05-13-2024: Market and Cooking Class

Our final day in Sevilla, and the end of our four week trip. I’m definitely ready to head home. Always nice to go on an adventure, but even nicer to go home.

Christine was still feeling poorly this morning, so she opted to get some rest and stay in the hotel. Some of the group joined Lucia in a walk to Triana Market to pick up some items for our cooking class this evening. We are learning to make paella.

Again, a beautiful day in Sevilla, but very hot and humid, so walking to the market was not exactly pleasant. We were all happy to be out of the sun when we got to the market.

The market wasn’t as big as I expected, not nearly as large as the market we visited in Rome. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful place. First of all, being in Triana, a ceramics mecca, there were so many wonderful tiles all over. Most of the stalls had beautiful tile signs overhead. And the colors of the vegetables just added to the visual delight walking around the market.

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed eating is Iberian ham which comes from the hind leg of an Iberian pig. However, reading about this meat gave me a little bit of a sick feeling. It’s illegal to import Iberian ham into the U.S. because none of the slaughterhouses in Spain conform to U.S. food safety standards. I’ll just leave it at that, but it sure is tasty. Meat shops have several pig legs hanging up and when someone wants to buy some jamon, the butcher takes down a leg, puts it it this holder, and slices off very thin long slices.

After the market we strolled around Triana for a bit. One of the tourist attractions is a statue of a bullfighter who has an opening through his chest. At the right angle, one can see the bell tower of the Sevilla cathedral through the opening, representing that the heart of the bull fighter is Sevilla.

There were some nice photo ops crossing back from Triana. The jacaranda have been glorious.

During the afternoon back at the hotel, it was time to get ourselves packed and organized. We need to be up at 4:15am tomorrow to get to our train that leaves for Madrid at 5:50am. With our cooking class this evening, we didn’t want it to be a late night, so we got ourselves about 95% packed with a plan made for in the morning.

We then went down to the bar in the hotel to have a drink while waiting for our group to gather. One of our group was already there, Dennis, who is a retired white collar crime prosecutor. He is having a tough time in life since his wife died 5 years ago. His kids talked him into going on this trip in an effort to get him out of his funk. He seems like an interesting man, and we enjoyed getting to know him a little better. I’ve liked talking with him to get his take on the Trump trial since the issues are his expertise. He’s been following the testimony very carefully.

And now off to cooking class to learn to make paella. We all walked back to Triana for our class, which was in an area in the market. Leo, our instructor, was a good teacher and explained each step in the process. We made both a vegetable paella for our two vegetarians and a chicken paella for the rest of the group. We set about cutting up chicken and vegetables and Leo guided us through each step. It’s really a complicated process, or at least there are many steps. Paella originated out in the fields where workers picking vegetables would use whatever was available to add to their rice. Traditionally, chicken or duck, rabbit, and snails were used. Now, paella can be made with any kind of meat or seafood. Leo made a big point of saying anything but chorizo.

You start by searing the chicken. The chicken used are the de-boned thighs, legs, wings and some bits from the carcass, like the tenderloin and the oysters.

When that is done, it’s pushed around to the outside of the pan. The pan, which is the paella, is a large, flat-bottomed pan with sides that are about 2-3 inches high. It’s a round pan. Leo’s pans were sitting atop a two ring burner, one ring around the outside perimeter, and one around the center of the pan so that each area could be controlled. After the meat is pushed out around the edges, vegetables are added. You can use anything you want. We used flat green beans and added some other soft kind of beans, like very large butter beans.

Once those are done, they get pushed out around the edges and the minced garlic and onions go in the center. Then the smoked paprika (lots of it!), then a bit of oil. That gets cooked a bit forming the basis of the sofrito. Added to that is the rest of the sofrito, which is red and green peppers and tomatoes that have been cooked down and blended into a puree.

Next comes the broth that was made from the chicken carcass, but an important step is to grind up some saffron in a mortar and pestle, and to not waste any of the expensive spice, add a little of the broth to the mortar, stir around with the pestle, and pour that into the pan.

Then broth that was cooking using the carcass and bones from the chicken we cut up is added.

As you go along, the ingredients are stirred using a large flat utensil which is pushed circularly along the bottom of the pan. Leo said stir this way so as to not make waves which slop over the side of the pan.

Next comes the rice, a Spanish rice called bomba. How much? Leo showed us how to add the rice by pouring in an amount in a strip across the paella pan from side to side.

The rice gets stirred in using the circular motion. Once mixed in, Leo warned not to touch the paella pan again. A few sprigs of rosemary are charred and laid on the top of the mixture.

Cook on high heat for 5 minutes, then medium heat for 5 minutes, then low heat for 8 minutes. Not touching the pan ensures that you get the Socarrat, the crispy rice on the bottom.

We’re ready to eat paella!

We whipped up a quick gazpacho to have as a starter, which was so delicious made from the beautiful large ripe tomatoes from the market. And then we got to eat our paella. It, too, was delicious and we all enjoyed our paella along with sangria that we made. I think we’ll get the recipes, which I’ll appreciate, so I know the amounts of ingredients.

I think everyone had fun, but it got so hot in that kitchen. We were already warm from the walk over to the market in the 90+ day, and to stand around those two very hot gas-fired cooking rings, well, we were all red-faced and very warm. But it was a nice way to celebrate the end of our Roads Scholar week.

Back at the hotel, we said our goodbyes, as we were the first out Tuesday morning at 5:00am. We enjoyed getting to know our little group. I think we’ll have some ongoing contact with some whom we bonded with. Linda and Joel, a couple from Philadelphia, we really enjoyed.

So our four-week adventure in Malta, Rome, Madrid, and Sevilla comes to an end. We had a blast and everything worked out well with all our travel and places to stay. The only down side is Christine’s asthma attack that has triggered a significant respiratory problem. We’ll get her to the doctor when we get home.

So, unless we have a travel misadventure, that I’ll report on, we’ll be home 11:00pm May 14, after a 26-hour travel day. Thanks for coming along with us. We’ll take you along again on our next adventure!

05-12-2024: Ancient Ruins and Ceramics

Christine had a terrible night with coughing and little sleep so she elected to stay in bed this morning to see if she could sleep a little. Our excursion to ancient Roman ruins wasn’t very appealing to her. Poor thing, she’s really not in good shape.

Off we went by bus to the ancient Roman city of Italica. It was a short trip and only 10 of the group were in this huge bus. Italica was founded in 206 BC by a Roman general who created the city for his retiring Italic army soldiers. Most soldiers were inducted into the Roman army for 25 years, starting at the age of 15. So, if you weren’t killed in battle or died from disease, you came out of the army a rather penniless old man (in Roman years), so the Roman general wanted to do something for these old guys. Eventually, the city expanded into a flourishing city. The site we toured was really the second Italica. The first Italica, Vetus urbs, is currently underneath the village of Santiponce. Lucia said that when people living in the village do any kind of construction, they find Roman ruins which they use in their homes. She said she knows someone who has Roman column capitals as a base for a coffee table and another has mosaic tile floors taken from found ruins. Since the entire village would have to be relocated, there is no incentive to unearth the old city of Italica. The new city, Nova urbs, has been somewhat unearthed, but there isn’t sufficient funding available to fully develop the ruins.

