Tuesday, March 7 ---
--- Start off today by snapping a shot of the Fuente de Neptuno, the fountain of Neptune and his chariot that I thought I shot yesterday, but that was just some random plaza and statue (I told you there were a ton.) Right after this, it’s off to the Prado, the storied art gallery of Spain.
Luckily for them (and me) it’s every bit as good as I’d hoped, even better -- this is by far the best art gallery I’ve been to. There are tons of the paintings I studied last year, including Rogier van der Weyden’s Descent from the Cross and Bosch’s lunatic triptych Garden of Delights, and there are a bunch of new ones I enjoy as well. Like Pieter Brueghel’s strange and frenetic Triumph of the Dead, or Claudio de Lorena’s gorgeous landscapes, which look a lot like Constable’s of British fame.
This place also has an exhaustive gallery of the masters. You want El Greco? They have fantastic collections of his works, including the very cool series of religious paintings he did on the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Crucifixion, etc.
How about Peter Paul Rubens? I didn’t know this guy painted as much as he did, but I do now thanks to their unbelievably thorough collection -- I don’t think they’re missing more than a dozen of his works. They have his mythological stuff, his religious stuff, even the portraits he did. There’s so much of it here, they should change the name of the place to the Peter Paul Prado -- there’s that much.
Not to be outdone, they also showcase a bevy of Velazquez’s works, a bunch of which I studied in high school Spanish class. They have the whole “buffoon” series, which are portraits of midgets, retarded people, even retarded midgets, plus the classic Las Meninas.
There are paintings by Zurbaran, by Murillo, by Campin, by Van Dyck, and by Goya, too. The Goya gallery is every bit as vast as those previously mentioned, covering his well known dark period, but also his lesser known light period, which is really quite happy -- it shows everyday scenes of peasant life with bright colors and loose spacing. Then he went deaf, started to go crazy, and that’s why he started to paint the blackness. There’s the classic Third of May (the one where the man on the left, wearing a bright white shirt, his hands raised above his head, is about to be shot by the soldiers on the right side of the painting), two cool self-portraits, and the famous La Maja portraits, a pair of paintings which have the same lady laid out on a couch like Kate Winslet in Titanic, and she’s painted, once clothed, and once nude.
Amidst all these amazing paintings, there were a couple of cool, gruesome pics of the mythological god Saturn eating one of his kids, but the most memorable painting hands down is a pair of works by Juan Carreno de Miranda. They’re called Eugenia Martinez Vallejo, “The Monster,” and show an extremely obese little girl painted clothed and nude. It’s quite a sight -- this girl is huge -- and it was fun to listen to the gasps and giggles of the people passing by.
Right before I leave, I check out the Illuminations gallery, which showcases the elaborate paintings people used to put in books before there were pictures. I had studied some of these, too, but to see them in person is amazing. They’re so much more detailed and colorful when you’re looking right at them then you could ever imagine when seeing their pictures in the books. No wonder they were such a prized commodity.
After this, I run back to Hostel Atocha, say my fare-dee-wells, and hop on a train to Cordoba in the south of Spain. The view of the land outside Madrid is mainly reserved to the channels they cut in the earth to lay the tracks on level ground, so all you can see for a while are the great craggy walls of bright red dirt running along the sides. Eventually, this gives way to great sprawling valleys that are carpeted with loads of green trees and mountains of the same variety -- it’s a whole lot greener than I had expected, even looking a little like the mountains of Scotland (which didn’t have the trees, but did retain the green glow).
The strange thing is there are all these rocks lying around of varying sizes under the trees -- tons of them. It looks like the aftermath of dozens of earthquakes or explosions, and this is the rubble that remains. Then I realized -- they’re simply Spanish Rock Trees. I had heard about these in class -- instead of bearing oranges or lemons like the other trees in the area, they bear boulders. How silly of me to forget...
