Cathy's Place: Spain tour

Sim and I took an 8-day tour to Spain including Madrid, Toledo, Córdoba, Seville, Granada, Valencia, and Barcelona. It was a bus tour of Andalusia run by Globus Tours. This area of Spain was under control of the Moôrs for about 500-800 years. For a large part of this time, Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived in a culture of tolerance and enlightenment. In 1492, Spanish Catholicism won the last Moorish holdout in Granada expelling both Moors and Jews. Mosques became cathedrals and Arabesque palaces were taken over by stern, fundamental catholic nobles. I wanted to visit this area after reading Ornament of the World by Maria Rosa Menocal. Now I'm reading Washington Irving's Tales from the Alhambra. I recommend both books. I have also been a big fan of medieval Sephardic music and flamenco dance, not to mention tapas. A brief history of the area is provided separately.

Tour route

We arrived in Madrid on Saturday and met the other 41 people on our tour followed by a welcome dinner at our hotel (Hotel Agumar). It's very near the Prado where we saw wonderful paintings by Goya, El Greco, and Velasquez. We heard lots about King Felipe II who moved the capital from Toledo to Madrid in 1561. There were portraits of Juana Loca who was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. She was also the sister of Catherine of Aragon which the guide made no mention of. Juana was married to Felipe the Handsome (a Habsburg so their son, Charles V, was Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire). There were lots of portraits of Habsburg and later Bourbon kings of Spain. There was a room dedicated to Goya's Black Paintings which show how depressed he was after his wife died. El Greco's paintings were mostly religious with thin elongated Jesus and angels. Just for context purposes, Felipe II was married to Mary Tudor for her last few years as Queen of England and is also responsible for sending the Armada to the English Channel during Queen Elizabeth's reign.

Monument to Cervantes in Madrid

We went to Toledo where we ate lunch (chicken croquettes, gazpacho, and a chocolate-covered palmier) and took a walking tour of the Moorish, Catholic, and Jewish sections of the city situated on the Tagus River (La Tajo). We toured the cathedral, a church with an El Greco painting, and a synagogue built the Moorish style (Santa Maria La Blanca).

Former synagogue and mosque, Santa Maria La Blanca in Toledo

Bridge over Toledo's Tagus River

Toledo view

Jewish Quarter in Toledo

Maimonides, 11th C Jewish physician and philosopher to the Caliph

For dinner we ate at a tapas place close to our hotel called Casa Ricardo. The food was wonderful! We had braised leeks with romesco sauce, grilled quail with fried potatoes, Tiger shrimp cooked in garlic butter, chocolate mousse, olives, bread, and sangria. This was the best meal we had in Spain and the best chocolate mousse ever!

Monday, we rode the bus to Córdoba for a walk through town and a tour of La Mesquita which was an Arabic mosque turned into a catholic cathedral. Actually, the catholic baroque choir and chancel were built in the middle of the Moors' great mosque which has rows and rows of red and white Romanesque arches. Then on to Seville for dinner buffet at the hotel (unremarkable).

La Mesquita (Great Mosque), Cordoba

Ceiling in La Mesquita, Cordoba

Mihrab entrance in La Mesquita, Cordoba

Romanesque arches in La Mesquita

La Mesquita

By the old bridge across the Guadalquivir river,

Tuesday we toured Seville including Real Alcazar which was built in the mudejar style (royal palace built for catholic King (Pedro I) by Moorish architects and artisans in 1366-1427), and the cathedral where some of Christopher Columbus is buried. We had tapas near the hotel (potatoes in aioli; tostadas with Goat cheese, pimentos, and carmelized onions; and a cazuelita of French fries with chorizo and an egg). Dinner was at a Flamenco show, ole! I looked but did not see Leporello, Figaro, or Carmen anywhere. Nor was there a statue of the Commendatore. There was a bullfight ring and a plaza of Donna Elvira (who was a 16th C lady).

Real Alcazar (Royal Palace) in Seville

Tomb of Christopher Columbus in cathedral in Seville

La Giralda (minaret altered with bell tower top) at the cathedral in Seville

Flamenco show in Seville

Wednesday we rode the bus to Granada and toured Alhambra. This was the whole reason I wanted to come on this trip. This Palatine city was built in the 1200s and 1300s by the Nasrids and was the last Moorish holdout against the Catholic reconquest of al-Andalus. The same architect and technicians who worked on the Seville Alcazar built Alhambra. In 1492, Boabdil handed the keys over to Ferdinand and Isabella on terms that the Moors would have religious freedom. But alas, the Catholic Monarchs changed their minds later and told both the Moors and the Jews they had to convert or leave the country. The Jews had to leave by August on the anniversary of the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem. Some Jews stayed and "converted" but most fled thru France to the Netherlands or back to Jerusalem. The Moôrs went to Morocco.

