpressed, so we figured we try south and see what we could find.

We targetted a town called Benidorm which was about 1 1/2 hours away. The drive was spectactular - mountains, hills with castles on them, fields of orange groves, vineyards, a beautiful blue Mediterranean in the distance.  As we approach the town we were shocked to see major high-rise apartment buildings - 30, 40 and 50 stories high.  Clearly lots of people wanted to go there and wanted to be near the beach, not back 10 miles from the coast.  We found parking and trekked onto the beach which was MOBBED.

We had picked this beach because it was on the list of Top Beaches in Spain, however, a little later I was reading the guide book and it named this beach as one of the top beaches in the WORLD!  It was a wonderful half-moon beach about 3 miles long with mountainous cliffs on either end.  Off-shore a little ways was a wonderful 'Gibraltar'-like rock in the middle of the water.

We rented beach chaises for 4 euros (a little over $5 for the day), set up our umbrella and ventured into the water.  The beach was very fine sand.  The water was clear with little in the way of waves.  It was extremely shallow and the bottom was large rocks which you could walk on fairly easily.  You had to go out about 50 feet maybe in order to be in waist deep water.

Okay, so far this doesn't sound all that wonderful BUT the water was fabulous - the clearest, cleanest water either of us has ever been in other than a swimming pool.  It was delightful once you got past the difficulty of getting in and out.  We were in and out for the rest of the day.  It was a wonderful beach.

One thing that was really unusual here was that there was a water skiing set-up.  It was kind of like a horizontal ski-lift that went in a large rectangle out in the water.  You would grasp onto a handle as it came by and ski down a little ramp into the water and if you were lucky enough to not wipe-out, you could ski around the whole rectangle - probably a good half a mile.  Some of the skiiers were fantasctic doing jumps and spins as they went...others wiped out quickly and were picked up by a motor boat.  We've never seen anything like it before. (No, we didn't try it.)

We happened to kind of take a wrong turn on the way home and ended up on the mountain next to the beach looking down on the beach....spectacular!

The humidty was making it very hazy by this point in the afternoon.

We took the scenic road home driving through lots of lovely resorts right on the Med.  In one spot there was this magnificent rock poking up out of the water.  We read in the guide book that it was privately owned until 1987 when the state bought it and turned it into a nature reserve.  There is a tunnel through it and lots of hiking paths...perhaps next trip.

Very cool day.

Cordoba

We left Seville mid-day on Saturday and declared the rest of the day to be a rest day.  All we had to do was drive about 1 1/2 hours to Cordoba, the next and last stop on our whirlwind tour of the Andalusia area of southern Spain.  Cordaba is further inland than Seville and the landscape changed rather dramatically to be miles and miles of rolling fields.  It was quite lovely and quite different from what we had seen so far along the coast and through the mountains.

Once we reached Cordoba and found it to be a little over 100 degrees the only sane thing to do was go to the hotel pool for the afternoon.

We have been staying at fabulous hotels on this little trip - all 4 star hotels, all with pools and air conditioning.  The hotels are ridiculously cheap for the quality.  We are paying well under $100 a night including parking and taxes and whatever.  Our hotel coming up for 3 nights in Madrid is $67 a night and it is 4 star also.  It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon especially given the heat.  Larry walked around town a bit but finally succombed to the heat and joined me at the pool. 

We attempted to take the bus into the center of the city to find dinner without a bus map (because there apparently aren't any such maps).  We had our first mishap of the bus variety - ending up way out of town at the end of the bus line, having to wait 15 minutes and pay again to come back into town on the same bus.  We then ended up walking in the last bit, which turned out to be lovely. 

The main attraction in Cordoba is the Mezquita Catherdal-Mosque and we ended up walking across the pedestrian bridge just at sunset.  Magnificent!

We had a terrific dinner and ended up walking back to the hotel, not wanting to risk another bus trip.

We didn't explore the Mezquita until the next morning.  The guidebooks say that despite having seen all the other castles, forts and cathedrals in Europe, this one is something different - nothing like the rest.  You'll never see anything like it - and we agree!  It is very hard to convey the scale of this place
First a little history, there was a church located near the river.  The Islamic community rented half of the church as its mosque.  They outgrew that space and ended up buying the rest of the church, which they tore down and made into a large mosque.  Then, along come the catholics during the 'reconquest' (I love that term.) and they rip out the center of the mosque and build a cathedral smack dab in the middle of the mosque.  The effect is quite bizarre and mostly lovely.  It has been very well maintained and was protected from destruction by the catholic authorities.  It is hard to explain but these pictures below all came from inside the same place.  The cathedral part is in the center and it is surrounded by the beautiful red and white arches of the mosque.

