Two Nights in the Middle Ages

Albarracin, Aragon, May 7-8

We hoped for a small town experience between the metropolises of Barcelona and Madrid, and we found it in Albarracin, an isolated village of 1164 inhabitants located in the mountains north of Valencia at 1200 meters. Formerly occupied by Celts and Romans, present-day Albarracin was built by Moorish and Christian feudal rulers. Like Italy’s San Gimignano and France’s Carcassonne, it has retained its medieval buildings largely intact, but it has one great advantage over these competitors—very few tourists.

Getting to Albarracin was definitely not half the fun. Georgia drove into the mountains on a secondary road that steadily deteriorated as we climbed. After a blinding hail storm forced us to stop on one bend, we doubted that we were on the right road and drove into the next village to seek directions. We were dismayed to find that the only person out and about that afternoon was a grizzled jubilado carrying a half-empty wine bottle. We nonetheless asked and were told that we were indeed on the right road, potholes and all. Thus assured, we continued on and reached Albarracin two hours later.

We had called ahead for reservations at a Michelin-recommended inn near the highest point of Albarracin. The problem was finding the place since we had no map and straight was not an adjective known to medieval city planners. The locals were happy to help, however, and after abandoning our car and asking at least five people, including a member of the Guardia Civil, we reached the Casa de Santiago, where we stayed for two days in one of the village’s oldest buildings, which had been occupied by priests in Albarracin’s glory days. (We hasten to add, however, that the plumbing dated from the late 20th Century.) The culinary delights of this region are baby lamp chops and rabbit—both of which we enjoyed during our stay as well as the fine wine of the region.

The accompanying photos will give you some idea of Albarracin’s extraordinary architecture, which features houses that slant outward so that the upper stories occupy the airspace above the narrow streets. Equally outstanding were the people, who could not have been friendlier. Sorely in need of a haircut, Todd was directed to a unisex shop, where he received an excellent result from the single operator for about $10. While he was in the chair, Georgia visited the neighboring convent and chatted up the nuns, who were delighted to have an American guest.

The final striking aspect of Albarracin was its location in the very thinly populated Montes Universales, apparently a well-known hiking area. Armed with a vaguely written guide book, Todd went for a three-hour hike one afternoon and, after leaving town, saw literally no one during his expedition, although he was, at least most of the time, on marked trails that crossed a few semi-cultivated areas. Georgia climbed to the top of the city walls and spent the afternoon reading, surrounded by masses of spring wild flowers.









With considerable regret we left Albarracin on May 9 and headed for Madrid, making stops in Teruel to see the city’s beautiful Mudejar towers and in Molina de Aragon for a great lunch (turbot escabeche) and a visit to the fortress overlooking the town.


Teruel


Molina de Aragon

Rambling on Las Ramblas

Barcelona, May 5-6

After flying back to the mainland, we drove into Barcelona for an exceedingly pleasant two-night stay in far nicer weather that we had experienced on Mallorca—very fortunate, indeed, for the city has beautiful boulevards, including "Las Ramblas," perfectly designed for strolling in warm temperatures. Working as usual out of the Michelin red guide, we found an excellent hotel, with a garage across the street for Valeriu, that put the city’s attractions within walking distance or an easy subway ride. We saw the sights in the city’s old section, the Barrio Gotico, but most of our touristic activity was focused on the art of Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926).

Foremost among Gaudi’s works is, of course, the Sagrada Familia church, still less than half-finished after 124 years of construction although activity has recently intensified as some of our pictures show. Buying tickets to enter the site, we were delighted to find we were entitled to a discount as “jubilados,” a term that sounds much nicer than “seniors.” However, even at non-“jubilado” rates, the visit would have been well worth the price since the architecture and sculpture are breathtaking. To avoid an hour’s wait for the elevator (not to mention the two euro fee), we decided to climb the stairs up the church’s hollow towers but quickly found that we were the only people over 30 who had chosen that route. However, the line moved so slowly—the elevator would have been quicker—that claustrophobia was a bigger threat than myocardial infarction.


Sagrada Familia

View from towers of Sagrada Familia

Sagrada Familia nave under construction

We strolled away from Sagrada Familia to see other buildings Gaudi had designed, stopping at a street fair to buy empanadas and watch kids play on an ancient fire engine the city’s “bombers” (firemen in Catalan) had supplied for the day. Then we took the subway to the Park Guell, a city recreation area where Gaudi had designed a number of buildings and other features, including an undulating ceramic bench that stretches more than 100 meters. We have no idea what influence, if any, that Gaudi had on Walt Disney, but the much of the park brought Disneyland to mind, without reference to their relative artistic merits.


