All I could think about when I got home from vacation was how glad I was to be here. But in fairness, all I could talk about before we went was how much I wanted to get away.
And it’s no wonder because we had a spectacular summer vacation. We spent two weeks in Spain with our friends Susan and Bill, riding around on high speed trains, touring every museum and historic site we could cram in, sleeping in cheap hotels, eating in neighborhood cafes and bars, searching out local beers, wine, and sherry, staring agape at street musicians, mimes, and dancers, and practicing -- always practicing, practicing, practicing -- our Spanish.
All of us had lists of things we wanted to see. I wanted to see everything Velasquez and Bosch painted and anything I could find about Ferdinand and Isabel, "The Catholic Monarchs" who brought the Inquisition to Spain and gave travel money to Columbus. I also wanted to see as many images of the Virgin Mary as I could. I don't know why, it’s just a tiny obsession. Mary protects our lives, you know, and there's one for every occasion – a Mary for sailors, a Mary for drivers, one for farmers, another for singers, for dancers, for students, for the sad, the happy, for new mothers, old mothers -- and every Mary is different and recognizable, if you know what you’re looking for. For some reason, I find their sheer volume, variety, beauty, and occasional uniqueness fascinating. My personal favorites on this trip were the Virgin of Electricity and the Virgin of Good Winds, whose job it was to keep New World sailors out of the doldrums. The Virgin of Good Winds still hangs right where she did when Columbus and his crew used to kneel before her before putting in for Hispaniola in the 15th century. The Spaniards must have the richest array of Virgins in the world.
Fred wanted to see the architecture of Gaudi in Barcelona and the art of Goya and El Greco. Susan wanted to see the town of Segovia and sites recommended by Rick Steves. She brought along one of his guidebooks and was pretty much following his suggestions. Bill wanted to see natural areas and the countryside. Oops, sorry, Bill. Maybe next time.
Susan spoke a little high school Spanish; I remembered some from college. She brought a pile of guidebooks and a new pair of walking shoes. I brought a pile of new Lycra clothes and a spreadsheet of museums and historic sites. We quibbled over who had the smaller suitcase. The guys were just happy to be alive. Surfer dudes.
We saw six cities in 14 days. That means we moved almost every other day, which is too often, and we were tired a lot of the time. I can barely remember what we did. But there was so much to see and we wanted it all.
Fred and I started off at the Raleigh-Durham airport. We arrived there at around 8:30 Tuesday morning and, except for a quick lunch in New York, spent 18 hours in airports and subways. With a 6-hour time change, we finally emerged into the sunlight at Madrid's Puerta del Sol at 8:30 the following morning. Here is our first glimpse of Spain, coming up from the Metro Sol.
Madrid has a top-notch subway system, but for some reason, the corridors from the streets to the platforms tend to be very long and steep. There are often escalators up, but it's almost always stairs to the bottom. Our bags have little wheels but they don't work on stairs.
Waiting for me on the street as I took my first photo of Spain, protecting our luggage from bag thieves and gypsy pickpockets, was my beloved Fred. Fred was wearing a little money belt under his shirt and I carried an armor-plated purse/camera bag. It looked ordinary but it was made of Cordura and lined with wire to reinforce it against slashers. We feared mostly for our passports, now that 9/11 has made paperwork snafus such a trial.
We had been hearing pickpocket/bag slasher/luggage thief stories for months. A friend who works with Fred had $500 taken out of his pocket before he even got out of the Madrid airport. His wife, a Canadian citizen, lost her green card and had to pay $250 for a replacement before the airline would bring her home. Another friend lost his laptop in Quito, Ecuador, this past summer. It was lying on the chair beside him in a cafe when a man in a business suit stopped by the table to ask if anyone had lost a key. After they had inspected the key and finished their meal, they realized the laptop was gone. Kids tried to pick Fred's pocket in Italy a few years ago. They were befuddled by the zippers on all the pockets of his amazing zip-off-the-bottoms-to-make-shorts pants, but it was interesting to watch them try. The tour books and even our hotel clerks warned about pickpockets. So, I am ashamed to say, we were a little nervous and we were cautious.