The Romans created wide cobbled streets. They were the first to add sidewalks, with many of them shaded by trees. The city was laid out with a main north-south street, and a main east-west street, with the public fountain at the intersection. Some 8,000 people lived in Italica and the footprint of some of the houses are visible.

The Romans were good at developing waterways via aqueducts. They constructed miles and miles of aqueducts to bring water to their cities. The other thing they figured out was that dealing with waste was important, so they also created sewer systems. That was one of the first things we learned about in Italica. This is not a charming subject, but nonetheless, an important one. So here is a public latrine. Water was piped into the trench to take waste away.

The location of Italic was selected for its vantage point. It is on a hill which, during Roman times, one could see the Guadalquivir river. It really is a beautiful setting and the surrounding area is nice. You can see the Sevilla Tower from Italica, so it’s not far from the city center.

There are a lot of mosaic tile floors present. These have been unearthed, but left exposed to the elements, so many have deteriorated. There is an effort underway to restore the mosaics. This is a painstaking process whereby each tiny piece of the mosaic is removed, cleaned and replaced in its original position. If a piece is too badly damaged, they look around for a piece from mosaics that have been too damaged to restore to find a piece that will fit. I don’t think I’d want that job. One of the areas was the footprint of a nobleman’s house. The richer you were, the more elaborate the decorations.

We’ve seen a lot of Roman tile floors in our travels, and I’m always amazed by how intricate some of them are. The painstaking work that goes into these earliest mosaics, tiny little pieces placed one by one, is awesome.

A big draw to Italica is its amphitheater. It apparently was used in filming some of the Game of Thrones. The structure is pretty badly worn in many places but you can get the sense for the enormity of the crowds attending gladiator duels.

One of the things our guide Alicia showed us was how the “house rules” were posted. In the tunnel entrance where the gladiators would enter, there was a large plaque on the wall that kind of looked like a chalkboard. But they wanted to be sure that the gladiators didn’t change the rules, so the plaque was a bronze sheet and the rules were engraved in the bronze for all to see. No changing the rules here!

At the end of the Italica tour, Lucia wanted to celebrate our final tour so she had purchased a bottle of orange wine that she passed around. Everyone who tried it found it too sweet and some said it definitely tasted like cough medicine. I’m glad I’m not drinking!

After our visit to Italica, we rode the bus back to Sevilla and got dropped off near a bridge over the river so we could walk to Triana, a neighborhood across the river. One of our group who skipped the Italica visit was going to meet us in Triana, so Lucia asked Candace to knock on Christine’s door to see if she was feeling up to joining us. She was, so we met up with Christine and Candace, which was nice. I was happy to see Christine up and moving around.

Triana is a vibrant area full of shops, bars and restaurants. It’s people are fiercely proud of their neighborhood and don’t really identify as Sevilla city. Triana has a long history of pottery and ceramic industries, which are active today.

We went to a ceramics museum in Triana which made both Christine and me think of our dear friend Deeny in Florida who is a potter. I wish she could have been with us to help enlighten us on all the information there was on the history of pottery and ceramics in Triana. There were great little videos and old photographs showing the process. The size of some of the kilns and what they did to close them up before firing was incredible.

I read one information panel that said this. “Clay is a hydrated aluminium silicon, although before being defined by science, it has long been a material loaded with symbolic values for human beings. Thus, this is also the case for ceramics and the reason resides in the fact that the four basic elements of nature are involved in its creation: earth, water, air and fire.” I liked that description, and maybe that’s why I’m so taken with ceramics.

There were many exhibits of ceramics from pre-Medieval times right up to the present. We saw a lot of beautiful hand-painted work.

Triana, and all of Sevilla, is covered in beautiful ceramic tiles. Everywhere you look, you’ll see some kind of colorful and beautiful tile on the buildings.

After the museum, Lucia took us to a traditional Spanish bar/restaurant for lunch. The one thing is it was LOUD! With the walls covered in tiles, the sound was bouncing all over the place. On Sundays, many families get together with extended family and friends for lunch. And in the area we were sitting, there were 2 long tables filled with people who were quite animated and loud. It made having any conversation at our table nearly impossible. We did have some really nice shrimp and calamari, though, so at least the food was good. This bullhead was hanging over our table.

After our late lunch it was back to the hotel for a short rest. Then it was time for the featured event of the evening, flamenco! This is what Christine has really been looking forward to. The flamenco performance was in a small theater and it was packed. Flamenco is quite a draw all over Sevilla, and especially in Triana. I didn’t know that it originates with the Romanii people (gypsies) and that the earliest documentation of flamenco dates back to the 1770s.

The show was really terrific. The guitar player was fantastic. The lead male dancer was a bit over the top for me. He had long hair and kept snapping his head so that his hair flew over the top of his head. There was another male who was a singer who also danced that we liked more than the lead. The lead female was really, really good. She did a very extensive dance that included using her shawl, spinning it around and creating a wonderful visual. I do not know how they can move their feet as fast as they do and how their ankles and knees can endure the incredible striking of the feet that occurs. At any rate, the show was thoroughly enjoyable and Christine loved it.

Christine and I got in hot water with Lucia after the show. Some of our group were going out for drinks and dinner, but one person was walking back to the hotel. We said we’d walk back with her. There were a couple of group members around us when we left and I assumed they would say we were on our way back to the hotel. Our mistake was in not telling Lucia we weren’t going to dinner with her. I guess she held everyone up while she was trying to find us. On our way back to the hotel, the three of us stopped in a shop for a gelato, and as we were sitting there eating out gelato, my phone rang, and at the same time the dinner group and Lucia were standing in the window of the shop starring at us. Lucia came in and gave me a piece of her mind. I was embarrassed for sure, but I was a little irked that none of the people who knew we left with Linda (the other Linda), including her husband, didn’t mention to Lucia that we had left with Linda. Oh well, my bad.

We did get back to the hotel in good shape. The drinks/dinner people didn’t get back until after midnight, and so I’m really glad we didn’t go out. These full tour days don’t really sync with late nights of drinking and eating.

Tomorrow is our final day, and we only have one more scheduled activity, a cooking class. Then, we get to eat what we cooked as our final group meal. Should be fun.

05-11-2024: Cordoba

Our excursion today was to the city of Cordoba. This meant a bus ride of about two hours. We got off to a late start because the bus driver went to the wrong place. Lucia was not happy and had quite a phone conversation with the driver. The bus finally showed up, but then one of our group was missing. You know that kids game, Where’s Waldo? Our group has played, Where’s Mano, all week because she was usually the last person to arrive and the last person trailing along in the group.

We were in a mini-bus that seated about 24. Christine moved to the back of the bus where there were 5 seats across and the middle one was in the aisle so she could stretch out her legs. She’s not feeling very well and continues with a persistent cough.

It was interesting seeing some of the city of Sevilla as we departed. For the most part, we’ve been in a relatively small area around the cathedral and Alcazar, so we saw more of the city from the bus. Then we were quickly out into the countryside and enjoyed seeing the olive and citrus groves. And we now know that wheat is also a big crop as we saw loads of wheat fields.

I thought the U.S. had some bad roads, but so does Spain. Although we were on a highway, the road condition in some areas was very bad and the bus bumped along. I was sitting in the back with Christine and we’d get bumped up into the air several times, triggering my sciatica. I couldn’t take that and had to move forward into a seat further up the bus.

