Month: October 2012

Today is a great day. We have a really enjoyable activity and we manage to find a good meal at a time when we are actually hungry.

Before we left for Spain, I booked tickets at the Real Escuela Andaluza del Arte Ecuestre or Royal Andalusian School for Equestrian Art. We get to see a show, “The Dancing Horses of Andalusia” and tour the grounds.

The grounds are lovely with a palace that houses a museum, stables, training area, a saddlery and the show ring.

On the grounds they have an enclosure for Przewalski’s horses. Przewalski’s horses are the only existing wild horses and are native to the Mongolian steppes. The horses that exist are all from 9 horses that were in captivity in 1945. They were reintroduced into the wild in their native habitat and there are now about 300 in the wild and a total population of about 1500.

From there we walk over to the saddlery and watch craft people work the saddles and harnesses by hand.

We also take a couple of “we were here” pictures. As you can see it is still wet out. It was pouring earlier in the morning but has improved since then.

Then we are treated to a training session. The horse is put through its paces. There are lots of dressage steps. The rider does not appear to be doing much but a shift in weight or a slight change of her hands and the horse responds.

In the exhibition ring we are not allowed to take any pictures after the horses arrive. We understand but it would have been fabulous to have some of this incredible show recorded. We see all the different steps the horses can do with a rider on them. We see the horses (without riders) rear, rear and step, and rear and them kick out their back legs. We see a whole carriage exhibition with carriages with one, three and four horses. The complexity of controlling all these horses seems immense. The driver has all these reins and must, when making turns, have the outside horses go faster and the inside horses slow down. We really enjoy the show.

Later we decide that what would be best for us is to eat a late lunch and skip dinner. Eating at 9 PM or later is just not for us. We locate an Italian restaurant that appears to be open until 4PM and walk the mile to the restaurant through the pouring rain (again!) We are rewarded with salad! and pasta! We are so happy to eat fairly plain food in a relaxed situation at a reasonable time. This an altogether good day despite the rain.

One of the goals of this trip is to look out from the top of Gibraltar and wave at Africa. Africa, a continent that we have no intention of going to ever. But we would like to gaze upon it from afar. When we wake up in Seville this morning we check the weather for the next few days at Gibraltar. It is not looking good. Today appears to be our best bet in terms of clear weather.

After driving to Jerez and dropping off our luggage, we drive the one and half hours to Gibraltar. As we near “the rock” we are impressed by its enormous size. According to Wikipedia the Rock of Gibraltar is a monolithic promontory. It is a deeply eroded and highly faulted limb of an overturned fold. The sedimentary strata comprising the Rock of Gibraltar are overturned (upside down) with the oldest strata overlying the youngest. The sandy spit of land that connects it to Europe is only 9 feet above sea level while the “Rock” at its highest is 1398 feet. So the difference is striking.

Here are a series of pictures as we approached it.

Here are a couple of pictures showing where we are going. You can see the cable car stanchions at top.

After a few arguments with each other and Jack, we finally pull into the cable car parking lot and make our way to the ticket booth. Oh, sorry, Americans who have come all the way from California to see this and wave at Africa, too much wind today. Cable car not operating.

Sadly we turn around, fight through all the other tourists at the border crossing back into Spain and drive the hour and a half back to Jerez. It is just not meant to be.

Today we are touring several sites in Seville. First on our agenda is a visit to the Museum of Fine arts. In the afternoon we are meeting our guide, Antonio, for a tour of the city. First the art museum.

The Fine Arts Museum houses a collection of mainly Spanish visual arts from the medieval period to the early 20th century, including a large group of works by artists from the golden age of Sevillian painting during the 17th century. The building itself is housed in what was originally home to a convent. Many such buildings became available for civic use after the shuttering of religious monasteries and convents between 1835 and 1837.

After our time at the Fine Arts Museum, we make our way to the square in front of the Giralda Tower and the Cathedral to meet up with our guide, Antonio. We stand around for 40 minutes until 2pm watching people and horse-drawn carriages. A bride and groom are having photos taken. This would seem to be a pretty uncomfortable proposition as the wind is blowing briskly.

Senor Antonio arrives pretty close to schedule. We start with the Alcazar, originally a Moorish fortress/palace located right next to the main mosque (later re-built as Seville’s cathedral). The original Moorish palace was reworked in the 14th century by the re-conquering Spanish king Peter I. Since the majority of skilled craftsmen of the time were Muslim, they mostly preserved the Islamic style of tile decoration: intricate geometry and calligraphic Koranic verses. These are interspersed with occasional symbols of Spanish royalty.