We spent our first three days in Madrid. Of the 10 items on my list, I saw three: the Escorial, the Prado, and the Spanish National Archive. Bill and Susan saw the Royal Palace before Fred and I arrived. The three of them went to the Thyssen Museum while I was in the Archive, and we all saw the Escorial and the Prado together. On our first evening in town, we wandered around our neighborhood, the Puerta del Sol.
Although we didn't know it when we booked our hostal there, the Puerta del Sol is considered the heart of Madrid and the geographic center of Spain. Its landmark is the 18th century Casa de Correos, the old post office whose tower clock once kept Spain's official time. A stone in the pavement nearby marks kilometer zero, the starting point from which Spain's six national roads measure their distances. In the old days, people were burned at the stake in this plaza. Today, they use it for rallies and protests and for hanging out. Things were quiet while we were visiting. We saw Mexican Mariachi bands and flocks of young women out for a night on the town. To applaud the song "La Cucaracha," they rolled over on their backs and wriggled their arms and legs like upended cockroaches. Women rule.
The next morning we boarded a public bus for El Escorial, which is the mausoleum that Phillip II built for his father Charles V. I call it a mausoleum, but El Escorial is more a small town or maybe just a very large building, depending on your point of view. And in a way, it is a window to the Spanish soul. The thing to remember about El Escorial is that it was built by the Spanish king when Spain owned an armada of ships and all the silver and gold of the New World. In other words, it is the answer to the question, if you had all the power and money in the world, what would you build? And the thing to notice is that although it is enormous and beautiful, it is mostly plain -- a homage to God, stability, and culture. It contains a palace, a monastery, a school, a large library of rare books, the Pantheon of the Spanish Monarchs, Phillip's collection of 570 reliquaries, and lots and lots of art.
Built in the 16th century, El Escorial is a perfect model of Italian Renaissance style. It is constructed of big granite blocks that are punctuated at lower levels by uniform rows of small, plain windows and decorated higher up with towers, domes, and tall, round arches. Grand as it is, the scale is comfortable; it projects serenity.
As it turned out, the rich, solemn Royal Pantheon, directly beneath the altar of the Augustinian abbey chapel, was El Escorial's most interesting site. This small, almost circular vault is where the Spanish Hapsburg and Bourbon monarchs are buried. To the left of the altar are the identical black marble sarcophagi of the monarchs; to the right lie their mothers. When the parents of Spain's current king Juan Carlos are interred, all 26 niches will have been filled.
Other, non-ruling, members of the royal families lie in the larger and simpler Pantheon of the Infantes, which fills a long corridor and a series of side nodes. There are forty-two Hapsburg and Bourbon queens and offspring in tombs like these.
At an intersection in the corridors, we found this odd polygonal mausoleum, which holds the remains of royal infants. About 30 of its 60 niches are occupied.
Drawing support from New World riches and comfort from a little gold altar and twin icons of the Virgin Mary that he carried with him from battlefield to battlefield, Charles fought the Reformation for 35 years. But by 1555, he was old, tired, and plagued with gout, and finally willing to accept that the world wanted to change. He signed the Augsburg Treaty, which allowed German princes to follow Luther, if they chose, and effectively ended the Catholic millennium in Europe. His signature must have ripped his heart out of his chest. He divided his realm between his heirs and retired to the Monastery of San Jerónimo de Yuste in Extremadura, where, two years later, he died. His sarcophagus is in the Royal Pantheon at El Escorial, top left of the altar. Titian painted this portrait to commemorate Charles's victory at the battle of Mühlberg, which prepared the way for the Treaty of Augsburg.
Toward the end of the day, we took a breather before heading uphill to a cafe and then back to Madrid.
We spent our second day in Spain at the Prado. On my list were Velasquez's Las Meninas, Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, and Goya's paintings, but there were so many others that I found it hard to focus. I was content to look at whatever I saw; there really were no fallow moments. The Prado displays almost a full floor of Gothic altar paintings, mostly images of Mary. I spent an entire afternoon wandering through them.
