My Brain in Spain, Cont'd

Where is El Cid?

26 diciembre

Joanna was remarking yesterday how great these little streets are. They are like alleys and they just ask you to come in. They twist and turn, and you never know what you’re going to see. 

Like a clothing and costume jewelry boutique called Madame Bugalu y su caniche asesino. I had to look up “caniche.” The name translates, “Madam Boogaloo and her killer poodle.” 

We were on the track of El Cid today. He died here in 1099. Many of us will remember Charlton Heston getting hit by the arrow and then having his mounted corpse chase Herbert Lom back to Africa. From what I can tell, that didn’t happen, although there is a ballad that tells the story.

The Poema del Cid doesn’t say how he died. He just died, as many people did in the 11th century, possibly from tuberculosis, diphtheria, dysentery, or complications of a cold or a hangnail.

We were in the south end of the old city, sharing a beer and a sandwich for late breakfast, around 1:30 in the afternoon. We had to have some place to go or else we could wind up circling the same line of alleys all afternoon. The map shows the Jardí Botanic. OK. Botanical gardens are always great. We get to see the Quart Gate, too. That’s left from the old medieval city wall.

One of the first landmarks we passed was the city’s bull ring, where Joanna stopped to say hi to a local matador.

 We didn’t see any bull fights. You know, why bother? The bull always loses. The place had been taken over for the Christmas circus, anyway.

As it turns out, there aren’t many artifacts left from the Cid’s days. The towers of the Quart Gate date to the 15th century. They are sitting by a thoroughfare and surrounded by the city.

There was also a plaque on the wall for the heroes who defended the city during the War of Independence in 1808. I think this is when the Spanish threw out Napoleon.

The Calle de Quart runs through the gates and this is the street where the Jardí Botanic is.

 We saw banana trees, one with a cluster of green bananas and attached to it by a long tendril, a huge, moist purple blossom. There was a parliament of doves. They were cooing everywhere, and became especially outspoken when one of the many stray cats in the place started to meow.

 The cat population in the garden looks exceptionally clean and well fed for strays. Maybe they belong to people in the neighborhood and just come her to hang out all day. They were asleep in the trees, grooming themselves on the benches, hiding in the shrubbery, and one was inside the tropical greenhouse stretched out along a pipe.

The garden has specimens of plants from all over the world. Many looked familiar but were not. One hothouse had a pitcher plant. This is a very cool carnivorous creature that grows flowers, things (I don’t know what they are properly called) that look like fancy vases. The insects are drawn by the color and the aroma of the sticky liquids inside the pitchers, and they drown, to be digested and absorbed by the plant.

Some deciduous trees were bare of leaves; others were in full fall. At the same time, varieties of flowers were in bloom. A yellow hibiscus was about to open. It was strange to be in every season all at once.

Strolling slowly with frequent stops is fatiguing. The funny thing is that when we left the garden and started to go at a regular city walking pace, we weren’t tired anymore.

It also turns out that when you come back up Quart Street, you really get a great view of the gate, which is open so you can see the street behind it.

The walls had a few inscriptions on them, including one cryptic abbreviation that looked very old, but for all I know could have been advertising (Who knows? Maybe for Madame Bugalu.) If you blow up the picture, you may make them out, DBDV. If anybody has a guess what they might mean, please let me know.

So having enjoyed that gate, we went to see another. The Serranos Towers are at the north end of the old city, protecting the neighborhood of Carmen from those guys across the dry riverbed.

Here we got to climb the steps and prowl around inside. The Serranos Gate is older than the Quart, by a century or so. But still younger than El Cid. So this is as close as we could get in terms of military relics. The cathedral is older. It was dedicated in 1238 after Jaime I Conquistador chased out the Moors for the last time.

The Serranos gate is a Gothic structure with groin vaults and crenellations, gargoyles and arrow slits. The murder holes—the little holes in the floor of the overhanging battlements, through which you could drop rocks or boiling oil on attackers—were covered with transparent glass or maybe cellophane. I didn’t step on them. 

Over the entrance is a large hole, for dropping very big rocks or entire cauldrons of oil.

In the distance, I could hear people blowing horns. I hoped it was merely a traffic jam or a political protest. I was in no position to defend the city. I had left my bow home.

We strolled some more narrow, twisting streets. The political protest caught up to us outside a regional administration building. It may have been the president’s offices, but security seemed to be very light for that, only a couple a police cars. 

The protestors were saying no the “FGV.” I don’t know what that is, but suspect it has to do with part of Spain’s austerity measures. They simply call it the “crisis” here.

