Barcelona, September 24-27, 2017

Our third city, Barcelona, is one of our favorites. On this visit, instead of renting an apartment, (as we usually do), we stayed in the new, five-star, twenty-eight room, six-story, Hotel The Serras, facing the Mediterranean. In the lobby, they greeted us with smiles and glasses of cava, (Spanish sparkling wine. The French prohibit them from calling it "Champagne", but that is what it is).  Our room, sleek and modern, had two balconies with harbor views. It also had an iPhone, which we were invited to use throughout our stay.  It was set up for international calls and free data!

The top floor has a large painting of the face of Pablo Picasso. It commemorates his presence there at age fifteen. It was his painting studio. (Picasso was not native to Barcelona, but spent his teenage years there before moving to Paris.)

It must have been a great place to paint. Great light off the sea. There is a great view now, as I imagine there was then, lots of activity to hone in on. The waterfront, the Mediterranean, has the huge commercial ships, the little local boats and luxury yachts. (The Nirvana, a yacht, was conspicuously parked in view. It is 300 feet long and rents for $900,000 per week.)

Also there are iron towers holding up cables for aerial gondolas which travel from the waterfront up to Mont Juic, the hill full of museums (the Miro), the old Olympic stadium and Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion. 

The roof top space is outfitted as a very comfortable hangout spot. There is comfortable furniture for sitting upright at a table, lounging on a chaise or sprawling on a sofa for a snooze. There is shade and open air.  A stainless steel, rectangular pool is perfect for a dip, but only a dip because it is only four swim strokes long. There is a bar which offers food, drinks and towels all day. We used it a lot.

Our stay in Barcelona was only for a few days, but they were the days of the annual Mercè Festival when the city teems with activity. Mercè refers to Our Lady of Mercy, which sounds like it would be a religious holiday, but if it is religious, it is not apparent.

Two traditional activities stand out. In a tangential way, they are related to the current dilemma with the recent vote for independence from Spain.

There is something called, Castells, which is Catalan for castles. They are towers of people standing upon each others shoulders. They can rise ten people tall. The beefy men with strong shoulders stand at the bottom. The lighter weight people stand atop them, etc., etc. For the grand finale, a small child runs up all the shoulders, to the top, where their little arm is raised in a victory wave.  According to recorded history, they have been doing this for a little over three hundred years.  Seven years ago, UNESCO declared it a "Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity."  Typically, in Barcelona, it is done in the Plaça Sant Jaume where the important city and state government offices are. It is currently ground zero for the independence vote. The plaza gets jammed with spectators. So jammed, you might not fall if you raised both legs.

The other popular event is a dance, the sardana, done to the live music of traditional, Catalan, reed instruments.  The sound is coarse, reedy and a bit screechy, but the melodies, like from a Spanish Puccini, are sweet, romantic and somehow make you feel something, maybe nostalgia. The dance is done in a circle. The circle begins with only a few people, usually Catalans, native born. More folks join in. The circle grows. When it gets too big, it breaks into small circles. They have been doing the sardana in Catalunya for more than five hundred years.

During the last century, Generalissimo Franco, the dictator, while he was alive, made a great effort to extinguish Catalan culture; to compel the Catalans to become  "Spanish" in their culture and language. Banned in public, things "Catalan" went underground in order to be kept alive. Franco's death enabled a renaissance of Catalan expression.  During the recent weeks, as Barcelona has struggled with their vote for independence, the issue of maintaining their Catalan cultural identity is front and center. When they dance their dance, in their circles, to their sweet melodies, (played on screechy reeds), when they stand atop each others shoulders to make castells, they are remembering, and honoring, their centuries old culture that was once imperiled by autocratic policies.  Whether one is Catalan or not, it is easy, while hearing and watching, to sense what they are doing is deeply special to them.

Other Mercè Festival events are held in the Ciutadella Park. Enormous, like New York City's Central Park, on most weekends it is filled with joyous activity. On Mercè weekend it is absolutely crazy. There were so many people. Some lounged in their hippie-like bacchanal, on India print bedspreads, on the grass. Children, everywhere, ran and laughed. There were food stalls and exhibition pavilions with long lines.  There were street performers invited from around the world to roam the park and make people joyful.