The Prado's greatest treasure is Velasquez's painting, Las Meninas. Las Meninas never travels, so if you want to see it, you have to go to Madrid.
Susan said she wants to go back to Spain is to spend more time at the Prado. Me, too. Its collection of European art is remarkable. It keeps consistent hours: 9 am till 8 pm, Tuesday through Saturday; closed on Monday. Its materials are printed in English as well as Spanish, and its staff is bilingual and patient. The cafeteria serves fresh vegetarian fare, including crisp salads to order. It was an oasis in the desert.
And it’s no wonder because we had a spectacular summer vacation. We spent two weeks in Spain with our friends Susan and Bill, riding around on high speed trains, touring every museum and historic site we could cram in, sleeping in cheap hotels, eating in neighborhood cafes and bars, searching out local beers, wine, and sherry, staring agape at street musicians, mimes, and dancers, and practicing -- always practicing, practicing, practicing -- our Spanish.
All of us had lists of things we wanted to see. I wanted to see everything Velasquez and Bosch painted and anything I could find about Ferdinand and Isabel, "The Catholic Monarchs" who brought the Inquisition to Spain and gave travel money to Columbus. I also wanted to see as many images of the Virgin Mary as I could. I don't know why, it’s just a tiny obsession. Mary protects our lives, you know, and there's one for every occasion – a Mary for sailors, a Mary for drivers, one for farmers, another for singers, for dancers, for students, for the sad, the happy, for new mothers, old mothers -- and every Mary is different and recognizable, if you know what you’re looking for. For some reason, I find their sheer volume, variety, beauty, and occasional uniqueness fascinating. My personal favorites on this trip were the Virgin of Electricity and the Virgin of Good Winds, whose job it was to keep New World sailors out of the doldrums. The Virgin of Good Winds still hangs right where she did when Columbus and his crew used to kneel before her before putting in for Hispaniola in the 15th century. The Spaniards must have the richest array of Virgins in the world.
Fred wanted to see the architecture of Gaudi in Barcelona and the art of Goya and El Greco. Susan wanted to see the town of Segovia and sites recommended by Rick Steves. She brought along one of his guidebooks and was pretty much following his suggestions. Bill wanted to see natural areas and the countryside. Oops, sorry, Bill. Maybe next time.
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| Fred and Bill are old surfing buddies. Susan is a Type-A Personality, just like me. It was swell to have a playmate. |
Susan spoke a little high school Spanish; I remembered some from college. She brought a pile of guidebooks and a new pair of walking shoes. I brought a pile of new Lycra clothes and a spreadsheet of museums and historic sites. We quibbled over who had the smaller suitcase. The guys were just happy to be alive. Surfer dudes.
We saw six cities in 14 days. That means we moved almost every other day, which is too often, and we were tired a lot of the time. I can barely remember what we did. But there was so much to see and we wanted it all.
Fred and I started off at the Raleigh-Durham airport. We arrived there at around 8:30 Tuesday morning and, except for a quick lunch in New York, spent 18 hours in airports and subways. With a 6-hour time change, we finally emerged into the sunlight at Madrid's Puerta del Sol at 8:30 the following morning. Here is our first glimpse of Spain, coming up from the Metro Sol.
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| Exit of the Metro Sol in Madrid |
Madrid has a top-notch subway system, but for some reason, the corridors from the streets to the platforms tend to be very long and steep. There are often escalators up, but it's almost always stairs to the bottom. Our bags have little wheels but they don't work on stairs.