As we arrived in Cordoba, the bus driver didn’t know how to get to the place we would be touring so we went the wrong way for a bit and had to back track. Lucia was not happy and after we got off the bus she let loose with a very animated commentary on incompetency in doing one’s job. At any rate, we arrived at the famous Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, an absolutely spectacular site.

As we disembarked from the bus, we jointed hundreds of other people making their way across the Roman bridge to the mosque-cathedral. Lucia said she had never seen it so crowded so it was difficult to really enjoy the crossing of the bridge and the entrance into the historic site. However, just prior to entering the bridge, we had some great views of the mosque-cathedral and bridge.

The original bridge was built by the Romans in the 1st century BC. The Arabs rebuilt the bridge in the 8th century. At the entrance to the bridge is the Calahorra Tower, an Islamic edifice constructed to protect the Roman bridge which was the only river crossing. The river is the Guadalquivir, the same river flowing through Sevilla.

Once across the river, you enter through the Puerta del Puente, which is a Renaissance gate built in the 16th century. As I said, lots of people were entering this place.

Of course, the first thing we needed was a pit stop, so Lucia took us to a gift shop that had a bathroom. With 12 in the group, these pit stops, while important, take some time. But once everyone was back, we met up with our guide Jenny, who took us into the mosque-cathedral. She was quite overwhelmed by the number of people and as large groups with guides would tramp by, she’d say, “momma mia.” She did a great job, however, of shepherding us to more quiet areas so she could educate us about this magnificent structure.

It is believed that the mosque was built on the site of a Visigoth Christian church from the mid-6th century. The Visigoth church was built on the site of a Roman temple. What we’ve learned from our guides is that location is the preeminent factor in constructing these great monuments. That’s why so many churches are built on the sites of older ruins, because the location is significant. When the Muslims arrived in Iberia in the late 7th and early 8th centuries, they lived along side of the Visigoths in a divided territory. The original mosque was built in 786 in response to the growing population. And, as the population continued to grow, as did Muslim prosperity, the mosque was expanded several more times. The final enlargement came in 951 which enlarged the space into a rectangle of 130 by 180 meters which is about 426 feet by 590 feet. To put that into perspective, the average football field is 150 feet by 360 feet, so, the great hall is a lot larger than a football field. The enlarged mosque had 1,013 columns throughout the structure, and this is the first “wow” factor upon entering the mosque.

You couldn’t really believe your eyes with all the columns and arches everywhere you looked. The columns were made of various substances including marble, granite, alabaster and each of the capitals (column tops) were different. That’s because the columns were from other structures and reused in this great hall.

The focal point in the mosque is the mihrab, used in a mosque to identify the wall that faces Mecca, the birthplace of Mohamed. However, in this mosque, the mihrab faces Damascus. I think this is a precursor to the Sunni vs. Shia conflicts in Islam. When the great mosque was constructed, the Umyyad dynasty came from Syria. Gold tesserae (small pieces of glass with gold and color backing) create a dazzling combination of dark blues, reddish browns, yellows and golds that form intricate calligraphic bands and vegetal motifs that adorn the arch. The domed ceiling over the mihrab was stunning.

With the conquest of the Muslims in 1236, the Catholic invaders consecrated the mosque as a Catholic church. All of the naves in the mosque were turned into chapels. It’s so interesting to see the horseshoe striped arches around Catholic altars and iconography.

In 1489, the Catholics started building a Gothic-style main chapel and a cross-shaped transept of a new cathedral. So essentially, right in the middle of the mosque, a Catholic cathedral was built. This is a graphic from a brochure showing where the cathedral was built in the mosque.

The architect used imaginative ways to combine Gothic and Arabic designs and decorations throughout the cathedral. It is a most fascinating visual effect.

The main altar is beautiful.

What was more beautiful is the organ area and choir loft. The entire area is carved mahogany and the ceiling was just beautiful.

After the mosque-cathedral tour, we went out into the courtyard, the original area of absolution for Muslims before entering the mosque. The courtyard remains nearly unchanged and is full of citrus trees. There is also an olive tree, still living, that was planted in the early 1700s. Two group members, Mike and Rosalinda, are standing in front of the old olive tree.

From the courtyard, we also got a view of the minaret that was turned into a bell tower by the Catholics. It looks very much like the one at the cathedral in Sevilla.

We then went on a tour of the Jewish ghetto, which was not so nice because the streets were so narrow and packed with people. Down these narrow streets, that had about 6 inches of sidewalk, came horse-drawn carriages. With the driver ringing bells, everyone had to jump out of the street onto the little sidewalk. Jenny, our guide, would exclaim, “momma mia, tourism by adventure.” She wasn’t at all happy about the crowds.

We did stop into the oldest synagogue which was interesting in that it was created during Christian rule, built by Muslims in the Mudejar style, for Jewish worship. At some point, Christians used the space for worship so the shadow of a cross can be seen, but it was converted back to a synagogue. Our guide said there are only 3 synagogues in all of Spain with only a few hundred Jews living in Spain.

I mentioned that during the Muslim golden age, cataract surgery was invented. We saw a bust of the man who did the inventing, Mohamed Al-Gafequi. We also saw a statue of Maimonides, a Sephartic rabbi and scholar during the Middle Ages who was born in Cordoba.

We then went to a restaurant for lunch and had a really yummy cold tomato soup and an oxtail entree with fries. I don’t think I’ve ever had oxtail before. One big vertebra and very tasty meat. The fries were good to soak up the broth from the oxtail entree. Here’s all but 2 (besides me) of our group with Lucia in the Oslo T-shirt.

Then it was back to the bus for the two hour trip back to Sevilla. Some in the group were meeting for drinks and dinner later, but we we’re tired and decided to do our own thing, which was resting and then going for gelato. We had a nice walk and found a good shop for gelato.

We ended the day again very tired but happy. I was thrilled with our visit to the mosque-cathedral, despite the crowds. I thought it was such an amazing place. There certainly is no other mosque-cathedral in the world, so I feel blessed to have gotten to see it.

Christine, other than being tired, is feeling a bit better. The cough syrup Lucia got for her seems to help a great deal. I walked over to a supermarket to see if I could find some throat lozenges. That was successful and I got her menthol and mint lozenges.

Tomorrow is a tour of a Roman city, Italica. It’s supposed to be 90+ tomorrow so we’re all kind of dreading traipsing around outside looking at Roman ruins. We’ll see what happens.

05-10-2014: The Alcazar and a Boat Ride

Unfortunately, Christine had a terrible night. That asthma attack from yesterday triggered some kind of respiratory issue that made it impossible for her to sleep due to continuous coughing. So, the early morning was not a happy one. We did go down to breakfast, but she just wasn’t feeling well. When I saw Lucia at breakfast, I asked if we could stop in a pharmacy on our way to our tour to get something in the way of a cough suppressant and some throat lozenges. She was more than accommodating. However, Lucia kind of parked Christine and me in a shady spot across the street from the rest of the group, who were all standing in the sun, and she went off to the pharmacy on her own. About 15 minutes later, she returned with a bottle of cough syrup. Christine took a couple of gulps of the syrup and we joined back up with the group, and off we went to the Alcazar. Thank goodness the cough syrup seemed to help Christine.