Street Fair


Gaudí's Casa Mila


Gaudí bench in Parc Guell


Georgia on the Gaudí bench in Parc Guell

Again, Michelin steered us to two excellent, but inexpensive, restaurants, including Can Culleretes, reputed to be Barcelona’s oldest, where we enjoyed Catalan specialties with a bottle of the restaurant’s excellent open wine. The only problem is the dining hour, generally beginning at 9:00 p.m., which puts a strain on us Sun Valley types accustomed to eating much, much earlier. So far, however, the wait has been worth it.

The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on . . . Mallorca

Mallorca, Spain, May 2-4

We crossed the Spanish border on the autoroute/autopista (in spite of what the French say, Africa does NOT begin on the southern slope of the Pyrenees) and headed for the Barcelona airport, where we left Valeriu and flew to Palma de Mallorca to visit Vince and Ilinca Morabito, friends from Moldova days, and their son Bogdan. Although we saw the sights of Palma, including the only house Antonio Gaudi designed on Mallorca, most of our time was spent with the Morabitos at their five-level home in Banyalbufar, a small, charming village clinging to a cliff on the island’s western coast (where we had spent a week in 1997), and on tours of the area. We breakfasted every day on ensaimadas, a sweet pastry that every mainland Spaniard seems to carry back home, and even sampled sobrasada, a home-made soft sausage made, to put it delicately, of those parts of the pig not used for table cuts. (The processing details were explained to us, but we suspect you will be happier without them.) The only downside to our visit was the weather, for the temperature dropped from the mid-20’s to the mid-teens with intermittent rain, leaving us unable to swim or go sailing on the Morabitos’ catamaran.


The Morabitos from their balcony overlooking the Mediterranean


Gaudí house in Palma de Mallorca

Following Van Gogh

Todd v. Technology

Technical Note: You may have noticed in previous postings that our text occasionally refers to a photo that does not appear. The reason is that photo-uploading at this site is a strange and mysterious process that we have clearly not mastered. When a photo is omitted from an uploaded group, we can neither understand the reason nor upload it separately. If anyone can offer pertinent advice, we would be very grateful.

Southern France, April 29-May 1

Leaving Zermatt, we eschewed the tollway in favor of a spectacular drive on a two-lane road around the slopes of Mont Blanc via the Mer de Glace and Chamonix until we reached Albertville. Then we proceeded on France’s high-speed (130 km/hr) but expensive autoroute to Avignon, where we stayed for two nights.

The chief attraction of this town is the Palais des Papes, which was the seat of the Roman Catholic Church between 1309 and 1377, and some subsequent periods, because of political-military turmoil in Rome and the desire of the French monarchy to control the Papacy. What came as surprise to us was the immensity of the palace (actually two adjoining palaces, each built by a different pope), which contains an enormous chapel and large halls for consistories and other meetings. The scale is somewhat smaller, we suppose, than that of the Vatican complex in Rome but extraordinarily impressive in view of the peculiar circumstances in which the popes found themselves during this period.


Palais des Papes

Of course, no visit to Avignon would be complete without a visit to the famous bridge, on which “l’on y danse, tout en ronde.” A sign explained, however, that the song originated from the prior existence of a tavern on an island UNDER the bridge, where there was indeed much singing and dancing. Then somewhere along the line “sous le pont” became “sur le pont,” presumably because it made more sense to people unfamiliar with the Avignon scene. The tavern is now long gone, but the bridge boasts not one, but two chapels, which were fortunately not on the section that was swept away by a flood in the 17th Century, never to be replaced.


Pont d'Avignon


Palais des Papes from Pont d'Avignon

We next drove to Nimes, to see the Maison Carrée, an amazingly well preserved Roman temple dating from the reign of Augustus. This structure has special significance for Todd, for the architect of IIE’s new headquarters used a photograph of the temple and the contemporary building next door, designed by an internationally renowned British architect, to justify to DC officialdom the placement of a modern building on fusty Massachusetts Avenue. A visit to the Roman arena in Arles, also well preserved, completed our visit to the region.


Maison Carrée


Arena in Arles

The landscape around Nimes is immediately recognizable from Van Gogh paintings. However, the Mistral was blowing so hard during most of our stay in southern France that we wondered how Vincent could have held on to his palette.

Our last stop in France was Carcassonne, which features a wonderfully fortified inner city, built successively by Gallo-Romans, Visigoths, local counts, and French kings, whose impressive battlements are still intact. This is a place that Todd had wanted to visit since seeing pictures and reading a description of it in Richard Halliburton’s “Book of Marvels” when he was nine or so. It certainly did not disappoint. However, despite its well-designed fortifications, the citadel fell to crusaders in 1209 after only a two-week siege, reportedly because the defenders failed to supply themselves with enough water. (An earlier example of poor military planning?) Today it includes a basilica, which marries Romanesque and Gothic styles, and some excellent restaurants, including the “Auberge de Dame Carcas,” where we had a delicious (and surprisingly inexpensive) cassoulet dinner.


Carcassonne


Our Carcassonne Restaurant