One attraction caught my eye. It was a curved dirt lane with about a dozen home made metal machines, contraptions really, which all together looked like a Willy Wonka gymnasium. One, a twelve foot tall metal man, sculpted from scrap metal, had lanky pipe arms. They arms had levers. Children pulled the levers with the goal of making a lanky arm poke it's long finger into the metal nose. Small children gave it a go. It was harder than it looked. But when the finger poked the nostril we all howled.

No matter how much of the city we get to know over time, there are always surprises. One day, while wandering among very old stone buildings, we saw a little sign which directed us into a little vestibule. The vestibule, on the ground floor, lead into a room with four soaring Roman columns, fully intact, standing since the year 100. Originally, they stood as part of a temple to the goddess, Isis. After the temple fell into ruin, the columns were used to support a five story palace. The palace eventually fell into disrepair and became apartments in the 1800's. A book shows a photo of an apartment with the columns supporting the floor, walls and roof. Finally, a portion of the building's core was removed to reveal for us the enduring work of human beings. I am always thinking, while in Europe, the "old world", what do we build in America that will last two-thousand years.

Wes and Marlow
Barcelona, September 24-27, 2017

La Traviata, Teatro Guiseppe Verdi, Busseto (near Parma), October 9

One of the highlights of early Fall in Emilia-Romagna, in addition to fresh porcini, zucca and chestnuts, is the Verdi festival of Parma.  The Parma/Modena area has been home to many opera legends, e.g.: Pavarotti, Tebaldi, Toscanini and Verdi.  The annual Verdi festival celebrates this heritage with performances of several Verdi operas in various venues around Parma.  Most performances are sold out months in advance to opera lovers from all over Europe and opera tour companies.  Wes was checking out availability for several months before our arrival but the pickings were slim and expensive.

But checking last week we found availability of reasonably priced tickets to a performance of La
Traviata.  The Teatro Giuseppe Verdi opera house, located in the small town of Busseto, just to the north of Parma, was unknown to us.  But checking train schedules we found it was easy to reach by train from Bologna (about 1.5 hours) as long as we could locate a place to spend the night.  After a bit of research we learned that Busseto was actually where Verdi lived for much of his career and we soon saw for our selves just how great a legend he was for this community.

Teatro Giuseppi Verdi

The opera house has only 300 seats and is located in a former fortress from the 13th century.  At one point in the past, a moat surrounded the palace.  The opera house opened about the time of Verdi's death in 1868 after the building was acquired by the town.

You don't realize just how small a 300-seat theater is until you are inside.  It is so precious, we felt as though we were inside a jewel box.  You can practically reach out and touch the people in the gallery on the opposite side.  The orchestra (from Bologna) took up nearly 20% of the main floor; the stage another 30%.  So actual orchestra level seats comprise only 50% of the main floor area.  You can imagine how alive the sound was.  The acoustics were perfect.  The balance was perfect.  In spite of the large orchestra the singers could be heard clearly throughout the performance.  The orchestra never seemed to be overpowering.

Main floor of theater with orchestra.

Our seats were in the top gallery at the center/rear.  It was all bench seating up in the gallery.  But the theater wisely limited the number of seats actually sold in the gallery to about 50% of capacity so there was plenty of room to move around and stand up (we sat on the last row of benches).

View from our seats in the top gallery.

A special treat was learning that the hotel we stayed in, directly next door to the opera house, is run by the sons of the famous tenor Carlo Bergonzi.  When we checked out, we met one of the sons at the front desk.

Hotel I Due Foscari, Busseto

Barcelona to Civitaveccia by overnight ferry, September 27/28

Our next destination was Bologna, Italy.  The easiest way to travel from Spain to Italy is by a 1 1/2 hour plane ride.  But Wes thought the idea of traveling by ship on the Mediterranean would be more adventurous.  While cruise ships make this journey routinely, they take several days and make stops along the way.  The direct route is provided by an overnight ferry boat primarily designed to accommodate passengers with vehicles - a lot of them.  Fully loaded, this ferry could handle over 2,800 passengers and their vehicles.  Fortunately, the boat was not at capacity the night we sailed.  It seemed fairly empty and we estimate there were fewer than 200 passengers.  There are various options for cabins on board, but it seemed that many passengers "camp out" in one of the several lounges, bars, etc.  We booked an "owners cabin" which contained a double bed, a large window, a bathtub, sofa and dining table.  The ride was comfortable and the Mediterranean was smooth with hardly any waves the entire trip.