One of the most curious of these was the “Plus Ultra” motif. Originally, the motto was “Ne Plus Ultra”: Nothing Beyond Here. This referred to Spain as being the western end of the known world. Then came the discovery of the Americas, with the entire Spanish effort sailing in and out of Seville (which became incredibly rich in the process), so the motto was quickly re-written as “Plus Ultra”: More Beyond Here.

Antonio advances a theory that the sign for the US dollar was based on this phrase, snaking around two columns symbolizing the Pillars of Hercules used to adorn the first coinage in the new world.

We view many magnificent rooms and gardens and then proceed to the old Jewish Quarter, the Juderia. Back in the era of Moorish Al-Andalus, the rulers kept their bankers and merchants just beyond the palace walls. This persisted through the early reconquista until 1492, when the Jews were expelled from Spain and the neighborhood was renamed Santa Cruz.

Notable residents of Santa Cruz included the legendary Don Juan, the opera composer Rossini (who wrote the Barber of Seville), the painter Murillo, and US ambassador Washington Irving. There are many beautiful small squares: lots of restaurants, churches and flamenco establishments. Antonio tells us that, unlike many European cities, the old section of Seville is a very prestigious address.

[One of the cool things in Santa Cruz was the modern trash collection system. High-tech trash bins are connected to an underground vacuum system that sucks trash out to a central collection point 2km away. The streets are so narrow that garbage trucks would be impossible.]

We proceed on to the Cathedral. It’s the third-largest in the world, after St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London. At the time of its initial construction in 1434 it was the largest house of worship in the western world (larger than Hagia Sophia in Istanbul), and still the largest Gothic church anywhere. The planners wanted it to be so big that anyone who came to Seville would remark that the builders had to be crazy.

The Cathedral was built over the earthquake-ruined (1356) main mosque, whose most notable feature, the minaret, became (with suitable modification) the Giralda tower, the symbol of Seville, about 300 feet tall.

The interior is indeed huge. We pray for someplace to sit, and lo and behold, there are pews! We see dozens of side chapels and some really ornate silver and gold work. A highlight is the tomb of Christopher Columbus, who in 1492 set sail from Seville in order to celebrate Columbus Day on a warm Caribbean island.

It’s been an awesome two and a half hours. We thank Antonio, say adios, and make our way to the strategically-placed taxi ranks just beyond the courtyard’s exit. We are beat, but totally enamored with Seville. What a beautiful city!

On our way out of Caceres we stop at Cuevas de Maltravieso. These caves were inhabited by humans some 25,000 years ago. There is a small interpretive center (all in Spanish), a mock-up of a cave, and you can see the outside of the cave itself. The paintings consist mostly of negative hand prints. Some show various numbers of fingers.

Then we are off through the beautiful countryside to Seville. We try to figure out what kind of trees are growing in the area. The tress seem to be non-deciduous and low in form but are darker in color than olive trees – maybe oak for cork or acorns for the various livestock we see grazing under the trees?

After some trouble finding the hotel thanks to Jack once again getting us close but not to the hotel, we make our way to our room. The Hotel Silken Al-Andalus is outside the old town but close by. It is a little worn. I think it is limping along due to its being a venue for weddings and events. Our room is large but lacks such things as tissues or a clock. We are told that the wifi is broken due to rain. (It is not fixed during our stay.) Since it is late in the afternoon and we have not eaten since breakfast, we hit the cafe for some tapas.

We also check out the menu of the restaurant. Item three has an odd salad. I think we are done eating for the day. I am, in any case, still trying to get over my case of the “travelers complaint.”

There is quite a bit of noise outside our window. We look out upon a giant soccer stadium. It is filling up quickly. The Seville team, Bettis, is playing Valencia.

We can follow the action by hearing the cheers and groans of the crowd. It seems like one of the main activities is singing. The crowd knows many team songs and sings them in unison. I guess since there is little scoring in soccer it keeps them involved. Seville Bettis wins and the crowd disperses happily. As quiet settles in, we retire early reading books and planning the next day’s activities.

It is just good fortune that we are able to get a reservation at Atrio. We turn left out of our hotel and there it is. We go in and ask if there is a reservation available for Friday evening. Sorry, no, they say but they take our name in case there is a cancellation. Around 1:30 PM the phone rings in the room. They have had a reservation cancellation and what time we would like to come? Not being Spanish we say 9:00 PM. Excellent the person on the phone says. We open at 8:30 PM.