Alhambra, Granada

Court of Myrtles, Alhambra

Tile wall base in Alhambra

Wall design, Alhambra

Court of the Lions, Alhambra

Ceiling in the Hall of Two Sisters, Alhambra

View from Alhambra

Alhambra had a palace for foreign dignitaries to meet, a palace for his wives and concubines and children, and a palace for himself. Each had a beautiful courtyard with fountain and orange trees. The ceilings looked like stalactites made of plaster. Arabic writing from the Quran covered the walls along with intricate geometric plaster patterns. No likenesses of humans or animals were allowed. The tile floors would have been covered by rugs and pillows. The three things most necessary for Moorish design were water, vegetation and light. The exterior of the buildings was very plain but the interior was highly designed following those principles. Elaborate gardens surrounded the palaces and extended beyond the original fortification walls to a hunting lodge for the sultan. They used gravity and pipes to move all the water down the mountain for irrigation and fountains -no pumps. Granada is surrounded by the snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountains and is about 2300 ft above sea level.

View of Granada

View of ancient wall and snow-capped Sierra Nevadas

In the afternoon we toured a monastery filled with Baroque filigree, gold leaf, and painted icons. We also visited the chapel where Ferdinand and Isabella are buried along with their daughter, Juana Loca and Felipe I. Their son, Charles V HRE, came only once to Granada but he had a round Italian palace built in Alhambra, founded a university and hospital in the city, and ordered elaborate setting for his parents and grandparents sarcophaguses. We had tapas of cheeses and meatballs and walked back to the hotel. My feet hurt!

Just a quick note about 1492: Columbus sailed from near Seville down the Guadalquivir River with the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria across the Atlantic to Hispaniola and Cuba. He returned with some natives which he took to the Catholic Monarchs for their Baptism. He convinced his patrons that their further funding would lead to massive conversions in the New World. He had a contract with them that provided him with 10% of goods obtained and a viceroy title. After returning to Hispaniola, he was arrested and tried for treason and stripped of title and possessions. He died in the west and buried but bones kept moving until some were returned to Seville. Again, Ferdinand and Isabella were untrustworthy religious fanatics. Their empire grew dramatically and they became very rich due to Columbus' "discovery". The crops alone included corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco. They also started the Inquisition, 'nuff said!

On Thursday we took an all-day bus ride to Valencia which is on the Mediterranean Sea. We toured the city and had some horcheta which is a tuber called tiger nuts, made into a drink or ice cream: supposed to boost your energy and lower blood pressure and cholesterol. We walked by the Serrano Gate which is 15th century entrance to the city. Serrano is the name of nearby mountains. We saw the bell tower for St. Catherine's and a former minaret turned into a catholic bell tower. The city has many bridges but they redirected the Turia River around the city after a devastating flood in 1958. They have several fascinating buildings designed by Santiago Calatrava in 2005 such as an opera house, garden, bridge, and science buildings. For dinner we had paella including a black squid version, a vegetarian version, and a version with shrimp and chicken.

Narrowest house in Europe 3 feet, Valencia

Serrano Gate, Valencia

Calatrava promenade , Valencia

Paella in Valencia

On Friday we drove up to Barcelona for the final two nights of the tour. On our free time, we had the lunch special for 9 euros near the hotel and took the city buses up to Gaudi's Park Güell and walked up to a high point over looking the sea and city. We didn't buy a ticket for the inside stuff as we would have had to wait 2 hours. Sim talked to multiple Israeli's in Hebrew on the bus and in the park. It was quite an adventure. For dinner we enjoyed some tapas at El Patron a few blocks from the hotel. We had a salad with figs and buffalo mozzarella, vegetable tempura, garlic shrimp, Catalan bread with tomato, and sangria.

View from Park Güell

Gaudi's benches at Park Güell

View of Barcelona from top of Park Güell

Park Güell, Barcelona

Saturday we took a walking tour of the gothic area including the old cathedral and Gaudi's new cathedral. We walked around Las Ramblas then walked all the way back to the hotel. There are patisseries on every block everywhere in Spain. I don't know how folks stay so slim here. We had a farewell dinner on the waterfront then packing and early to bed as we are up at 3:30 am to go to the airport. Their time changes so we actually get another hour to sleep.