Waiting for me on the street as I took my first photo of Spain, protecting our luggage from bag thieves and gypsy pickpockets, was my beloved Fred. Fred was wearing a little money belt under his shirt and I carried an armor-plated purse/camera bag. It looked ordinary but it was made of Cordura and lined with wire to reinforce it against slashers. We feared mostly for our passports, now that 9/11 has made paperwork snafus such a trial.
 |
| Yep, that's all the luggage. My bag was definitely smaller than Susan's, but I was cheating. Fred carried my extra shoes. |
We had been hearing pickpocket/bag slasher/luggage thief stories for months. A friend who works with Fred had $500 taken out of his pocket before he even got out of the Madrid airport. His wife, a Canadian citizen, lost her green card and had to pay $250 for a replacement before the airline would bring her home. Another friend lost his laptop in Quito, Ecuador, this past summer. It was lying on the chair beside him in a cafe when a man in a business suit stopped by the table to ask if anyone had lost a key. After they had inspected the key and finished their meal, they realized the laptop was gone. Kids tried to pick Fred's pocket in Italy a few years ago. They were befuddled by the zippers on all the pockets of his amazing zip-off-the-bottoms-to-make-shorts pants, but it was interesting to watch them try. The tour books and even our hotel clerks warned about pickpockets. So, I am ashamed to say, we were a little nervous and we were cautious.
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| I carried a Citysafe 100. |
We spent our first three days in Madrid. Of the 10 items on my list, I saw three: the Escorial, the Prado, and the Spanish National Archive. Bill and Susan saw the Royal Palace before Fred and I arrived. The three of them went to the Thyssen Museum while I was in the Archive, and we all saw the Escorial and the Prado together. On our first evening in town, we wandered around our neighborhood, the Puerta del Sol.
Although we didn't know it when we booked our hostal there, the Puerta del Sol is considered the heart of Madrid and the geographic center of Spain. Its landmark is the 18th century Casa de Correos, the old post office whose tower clock once kept Spain's official time. A stone in the pavement nearby marks kilometer zero, the starting point from which Spain's six national roads measure their distances. In the old days, people were burned at the stake in this plaza. Today, they use it for rallies and protests and for hanging out. Things were quiet while we were visiting. We saw Mexican Mariachi bands and flocks of young women out for a night on the town. To applaud the song "La Cucaracha," they rolled over on their backs and wriggled their arms and legs like upended cockroaches. Women rule.
The next morning we boarded a public bus for El Escorial, which is the mausoleum that Phillip II built for his father Charles V. I call it a mausoleum, but El Escorial is more a small town or maybe just a very large building, depending on your point of view. And in a way, it is a window to the Spanish soul. The thing to remember about El Escorial is that it was built by the Spanish king when Spain owned an armada of ships and all the silver and gold of the New World. In other words, it is the answer to the question, if you had all the power and money in the world, what would you build? And the thing to notice is that although it is enormous and beautiful, it is mostly plain -- a homage to God, stability, and culture. It contains a palace, a monastery, a school, a large library of rare books, the Pantheon of the Spanish Monarchs, Phillip's collection of 570 reliquaries, and lots and lots of art.
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| El Escorial houses an Augustinian monastery. |
Built in the 16th century, El Escorial is a perfect model of Italian Renaissance style. It is constructed of big granite blocks that are punctuated at lower levels by uniform rows of small, plain windows and decorated higher up with towers, domes, and tall, round arches. Grand as it is, the scale is comfortable; it projects serenity.
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| El Escorial, courtyard facade. Big but comfy -- like your patio but five stories high and made of granite. |
We toured the grounds and palace and saw the pantheons (there are actually two), which was worth the trip, but at Escorial, we also got our first taste of Spanish unavailability. The chapel was closed because Escorial’s resident monks were celebrating mass, and of the art we had come to see -- the Goya tapestry cartoons, the Velasquez, the Bosch -- not a single piece was on exhibit. I was a little disheartened, but, as it turned out, dealing with disappointment was good practice for the next two weeks.
We toured the grounds and palace and saw the pantheons (there are actually two), which was worth the trip, but at Escorial, we also got our first taste of Spanish unavailability. The chapel was closed because Escorial’s resident monks were celebrating mass, and of the art we had come to see -- the Goya tapestry cartoons, the Velasquez, the Bosch -- not a single piece was on exhibit. I was a little disheartened, but, as it turned out, dealing with disappointment was good practice for the next two weeks.