The Alcazar is an historic royal palace. It was formerly the site of the Islamic-era citadel of the city, begun in the 10th century,, and then developed into a larger palace complex by succeeding Islamic dynasties. After the conquest of Sevilla by the Castilian king Ferdinand III in 1248, the site was progressively rebuilt and replaced by new palaces and gardens. The mosque that existed as part of the Alcazar in the beginning of Muslim rule was the site and location for the eventual building of the Cathedral. During the 1360s, King Pedro did some of the most extensive rebuilding and expanding. Among the most important of these expansions is the richly-decorated Mudejar-style palace built by Pedro. Pedro played a leading role in introducing Islamic derived decorative elements into the Iberian Christian kingdoms. The Mudéjars were the Muslims who remained in the former areas of Al-Andalus after the Christian conquest in the Middle Ages and were allowed to practice their religion to a limited degree. Mudéjar art is valuable in that it represents peaceful co-existence between Muslims, Jews and Christians during the medieval era, although all Muslims and Jews in Spain eventually were forced to convert to Christianity or were exiled or killed between the late 1400s and early 1500s. The Mudejar style is very ornamental and uses a lot of decorative tile.

Alicia was back as our tour guide. She is so incredibly knowledgeable and was a pleasure to follow through the Alcazar. You enter the palace through the Lion’s Gate and walk through a little garden into the Patio de la Montería courtyard. In the courtyard, you see three different connected buildings from different time periods. The one on the right was the Navigational Headquarters so anyone sailing into and out of Sevilla had to go through this office. So, navigators like Columbus and Magellan started in that building. The center building is the entrance to the palace built by Pedro. The Alcazar remains a royal palace, so whenever the king and queen of Spain are visiting Sevilla today, they stay in the second floor of that center building.

Above the entrance there is Arabic calligraphy (just above the blue and white tile) that reads, “There is no victor above Allah,” that Pedro, a Catholic king, had inscribed. He is known as Pedro the Just for his position on equality of religion for Muslims and Jews. Unfortunately, he is also known as Pedro the Cruel for horrible atrocities committed.

This is called the Maiden’s courtyard. The decorative lobed arches are plasterwork. What this courtyard is supposed to convey is paradise as water and nature are symbols of paradise.

This is the Hall of the Ambassadors where the king and queen would greet their guests and visitors. All the decoration was spectacular with all kinds of Islamic and Christian symbolism. The ceiling was especially decorative. Most everything was tile or carved in wood.

The decorative tile was everywhere in the palace, on floors, walls and ceilings.

In many of the tiles along the walls, and especially on the doors or windows shutters, the Jewish Star of David and the Muslim khatim appear, often together.

We saw so many rooms and Alicia pointed out so many details that it’s difficult to remember them. So, I’ll just add a bunch of photos and you can see various things. It was all very beautiful.

We then toured some of the royal gardens. The gardens were originally places for crops to be grown for the royal household. As time went on, the royals wanted places of peace and serenity so scenic gardens were created. The gardens are very expansive and quite beautiful.

The Alcazar is a very interesting place and I thoroughly enjoyed touring through it. As I said, Alicia is such a good guide and she really helped me in understanding much of the history of the place and why it is such an important part of Sevilla’s history.

After the Alcazar, we went through some remains of the Jewish ghetto that existed just on the other side of the Alcazar walls. It had the narrowest streets and this was created by the Jews as a form of protection. There are very few Jews remaining in Sevilla, but at one time they were an important part of the community, even during Muslim rule. And the Christian monarchs relied upon the Jews for support in administrative and economic functions.

After our walk through the Jewish ghetto, we headed to the river for a boat tour. On the way, we all went into a sandwich shop to get something to eat. We sat on a wall in the shade munching our sandwiches awaiting our riverboat.

The Guadalquivir River runs nearly around Sevilla. Sevilla is about 85 kilometers upriver from the Atlantic Ocean. It’s still hard for me to believe that Sevilla was such an important starting point for some of the great world explorers. Our riverboat did just an hour trip, 30 minutes down river and a return trip upriver. It was very pleasant on the boat as there was a nice breeze and we were covered. The boat had a roof of solar panels and was entirely electric, which made it nice because there were no fumes and it was quiet.

One of the popular sites along the river is the Torre del Oro, the Tower of Gold. It was built in 1220 by the Muslims and was a military watchtower for protecting Sevilla. It is dodecagonal, meaning 12-sided.

Another site on the river is a replica of the Nao Victoria, one of the 5 ships in which Magellan’s crew circumnavigated the world. I learned something about this during our visit to the cathedral as there is a plaque commemorating this accomplishment. This ship left Sevilla in 1519 and returned to the city in 1522. It was manned by 245 men, but only 18 returned to Sevilla. Apparently, upon their return, the 18 men immediately went to the cathedral to pray in the chapel that is known as the navigator’s chapel. The names of the 18 men are inscribed on a plaque at the entrance of this chapel. This small ship made it around the world, which just boggles my mind.

Here are 4 of our group members who were on the riverboat.

Here are some other sites along the river.

It was a 90+ degree day in Sevilla, so none of us were in the mood to walk a mile back to the hotel so we piled into a couple of cabs. Christine and I rested in the afternoon and then skipped the group activity in the evening. Lucia was taking those interested in going to some bar associated with a scenic view. We chose to have a quiet dinner across the street at the little bar/restaurant. We are enjoying our tapas and Christine even had a sangria.

Tomorrow is an all-day excursion to Cordoba. The golden age of Al-Andalus we learned about was centered in Cordoba. We’ll be seeing a lot of Moorish architecture and leaving more about the Caliphate of Cordoba. I’m looking forward to it.

05-09-2024: Lecture, Plaza de España, and Meriendas

We started today again with a breakfast buffet in the hotel. Yesterday there was a small area in the lobby set up for the buffet, but after speaking with some of our group, we found out that there was a much larger buffet in the hotel’s restaurant, so we went there. It was large, crowded and noisy and we didn’t care for it. However, the smaller buffet was not set up, so we had to endure a rather confusing and noisy breakfast. Our hotel apparently is a location that large tour groups use, so depending on the day, the hotel is packed with busloads of people.

Our lecturer today was another history professor and her topic was Al-Andalus, which was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. Al-Andalus covered the period from 711 to 1492 when the last small area around Granada was conquered by the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabela, the same people who sponsored Christopher Columbus on his voyages to the New World. Although the lecturer gave an incredible amount of information, it was interesting to learn about the very significant influence the Muslims had in Spain. The lecturer talked about the Spain of the 3 cultures, Christian, Jew and Islam and how these 3 religions and cultures interacted, both with periods of positive co-existence and and at other times with horrible ethnic and religious cleansing. The Muslims, during the period of the Caliphate of Cordoba, had a period of stability from 929 to 1031 that is referred to as the Golden Ages. The society was very advanced and we learned of great advancements in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, botany, agronomy and many other scientific discoveries. I was fascinated to learn that during this period they developed cataract surgery and invented glasses. Part of our homework before the trip was to watch a YouTube video on this period in history and I was quite fascinated by just how advanced the Arabic influence was in Spain and throughout the entire Mediterranean area.

