The Parador system in Spain began in nineteen twenty-eight as a way to promote tourism. The government wisely selected mostly ancient buildings to convert into luxury hotels. A few of them are modern. The majority are former monasteries and palaces. We stayed for a few nights in each of these four Paradors: Santo Domingo de la Calzada, Lerma, Canga de Onís and León. They are an hour or two drive from each other in the northern regions. The drive takes you through the verdant Cantabrian Coast and the dramatic Picos de Europa Park. The area is rich in physical evidence of Spanish life in the ninth-Century. Here, Islamic Moors battled with Christians for domination. The Moors were repelled in the eighth-Century, never again to dominate there.
Sam and Kathy, know the area well. They led us to and guided us through the significant buildings of that era.
From Santo Domingo de la Calzada, we visited the hilltop village of Briones, population eight hundred and fifty-ish. It's main plaza is a small triangle with a church, a city hall, a few cafés and a small open-air market with a half-dozen vendors. We bought fragrant, crisp, local, green apples with brown splotches. Homely and delicious. We bought figs, too. Then we went in to see the Nuestra Señora de la Asunción Church. Inside, a man, a volunteer, was applying gold leaf to details on the inside of the door. He took note of our appreciation of his church. How could we not marvel at the rare features. When we visit ancient churches, their walls are stone, bare and unpainted. Centuries ago, many of those walls were painted with designs and images in brilliant colors. Through the years the paint has worn away. It still resides in the fine holes in the stone. And scientists are able to detect it and render images of the colors
that were once there. It is rare to find a church where the paint has not worn away. This was one of those rare churches. The man invited us to see areas off limits to tourists. He led us up wide stone steps, smoothed and uneven from five hundred years of foot steps. In the choir loft, the first thing we saw was a pleated bellows the size of a queen-size bed. Most old organs have been modernized, their hand operated bellows replaced with a machine generated air flow. I presume, though I may be wrong, some one has to physically pump these bellows by hand to operate the organ. Like the paint, that, too, is rare. Also in the loft was a long shelf holding two dozen, or so, handmade books. Bound in leather. With pages, not of paper, but of parchment, animal skin. That type of book is necessarily large, about three feet tall and about twenty inches across. Several were open. We could see the large beautifully formed letters drawn with brilliant colors.
Briones is in the province of La Rioja, a major wine area of Spain. The wineries were not appealing, small and artisanal. If that type exists, it is not readily apparent. To my eyes, the wineries were large, industrial, factory operations. One winery building stood out, for better or worse. It looked like a giant heap of fettuccine noodles, but shiny, oversized and multi-colored. It was designed by Frank Gehry. Whereas his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain is, in a good way, a bold contrast to every thing in that city, this winery looks conspicuously a fish out of water, a bit of a jester's hat.
We made our way along the Cantabrian coast. The landscape, as we drove, evolved from hilly vineyards to flat plains, then to stony peaks, then into pastures of lush grass. Not ordinary grass, but a deep, intensely green, plush carpet of grass. And the day was perfect. The sky bright blue. The air autumn crisp. The clouds puffy and luminously white.
Pushing up out of the greenery were granite peaks. Not hugely tall, but dramatic. Grazing on the pastures were leisurely cows in smallish clusters. Black and white spotted cows. Brown cows. Baby cows. And there were sheep in dark brown and in light beige. Goats, too. I am not certain, but I think they are milked for production of the dozens of local cheeses.
We stopped in the seaside village of Cumillas to see El Capricho, the first house built by Antonio Gaudi in eighteen eighty-five. It is not built with massive curvy stone work like his later work, still it is wildly whimsical and creative, clad in green ceramic tiles that are embossed with large golden sunflower heads and with a very tall round pointed tower poking up from the front door to overlook the sea and the fishing harbor.
In Lerma we spent a few nights in the Duke's palace on the main plaza. The Duke was a court favorite of King somebody who financed his set of ducal palaces. They dominate the main square in Lerma. Hard to believe our building, overhanging a valley, was someone's house. It is several floors tall, with towers in each corner, an enormous center courtyard and perhaps one hundred rooms. Ours were in the corner, on the top floor, with an iron balcony overhanging the valley. Wanting a break from eating out, we foraged and had a picnic of jamon Iberico, chorizo, cheeses, chicharron bread and pastry in Sam and Kathy's room.
On the road again, we visited tiny Santillana del Mar, population eleven hundred. The town's name translates as: "saints" (santi), "plains" (llana) and "ocean" (del mar). It does not have saints, nor is it flat and it is not at the sea. For that reason it is jokingly called La Villa de las Tres Mentiras, The Town of the Three Lies.
It consists of idyllic ancient houses separated by winding narrow cobble stone lanes. The town is camera ready, picture perfect. When Sam and Kathy first visited it, twenty-some years ago, they said it looked authentically old. Now, it is somewhat touristy, affluent and maybe a tad jet-set. I imagine when we return in twenty years we will tell people, "you should have seen it back in twenty fourteen."
We had an outstanding meal there at Restaurante Gran Duque. To eat lunch in Spain at one-thirty or two o'clock is to eat early, before the usual lunch time, and it means you have the entire restaurant, the chef and the wait staff to yourself. We had fresh crabs cooked on the grill. And fish, freshly caught, perfectly filleted, sautéed golden crisp outside while remaining moist inside. For dessert, homemade arroz con leche, (rice pudding.) With every meal in Spain we drank wine by the glass. As they call it, Copa de Vino. It is seriously inexpensive at two to five dollars a glass. With few exceptions it was excellent and satisfying.