After exploring the Mezquita we took a cab back to the hotel, checked out and hit the road for "home" in Valencia, figuring (incorrectly) that we could get something to eat once we were on the road.  We found a nice looking restaurant but it didn't open until 1 pm and it was only 12.  Then we found another one which opened at 2, but by now it was only 1pm, so we kept driving. We ended up not eating until around 4:30 in the afternoon and that, believe it or not, was at a closed shopping mall (it was SUNDAY) at a McDonalds.  This was the first time we have eaten American fast food in Europe this trip, despite seeing many McDonalds and Burger Kings, but we were starving by this point in the day.  (I have to admit it was really, really good.)

The most amazing thing (other than eating) on the way home was the landscape - for several hours we drove through olive orchards which went up and down the hills and went out as far as the eye could see - miles and miles and miles of them.  Larry later looked up Spanish olive oil and discovered that 95% of the olive oil in the world comes form the Mediterranean area and Spain is the primary poducer - outdoing Italy by 2 to 1.  Who knew?

This central/southern part of the Spain is a very high plain and we saw several hundred wind turbines, as well as a large number of solar cell farms.  I think oil is very expensive and they are really embracing alternative energy here in Spain.  Good for them.

Seville is Beautiful

Of all the Spanish towns and cities we have been to so far, Seville, is the most beautiful.  It has wide avenues boarded by tall trees and magnificent buildings.  Everything is clean and freshly painted.  The city really sparkles.  It has the most beautiful squares and parks and buildings everywhere you look.

The bottom left picture above is of the bull ring.  It is the second largest in Spain.  We didn't tour it.

As usual there was much to see and do there.   I already posted the fabulous flamenco show we went to but there was also an immense cathedral there (of course, isn't there always?)  There are on-going arguments as to whether is it is larger than St. Peter's in Rome.

The interior was massive and impressive but kind of ghastly.  Very baroque.  Check out the altar in the bottom right picture below.  The ceilings were amazing - some were even pretty.  The bottom left picture is of the mirror which allows you study the ceiling without craning your neck.  Interesting approach.

See the bottom left picture below take in the treasury room.  Pretty much all cathedrals in Europe have tremendously rich treasurys containing elaborate art pieces used in services and parades.  There is a lot of wealth stored here.

The one really amazing things that is there is the tomb of Christopher Columbus.  It was so cool to see that.    It looked like it needed some major dusting. His son is also buried in the church (who knew he even had a son?)

The other really fun part of the cathedral was the tower attached to it, which was actually much older than the church having been built by the Moors as part of the masque.  The Catholics destroyed the masque to build the cathedral but they kept the tower.  Smart!  Instead of stairs inside it had ramps which went around and around for 34 floors.  They used a ramp so that they could charge up there on their horses! (We had to go on foot.)

The views from the top were wonderful.

We took a lack luster tourist bus around the city but frankly we had seen more by car driving in and walking.  Later in the day Larry took the boat ride on the river which he really enjoyed.

The bridges were wonderful (top right one was designed by Eiffel, of tower fame.)  The most interesting thing(see bottom left picture above) was the control tower (like you would have at an airport) that sits in the middle of the river where it bends.  At it's heyday Seville was a major port despite being inland from the ocean by quite a bit.  The river was quite navigable and they needed the tower to control boat traffic.

After Columbus discovered America, Seville thrived, as it was designated by the spanish monarch as the sole trade city with the new world.  The town really flourished during the 1500s as a result and much of what you see there today was built during that timeframe.  The trade building next to the cathedral (built so that the business people would stop doing thier business on the steps of the cathedral) now holds a world-class archive of documents related to Spanish involvement with the new world.  They apparently undertook the effort to collect a proper view of the history of Spanish involvement sort of as a propaganda campaign when they were getting a bad name for how they were managing their colonies.  What a treasurer trove of maps.

Next to the cathedral is the Real Alcazar, the royal palace which is actually still in use today by the royal family when they come to Seville.  It was a very interesting mixture of styles, much of it very Moorish reminiscent of the Alhambra in Granada. 

However, in this case, it has been restored much better including the painting of the various wall pieces, so it was possible to really get an idea of what it looked like. 

My favorite item in the whole place was a tapestry which took up an entire wall and depicted a map of the Mediterranean Sea.  It was unclear what the date was on it but it clearly labelled many cities in Spain and France and the islands in the sea.  Out in the Atlantic there were sea-monster depicted.  It was really fascinating. 

And then it was off to Cordoba.

Flamenco, Ole!

One of the many things that Seville is known for is its fabulous flamenco dancing. Getting to see this while there was a definite item on my bucket list.  The cultural exhibition hall recommended by the tourist Information office and by our guide book happened to be just 1 block from our hotel so we booked the late show, 10:30 pm.  Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures until the very end of the show.