Eventually, one of the things that brought an end to Muslim control was the conflict between Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims. Muslims from Northern Africa (Sunni) controlled much of the territory in the Al-Andalus, but then Syrian-based Muslims (Shias) started to gain control. But then, the Christian districts in mostly northern Spain decided to band together and gain control. Ferdinand III, king of the Castile district, conquered Sevilla, which was the capital of the Arab-controlled region. There are many statues of Ferdinand around Sevilla and he is considered a patron saint here. As the Catholics expanded their control, the the Muslims in Spain were coming to an end, with the last eradication occurring in 1492.

But everywhere you look in Sevilla you’ll see remnants of Arabic culture and architecture. Also, Jewish culture is embedded into southern Spain, which we’ll be hearing more about tomorrow on our walk through the Jewish ghetto.

After our lecture, we walked toward another amazing landmark in Sevilla, but I’ll post some photos of things we saw along the way. We walked by the Cathedral again, then into some smaller streets. We stopped in a fan shop, which had beautiful fans of display.

We walked through Jardines de Murillo, a lovely park that had walkways lined with beautiful flowering trees. It also had a statue honoring the discovery of the New World by Columbus.

After the first lecture the other day, Christine asked if she could take a photo of the lecturer. Our group leader gave Christine a playful hard time about not wanting to take her photo. So in the garden Lucia posed for Christine. Lucia is a real character and we’ve enjoyed being with her.

After navigating our way through the Murillo garden we crossed over into the Parque Marie Luisa, the most famous park in Sevilla. It was formerly the private formal garden of a palace, but was donated to the city in 1893. In the early 1900s, much of the park became the location for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition, the World’s Fair. One of the featured buildings was the Plaza de España, a really fantastic plaza. This was our destination for a visit.

The buildings of the Plaza de España are in a semicircle around the square, which, naturally, has a fountain. The buildings are an example of Regionalism Architecture, mixing elements of Baroque Revival, Renaissance Revival and Moorish Revival styles of Spanish Architecture.

At each end of the semicircle are identical towers.

Around the semicircle are 52 alcoves representing the various provinces in Spain. They are brightly colored with a map showing the location of the province. It was obvious that people love sitting in their province’s alcove to have their picture taken.

Everywhere you look there is something beautiful to see.

After spending time walking around Plaza de España, we took a taxi back to the hotel and then went across the street to the little corner bar and had a drink and tapas. We sat outside with the group. Unfortunately, a motorcyclist stopped at the corner and asked Lucia for directions, and when he sped away, the exhaust from his motorcycle was really awful and it triggered an asthma attack for Christine. Fortunately, she had her inhaler with her and within about 10 minutes, she recovered. But it scared everyone and Lucia said to me, “I understand now why you sat inside last night for dinner.” We had been leery of the fumes from the traffic, but took a chance for lunch. Turns out it was a risky choice.

After lunch, we rested. Then our next activity was meriendas with a local host at their home. We divided up into 3 groups and went off with our host. Meriendas translates to snacks, but our host Nina Alarcon laid out a feast. Nina lives nearby the hotel and has an apartment on the 8th floor of her building. She has a large L-shaped balcony so we had great views of the city. Nina is a lovely women and we spent nearly 3 hours with her. Another couple from our group, Linda and Joel, were with us and we all had lively conversation about our lives. It was a delightful time with a wonderful host who was warm and friendly. She certainly has a fabulous apartment and we enjoyed sitting out on her balcony for meriendas.

After meriendas with Nina, we walked back to the hotel. It was another full day and we were tired. One of the things that is a bit disconcerting is that it doesn’t get dark until after10pm. So being back in the room at 8:00, it’s still very daylight. Nevertheless, it was nice to be back “home” so we could relax and unwind and talk about all the things we’ve done.

I’m excited about tomorrow because we’ll be touring the Alcazar, an historic royal palace.

05-08-2024: Lecture and Cathedral

We had a nice sunrise visible from our hotel room this morning.

The weather for the rest of our time in Sevilla is going to be very hot, upper 80s into the 90s. Lucia told us that in the center of the city where the streets are narrow that awnings are placed over the street from the tops of the buildings on each side in order to provide shade. I guess the tourist season is about to end because starting in June and going to October, Sevilla is too hot for sightseeing.

We started our day with a nice breakfast buffet in the hotel. Then our first scheduled activity was a lecture on Spain from the 1930s to today. The group walked over to the Center for Cross-Cultural Study headquarters which is housed in an 18th century mansion. The inside of the building was exquisite with beautiful tile all over.

The lecture was presented by Carolina Molina, a history professor at the center. She gave a very thorough talk on how General Franco came to power in the 1930s, what his dictatorship produced in Spain, the political forces that were against each other after his death in 1975, and what is going on in Spain now politically, socially, and economically. Since Franco’s death, events are fairly similar to the U.S. with two political parties, conservatives vs. liberals, and the switching back and forth in elections in terms of who controls the government. There has been economic crises, and social issues rising to the surface, which has caused the creation of several political parties, currently about 12 of them. None can win an outright majority, so coalitions must be formed. The most significant political issue right now is in regards to independence of Catalonia, the district in the north around Barcelona. This district has been fighting for independence for some time. The Catalan region, culture, language is different and they wish to protect this. The other main political issues in present day Spain are no different than in the U.S. and include political corruption, housing, public health and public education. Spain is also a monarchy, but it is mainly ceremonial. The current king is Felipe and he became king after his father abdicated as a result of scandal.

It was an interesting lecture and everyone was pretty struck by how similar the politics were to the U.S.

After the lecture, we walked over to the Sevilla Cathedral, the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See. It is the largest Gothic church in the world, as well as one of the largest churches. It has a fascinating history as it was originally built by the Arab caliphate as a mosque. The mosque was built on the site of an older mosque and was finished in 1198. When Ferdinand III conquered Sevilla in 1248 the mosque was converted into the city’s cathedral. Its orientation was changed and its spaces partitioned and adorned to suit Christian worship practices. The internal space was gradually divided into chapels by constructing walls in the bays along the northern and southern walls. In the early 1400s it was decided that a new cathedral should be built to show the importance of Sevilla, which had become a very prosperous trading center. It took over a century to complete the Gothic cathedral and there was a couple of collapses of various parts of the structure, most recent in 1888. So in reality, the cathedral has taken over 500 years to be fully completed.

The bell tower of the cathedral is the minaret from the mosque that had a new top put on it. The Giralda, as it is called, is the city’s most well-known symbol.

The main altarpiece is the largest altarpiece in the world and is carved in wood and covered in gold. The were dozens of biblical scenes carved in the altarpiece. It was pretty spectacular!

The cathedral has 80 chapels, most of them with grilles, or heavy gates, blocking entry, but some are open for viewing.

There were originally two organs in the cathedral with over 7,000 pipes, but over time, the organs became merged.

This is the main sacristy.

I found the church rather dark. The ceilings were so high and any windows up there didn’t get light to the floor. It was a huge church, but not spacious and open like St. Peter’s was in Rome. I didn’t find is as open and welcoming and it seemed stern to me. Nonetheless, it is quite a structure and the art and contents are very amazing.

One of the biggest draws in the cathedral is the tomb of Christopher Columbus. He departed from Sevilla on his expeditions to the New World and he wanted to be buried in the cathedral. So, there is a large bronze sculpture holding his coffin aloft.