John and I get dressed in our “good outfits” and head over to the restaurant around 9. Amazingly we are not the first people there. One other table is populated. Soon another large group of Americans comes in and then some Spaniards start to drift in. By 10 PM the restaurant is full.

Tonio, the chef, comes over to our table. He wants to know what we like and do not like. Are we allergic to anything? We decide on the tasting menu and he sends the sommelier over. We decide to have him pair the fish dishes with a regional white wines and the meatier dishes with a regional red wine. We sit back with a glass of champagne ready for our culinary adventure.

This is perhaps the best meal we have ever eaten.

First is an amuse bouche. This consists of a red meringue cookie with caviar sandwiched in between. It is so fleeting and light that it is difficult to assess.

Tapas #1 is a small square consisting of layers of pate of fish, cream cheese, and anchovy on top. The textural element is hazelnut and there is a microgreen and a chrysanthemum petal on it. It is very good.

Tapas #2 is one of the best small bites I have ever eaten. It is described as foie capuccino with mushrooms and crispy corn. What it is is a small cup of deliciousness. It is kind of a mushroom and corn pudding with foie gras and parmesan foam. It is served in an espresso cup. I want to lick out the inside of the little cup. Wow.

Having now been spoiled by the tapas, what else could measure up? Maybe this next course could. It is shrimp carpaccio with a sour cream and caviar salad.

The tapas and the shrimp carpaccio are served with a Payva Caytena 2010.

We change white wines to an Alunado Chardonnay 2009. The wine has a start like a buttery California chardonnay and finishes more like a French chardonnay. We like it a lot.

Our next small dish is an Iberian pork ear, calamari, green salad and curry. The texture of the pork ear mimics the texture of the squid. This dish is in close running for the best dish with the foie capuccino.

The next dish consists of an Iberian pork cheek crisp and a lagoustine in a creamy duck sauce. Maybe this is the best dish. Oh, it is all so good.

Now we change wines to a Basangus Crianza 2008 which is 100% tempranillo. It is paired with sea bass in a sauce with three varieties of wild mushrooms. This is good but not as fabulous as the other dishes or maybe I am just getting full. In any case I forget to take a picture.

The final dish before the cheese and dessert courses is pork shoulder, grilled foie gras, corn crisp and watercress puree and peach sauce. In his note John has written – Why foie? Because it is delicious. We cannot identify the peach sauce so it must be irrelevant to this dish.

The cheese course consists of a sheep cheese torte and sheep cheese ice cream with quince marmelade. I am definitely not a fan of the sheep cheese ice cream.

With dessert we have a M.R. Montain Wine – Moscatel 2009. It is sweet and bitter kind of like the taste of burnt sugar on a creme brulee.

Dessert is yougurt ice cream on grated cocoa. It’s okay but I am not a dessert fan.

The dessert star, in my opinion is an astonishing faux cherry with faux seeds and a chocolate stem. It was palate cleansing and a perfect final bite.

But of course they couldn’t stop there and we had a bunch of petit fours that we didn’t eat. The cherry was the perfect end.

So there you have it, an almost perfect, fabulous dinner.

At 8:15 AM this morning it is still very dark outside. Standard time begins this weekend and I am sure that the people of Caceres are ready for it. We will be enjoying an extra hour of sleep. Even though we have gotten past jetlag, we are still doing more each day with more stress than at home. So sleep, good.

The hotel breakfast is quite impressive. There are tortillas (like frittatas), a haunch of ham to slice from and all the other things one might want at breakfast. There’s also a cup of breadcrumbs, a specialty around here. We are not sure what you are supposed to do with it. Finishing breakfast we head out for the day’s sights. It is still intermittently spitting rain. We go first to the Tourist Information Office where a very enthusiastic worker gives us the lowdown on everything to see. With map in hand we start out.

First thing on our agenda is to go to the Caceres Museum. Cacares has been inhabited for a long time, a very long time. There are paleolithic artifacts in the museum, as well as Roman artifacts, Visigoth artifacts, etc. We are able to trace the ages from Stone Age to Iron Age by what the peoples left behind. Tomorrow we plan on visiting the caves of prehistoric peoples. It’s only a twenty minute walk from the hotel. The cistern beneath the museum is a leftover from the Arab occupation in the 12th century. There’s also an art museum attached with Picassos and other notable works of art.