Much of what we wanted to see in Spain had been withdrawn from exhibition. Paintings were out for restoration or on loan to other museums. Buildings were closed for renovation or repairs. And even functioning museums keep odd hours: a morning here, an afternoon there, often closed for siesta, sometimes open evenings -- different every day. It's all in the guidebooks, of course, so I knew the situation before we went; but because I hadn't made a handy little cheat sheet for museum hours, we had to mine the fine print on the go and that was tough. Sundays and Mondays were the worst. Many places are open for only a few hours on Sunday and almost nothing is open on Monday, which makes scheduling a two-week visit nitty work and time consuming. And it was complicated by the fact that we had a hard time getting started in the morning. Regardless of our intentions or efforts, we rarely finished breakfast -- strong coffee, incredible hot cocoa that cools to pudding (!), espresso, churros, pastries, rolls, American style (eggs and a roll) -- before 11 a.m., and that was a kicker, too.
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| The Royal Pantheon |
Other, non-ruling, members of the royal families lie in the larger and simpler Pantheon of the Infantes, which fills a long corridor and a series of side nodes. There are forty-two Hapsburg and Bourbon queens and offspring in tombs like these.
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| A side room in the Pantheon of the Infantes |
At an intersection in the corridors, we found this odd polygonal mausoleum, which holds the remains of royal infants. About 30 of its 60 niches are occupied.
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| We counted nine offspring of Phillip IV in this mausoleum. |
Of all I saw at El Escorial, what captured my imagination most was the story of Charles V. Charles was a grandson of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabele. Born in 1500, he was crowned King of Spain at 16 and elected Holy Roman Emperor when he was 19 years old. He took the throne three years after Martin Luther had posted his 95 Theses on the door of All Saints Chapel. In 1521, he presided over the Diet of Worms, where the line was drawn in the sand between Luther and Catholicism.
Drawing support from New World riches and comfort from a little gold altar and twin icons of the Virgin Mary that he carried with him from battlefield to battlefield, Charles fought the Reformation for 35 years. But by 1555, he was old, tired, and plagued with gout, and finally willing to accept that the world wanted to change. He signed the Augsburg Treaty, which allowed German princes to follow Luther, if they chose, and effectively ended the Catholic millennium in Europe. His signature must have ripped his heart out of his chest. He divided his realm between his heirs and retired to the Monastery of San Jerónimo de Yuste in Extremadura, where, two years later, he died. His sarcophagus is in the Royal Pantheon at El Escorial, top left of the altar. Titian painted this portrait to commemorate Charles's victory at the battle of Mühlberg, which prepared the way for the Treaty of Augsburg.
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| The Emperor Charles V on Horseback, in Muehlberg 1548 |
Toward the end of the day, we took a breather before heading uphill to a cafe and then back to Madrid.
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| This is where we first observed that people who spend a lot of time together begin to resemble each other. |
We spent our second day in Spain at the Prado. On my list were Velasquez's Las Meninas, Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, and Goya's paintings, but there were so many others that I found it hard to focus. I was content to look at whatever I saw; there really were no fallow moments. The Prado displays almost a full floor of Gothic altar paintings, mostly images of Mary. I spent an entire afternoon wandering through them.
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| The Prado was more modern than I expected, and bigger. |
The Prado's greatest treasure is Velasquez's painting, Las Meninas. Las Meninas never travels, so if you want to see it, you have to go to Madrid.
The little girl in the yellow dress is the Infanta Margarita, the favorite daughter of King Phillip IV and heir to the Spanish throne. In her 5-year-old face, you can see someone who knows in her heart that it really is all about her. She is surrounded by las meninas (her ladies in waiting), two dwarves, her portraitist (that's Velasquez on the left), the clergy, the court comptroller in the doorway, and reflected in the mirror at the back, her doting parents.
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| Las Meninas |
The little girl in the yellow dress is the Infanta Margarita, the favorite daughter of King Phillip IV and heir to the Spanish throne. In her 5-year-old face, you can see someone who knows in her heart that it really is all about her. She is surrounded by las meninas (her ladies in waiting), two dwarves, her portraitist (that's Velasquez on the left), the clergy, the court comptroller in the doorway, and reflected in the mirror at the back, her doting parents.