The guide we had for the tour of the cathedral, Alicia, was really good. She was so knowledgeable and very quietly, but with authority, guided us around the cathedral to show us important highlights. Because we are a group of 12, it is so much nicer to be kind of intimate with our guide as she guided us to important points in the cathedral. There were scads of very large tour groups following a guide around in the cathedral. Our guide could gather us around her and point out specific things and we moved on only when we all had seen the detail Alicia was pointing out. She was really good.

Here are some pictures of things we saw walking to the lecture and to the cathedral. The architecture all over the city is wonderful with great tile and decorations. The only problem with being in a group on the move, it’s difficult to stop and take all the photos you want. Not knowing where we’re headed, you certainly don’t want to lose your group.

We had a little rest back at the hotel and then we went to the Sevilla Fine Arts Museum, probably the second most important art museum in Spain after the Prado. The exhibits are works of art from the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque era and up to the 20th century, mainly Spanish artists. It’s not a very large museum so it doesn’t take a great deal of time to walk through the galleries. The price for admission was only 1,50 Euro (amazing!). The museum is housed in a former convent, and the building itself was really nice, having several nice courtyards. I wasn’t much in the mood for taking pictures of paintings, so here’s a few of the building, the last one being the ceiling in one of the galleries.

By now, it’s time for drinks and tapas. There’s a little bar with tables/chairs on the sidewalk across the street from our hotel that Lucia took us to. The outside seating was on the corner of a busy traffic intersection, so Christine and I and another group member, Mano, decided to sit inside, which was nicely air conditioned. We got to know Mano, a psychiatrist from Cleveland who is originally from Sri Lanka. She’s been on 10 Road Scholar trips.

After dinner, we all headed to our rooms. It’s been a long day with about 5 miles of walking, so everyone was tired. It’s been a nice day and we learned a lot!

05-07-2024: Train to Sevilla

Even though we had practiced getting to the train station, we both woke up very early and felt anxious about our timing. We were going to have a quick breakfast at 7:30, but we decided to just get to the train station and have something to eat there. So we were out the door on our way at 6:30.

Our walk to the train station with luggage in hand was not nearly as bad as we had anticipated. We’d go a few hundred feet and stop and rest. The route recommended by the hotel staff was so much easier than the way Google maps directed us, and we didn’t have too many rough sidewalks to contend with.

So, we were at the train station super early. We had a cup of coffee and a couple of croissants and watched the crowd of passengers coming and going. Eventually, our train was posted on the departures board so we knew we had to be on platform 1. I’m really glad we had our practice session yesterday because we then knew exactly where to go. And, we bypassed the slanted escalators and found the lift.

Next, we had to await the assignment of our platform. I don’t know why we had to go up a level for the entrance because then, to get to the actual train platform, we had to ride a rather steep escalator ramp down. Christine was having great anxiety about this because we had a rather riotous event once in Amsterdam that involved what we thought would be a typical escalator with moving steps, but it turned out to be a steep downward moving ramp. Unprepared and surprised by this, luggage went rolling down the ramp and Christine nearly tumbled down herself. But getting down to the train platform today was a non-event and I was able to hold all the luggage and Christine held on to the railing herself.

We found our seats on the train and prepared for departure. What a nice way to travel, an electric bullet train. It was so quiet and smooth. The trip was supposed to take about 2-1/2 hours, but we were nearly 30 minutes late into Seville.

I enjoyed seeing the scenery. Nearly all the trip was through rural areas. I learned the major crop in Spain is olives and we surely saw a lot of olive trees. This was mostly during the first half of the trip. Spain produces 40% of the world’s olive oil, which was surprising to me. The closer we got to Seville, the major crop changed to orange trees. However, the oranges from this area are not used for juice or fruit because they are bitter. They are mostly used to make marmalade and also some type of liquor. At any rate, the scenery was beautiful.

We got to the Sevilla Santa Justa train station and figured out where to get a taxi. Our ride to the hotel was about 20 minutes. We are staying at the NH Sevilla Plaza de Armas, a big modern hotel that is near the Quadalquivir River which is the only navigable river in Spain. There’s actually a Port of Sevilla. One can sail to the Gulf of Cadiz and the Atlantic Ocean from Sevilla. I think both Columbus and Magellan began their voyages from Sevilla.

We were surprised that there was no Roads Scholar greeter at the hotel. We didn’t know how many participants had signed up. In talking with the reception at the hotel, he suggested I check my email for a message from the group leader. Sure enough, there was a message from Lucia Gonzalez and we learned that we were to meet in the lobby at 6:00pm for our orientation.

We unpacked and then went off to get some lunch and walk around the neighborhood. The receptionist recommended a restaurant called Las Piletas. We had tapas and drinks and loved our choices. Then we wandered around for a bit. What was really amazing is that the Jacaranda trees are in bloom and so the streets and sidewalks are littered with purple petals, everywhere smells heavenly, and the trees are loaded with purple blooms. It’s really beautiful.

We walked in and around an old train station that is being renovated and turned into a shopping mall. It’s also a location for a McDonald’s, the nicest looking McDonald’s I’ve ever seen. The place is called Plaza de Armas.

In the last photo, that is a Bugs Bunny statue at the dome. I’m thinking it is related to the cartoon “Bugs Bunny at the Symphony” where one of the pieces was the “Rabbit of Seville.” This Plaza de Armas has a movie theater in it so I think this is why the statue is up there.

We rested a bit and then went to the lobby to meet our group leader and group. There are 12 people in the group and so we made introductions and got to know one another a bit. Everyone seems nice and we appear to be well-suited. This was the first Road Scholar for several of us, and then there were a few veterans, with the most being 6 trips, I think. Lucia is quite a character. She’s very Spanish, very demonstrative. She has a throaty, low voice and she’s quite funny. She’ll be our mother hen for the week and will make all the arrangements as we tour around. Although this is called an independent study where there is a lot of free time built into the schedule, it seems as though most everyone would like to stay together and take Lucia’s lead on where to eat, what to see, and to, etc.

After our orientation, we walked to a restaurant, which just happened to be Las Piletas, where Christine and I had eaten lunch. This restaurant is a monument to bullfighting and every inch of the walls are covered in bullfighting memorabilia, including the heads of 3 famous bulls.

We had a fish dinner of what we think was sea bream. It was a very nice dinner and we were able to get to know some of our group a little. Lucia is very talkative and had a lot to say about life in Spain, and we got into a bit of politics, including what’s happening with the Trump trial. One of our group is a retired white collar crime fraud attorney, so he was reviewing some of the testimony and giving his opinions about business fraud. A couple in the group were not happy with the politics talk so we’ll see if Lucia will change anything in her presentation.

We all walked back to the hotel and everyone was tired. Many arrived from the U.S. today. We’re lucky to have already been in this timezone because we don’t have to deal with jet lag. We’ll see how people are in the morning.

So, we’re in Sevilla, and looking forward to learning about this fascinating place.

05-06-2024: Madrid

The SleepN Atocha hotel is in a perfect location for us – very close to the train station, and about 3 blocks from the Museo de Prado. The hotel offers a very nice breakfast buffet for which you sign up for a specific time thereby eliminating the massive mess that we encountered at the Plaza Regency in Malta. The hotel is intimate (meaning very small rooms) but the staff are super. They also offer some freebies, like cookies, coffee, soft drinks at any time. Apparently, when the SleepN group bought the hotel, they took out all the old telephones in the rooms and they now are attached to the walls throughout the hotel, which adds some interesting history. There’s also a digital fireplace in a small sitting area and a little library.

