In Spain with Mom, Part I



SUNDAY, April 2, 1995.

On Friday morning, I made the long anticipated rendezvous with mom at the Madrid airport. As expected, I met Shawn there too. The three of us took a cab back to our hotel, located in a great location right off Porta del Sol. In the race to avoid jet-jag induced collapse, we headed out on foot to the Palacio Real, a real royal palace, still used for special occasions. Really quite impressive, though the King's daughter decided she'd rather use the royal palace in Seville for her wedding party. Then, we ate a paella lunch in Plaza Mayor - an expensive lunch in a touristy location, worth every one of my mother's pennies for the fabulous atmosphere. The sun was warm, the sky was blue, and the car-free plaza is beautiful. Now if only the Spanish called it a piazza. After lunch, it was back to the hotel for an afternoon nap that all three of us needed. In the evening at around 8 (ludicrously early by Spanish standards), we went out to some "caves" for tapas and sangria. I was finally in Spain with mom.

Yesterday, the three of us took a day trip to Segovia, a beautiful little Spanish town about a hour and a half by bus out of Madrid. We saw an impressive and somewhat historically mysterious Roman aqueduct, the town's Cathedral, and the Alcazar, a late-medieval castle complete with an exhibit of armor and various very heavy-looking weaponry. Next to the aqueduct, we dined in a cute Spanish restaurant with lots of little rooms and sampled the local specialty, roasted suckling pig. It was OK. We all enjoyed wandering the streets of this touristy but charming Spanish town - built on a hill overlooking lush green fields. We all fell asleep on the bus back to Madrid, having done our share of walking and gotten a heavy dose of sun. Boy, what ever happened to that freezing, cloudy weather in Burgos? Mom made a skeptical face at me when I told her about buying a wool hat.

Back in Madrid, we strolled the walkways in Parque del Retiro, an absolutely beautiful park complete with a rowboat filled lake, great people watching, street performers, trees, flowers, and even a bride and groom (with photographer) to complete the romantic atmosphere. We had a delicious dinner at a local paella restaurant. Seem like a lot of Paella to you? Me too.

Photos of Segovia

Photos of Madrid

Karen and Ira arrived from the U.S. this morning in time for us to all have a late breakfast together at the hotel. The five of us (quite different from solo travel) headed to the Museo del Prado. We saw lots of great art, some of which interested me. It was handy to have Shawn around. She's been studying art at school and has been to the museum several times with her class. She was able to explain some of the art and point out the highlights. We saw "Las Meninas" (the Maids of Honor) by Diego Velazquez. From there, we strolled through the botanical gardens and then headed to the train station because Shawn needed to buy a ticket to Paris (after all, she wasn't going to waste her whole European Spring break with her parents). Mom, Karen, and I sat outside the train station soaking up the sun, listening to live music, and hoping to sip some drinks - but a waiter never came. The mission was a failure - Shawn waited a good forty-five minutes before finding out she'd been sent to the wrong line. Oh, joy.

From the station, we headed over to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (i.e. the Modern Art Museum) but unfortunately, it was closed on Sunday afternoon. Then we went with Shawn to "her apartment" and met her version of Signora Provvedi, Signora Rosa. It was great fun listening to Shawn and Rosa chat about us. I could catch a little of the Spanish and cut in and ask Shawn language questions and compare Spanish and Italian with her. It got me really missing Siena and thinking that I'd really like to learn more Italian. After walking out of the restaurant that the hotel had sent us to because we couldn't find anything we wanted on the menu, we had dinner at an un-notable seafood restaurant. How embarrassing.


MONDAY, April 3, 1995.

This morning we picked up our rental car and headed eastward to Barcelona. En route, we stopped in Tarija and Mendocelli, two small Spanish towns right off the highway, just to get the flavor. We stopped for lunch in Zaragoza, looking for a seafood restaurant recommended by our guidebook. We had trouble finding it at first, but eventually found a super friendly Spaniard who simply said "Follow me" and we followed him all the way there. In general, we found that the Spanish don't know how to give directions. Regardless of where you want to go, they stick out their arm and wiggle their left hand. Oh, now that's helpful. Shawn assured us that it was NOT a language problem. Even with my Italian, I had been able to get directions in Italy. The restaurant served us some tasty plates of fried bread crumbs with grapes, their specialty. Good thing they were filling because the fish I had as my main course was gross. After a long day on the road, we made it to Barcelona, and made it to a tapas (sounds too much like top-less if you ask me) bar and ate tortilla espanol and patatas bravas for dinner.


TUESDAY, April 4, 1995.

Today was the much anticipated trip to the Miro museum. On the way up the hill to the museum, we passed a Greek theater and then saw something really cool. There were a couple of guys out practicing bull fighting. One of the guys was the matador, red cape and all. The other guy was the bull - he had some horns attached to a 2x4 and was doing his best to act bull-like. It was really cool. I hope my photo comes out. The Miro museum was excellent. I never realized how much I like his work. It was especially nice to see so much and such good variety all at once. The museum also houses Calder's "Mercury Fountain" which is really cool. I've never seen so much mercury before. It's wild the way it beads up when it splashes. In the museum gift shopccafe, we ran into a judge that Karen and Ira know from New Jersey (they're both lawyers). Chalk up another small world story.