Since I am not feeling particularly well today, we make lots of stops back at the hotel. After a short period at the hotel we are back out on the streets. Our next stop is at the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary. We are greeted at the door by a gentleman telling us a lot of stuff in Spanish. We get from what he says that the fee is 1 euro and that the tower is open. What we don’t get is that the rest of the cathedral is draped in plastic and there is major work going on. So there is not too much to see. We do have a good time, though, going up to the bell tower.

We spend some time walking along the walls and then repair back to the hotel for siesta. I have got to feel better for tonight as we have booked a table at the Michelin two star restaurant, Atrio. (separate post)

As it turns out the weather and the traffic are not cooperating. What should have been a four hour drive with a stop in Estremoz, the city of marble, turns out to be a six hour trip through massive traffic in Lisbon and howling wind and rain the rest of the way. We also lose an hour due the time change between Portugal and Spain. Our only stop is at a roadside eatery where we have a surprisingly good bean and vegetable soup. One of the highlights of the day is crossing the Vasco da Gama bridge in Lisbon.

We arrive at our next destination, Caceres, Spain, late in the afternoon. We are staying at a parador here. According to Wikipedia the Paradores de Turismo de España are a chain of Spanish luxury hotels. Paradores de Turismo was founded by Alfonso XIII of Spain as a means to promote tourism in Spain, with the first opening in Gredos, Ávila, in 1928. A profitable state-run enterprise, the hotels are often in castles, palaces, fortresses, convents, monasteries and other historic buildings. Of course this means that they are often in the rabbit warren of narrow lanes in the city centers. Parador de Caceres is no exception.

We are directed to find a plaza with some bollards at one end. Then we must use the intercom to ask that the bollards be lowered. Once inside the bollards we must locate the hotel. Jack, our GPS, gets us close but decides we have reached our destination without the hotel being in sight. Round and round we go trying to find the hotel. No luck. John asks directions twice. People are helpful but do not speak English. We can only glean what they are saying by where they are pointing. Finally, by accident, we come across the correct set of bollards. At last we find the hotel. We are pretty stressed out.

The hotel is in a palace refurbished as a hotel. Our room is very nice and looks out over the tiny lane that the hotel fronts. We have some tapas and wine and fall asleep early exhausted from the day’s adventures.

Today started out quite rainy. When we got to Sintra it was really pouring. We were looking to visit the Palacio Pena and it turned out we were in the wrong place. Rather than dodge raindrops again we decided to tour the National Palace built in the early 15th century. Later in the day we found the Palacio Pena and took a tour of that as well. Here are pictures, first of the National Palace and then of the Palacio Pena.

It has stopped raining as we finish our tour of the National Palace. We decide to continue our original quest and find the Palacio Pena. We drive up and up to the top of a high hill. Along the way we pass many folks tramping up the hill. We decide they must be Germans. We park as close to the top as we can. What’s this? For 2 Euros each we can get a bus the rest of the way? Why, yes, we will buy those tickets along with an audio tour of the Palacio Pena.

By this time it is around 2 PM. We decide to avoid the bad food at lunch problem by not eating. 🙁

The Pena Palace was built in the 19th century by Ferdinand II. It was only occupied by royalty for about 60 years. In 1908 King Carlos I and his son were assassinated. King Carlos’s other son was only king for two years before the republic of Portugal was declared. The palace itself evokes a feeling of Neuschwanstein in Germany, kind of a crazy quilt of turrets and tile. No pictures were allowed inside.

We are looking forward to dinner tonight. Our plan is to have some bar snacks and a couple of tapas plates. This works out fine except for the fact that the World Real Estate Agents have taken over the bar. They appear to all be American. The waiter in the bar leads us to the dining side of the floor since it is much quieter there. He calls us by name. That’s really nice. We were only in the bar one night and only ordered wine and tapas. We order a glass of champagne to celebrate our last night in Portugal and tapas. Portugal has been scenic and interesting from a historical point of view. We only wish that either we had ordered better or that the food that we ordered had been better. One stop tomorrow in Portugal and then on to Spain.

This has been a great hotel. One more shot of the stormy Atlantic Ocean off our balcony.

Today we are spending in Lisbon. We get some help from the nice lady at the front desk who lists our five visiting sites on a map and explains how we can get there. Since we are driving we are always afraid we will end up with no parking at our destinations. She assures us that all will be fine and we start off.

We drive along the shore of the Tagus River to the Torre de Belem. From here you can see the entrance to the port of Lisbon. It is a wonderful natural harbor which was guarded in part by the tower completed in 1519. There is also a modern bridge spanning the river that I am definitely not walking over.

In the same park with the tower is a replica of the seaplane that flew from Lisbon to Rio (with many stops for refueling) in 1922.