Checking in for the trip

Our boat

Sardinia in the background as
we passed between Corsica and Sardinia

Granada, September 20-24, 2017

Granada, our next city is like a dream. On one of it's hills is the Alhambra, which is a combination of fortress, village and royal palaces.

Here is a bit of very general backstory. In the year 711, people from north Africa, we will call them moors, islamic moors, flooded into Spain. They took possession of the entire Iberian peninsula except for the north coast. They displaced what we will call the Spaniards, christian Spaniards. The Spaniards battled the moors until 1492. The Spaniards won. The final conquering occurred in Granada.

The early arriving moors, in the 700's, made outstanding settlements in Cordoba and Seville. They created buildings with extraordinary interior decorations. Though they had inhabited Granada from 711, it was during the 1200's when the sultan ordered the creation of the Alhambra.

They erected buildings which from the outside are large, plain, stone rectangles. The

interiors were, and remain, decorated with elaborate and extreme plaster work. The walls have geometric designs engraved in the plaster. The ceilings have what resemble stalactites crafted from thousands of plaster cylinders affixed to the ceiling and carved to create the effect. The outdoor spaces which connect the buildings have reflecting pools, fountains and slender troughs embedded in the pavement. The water comes from the melting snow on the Sierra Nevada. The moors crafted an intricate system of aqueducts and cisterns and valves; and they constructed their water features according to elevation so each pool and fountain could feed the lower ones. The water enables verdant gardens of trees, hedges and flowers. It makes the ambiance cool on hot days. And the water supplies a continuous sound. A Spanish composer, Francisco Tarrega, wrote Recuerdos de la Alhambra for solo guitar, to reflect the hypnotic beauty of walking through the Alhambra.  

We walked through it twice; once by day, once by night. On our night in the Alhambra,

  

the moon was shining. The ornate interior facades were mirrored in the still water of the reflecting pools. The air was cool. We shared the space with very few people. The sultan's palace has buildings for various purposes. One for receiving solicitors. One for entertaining. And one, the most intimate and lovely, the courtyard of the lions, for his residence and being with the harem. The courtyard is lined with elegant slender columns, far more than necessary, over one hundred.  They constantly divide your vista.  In the center is a fountain supported on the backs of twelve lions. Twelve lions: one for each month, each hour of the day, each sign of the zodiac, etc. The lip of the fountain is engraved with a poem. The poem extols allah, over and over. A significant portion of Alhambra's the engraved plaster wall decoration consists of the written word, allah.

Our hotel, the Parador San Francisco, is part of the Alhambra. When Queen Ysabel and

King Fernando won possesion of the Alhambra from the last sultan, they kept most of the buildings intact, but a few they razed or repurposed. Our hotel was that way. A few bits of the hotel had the islamic moorish decoration, but the remainder of the building was a monastery built by the Spanish in the early 1500's.  In it's beautiful courtyard, there is a photo of the building from 100 years ago. It was falling apart, in extreme disrepair. The intervention was made just in time to save all the buildings of the Alhambra.

There is an oil portrait of Queen Ysabel in the lobby. It is not attractive, not something

you'd expect a monarch would approve of. When she died in 1504, she was interred in the islamic part of our building. She and later her husband remained there until their grandson completed, down the hill, the Capilla Real, where their tombs are today. Referring back to the Prado and the Rogier van der Weyden painting, a copy of it hangs facing the marble royal tombs in Granada. There is a funny aside regarding these tombs. Laying beside the king and queen are their daughter and her husband. Folklore says, the daughter's husband, Felipe "el Hermoso", died and a priest convinced her he could revive him so she traveled with her husband's corpse for several years, occasionally lifting the lid to have a peek, until she was declared "loca"  Juana "la Loca".

Before visiting the Alhambra, I read Tales of the Alhambra, by Washington Irving. It was like a book of fairy tales and Arabian Nights stories. He lived in one of the palaces in the 1828, when the buildings were in extreme disrepair, when they served neither royal nor political functions. He wrote of looking down to the river, where at night there was always life going on and the sound of the guitar.