I arrive in Cordoba, check into a hostel after a nice short train ride (on which they show yet another American movie dubbed in Spanish.. This has to be the cruelest trick, especially when I’ve feeling more cut off and isolated than ever and am fiending for some English. (This is because it’s such a chore to communicate with the people here. It’s not that they talk too fast (don’t get me wrong -- they do, but it’s not the primary problem.) Sure, I’m a little rusty with my Spanish, but they’re speaking completely different from what I learned. The stuff I was learning apparently isn’t spoken, because in every town I’ve been to, they use different words from what I know I was taught. Some of this is to be expected with the different dialects of the regions, especially the fiercely independent Catalan and Basque ones (they were on different sides of the Civil War), but where the hell was I supposed to use what I learned? France? Laos? Apparently the stuff I was taught is valid in only one city on the face of the earth, and I’ve simply yet to find it. Good thing I wasted all my time conjugating verbs and memorizing tenses. I love learning things I’ll never be able to use. But enough about calculus and linear algebra -- I was talking about my frivolous Spanish education.)(And another thing -- don’t these people have movies of their own to show? Quit swiping ours. They’re showing good stuff like Out of Sight and Indiana Jones, stuff that I’d like to see, but no. No subtitles, no translators, just good old American movies made completely inaccessible. Love it...)
Anyhoo, I check into the Hostel Perales and then head off to see Cordoba. First stop is the park across the street to eat my lunch -- an orange. That’s OK -- what it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality because what transpires next is another of those picture perfect moments I was mentioning before. I’m just sitting there eating an orange that couldn’t possibly have tasted any better, on a park bench surrounded by hundreds of stark white pigeons (or even better, doves) in the warm sun of Spain. Damn -- I couldn’t have written it any better.
After this, it’s off to Mezquita, the town’s main attraction. It’s a sprawling complex with the Patio de las Naranjas (the Court of the Oranges) greeting you upon entering one of the many gates. This is like a little Garden of Eden in here, with lots of palm tress, fountains, pools, and of course, orange trees. The huge belltower skies over you on one side, and the walls surrounding the court are a bright yellow, their impact partitioned off by regular white horseshoe arches and columns. It’s really quite pretty in the afternoon sun.
After enjoying the scenery, I enter the main building directly opposite the belltower. I pull open the great wooden door and am instantly greeted by the darkness and the coldness that lurks within. It’s an Islamic mosque built in several sections, the oldest being the first thing you encounter, a relic from the good old days of 786. And the whole of the inside is as beautiful as the crumbling tan exterior. It’s a sea of alternating columns -- one black with white specks, then one red with white specks. All highly polished marble, all topped with gorgeous horseshoe arches, these also of an alternating pattern -- one white stone, and then one bright red one It’s an amazing sight; a beautiful sea of color that shines through the dusk.
Amidst this maze of columns and arches (the columns in the oldest section are different heights. Kind of a strange sight. I thought I was getting taller the further from it I walked) are more caged deities (the cage of St Augustine and Eulalia looks like a booth at a flea market. There are clothes and robes strewn about everywhere. So this just goes to show you, if you live like a saint in life, you’re doomed to live like a slob in the afterlife. (So I’m hoping the flip side is true (and I know my sis is...))
In the middle of all this great Islamic architecture (peppered throughout are also the typical swollen head arches of this style that I like so much. (Just picture the normal horseshoe arch as a head, and the swell the bell at the top, but keep the sides where they are. Voila!)) lies a Catholic cathedral (huh?) It really is quite beautiful -- the ornately sculpted white ceiling and carved mahogany pulpits and choir stalls have a nice contrast to them -- but it’s as out of place as a Grand Dragon at a Black Panther party.
After this oddity, it’s back out into the sunlight and across an old stone bridge (passing Puerta del Puente, an older, more run down Arc de Triumph (is there one of these in every frigging city, or what? They’re starting to lose their impact) and the Triumph of San Rafael, a rather cool statue with a waving, unique base.) I stop at this dilapidated old house nearly hidden underneath the bridge to take some pics of the city, and then I wander back into town.