To maximize our tourist sightseeing, we decided to do a circuit on a hop on hop off bus. We picked one that had a live guide rather than just an audio guide. He added color commentary and was interesting. The tour was a whirlwind and I don’t remember 90% of what the guide was showing us, but we got a good overview of some nice parts of Madrid. I’ll try to caption some of the photos. We sat in the upper deck of the bus right in the front seats. There was a window protecting us, but we were able to see where we were headed.

Of course the tour only goes through a few sections of Madrid, but one of the things that I really loved was that all the apartment buildings we drove past had little wrought iron Juliet balconies, every single building and every single window. Most of the little balconies had potted plants, adding wonderful green and color to the neighborhoods. Most of the apartment blocks are 5 or 6 stories tall and are mostly made of brick. It was just beautiful.

One building we went by, but we weren’t on the right side of the bus for a photo, was the Royal Palace where Spain’s royal family conduct all the administrative functions. They don’t live there, this palace is largely ceremonial, and there are apparently 3,800+ rooms in the palace. Here’s a picture I got off the Internet just to show you this palace. The palace above in one of 12 royal palaces that various parts of the royal family live.

The Royal Palace and nearby national cathedral of Spain sit atop a hill and are very imposing buildings.

After we finished up our tour it was time to go to the Prado Museum. I had reserved tickets for admission, but we still had to stand in line for about 45 minutes before we could enter. There was a group of 4 women standing behind us and I caught a few words and said to Christine, “I think they are from Malta.” Christine asked is they were from Malta, and indeed they were. So we passed the rest of our standing in line time conversing with these women about Malta.

Once in the gallery, I was taking a picture of the first statue I saw, Mars and Venus, when a guard ran up to me and said, “no pictures, no pictures in the entire gallery.” I was very surprised and pretty bummed as I had wanted to capture a couple of artworks that interested me.

The Prado houses a huge collection of mostly European artists dating to the 12 century, and of course has the world’s largest collection of works by Spanish artists. We wandered around for a couple of hours, until we became saturated with art. And of course, we broke the no pictures rule (Christine was the scofflaw!).

The exhibit gallery we spent the most time in was displays of the works of Hieronymus Bosch, a Dutch painter who lived from 1450 to 1516. When I took an art history class in college, we spent a lot of time studying Bosch. His work is clearly unique as he was a fantastic illustrator. Bosch is seen as a highly individualistic painter with deep insight into humanity’s desires and deepest fears. His most famous works are 3 triptych altarpieces and all 3 were on display. We watch a video that highlighted all the marvelous characters hidden around his paintings and all the wonderful facial expressions. His most famous piece, The Garden of Earthly Delights is chockablock full of small characters and graphic images. I so wanted to take a photo of this fascinating work, but we’ll have to settle for an image copied from Wikipedia.

After the museum it had started raining just a bit and so we wanted to walk back to the hotel to get our umbrellas. The avenue along the museum block is beautiful, lined with huge sycamore trees.

Both Rome and Madrid have lined many streets with trees so that there is a beautiful green canopy, making walking very pleasant.

We decided to hit the tapas bar across the street from the hotel for some lunch. We had a chicken and cheese dish and some fried eggplant. Both were delicious with very nice dipping sauces.

Now fortified, you’ll never guess where we were headed. That’s right . . . Real Jardin Botanico de Madrid, the Botanical Garden of Madrid. Madrid is full of parks and one is being completed that will be 3 times the size of NYC’s Central Park. The Botanic Garden was founded in 1755 by King Ferdinand VI. The garden is about 20 acres and is divided into 7 sections. Total collections include about 90,000 plants and flowers, and 1,500 trees. This garden was one of the best we have seen in terms of plant identification tags and signs. We were able to learn the name of some plants we’ve never seen before. Again, sorry to bore you with plant and flower photos, but we saw some really beautiful things in the garden. About 2 weeks ago it must have been very stunning with all the bulbs in bloom. We were at the tail end of much of the Spring blooming things.

We really enjoyed our time in the garden. It was a very pleasant couple of hours on a sunny day in Madrid. I’m others might have rushed off to see important sights, but we took the opportunity to spend time in a peaceful and beautiful setting in one of Europe’s noted gardens.

Here are a few more photos of buildings around out hotel.

Before we went back to the hotel, we decided to “practice” our route to the train station. We were both a little concerned about the easiest way for two old ladies with too much luggage to get from the hotel to the Atocha train station. Wheeling luggage over brick and cobblestone and broken pavement is no easy thing to do. It is about a 10 minute walk – and it seemed longer somehow. We found our way to Atocha train station, which is huge, and went in to get they lay of the land. It was very, very confusing. It had 3 levels of platforms with moving ramps to get from floor to floor. It’s also interesting in that part of it is an indoor greenhouse with lots of palms and other tropical plants.

Back at the hotel, we commiserated with the gals at the reception desk about getting to the train station in the morning. One advised getting there at least an hour before our train because she always worries about missing her train if the luggage control security line is too long. So, we decided that we’d grab some breakfast at 7:30 and head on over to the station. Seemed like an okay plan.

And that brings our one day touring in Madrid to a close. Off to Seville by train in the morning and the start of our Roads Scholar program.

05-05-2024: A Travel Day

We were pretty much all packed before we went to bed last night, which made for a more relaxing start to a travel day. We had breakfast in the hotel. We have been really pleased with the hotel, the Hotel San Francesco. It worked out really well in terms of location and it was great having the restaurant for breakfast and some dinners. The staff were all great, so two thumbs up for the hotel.

We ordered a taxi to the airport and holy cow, did we set a land speed record. A 30 minute trip was over and done in about 15 minutes. I peeked at the speedometer and saw we were going 145kph, which is about 90mph. It was kind of scary because all the taxis were in the passing lane, all bumper to bumper, going 145kph.

We had an easy time getting checked in and getting through security. They seem so much more reasonable in Europe. The best part is we didn’t have to take our computers out of our bags, a godsend, for sure.

A funny thing in the airport was I saw a poster of the Spanish Steps. Since we didn’t get to them yesterday during our sightseeing, I took a photo of the poster, so here are the Spanish Steps.

We flew Iberian Airline from Rome to Madrid, a 2-1/2 hour flight All the announcements were in Spanish, Italian, and English. The pilot gave a long talk about our route, in all 3 languages. We flew over Sardinia, Majorca, and Ibiza. I love taking airplane photos, so here are some I took.

We had again checked our suitcases rather than struggle to get them on the plane. I don’t mind checking bags on a direct flight when we’ve gotten to the airport in plenty of time. Our bags were practically the first ones onto the carousel, lucky us.

Then to a taxi for the ride into Madrid. Well, this taxi driver gave our Rome cabbie a run for his money. While we didn’t hit 145kph, we zigged and zagged through traffic both on the highway and then in central Madrid. It was rather frightening. The taxi driver didn’t really know where our hotel was. He dumped us out on a main street and said that no cars were allowed on the street where our hotel was. He pointed us in a direction and told us to walk. That was kind of awful, not knowing where the hotel was and having to drag our luggage over brick sidewalks. I put Christine on a bench in a square and went down around the corner to look for the hotel. Fortunately, it wasn’t far away and we were able to get ourselves to the hotel without too much trouble.