The show was really fantastic and not quite what we expected.  The first 'act' was a singer accompanied by a lovely spanish guitar.  The singing was a bit more like wailing and at times it seemed like he was about to burst into tears.  The origin of flamenco dancing lies with the Roma gypsies and the singing sounded a lot like a Jewish cantor singing. 

After that a lovely young woman came out and danced for us.  She whirled and stomped to the guitar music.  The singer sang (a little less whiny this time) and there was another accompanists who clapped a marvelous rhythm.  The synchronization was phenomenal.  It was loud and staccato and it started and stopped abruptly.

Then there was another instrumental by the guitar player which was lovely, but there was a problem.  It was beastly hot - well over 100 degrees in the room.  There were about 80 people in there and everyone was fanning themselves to keep from passing out.  While the music was lovely, it wasn't what anyone had come there to see.

The next 'act' was an unbelievable male dancer.  His feet moved so fast at time they were just a blur.  It was the best tap dancing I have every seen or probably will ever see.  I felt sorry for him in that heat.  He was just drenched by the end.  As he danced the woman, the singer and the guitarist accompanied him with stomping, clapping, music and song - all incredibly syncopated.  Just amazing.

At the end of the show we were able to take some picutres but it was hard to capture the marvelous show.  The two danced together for just a moment at the very end.  It was wild.  I really feel that I have been to Spain now!

Gibraltar Rocks!

On Wednesday we left Granada behind and drove down to Gibraltar.  For some reason, this was a place that had much allure for both of us.  It was a must see given that we made it to Spain.  I really didn't know what to expect, but for some reason it wasn't what we saw.

Above is our first real view of the rock taken from the nearby spanish town, La Linea, where we parked the car.  We walked across the border, flashing our passports but noone seemed to care.  We took a bus to the center of town - finding the entire place to be far larger than either of us expected.  To get to the town and the base of the rock you have to cross the middle of the airport runway.  That was an interesting experience. 

The town is a fairly typical European town except more people spoke English here and there were some lovely accents!  The other thing they have is english candy, specifically my favorite candy in the whole world - Rowntree's Fruit Gums.  I'm embarassed to admit how many rolls we bought.

After a mediocre lunch in town, we took the cable car to the top of the rock.  The views were fantastic.  That mountain in the middle of the picture with me is AFRICA.  Imagine that!

One thing that was very interesting up there were the apes.  They are free roaming and can be found all over the place.  Spain has tried many times to get Gibraltar back from the British.  It is said that Britain will not leave the rock until the apes leave.  Supposedly Winston Churchill once learned that there were only 3 apes left and he ordred that more be brought immediately from Africa.  Winston would be happy to know that there are a lot of them up there now.  We even saw lots of little babies which were very cute. 

What wasn't so cute was the one that came up and hit me in the rear and grabbed the roll of Fruit Gums I was eating right out of my pocket.  It all happened so fast I didn't even have a chance to get scared.  I debated momentarily whether to wrestle him for them because I had barely opened the tube of candies, but level heads prevailed and I let him have them.  I opened another roll and kept it in a zippered pouch until we were out of ape territory.

We explored the top of the rock for a while admiring the views and watching the apes and listening to the audio guide.  There are actually three peaks up there.  The cable car takes you to the middle one.  After much debate, we decided to WALK down the mountain.  Keep in mind that Gibraltar is almost as tall as the Empire State Building.  About half-way down when my legs began to shake from the effort of walking downhill, I began to question the sanity of this decision, but once down in town again, we were tired and proud to have done it. 

Not surprisingly, we didn't see anyone else walking down.  A goodly part is stairs straight down the mountain but there were also several kilometers of inclined roads.  The views were terrific, of course, all the way down.

After a rest and some ice cream it was off to Seville.  What a whirl-wind tour this is.

The Alhambra and Generalife

The Alhambra is a set of magnificent Moorish palaces.  It is a daunting task to even attempt to describe the things we have seen there.  The detail is unimaginable on every square inch of the palace buildings.   It is very hard to convey but here is a small sample.  I can just imagine what this must have looked like before all the blue paint came off of it.

The scale of the Alhambra is enormous.  It sits sort of in the middle of Granada but way up on the top of a hill (of course) which ran for more than a kilometer.  It was the home of the Moorish emirs who ruled the area, along with a whole town that supported the palace. It was a place of refuge for Islamic people when the catholics were taking over the rest of the Europe.  We spent over 4 hours touring it.