I admire the whitewashed buildings with their shiny black grates over the windows and patios (they also have wonderful little open air courtyards as you walk into the buildings. They’re completely open to the sky, have fountains, trees, and gorgeous arrangements of potted plants. You can feel the cool air creeping out from the front gates as you walk by outside. Very neat, and their existence explains why the streets are so close together -- they have these instead of front lawns.)(On the coolness factor, they also have porcelain tile floors rather than carpets in an effort to further chill the rooms on those hot summer days.)
Getting tired of traipsing and needing a firm destination, I stop at Alcazar, the local palace / castle. It’s beautiful; it has a chapel with huge Roman mosaics that take up entire walls, it has spectacular gardens with orange and lemon tress and mini hedge mazes outside, it has great long pools and fountains framed by tall, cylindrical bushes and statues, and it has an amazing array of flowers that are just coming into bloom -- even now it’s a staggering sea of bright pinks, purples, yellows, and oranges. Stunning.
After this, more wandering. I see the Torre de la Malmuerta (the Tower of Bad Death), a big medieval tower that the road runs around, I walk through the Plaza de Colon (yet another homage to Christopher Columbus. And why shouldn’t’ they be proud? He discovered the greatest country on Earth...) and as I continue my meandering, I am taken aback by how many churches there are here -- I count 22 on my map alone. I see more of those regional representative banners, more green bins, more green neon crosses, but absolutely no street signs. This is a huge problem for two reasons: one, you never know where the fuck you’re at, which makes locating a specific spot on the map a problem, and two, the streets are like a maze, never going straight for more than two paces -- they’re more crooked than a con man.
I finally make my way back towards the hostel, have some dinner (fried eggs, fries, and a ham and cheese sandwich on -- guess what? -- a baguette. How many times have I had this, paella, or pan chocolate this week? (And that reminds me -- they like to have breakfast for dinner a lot here. A lot of places offer combo platters with pork chops and eggs, bacon and eggs, sausage and eggs, etc. Don’t know why -- maybe it’s because they eat dinner so damned late, it’s almost time for breakfast anyways...)
Wednesday, March 8 ---
--- I get up early after a fitful night -- I was woken up every five minutes by something. I think they had the joint wired with amps because every sound was loud. People going upstairs? Loud. Man coughing up a lung down the hall? Loud. Same man lighting a match to smoke and then throwing said match on the floor? Louder than a bomb. Oh well.
I make my way to the station, and after another of those moments of total tranquillity 00 this time eating another orange (maybe it’s the Vitamin C) and pan chocolate, watching the early morning sun showering light on the pool outside the station -- I get on the 9:00 train to Seville and arrive at 10.
By 10:05 I’m walking through the gardens surrounding the big palace, and by 10:06 I’m in it, the giant Reales Alcazar (this is the third time that word has come up in as many days, but don’t worry. “Alcazar” is simply Spanish for “palace.”) Among more Islamic architecture, there are palatial rooms (in the Cuarto del Almirante, the Room of Almirante, for example, the first trip around the world was planned.) Some of the most spectacular gardens of the week are here, too -- the area the gardens cover far surpasses that of the actual building, and is filled with towering shade trees, the surrounding stone walls are covered with bright green ivy, and there are ducks aimlessly wandering the grounds. It’s spectacular.
Next, I make my way right next door to the giant Gothic cathedral, the third largest in the world (behind St. Peters in Rome and St. Paul’s in London.) It covers over 23,000 sq. meters, is 126 meters long, 83 wide, and 37 high at its tallest point. I start my encounter by climbing to the top of the belltower, the Giralda, which takes a good five minutes to accomplish (the nice thing is that it’s all ramps and not stairs, the first time I’ve seen that, but we still go up 35 flights of ramping (they’re not full flights, though -- more like minis, but I’d still say we’re a good eight or nine stories up (the total height from tip to toes is 96 meters, but we weren’t quite that high.)))
The view is, as expected (and as always, it seems) spectacular. You can see the whole city spread out around you, and I ogle the Plaza del Toros, teir famous bull fighting ring (this is as good a view as I’ll get, it turns out -- it’s closed in the afternoons.) I snap a picture of two and then head back down to the main building.