Now we take a longish walk over to the Monument of Discovery. Both John and I have always wanted to see this. It was built in 1960 so we had heard about it as middle-schoolers. It honors Prince Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese explorers of the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

From the top of the monument we can see our next destination. It is the Monastery of St. Jerome.

Inside the church is the tomb of Vasco da Gama.

After a lunch break for some more bad food we head off to the Museum of Ancient Art. John and I collaborate on a truly excellent job of parallel parking. I never cease to be amazed at how adept Europeans are at fitting their small cars into tiny spaces. We are quite proud of ourselves.

By ancient art, they mean painting from the 14th century onward. We spend some enjoyable time looking at early renaissance paintings and identifying various saints. Our favorite is Hieronymus Bosch’s Temptation of St. Anthony. Bosch had a very fertile imagination and his paintings are full of weird creatures.

Now the not-so-good lunch is catching up with me and we are getting tired. We have done a ton of walking today. We decide to head back to the hotel. We spend some time catching up on the blogs and tracking down our laundry that we had sent out yesterday. Only part of it came back. Two pairs of my pants are missing as well as one of John’s shirts. This would be disastrous for me because I only have one other pair of pants. John and the housekeeping lady try communicating in various languages, they settle on some German. The laundry is found. Hurray!

Our dinner will consist of some tapas in the bar. We are not prepared to spend big bucks on iffy food. Along with some bread and olives we order marinated swordfish. We expect this to be a cerviche-like preparation. It comes out breaded and fried like fish sticks. Sigh.

Today is a busy day. We want to visit Coimbra plus drive over 300 kilometers to our next hotel in Cascais. And it is threatening to rain. But stalwart adventurers that we are, we get it all done.

Bidding a fond farewell to to Amarante with its penis cookies, we hit the road through mist, fog, rain, pouring rain and sunshine to Coimbra. Originally a Roman city, Conimbriga was plundered by invading Germanic tribes in the 400s AD, occupied by the Moors in 711, and reconquered by Ferdinand I of Leon in 1064. In the mid-12th century it became the first capital of the new kingdom of Portugal. The University of Coimbra, whose team is known as the Hilltoppers (just kidding), was founded in 1290 in Lisbon and found a permanent home in Coimbra in 1537. It is high above the Mondego River and gives its students and visitors a real workout getting up to the libe. (Rutgers slang for library)

But before we visit the University with its magnificent library, we want to see the old cathedral. We find a parking lot with spaces so narrow that you are sweating before you even start to climb the hill. From the parking lot you cross the bridge and then begin the trek upward, sometimes on slanted cobbled stones and sometimes on giant stone steps. By the time we get to the top we are sweaty and out of breath. Wondering which way to go next, we look up and there is the cathedral. It is constructed in a golden stone and glows in the few moments of sun today.

The old cathedral in Coimbra was begun in the mid 12th century but experienced many renovations. The portal of the cathedral has Moorish influenced decorations. The exterior has fortress-like elements.

We go inside and are treated to an interior much as it would have been in the 16th century. It boasts a flamboyant Gothic altarpiece.

After enjoying our visit to the church and catching our breath from the incredibly steep climb up the hill, we move on to the University area. Our goal is to see the Biblioteca Joanina built in the 18th century during the reign of the Portuguese King João V. It is a fabulous result of form meeting function. The three rooms are tiered with ornate shelving holding 250,000 volumes of great historical value.

Interesting factoid about the library, since this building was designed to be a library from the beginning, the walls are incredibly thick making the interior temperature and humidity perfect for books. Plus since insects are also the enemy of books, they have bats living in the library who patrol the space at night for insects. The tables are covered with leather so that the bat droppings can be easily disposed of. John suggests that guano duty is an undergraduate’s nightmare.

Next on the agenda, a little lunch. We opt for an outdoor cafe and against Portuguese food. We have a small margarita pizza and beer. The added Portuguese touch to the pizza? Olives with pits.

The rest of the drive to Cascais takes a little over two hours. We are staying at the former home of the last Italian king which has been turned into a hotel. The room and bathroom are really nice. (Yay, real shower) But the best part is the view which looks out on the Atlantic Ocean. I am treated to a sunset over the Atlantic Ocean which is weird for someone from the Jersey shore.

[The reason there are so many pictures in this post is that the upload speed is lightning fast. After our last stop where I would go to breakfast hoping that my five pictures might upload by the time I got back, this is a real pleasure. I could not control my desire to upload a ton of pictures.]