Spain, May 3 - 12

We had traveled throughout Spain in 2006, but this time we wanted to concentrate on a single area—the country’s center—along with our first visit to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.   We also looked forward to introducing Spain to our good friends Micki and Dan Chapin from Sun Valley.   Needing a central location for day trips, we booked rooms for the Chapins and ourselves in a converted 16^th century palace within the city walls of Āvila.

  

After picking up Dan and Micki at the Madrid airport on Sunday, we spent the next week visiting—in addition to Ávila itself—Segovia, Madrid, Salamanca, El Escorial, Toledo, and Valladolid.  All destinations were within a two-hour drive of Ávila in Jacques, our Renault.  The only complication was the incongruence between Jacques’ interior space and Dan’s muscular frame, which approaches 6’ 4” (193 cm) in height.   While Dan bore it all with his customary good humor, we doubt the Chapins’ next car will be a Renault Clio Estate.

Picking highlights in Spain is a difficult business, for there are so many extraordinary sights.  We will mention some of our favorites, however.

In Segovia, which we had not previously visited, we were most impressed with the Roman aqueduct, an extraordinary piece of 1^st century engineering, which was still in use during the 19^th century.   The city’s Alcázar, the stereotype of a castle in Spain, was also a treat, despite the fact that some “improvements” were made during its restoration in the 1800’s.   One guidebook unkindly referred to its “Disneyization,” but we recall that similar liberties were taken in Germany’s Wartburg castle during the same period.

Segovia aqueduct

Segovia cathedral

Alcázar from the river

In Madrid the Chapins took a sightseeing tour while we visited the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, whose collection rivals that of the neighboring Prado.   The paintings run from Italian primitives to living European and American artists with outstanding examples in all categories.   The four hours we allocated to our visit was simply inadequate.

Salamanca is one of our favorite cities.  The city’s Plateresque stone carving, notably at the cathedral and the university, is extraordinary, and the 18^th century Plaza Mayor may be the best place in Spain to have lunch.  Our walk through the city concluded with a stroll on the 1^st century Roman bridge, which affords a great view of the cathedral.

Plateresque carvings above Toledo cathedral door

Salamanca's Plaza Mayor at lunchtime

Stork atop the Plaza Mayor

Salamanca cathedral from Roman bridge

The glory of Toledo is its cathedral with the Transparente moving light from a beautiful skylight to a fantastic piece of Baroque sculpture at the rear of the high altar and on to the altar itself.  Also stunning is the sacristy with a room full of El Grecos, a great Caravaggio, and the bejeweled monstrance, which is carried through the city streets at the festival of Corpus Christi.  However, we were also impressed by the Mudéjar ceilings, done by Moorish-influenced artists, in the Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, which was founded by Ferdinand and Isabella.  Finally, we visited the Alcázar, whose exterior and courtyard have been restored to the time when it served as the Spanish seat of  Emperor Charles V in the 16th century.

Rear of Toledo high altar illuminated from Transparente skylight

Caravaggio's "St. John the Baptist" in Toledo cathedral sacristy

Monstrance in Toledo cathedral sacristy

Mudéjar ceiling in Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes

Inner court of Toledo Alcázar with statue of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

King Philip II, Charles’ son, built the massive El Escorial above Madrid to serve simultaneously as a palace, royal mausoleum, monastery, and boarding school.   With its forbidding grey exterior, it reminds Todd uncomfortably of California’s San Quentin prison.  Spanish monarchs and many relatives are interred there in impressive vaults, but the building also houses a fine art collection featuring paintings favored by Philip to drive home the tenets of the Counter Reformation.   The fairly modest royal suite stands in contrast to the huge basilica, where the apse features life-size golden statues of Charles and Philip, resplendent in their imperial and royal robes, praying with their wives.  We were also impressed by the yards of murals and the frescoed library, which reminded us of similarly huge rooms in the Vatican.

Wall of El Escorial

Dome of El Escorial basilica

Ávila, our home base, is famed for its wall, which completely surrounds the city.  We dined at a number of its restaurants at the early (for Spain) hour of 8:00 and enjoyed the walk home at dusk along the floodlit wall.

Georgia and Todd above Ávila

Chapins and Stewarts at dinner in Ávila

Ibérico and Serrano hams ready for slicing at Ávila restaurant

Ávila's wall at night with statue of Sta. Teresa, the city's favorite daughter

Dan and Micki departed Ávila for Italy on Sunday, and we drove north to Bilbao as we had long wanted to visit the Guggenheim Museum there.  We were not disappointed.  Frank Gehry’s architecture is even more spectacular than advertised, and the art inside the building was arresting, especially sculptures by Richard Serra and Ernesto Neto.  We were particularly intrigued by “The Clock” by Christian Marclay, a work of film art that is indeed a clock, for it marks the passing minutes over a 24-hour period with very short clips from Hollywood and other movies showing pictures of clocks and watches reflecting the current time.  Check it out on YouTube.

Guggenheim from bridge over Bilbao River

Guggenheim from top of Bilbao funicular railway

Alert for consumer trends, we noticed a number of electronic cigarette shops in both France and Spain.  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has only started to address the regulation of these devices, but the city fathers of Bilbao are already on the case as evidenced by a sign in the car of the city’s funicular railway.

Unidentified Spaniard with e-ciggy outside vendor's shop

Warning sign in Bilbao funicular railway

  

Southern France, April 30 - May 2

On Wednesday morning Todd took the Metro to a Parisian parking garage to pick up the brand-new Renault Clio Estate that we would drive for the remainder of our trip.  We had leased the car, which we named “Jacques,” from Renault’s U.S. subsidiary before our departure under a contract that provided full insurance coverage throughout the European Union.  The engine was a very fuel-efficient diesel, and the GPS (i.e., NavSat) was supposedly capable of guiding us in all the countries on our itinerary.   The GPS initially provided directions both on-screen and orally with the latter voiced in the polite but no-nonsense tones of a well-educated British lady, whom we christened “Agatha.”  Regrettably, Agatha stopped speaking some three hours into our drive, and the first opportunity for repair will come in Dublin.  Maybe there Agatha will acquire a brogue.

Jacques

While hardly a Mercedes, Jacques performed well on the autoroutes as we drove south from Paris.   Our destination was the vacation home in the Lot Valley of Tony and Judy Lane, British friends from Todd’s maritime days.  The Lanes had bought an old farmhouse near Montcuq (which sounds like “my ass” in French; the local stores proudly sell postcards picturing someone’s derriere).  A sweeping renovation and the addition of a swimming pool turned the property into a showplace that the Lanes occupy for part of the year and rent out to vacationers via the internet for other periods of clement weather.

Lanes’ home in Nougayrede-Bas, near Montcuq

Much of the pleasure in visiting the Lanes comes from our conversations, but Tony and Judy were kind enough to show us some of the noteworthy architectural monuments in the area dating from the Romanesque period.  Most impressive was the abbey at Moissac, which became associated in the 11^th Century with the famous Benedictine abbey at Cluny.  The stone carvings at Moissac are extraordinarily well preserved, so much so that Kenneth Clark used them as illustrations in his renowned “Civilization” series on television some years ago.

Tower and cloister at Mossaic

 

We also visited Cahors, the region’s capital, where a stone bridge crosses the Lot River.  This structure afforded passage in the Middle Ages to pilgrims bound for Spain and Santiago de Compostela.

With Tony and Judy Lane on the bridge at Cahors