It really is quite beautiful, but by this time I’ve seen so many churches not much stands out as different other than its cavernous heft. (Although, one of the massive columns did have 23 chairs around its perimeter, a fact I found rather impressive.) It’s got the caged deities, and a slew of stupid tourists, and this latter ingredient spoils my mood a little (not like it takes much at this point -- I just want to go home) (One cool thing I pass on my way out is the grave of Christopher Columbus -- it’s got four pope-y looking guys holding up a coffin; it looks like one of those big processional things the people carry on their shoulders through the streets.)
I leave and wander some more, marveling at how pretty the city is (it’s a candidate for the 2008 Olympics, a fact they’re obviously very proud up judging by the signs)(and if I thought the courtyards in Cordoba were pretty, I should have waited to see these -- lush, colorful, beautiful.) That, and how good it smells -- the blossoms on the orange trees are filling the streets with an amazingly sweet smell.
A little famished and utterly sick of the incredible lack of culinary variety here, I stop a McDonalds for a quite bite (two McRibs for 500 pesetas! That’s two pounds! Cha-ching!) and leave again, but not before noticing that they have beer on tap. (“Would you like Coke, Sprite, or Miller Lite with your value meal, sir?” Ah, Spain...)
I stop to snap a picture of the Torre de Oro (the Golden Tower), a big tower surrounded by flowers and right on the river front. Then, I head off to the Parque Maria Luisa, which might be the pretties (and the biggest) park I’ve seen all week. Tons of shade provided by the skyscrapers covered in leaves, lots of birds and fountains, and even horsedrawn carriages clopping throughout. It’s just beautiful.
Then, I walk across the street to the Plaza de Espana, a big horseshoe-shaped building (laying on its side, of course. I don’t think even Gaudi could pull off an inhabitable building like that standing on its edge) that was built in 1929 for a big international fair. It houses, besides the requisite fountains and pools (what is it with these people and water? I must have mentioned the words “fountain” and “pool” about a zillion times by now...) beautiful (I’ve used that a lot, too. Sorry...) mosaics, one for each province of Spain.
Casually asking a kind lady for the time, I learn I have 25 minutes to catch the train I wanted back to Madrid. So, I sprint. There’s me, the goofy looking white guy streaking through the streets of Seville trying to get to the train station, which, of course, is on the completely opposite end of town. I get there fifteen minutes later (quite an accomplishment when I look at it on the map,) reclaim my bag from check in, buy my ticket, and board the train a scant two minutes before it’s supposed to leave. Score!
An uneventful train ride and my first dalliance with the Madridian Metro system (quite nice; a bit like a hybrid of Paris’ open tunnels and London’s clinically sanitized (in style, certainly not in hygiene) cars) later, and I’m at the airport to go home early. I’ve seen all I wanted to and then some, I’ve learned that travelling in a country with a different language than yours, all by yourself really sucks, but I’ve also learned what a beautiful country Spain is.
I’ll miss the Museums of Ham on every corner (a deli / bakery with rotting ham hocks pinned to the walls.) I’ll miss the food selection (no I won’t. I miss my peanut butter and jelly and clean cuts of meat (you don’t know how nice it is to look at a piece of meat and not be able to say, “Huh. This cow had blue eyes. How cute...”) I'll miss the shrill chirping of the sparrows that alerts you to the fact that it's now OK to cross the street (and the even shriller, more rapid fire chirping when it isn't). I’ll miss the sun, the gardens, the parks, and the old people, but most of all I’ll miss how insanely cheap everything is. You can eat a three course meal for six bucks, buy CDs for five, or stay in a hostel (not a good one, but a hostel nonetheless) for ten.
It was great -- exceptionally easy on the peepers and the pocketbook -- but my pants are tired of the sky. I’ve been flying by the seat of them for too long. I’ve been through five cities in six days, spent countless hours on trains and walking around towns, and I’m just really tired and ten times as fragrant (thanks to my cross-city scamper, I smell riper than a six year old strawberry.) I collapse in my seat on the plane, ready to kiss each and every British Airways employees since they work for the new star in my universe and the kindest airline around. It’s been quite a week, boys, quite a week indeed...