We opted for the early tour for fear that it might be too hot later in the day (good idea!)   We arrived at the entrance around 8 am and the sun light was spectactular - lighting up the buildings just right.  We rented audioguides which were actually pretty good despite what the tour book said.  The American author Washington Irving came by the Alhambra in the first part of the 1800's when it was more or less in ruins and liked it so much he moved in.  It inspired him to write 'Tales of the Alhambra' and the audioguide was mostly someone reading his words of description and telling tales of the Moors who ruled from there from the mid thirteenth century til 1492 when the Catholics took it over.  They then built over various parts of the palaces and added to it.  Napoleon even used this place as a barracks for a while.  He even tried to blow up part of it but one of his soldiers cut the fuse line (thank goodness). 

I actually filled up my camera taking pictures but I will post just a few here to give the idea.

 Along with the many buildings, there were beautiful gardens with many ponds and waterfalls.  The sound of flowing water was everywhere.  Supposedly the Alhambra was built to create paradise on earth.

Larry's theory about the water, is that the Moors sort of worshipped water since it was so scarce where they originally came from.  Perhaps. It was lovely.

The emirs who lived in the palace apparently found palace life too hectic and they established a magnificent country "summer home" less than a kilometer away.

On our way over there, we were fascinated to see a man repairing the walkway.  It must be something to learn these old time crafts and maintain a place such as this.  We stopped and talked to him and found out that after placing each stone by hand, he tamps down the rocks in the sand/concrete to get them level.  He showed us the tamper-downer.  It was a pole with a large cement block on the bottom.

The summer palace is called Generalife (pronounced henna-rah-leaf-ah).  It is surrounded by huge gardens and provided some great views of the Alhambra.

After exploring Generalife, we hiked back to the far end of the Alhambra where the military buildings were.  It was more in ruins than the palaces but was still very interesting and provided commanding views of the city of Granada. We climbed to the top of the bell tower, of course to get the best view.

All this and it was only lunchtime.  Just imagine!   We hiked back down the mountain into town and found lunch at a nearby restaurant which had about a million hams hanging from the ceiling!  We had some typical rgional food (for a change).

(I still look tired, don't I?  Maybe I am just very relaxed...)  That's a plate of beans (unknown kind) and ham with a perfectly fried egg on top, a plate of fried potatoes and peppers in oil, ham croquettes and, of course, bread.  It was all delicious.

Okay, so then came the eagerly anticipated and well earned siesta back at the hotel.  (Did I happen to mention that we WALKED back down into town from the Alhambra?)  Once we recovered from the morning activities, we walked back to town visiting an impressive monastery on the way. 

I haven't been in so many churches since I was touring Europe with my parents in 1961!

Phew, what a day. 

  

Granada: Day 1

Tuesday we drove about 6 hours to Granada in the Andalucía region of Spain. We stopped for a quick bite to eat in a tiny little town (Cullar), selecting the pizzeria because we figured we could order a pizza for lunch…good plan, but they only serve pizza at dinner time, so we were stuck with a ham and cheese sandwich. The bread was so tough neither of us was able to eat much of it. The lady running the place was very, very nice and spoke no English at all. We asked for mustard and she came back and explained that she didn’t have any mustard but she had something which was like mustard – turned out to be ketchup!


We checking to our wonderful hotel right on a main street in town and hopped the bus to the center of the city. After locating the Tourist Information office (this is the mandatory first stop in any city we go into) to obtain bus maps and city map, we purchased our tickets to see the wonderful Alhambra tomorrow morning.

With that all arranged, we wondered over to the cathedral which surprised us both by how big it was – very tall, with huge columns, many alcoves and a massive main area and incredibly ornate alter. It reminded us of St. Peters in Rome – that’s how big it was.  It was quite attractive as well.

It was as impressive outside as inside but it is hard to get a sense of it walking around it in the city as it is jammed in by buildings on all sides.  The next day we saw it from a distant hill and it was obvious how much it towers over the rest of the city buidlings.

Granada has an interesting history having been a seat of power for the Moor’s for about 250 years as the Catholics slowly took over the rest of Spain. Then in 1492, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand laid siege to the city and eventually won it – she liked how it looked. (1492 was a busy year for her!) It was Isabella who commissioned the cathedral to be built although it wasn’t even started until after she died in the early 1500s and it wasn’t finished until the early 1700s.

Next to the cathedral is the wonderful Capilla Real  (left picture below)– the ornate chapel Queen Isabella had built to be her tomb (and Ferdinand’s, of course). It was quite amazing to be looking at their lead coffins lying in the crypt knowing it had been just there for almost 500 years. Her daughter, son-in-law and baby grandson are in the crypt as well.

Then we walked around the bazaar market (right picture above) behind the cathedral.  The specialty souvenir here was the inlaid wooden boxes.  They came in all sorts of sizes and shapes.