Photos of Tarija, Mendocelli and Barcelona

We ate lunch (more fish) in a little restaurant off the side of a huge fresh fish, meat and produce market, before spending the rest of the day walking around the city. We walked up the "Rambles," a long, tree lined shopping street with lots of history. From there, we explored the Gothic Quarter and saw the amazing Cathedral. I've seen a lot of churches recently and this one is really something special.

In an acoustically favorable courtyard in the Gothic Quarter, I sat listening to a Spanish classical guitarist nailing impossible chords, while everyone else explored some museum I decided to skip. In my excitement and eagerness to applaud the end of a song, I dropped my camera and it popped open - ruining pictures of who knows what. Fuck. Looks like there's going to be a hole in my pictorial on Spain.

Spanish taxis hold a firm maximum of four passengers - annoying for a group of five people. Accordingly, we had to take two taxis to the restaurant we'd chosen for dinner. My mom and I got in one taxi, the Meisliks (including our only Spanish speaker) got in another. We indicated to our taxi driver to simply follow the other taxi and muttered the name of the restaurant. Before we knew it, we were stopped and the taxi drivers were talking to each other about something. Our taxi driver was trying to tell us something, but we just didn't understand. We glanced over at the Meisliks who were also trying to tell us something, but before we could get the window open, we were driving again. Turned out that the cabbies knew that there was no way we'd get into the restaurant we'd chosen without a reservation and recommended somewhere else to go, similar but less popular. Wow, it was crazy. In the end, I had a really tasty plate of sole with a creamy almond sauce. Yum.


WEDNESDAY, April 5, 1995.

Today was another day exploring Barcelona. First we hit the enormously popular and crowded Picasso museum. We saw a whole room filled with Picasso's various interpretations of "Las Meninas," the Velazquez masterpiece we'd seen in the Prado. Neat to see how artists are influenced by other artists. For lunch, we ate a risotto like paella (again) at the place we'd wanted to go to last night. In the afternoon, we walked and walked on a loosely self-organized tour of Gaudi's architecture. We saw his still actively under construction cathedral, Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, which (if you ask me) is the absolutely insane-by product of some crazy acid-inspired fantasy. We climbed up, down and across its various towers, continually saying to each other, "This is weird."

Photos of Barcelona

Photos of Barcelona

From there, we visited some of Gaudi's more digestible works including his "masterpiece" - the Casa Mila apartment building, as well as a variety of other less famous buildings. Although most of the buildings were locked, a friendly resident let us into the lobby of his building where we saw a cool elevator with elaborate metalwork. Then finally we made it to what I really wanted to see, Park Guell. The place is wild. Cool buildings, colors, and sculptures abound. A picture is worth at least ten-thousand words here, so you'll have to wait for me to get my film developed to get the full picture. We had dinner at a respectable Italian restaurant with truly decent pizza, got drunk on Sangria (at least I know I did), and went to sleep.


THURSDAY, April 6, 1995.

Before leaving Barcelona, we took one last look around at the Olympic stadium, pool and village. It was cloudy but there were lots of people out on the beach playing volleyball and soccer. Strange. I'm dead tired today. I didn't sleep well and I'm hung over from that potent sangria. We rolled out of the city headed to the Dali museum in Figueres, a pleasant little town with cozy plaza cafes and nice shops. On the way, we stopped for lunch and a look around in Girona. The Dali museum was really cool. I particularly liked a painting on the ceiling of the bottom of a pair of feet complete with giant, balloon like toes. The place was wild. There were even "Dali eggs" on the roof. I dig this twentieth century Spanish art. Get this, Dali also incorporated "Las Meninas" into his work.

As we got closer and closer to France, we'd been noting the transition. The language in Barcelona is Catalyn, a form of Spanish which has more words related to French. The architecture is transitioning as well. Being so close to France, we couldn't resist the urge to drive across the border in search of a good meal and a relief from paella, tortilla espanol, and Spanish fish preparations. Just over the French border in the Pyrenees the landscape is fabulous. The mountains, the fields, the trees, are all beautiful.

The Michelin guide pointed us toward Collioure, a cozy French town just over the border and right on the Mediterranean. We knew we were getting close and suddenly there was the most amazing vista, the hills rolling down to a little town along the edge of a cove. We pulled over for a photo and slowly realized, much to our delight, that this was it! That was Collioure down there - and we were going to spend the night there. Great! We found our hotel, a great little place right on the water, and cleaned ourselves up for dinner. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. A French meal.

From our table, we had a view of the cove, some hillside homes, and a stone castle at the end of a natural, rocky pier. The waiter came out first with some red velvet menus, no food on these menus - it was time for us to select our pre-dinner drink. I sampled a local sweet, sherry-like, fruity wine in a large, elegantly curved glass. Then came a plate with garlic drenched baby clams and small pieces of bread covered with sauteed onions. All this before we even saw the menu! We squirmed in delight over the cheese course and jumped up and down (as much as our full bellies would allow) over our desserts. I skipped my coffee (which I really wanted) in interest of a good night's sleep. The meal brought big smiles to everyone's faces after our week of monotonous Spanish cuisine.

Photos of Collioure



Copyright 1997 by Bradley Edelman
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