Our Madrid hotel is called SleepN Atocha. It’s a quirky place, but the staff are super nice and got us checked in and one young woman escorted us to our room. Our room is small, but comfortable and has a little Juliet balcony. There are are number of eateries in the pedestrian walkway below and around the square up the street.

We settled in and rested a bit. Then we went in search of an early dinner. We’ll have a bit of a challenge with our meals in Spain because dinner starts at about 8:00pm. Lunch is typically tapas from about 2:00-4:00pm. We’re not late dinner eaters so we’ll have to figure out how to work around normal Spanish meal times. Today, we settled in at a nice trattoria and had a pizza. I know, we’re now in Spain, not Italy. But it was convenient to the hotel and we were tired and just wanted something to eat.

We ended our travel day early, so we were tucked into bed by 8:00pm. Tomorrow is our one touring day in Madrid so we’ll have to make the most of our time here.

05-04-2024: Seeing the Sights

We awoke to a very fine day, blue skies and sunshine. We were happy about this because today we wanted to do a walking tour around the heart of Rome. I had copied a map from the Rick Steves travel website that went around to a dozen or so locations in the heart of Rome. There was audio to explain about the sights. So, after breakfast we started out to find the start of the walking tour. Along our way we had some nice views around the river.

We found the starting location at Campo di Fiori, a town square that was having a big market day. The square was crowded with locals doing their weekly fruit and veg shopping and loads of tourists milling about.

We listed to some of the audio that Rick Steves did, but I couldn’t control it very well so we kept having to start from the beginning, which really annoyed me. I then figured out how to download the mp3 file. After doing that, at least I could control the player. One of the beginning places on the tour was a palace of some sort, but the entire front of the building was covered in scaffolding and netting, so you couldn’t see it. So we walked back to the Campo di Fiori to catch up with the walking tour audio. The problem was, we couldn’t figure out which street to exit from the square. As we were wandering around trying to get our bearings, Christine saw a sign for a Leonardo di Vinci museum, so we decided to go see what that was about.

First of all, it was in this big building with an interior courtyard with pillars and archways. It must have been something in its day.

The di Vinci museum showcased working models of many of Leonardo’s inventions. I knew he was a genius, but I didn’t realize how many things we was interested in. It makes me want to read more about him. It was a lot of fun to be able to try out some of his inventions. There were many displays of various pulleys and turn screws and things he developed to aid in mechanizing work. He also did work on developing more affordable mirrors from which he kind of invented using mirrors to create infinity. We stood in a mirror box Leonardo developed and had fun looking at a hundred reflections of ourselves.

I liked one of his inventions that he called a carillon, which was like a player piano roll. The barrel had these little wedges of wood inserted in various places that would cause a bell to be struck.

There were quite a few models of Leonardo’s concepts for flying machines, including a prototype for something like a helicopter which Leonardo called the aerial screw.

Leonardo spent a lot of time studying birds and although he first tried to develop flying machines that had wings that flapped, he eventually realized that flight for humans had to have fixed wings. But what was really interesting to me is that in Leonardo’s time, the concept of lift had not been recognized yet. If Leonardo had figured that out, for sure there would have been human flight long before the Wright Brothers.

We know that Leonardo was a prolific writer and sketcher. We saw some displays of his work around anatomy that were really fascinating. Leonardo feared people stealing his inventions and ideas so he wrote mirrored backwards from right to left and he used his own shorthand.

I didn’t know he invented so many war machines, including the first armored tank and a gigantic crossbow. And, I didn’t realize that he was so interested in water. We saw weird boats, floating shoes, the first diving suit, webbed gloves and a buoy.

It was a really interesting exhibition and we both enjoyed it. I will definitely do some reading about Leonardo.

After the museum we found a pizza shop and had lunch. It was good to sit down for a while. Christine was having some foot pain and wasn’t walking too well. Walking miles over cobblestone gets to you. Our legs and feet were weary. I decided to ditch the map and mp3 stuff and just make our way to a couple of places that I wanted to see.

The first was Piazza Navona, a large public square ringed by old historic buildings There is also a very large church on one side of the square, St. Agnes.

The most famous thing in the square is one of three fountains, the one in the center of the piazza. The fountain is called the Fountain of the Four Rivers. It was sculpted by Lorenzo Bernini in 1651. There are 4 river gods representing the 4 rivers of 4 major continents, the Nile, the Danube, the Ganges, and Rio de la Plata. Above the river gods stands a copy of a tall Egyptian obelisk. It’s a beautiful fountain with each of the river gods in various demonstrative poses.

There are two other fountains in the piazza, one at each end, Fountain of the Moor and Fountain of Neptune.

The next stop was the Pantheon, which was a mob scene. The square in front of the Pantheon was partially blocked off due to some renovation being done on the obelisk in front of the building, so that reduced the available space for people in the square. The line to enter the Pantheon was really long and the square was packed. We simply looked at the building and moved on.

Our final stop was the Trevi Fountain, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Rome. We had heard from someone that there were barricades up around the fountain keeping people away. Fortunately, that was not the case. As we got closer to the fountain, there were steady streams of people traveling down the narrow streets toward the fountain. Once you walked out into the little square around the fountain, it was shoulder to shoulder. However, with some patience, you could get fairly close to the fountain. We actually made our way down some steps to the edge of the fountain and then found some empty spots on a short wall so we could sit and look closely at the fountain, and all the people posing for selfies.

The fountain is fairly new, in terms of Rome, having been completed in the 18th century. The Trevi is the largest Baroque fountain in Rome, which is a city of fountains. The fountain’s location has to do with the terminus of a Roman aqueduct that brought water to the city. The Trevi is a magnificent fountain and despite the crowds, I’m glad we took the time to see it.

Although the Spanish Steps was on my list of sights, we were just too tired to trek over to them. We’ll save that for another visit. So, we started our walk back to the hotel. Christine had been a trooper all day and we made a deal that since I dragged her around all day, that I’d buy her gelato as a prize for being a tourist today. But believe is or not, we didn’t pass by any gelato shops. After looking for a while, getting more tired and frustrated, I finally said, “let’s just get a taxi back to the hotel.” And that’s what we did.

Upon arriving back at the hotel, Christine said, “what about my prize?” So off we went in a more familiar neighborhood. We checked out a couple of places but didn’t find gelato. Christine said, “let’s forget it.” As soon as we started to head back to the hotel, a lovely little gelato shop appeared. We picked our flavors and sat on a wall by the sidewalk and enjoyed an afternoon treat. Seemed like a popular thing to do because we were two of about a dozen people sitting on the wall eating gelato.

Back at the hotel, we began organizing and packing for our departure Sunday morning. We then went down to the restaurant and had a really good fregola pasta with calamari and shrimp. It was delicious and a kind of pasta I have never had before.

Our time in Rome is coming to an end. It’s been a great visit and we accomplished quite a bit of sightseeing while here. Rome is a really interesting city and we learned that there is no central business district and no skyscrapers. It’s a collection of about 15 various districts or neighborhoods, most being very old. We’ve certainly enjoyed the Trastevere district. I’ll end with just a couple more photos of what it was like walking around the narrow streets.

Arrivederci, Roma!