We visited way more churches than I am writing about. Here are a few bits and pieces.
On a morning gray and drizzly we visited, on an Oviedo hillside, the Palacio de Santa Maria del Naranco. Built in the year eight hundred and forty-eight. It was the royal residence
of King Ramiro the First. Some of the oldest buildings still standing are Romanesque style. This building is pre-Romanesque style. There is an altar. On the alter is a stone plaque. The plaque has a statement engraved on it. The uneven writing says, in Latin: Per Famulum Tuum Ranimirum. Principe Gloriosum Cum Paterna Regina Coniuge Renovasti Hoc Habitaculum Nimia. Vetustate Consumptvm Et Pro Eis Aedificasti Hanc Haram Benedictionis Gloriosae. Sanctae Mariae In Locum Hunc Summum Exaudi Eos De Caelorum Habitaculo Tuo Et. (...) Die VIIIIo Kalendas Iulias Era Dccclxxxvia.
Which, in English, means: By means of your servant Ramiro, glorious prince, together with his wife Queen Paterna renewed this building consumed by much antiquity, and by means of them built the east altar for the benediction of glorious Saint Maria in this place (...) The ninth day of the calends of July 886 (23 June 848)
The compact building, two stories tall, is attractive. Clean lines. Logical distribution of space. Attractive materials. Perhaps, it's interiors originally were finished with plaster or wood or glass or textiles. But as it is today, bare stone, twelve hundred years later, it could still function well as a dwelling. It was entirely open for us to snoop around. We snooped at our own risk. They trust us not to slip on the wet and worn stone stairs. To not fall off the terraces that are without rails, to not bop our heads in the barrel vaulted cellar that is unlit. Above the cellar is a large, high-ceilinged room with arches at both ends that lead to terraces which have views to the city below. We have to admire the longevity. We have no such things in the United States. We are the New World. We do not have ancient Baroque or Renaissance or Gothic or Romanesque buildings.
We saw two other buildings from the same century and in the same style, San Miguel de Lillo and Santa Cristina de Lena. Both beautifully situated and rock solid.
In the VW again, we drove to the Cartuja de Miraflores, a Carthusian monastery, in Burgos.
The white-robed monks live in a fifteenth-Century masterpiece of a gothic building. They grow roses. From the petals they extract rose oil. The petals themselves, they compress into beads for the rosaries they make. The building is in outstanding condition. The displays are compelling. Originally, the building was envisioned as a resting place for a royal couple. In fact, the couple occupies a conspicuous and large space in front of the altar. They are Isabella of Portugal and John the Second, King of Castille. Their daughter was the Isabella of "Ferdinand and Isabella", the Catholics who imposed the Spanish Inquisition (to convert or exile the Muslim and Jewish citizens.) And who sent Christopher Columbus on his fourteen hundred and ninety-two trip to the New World. Their tombs of Isabella's parents consist of a double wide marble platform ornately carved with scenes from the life of the couple, the history of their land, and with depictions of religious miscellanea. Atop the platform are life size sculptures of the two, laying side by side, at peace, hands crossed, favorite objects surrounding them.
Nearby in Burgos we visited the limestone Cathedral of Santa Maria, (the third largest in Spain.)
Like many ancient buildings it has been cleaned of it's centuries of grime and soot. Perhaps it has been a little too cleaned, Sam says. I once had a friend in New York City. He was near seventy years old and wrinkled. One day he decided to have a face lift. But he asked the doctor to leave some wrinkles. He felt he'd look odd with skin entirely unlined and taut at his age. Some of the ancient buildings have been so cleaned, to the Nth degree, they look a little odd for their age. Nonetheless, it is a glorious building with endless features to gaze upon with awe. It is wild to imagine the construction, centuries ago, of these massive churches all done without our modern technology, and the duration of construction continuing for one hundred years or more, so long that the building began in one style and was completed in another, and the people working on them and the architects who did not live to see the completion. Such is the case in Barcelona with the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. It began in eighteen eighty-five. It's scheduled completion date is around two thousand twenty-five.
In Burgos we went to lunch at a jam packed, joyous restaurant, Casa Ojeda. They specialize in Cordero Asado, roast suckling lamb cooked in a large round wood fire oven with a lazy susan cooking surface. (When the meat has revolved three hundred and sixty-five degrees in the oven, it is done.) It was game season, so we also had partridge. And we had venison stew. And there was Morcilla de Burgos. And Lengua Escarlata. Our vegetarian friends would not find the meal interesting. Our carnivore friends would swoon.
Finally, to take in a moment of contemplative music, Kathy led us to Santo Domingo de Silos to hear the Benedictine monks who several years back made a recording. It became the hit record that introduced the general population of the world to Gregorian Chant. There they were. Right before us. The famous monks. In the flesh. Aged flesh. We sat in silence as eighteen of them entered, one by one, a minute apart. Some of them needed that minute because many years have gone by since their hit record and they are slow moving, one was entirely bent over at the waist. A few, a very few were youngish. I thought it was a privilege to hear them. What they chant has a simplicity to it that is soothing because of it's lack of complexity. They sing daily, several times a day, mostly without listeners. I was appreciative of their disciplined devotion. When it was over, one monk stepped down from the altar into the audience. He looked at us and made a shooing motion. His hands said, we are done, you must go now, so we did.
The end of part two of three