People had police whistles and party noisemakers. One guy had a plastic airhorn in his hand, and that’s what you could hear from a great distance.

A lady was throwing flyers into the air. This is the only act of littering that I have witnessed here. This is no place like New York. Here the streets are very clean.

We let them go by and headed in the general direction of the cathedral. I had expected a bit of a hike, but after a turn or two we had a hit of deja vu. Here was the Generalife, where we had dinner Christmas Eve. The pink wall ahead was Our Lady of the Forsaken.

Damn, I didn’t get us lost once all day.

We had dinner at Ocho y Media, very good shade-fish (don’t ask: I don’t know) and braised beef. Also very good Rioja. The menu was decorated with stills from Fellini’s movie.

We went back to Sagardi, the Euskal place where we met Bob and Meg on Christmas night, for a couple of short beers before turning in.

The wake-up call came early, 8:30 this morning. I am very proud of my flexibility. No more sleeping till 10:30 for me.

Love to all.

Harry

Dec. 27

El Cid: On the one hand, “Don’t mess with my myths,” and on the other, the dead Cid strapped to his horse, Babieca, causing the Moors to flee, is not in the opera. Curious.

The Inquisition: 1203-1908, except for the Napoleonic years. Where Napoleon’s armies went, Inquisition prisoners were freed and prisons were destroyed; ghettos were torn down and the denizens fully enfranchised.

Spain didn’t reach that level of civilization again until the Republic, in the 1930s, and Franco, alas, made short work of that.

“Threw Napoleon out” to their own detriment!

Much love,

Beatrice

Dec. 27

I liked the part about El Cid, since I loved that movie and saw it with a girl who resisted my putting my arm around her all night. Glad you're having fun.

Peter

My Brain in Spain, tres

Feliz Navidad

Christmas Day

Still running on New Jersey time, I got up and made a quick run for coffee around 10:30 Christmas morning. Then I sent the previous e-mail.

We are continuing to celebrate Joanna’s birthday, and now we get to add Jesus’s birthday too. The bells rang all morning to say “feliz cumpleaños” to both of them.

It was one in the afternoon before we were on the street, so we took a short stroll to see a curious bridge. It has a semicircular array on one side that gives it a kind of post-modern feel. I assume this feature is entirely decorative. We had passed a store selling kitchen ware, and when we first saw the bridge down the street, Joanna said it looked like a paella pan.

The bridge spans a wide gully that used to be the Turia River. Apparently there was a bad flood in the 1950s and the city decided to divert the river. Now the old riverbed is filled with parks and a museum complex.

From the far side of the bridge, we took a cab to the restaurant where we had Christmas dinner reservations. It is one in an avenue of restaurants set side by side, and they were all busy. And they all had views of the Mediterranean.

At one window, kids were opening their Christmas gifts at a table.

This was the first time I had seen the Mediterranean. We went in and asked our restaurant to change our reservation from 3 to 4, and then we went onto the beach. 

We passed a man spraying water on a sand castle with towers that had to be 6 feet high or more. It included an effigy in sand of Spongebob Squarepants.

The sea was calm and dark blue, with very small waves, like a bay rather than an ocean. I’m not sure, but this arm of the Mediterranean may be called the Balearic Sea. Mallorca is out there somewhere.

We strolled along the beach for a while. Joanna was surprised (and so was I) to see ladybugs in the sand. Also a naked man sunning himself.

Dinner was a salad followed by paella Valenciana El Coso (the name of the restaurant). It had chicken, rabbit, artichoke, and snails. It was terrific. So was the house wine. When you walk in, you pass a wall of it in a glass case. The label is a wax (or maybe plastic) seal.

This was not a Rioja but, according to the label, a wine of Castille and Leon. It was sharper than Rioja, but then, it comes from a colder climate. 

We went back to the beach for another look after dinner, then cabbed back to the Plaza de la Reina, where all the shops and most of the restaurants were open. The streets were packed. 

I guess everybody gets tired of being inside all day, so they have to come out in the evening. 

We walked to City Hall Square and around some side streets. On the way back, just across from the top of our street, was a tapas bar that had a word like “euskali” on the door. I think that’s what the Basques call themselves, so we went in there.

I don’t know if we saw any Basques, but we did meet Bob and Meg from Appleton, Wis. She studied in Madrid years ago, and they travel to Spain every year. 

He owns a deli that among other things, serves tapas and only Wisconsin cheeses.