There is still the sound of the guitar in Granada. We went to a flamenco establishment,

Peña la Plateria. It functions as a private club and a flamenco school. On site there is a terrace restaurant. We ate Spanish home cooking of simple foods: beans with ham, gaspacho, eggplant with honey. Afterward, we paid our ten euros, sat indoors at our table and enjoyed a young man and his guitar. He mesmerized us for a dozen minutes when a dancer came out to accompany him.

In the twentieth Century, the leading Spanish guitarist, famous enough to be called by one name, Segovia, began his guitar instruction in Granada in 1900. There is a recording of him sharing, in English, his recollections of the streetcars, the bougainvillea, the lovely girls, the magical Alhambra in the moonlight and the sweet perfume of the orangeblossoms. We have been there and every thing he said is still true.

Wes and Marlow
Granada, September 20-24, 2017

How we packed for 11 weeks of travel ...

Two carryon bags for each of us!

Madrid, September 18-19, 2017

We are on the road, in celebration of our sixtieth birthdays, traveling in an eastward direction, for eleven weeks, until we arrive home in mid-December.

Our trip began in Spain. We departed from Los Angeles on a Monday morning and arrived in Madrid on Tuesday morning.

We have been, several times, to Madrid. It has several attractions which I probably would never tire of. It also has a sprawl, like Los Angeles, which makes it cumbersome to get around. This time, as usual, we focussed on the intersection where the Prado Museum is located. That is also where the Hotel Ritz is and that, to my total and happy surprise, is where we stayed.

We were tired and it was so very nice to be pampered on arrival. While our room was prepared, we were seated in a room with chandeliers, velvet upholstery, an arrangement of lilies almost the size of us. From small comfortable chair we reached out to the small round table for coffee, cookies and hot chocolate, which in Spain is typically dark and thickened to an easily drinkable pudding.

Our room was fun to explore. The window opened onto a vista of leafy trees. Down below was a dining garden with bougainvillea and fountains. The bathroom was equipped with a bathtub, deep and long and a separate stall shower, clad in marble. There were soft towels in small, medium and large with raised nap which spelled, R I T Z.  The bath products were Wesley's favorites, made by Penhaligon of London. The colorful carpet was woven with designs of floral sprays and garlands. In it's corner was an embroidered name and date by it's maker, I assume. The bed linens were exceptional. Far beyond Egyptian cotton and percale and sateen damask, they were woven of linen with delicate embroidery and ironed, cool and crisp to the touch.

We were in Madrid for one night only. Our free time, we spent in the Prado Museum. We walked through the room full of large regal canvases by Velazquez. Was he doing respectfully accurate portraits of the king? His features seem goofy and comical. Or maybe the king was not classically handsome. Of course, we stood before Las Meninas. There is so much going on in the large canvas: royals, pet dogs, children, a dwarf, the painter himself, mirrors which reflect people not otherwise visible in the room. We wandered through a lot of galleries without searching for particular painters or paintings. In the Prado, you can do that and in every gallery you will find masterpieces. We always make a pilgrimage to see a masterpiece recommended by a dear friend. The painting is The Descent From The Cross, created by Rogier van der Weyden in 1435. In it, there are life size people in brilliantly colored robes. They look perfectly alive and as if they could turn and talk to you of the sadness.  The subject is religious, but the feeling is universal that humans empathize with each others trials and struggles and pain. (This painting will figure in our next city, Granada).

The hotel breakfast was another great pleasure. It was a fantasy spread of perfect items. The juice, fresh squeezed; the honey dripped from it's inclined honeycomb; the olive oil fried eggs with perfect yolks. Anything else we desired was available from a menu or the server.

After breakfast, we checked out and from the Hotel Ritz, we walked, past the Museo del Prado, to the Atocha train station. The station consists of it's original old atrium, no longer with train tracks and a modern addition where the trains arrive to. The old atrium, from the mid-eighteen hundreds consists of an iron frame, (created by an associate of Gustave Eiffel), with attractively paned glass. Twenty-five years ago, it was taken out service and repurposed as a lush garden of palm trees and occasional ponds with turtles and fish. Abutting it's front end is the modern terminal where we boarded a train for Granada, a city in the southeast of Spain.