She teaches kids in the local lockup. They are doing time for anything from breaking and entering to truancy.

It rained for a while when we were inside. When it let up, we went to the hotel where I believe I passed out. I am not sure.

A feliz Navidad indeed.

Harry

Dec. 30

A little more wine knowledge tutoring. You mentioned in a previous e-mail you drank a wine from Castilla y Leon and you noticed how it had less body and "stuffing" than the Riojas you were enjoying so much.

You postulated that the weather was probably warmer in Rioja, making for riper, more intense wines.

Well, Riojas are generally much better than wines from Castilla y Leon, but it's not because of the weather. Indeed, Castilla y Leon is one of the hottest growing areas for wine in Spain—lots of flat land and high yields. Rioja is cooler with more hills (and even mountains, if I'm not mistaken). Yields are kept lower, and the struggle of the vines in harsher conditions—cool nights, rockier soils, etc. —make for more interesting, more complete wines.

Even if the grapes can actually get riper in Castilla y Leon, they don't have the complexity and other characteristics you'll find in Riojas. It's why Rioja is one of the premium wine producing areas in Spain, not far from the Basque country in Northwest to north central Spain. 

You are actually closer to another important area for red wine that some say is even better than Rioja, if not smaller and less well known, but the wines are generally even more expensive. It's also made from the tempranillo grape, which is known by other regional names in some parts of Spain.

The wine to look for is called Ribero de Duero. Might be tough to get by the glass, and best to find a bottle with a little age on it. I bit "stiffer" than Rioja—more tannin and acidity; less use of American oak to soften it during aging. You'll enjoy it.

Larry

My Brain in Spain, 2

Feliz Cumpleaños

December 24

The first place we saw in Valencia after we checked in was the view from the balcony.

We walked the short distance to the Plaza de la Reina, where the cathedral is. There is a Nativity scene inside where people were having their photos snapped while a mass was in progress in another part of the nave.

After the mass, we were looking at some of the side altars. I don’t know if we’ll get to see the Holy Grail or not. We also missed the left arm of St. Vincent, which is supposed to be behind the main altar, because they started to turn off the lights at 8 and chase everybody out.

We went back today and discovered that the cathedral is open for tourism during the day, Maybe the grail and the left arm of St. Vincent will be part of the self-guided tour for 4.5 euros. We’ll try that later.

We had dinner at La Taberna Vintara, a restaurant on the Plaza de la Reina: Three different Riojas (all splendid), pan fried squid, and pan fried salmon. This comes with french fries and green salad on the plate. The food here so far has been terrific. I didn’t even mind the mouthful of bones with the salmon. I just was careful to check before I bit down hard.

After dinner, the waiter poured us glasses of something I couldn’t identify. It was delicious, a little sweet, but not too much so. We asked what it was.

It was moscatel. It’s the inspiration for the cheap wine that the old winos used to drink.  But this was good.

We left the restaurant at quarter to 11 and started to wander. We came without plan to the Plaza de la Virgen, where there is a church with a great name, Our Lady of the Forsaken. So of course we had to visit there. Another mass was in progress, so we stayed for part of that.

Then we strolled through some of the narrow winding residential streets of a neighborhood that I think is called Carmen. We found a pleasant little Socialist wine bar on one of the side streets. It was full of kids and books and a projection screen, probably for political nights. At least, I guess it was Socialist rather than Fascist literature on the shelves. 

We bought a few glasses of wine and ate olives. Then when it was near midnight, the official start of Joanna’s birthday, we headed back in the general direction of the Plaza de la Reina. 

On the way, we found what we wanted. It was a shop that sold tapas and wine. We had a Rioja and a Moscatel, and some cake, so Joanna would start her New Year with wine and dessert.

One of the great things about visiting Spain—aside, that is from the great food and wine, beautiful architecture, dark history, and general exoticness—is that we Yankees don’t have to reset our internal clocks. It seems that the Spanish circadian rhythm is just about in synch with mine. I get up around 4 or 5 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and go to bed around 8 p.m.

So does everybody else around here. After her birthday dessert, we strolled some more and then called it a night.

It was sometime around 2 local time, but only 8 at home.

Same thing with waking up—10:30 local time is 4:30 at home. There were lots of people up already at that hour when I went out for coffee, but nowhere near the crowd that would be on the street later.

We started the day around noon with a visit to La Plaça de la Ajuntament, which is Valencian for City Hall Square. The entire square is surrounded by Baroque buildings. Most date from the early or mid 20th century, but were designed to look old. They have domes, niches, animals, and allegorical figures. I think the city’s official bird is the bat because there’s one on top of city hall.

Almost every window has a balcony, but then, that’s true all over town. Maybe all over the country, but I wouldn’t know because I haven’t seen that much of it.

In the park across from the city hall, there was another Nativity scene and people getting their pictures taken in front of it.

From there we walked up to the central market. It was packed with people getting ready for Christmas dinner. Everything looked so bright and fresh it was hard not to buy stuff. We wound up restricting ourselves to a couple of oranges, a few dates, and a baguette, for breakfast Christmas morning in case there was no place open.

Eels are sold live at the market. The vendor puts the ones you want in a bowl and then cuts their heads off for you. It sucks to be an eel.

The market shut down around 4, so we left.

We wandered around the old city. In fact, everywhere we have been so far is within the old city. We came to the Square of the Patriarch. Don’t know who that is or what he is patriarch of. It may have been Pope Alexander VI. His statue was there along with one of King Ferdinand and a few others. 

We have been watching “The Borgias” on Netflix. Alexander VI is a Borgia pope, father of Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia. In one of the episodes, Cesare Borgia is made bishop of Valencia.

There were orange trees in the plaza. There are orange trees everywhere here, planted in parks and by curbs. Some of the trees in the Plaza del Patriarca were in flower. Others had green and ripe oranges. Maybe he oranges grow all year round in this climate. Palm trees also flourish here.

In yet another park, we saw huge banyans. That park had a tent with a scary looking guy in a gold suit and turban. On the other side a sign explained what that was all about. Your kids can tell what they want for Epiphany to the emissaries of the three kings. They can sit on an emissary's knee to have their photos taken. Santa Claus gets a break over here.

Workmen are restoring a courtyard at the University of Valencia. The courtyard, from what I could make of the inscriptions, was dedicated in 1902 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the start of classes there. The school was chartered in 1499. Medallions on the walls memorialize illustrious graduates from previous centuries.

At one point we were almost lost. We had taken a few narrow streets and were getting a mite peckish. So we checked out a couple of places, but they were drinks only, which is kind of rare in my limited experience here.

I didn’t really know where we were, but then noticed a street sign. Some are in Valencian here and others Castillian. It was the Carrer dels Cavillers, or Calle de los Caballeros. (I’ve seen it both ways and can’t remember which this one was.)

I actually knew (almost) where we were. This, according to one of the guide books, was one of the original Roman roads back in colony days—which here run back to the B.C.s.

All I had to do was stop somebody on the street, try to say “La Plaza de la Reina” without overaspirating the “p” and trilling the “r”, because Gentlemen’s Street comes near there.

It was just before the Plaza of the Virgin that we found a promising looking restaurant called Generalife. We stopped for food. It was getting dark and we were concerned than everything would close for Christmas Eve, leaving us with a baguette, a couple of Mandarins, and yogurt for dinner.

Not to worry. This guy wasn’t even starting to serve food until 8. So we made a 9:30 reservation and moved on. We had already stopped at the cathedral and learned that midnight mass started at 11:30.

We had a couple of Riojas—along with a plate of olives—at Generalife for refreshment first. Well, I had the Riojas. Joanna had hot chocolate.

We went back to the hotel to rest and change into black and red Christmas clothes.

For dinner we had the fish casserole for two: langostinos, tiny clams, mussels, tuna, and monkfish in a rich red broth. We arrived early, but they took us to a table up on the balcony. The roof had dark timbers and white vaulted stucco. One wall had a copy of a medieval painting celebrating one of the many conquests of Valencia from somebody else, probably the Moors. There was the Valencian flag with gold and red stripes and a blue field. The pole was topped by a helmet and a bat in the spread-wing Dracula pose.

The place was packed. There were only two waiters. I think they cooked the casserole while we waited.

It was good that we started early. We were late to church. Not that it mattered. The service lasted two hours. The sermon alone ran more than 20 minutes.

When we came out at 1:30, I think I may have been tired. There was a bar open across the street, and I only took two steps in that direction before I gave up and headed back toward the hotel. 

The hotel management gave us a bottle of cava, made not far from here, in fact, for Christmas. We toasted Joanna’s birthday and Jesus’s with sparkling wine.

I’m wiring this on Christmas morning while the bells of St. Martin next door are ringing in the holiday. Here are more bells, from Christmas Eve.

Dec. 24

Can I have your frequent flyer miles from this year as my Christmas present?

Quaff one for me and enjoy the holidays with our prosperous friends!

Charlie