See you in Granada ....

Wes and Marlow

Madrid, September 18-19, 2017

Resources - Sicily and Puglia

We have compiled lists of tips and various resources in response to inquiries regarding specific places or events mentioned during our travel in Sicily that we would particularly recommend.  We have not attempted to list every restaurant or accommodation - only those that stood out and that we would love to return to.

Accommodations

• Siracusa - Apartment in Ortigia in an ideal location with a view of the sea but not located on the busy perimeter of the island.  Spacious with nice furnishings and attention to all details.  Owner was helpful and responsive.  Located up a few flights of stairs but worth it!  You could just stay inside and enjoy the space.  Highly recommended.  
• Modica - Casa Talia.  Extremly comfortable inn with self contained units tucked into the hillside, outstanding views and lovely gardens.  Modica is well located for exploring the Southeast of Sicily and is convenient to the nicest beaches.  The inn is located above the heart of the town which provides more convenient access for day trips by car than having to drive through the congested center.  But the center is only a ten minute walk downhill.  We stayed in the Scirocco room which was ideal.  Highly recommended.
• Etna area - Monaci delle Terre Nere has a good location fairly high up on the East side of Mt. Etna with expansive views out to the sea.  Nice swimming pool and yard for relaxing.  Onsite restaurant is overpriced and not recommended.  There are probably better options than this hotel in the Etna area but we were comfortable there and enjoyed relaxing at the pool.

Accommodations - Puglia and Tropea

• Locorotondo: Agriturismo Masseria Aprile A perfect location for exploring northern Puglia.  Walking distance to the small town of Locorotondo.  Exceptionally warm hosts with nicely decorated rooms.  Our room had two separate outdoor spaces and an outdoor kitchen and nice areas for relaxing.
• Lecce: Roof Barocco Suite B & B 
• Matera: Apartment Residenza Storica il Vicinato 
• Tropea: Villa Giada B & B 

Restaurants (click on link for address and other information)  Many restaurants we visited are affiliated with Slow Food.

• Ortigia (Siracusa):
• Caseificio Borderi Sandwiches made to order using fresh ricotta and other cheeses.  Located in the market.  Worth the wait in line.  Also interesting and entertaining to watch.
• La Gazza Ladra (Slow Food)
• Enoteca Solaria Nice option for the aperitivo hours.

• Modica: La Bisboccia 

• Scicli: La Grotta   (Slow Food) Highly recommended.

• Randazzo (Lovely town on the north side of Etna): San Giorgio e il Drago (Slow Food) Highly recommended.

• Viagrande (Etna): Bennati Vineyard Wine tasting with food.
  
  
• Catania: Me Compari Turiddu (Slow Food)

Portopalo di Capo Passero: Ristorante Scala (Slow Food) Highly recommended.

Tips

• Lunch seemed to start at 1PM and last until 3PM.
• We preferred to have our main meal at lunch since life since many shops and sights are closed during the lunch hour.  This habit also fits nicely with the aperitivo practice where many bars and restaurants serve ample snacks along with drinks during "happy hour".  
• Restaurants are happy to split portions between two so we would often share ("condividere") a pasta or other "primi" and then each have a meat/fish/vegetable course.  It is also completely acceptable to only order from one section of the menu.  You do not need to order both a primi and secondi.
• The Slow Food app for iPhone includes a map feature whereby you can easily find affiliated restaurants in your vicinity.  We made extensive use of this app.

Miscellaneous

• We arranged our rental car through Autoeurope as we have many times in the past.  We have never had a bad experience with them and found their rental rates to be far below other options.  They e-mail a voucher which needs to be presented to the actual rental car agency (Hertz, Avis, Europecar, etc.).  They also will match lower prices that you may find after you book the rental.  For example, I check their listed rates, as well as the rates of their sister company Kemwel.com, after I make the initial booking and often am able to reduce the rental cost even further.
• You will hear many people counsel you to not drive in Catania or Palermo.  We ignored this advice and drove in Catania and it was a mistake.  It was very challenging (frightening actually) and there seemed to be no attention to normal rules of the road.  Do not attempt it!
• Driving in the rest of Sicily was fine.
• The Sicily travel forum hosted by trip advisor is a great resource.