Five years later, Margarita would be displaced in the line of succession by a new brother, Charles II, who was Spain's unfortunately inbred, inept, and infertile last Hapsburg king. She remained daddy's favorite, however, and ultimately made a happy marriage with her maternal uncle and paternal cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I. She was 15, he was 26. She called him Uncle, he called her Gretl. She bore four children and then, like many inbred Hapsburgs in cold, wet castles before her, she collapsed on the threshhold of adulthood. She died in childbirth at 21.
Poor ADHD me. I was so overstimulated. I hardly slowed down for this Goya classic surrounded by so many others. I was having such a good time.
But I saw this one. The very heart and soul of medieval Catholicism, every day is Judgment Day in The Garden of Earthly Delights. Devils pull sinners through sinkholes to hell. Angels sort the saved from the self-indulgent slackers who refuse God's will; but Catholicism is a merciless religion, and it looks as if most people will not make the cut.
People had frightful images of hell in the Middle Ages, apparently based on scary things in the real world, and this painting drives those images home. Birdmen, lizard men, strange surreal animals capturing, torturing, feeding on woefully weak humans. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. Be warned, sinner! Your day will come.
Alas, however, it was the Church's day that approached. By the time Bosch finished this painting around 1506, Martin Luther was coming of age in Germany. Hardly a decade later, the writ would be on the wall.
Poor ADHD me. I was so overstimulated. I hardly slowed down for this Goya classic surrounded by so many others. I was having such a good time.
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| May 3, 1808. Napolean's army invaded Spain in 1808, subduing the resistance with firing squads and remaining for five years, until Britain's Lord Nelson threw them out. |
But I saw this one. The very heart and soul of medieval Catholicism, every day is Judgment Day in The Garden of Earthly Delights. Devils pull sinners through sinkholes to hell. Angels sort the saved from the self-indulgent slackers who refuse God's will; but Catholicism is a merciless religion, and it looks as if most people will not make the cut.
People had frightful images of hell in the Middle Ages, apparently based on scary things in the real world, and this painting drives those images home. Birdmen, lizard men, strange surreal animals capturing, torturing, feeding on woefully weak humans. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. Be warned, sinner! Your day will come.
Alas, however, it was the Church's day that approached. By the time Bosch finished this painting around 1506, Martin Luther was coming of age in Germany. Hardly a decade later, the writ would be on the wall.
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| The Garden of Earthly Delights |
Susan said she wants to go back to Spain is to spend more time at the Prado. Me, too. Its collection of European art is remarkable. It keeps consistent hours: 9 am till 8 pm, Tuesday through Saturday; closed on Monday. Its materials are printed in English as well as Spanish, and its staff is bilingual and patient. The cafeteria serves fresh vegetarian fare, including crisp salads to order. It was an oasis in the desert.
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| No hams hang overhead in the Prado's cafeteria. |
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| The Prado even monograms its apples. |
On our last day in Madrid, I went to the National Archive to see the reports Cortez sent from Mexico to Charles V. I wanted to touch the originals. I don't know why, I just did. I wanted to feel something Cortez felt... something that, if Cortez were here now, he might recognize – something real and substantive.
I did not see the originals; I am not even sure the Madrid Archive has them. My Spanish is so bad that I couldn't read the copies I got or confirm with the staff that they are the ones I wanted. But, I know they have something to do with Cortez -- they have his name on them -- and, much to my delight, I learned that the Archive's records are digitized and on-line. I also learned that Spain has a second archive in Seville, the General Archive of the Indies, which is responsible for documents regarding Spain's oversees holdings during its period of empire. So I decided gratefully to take printed copies of everything that popped up in Madrid and leave the originals for another trip.
We had arrived in Madrid on Wednesday morning, October 6. We left on the 6 pm AVE (fast train -- 180 miles per hour) on Friday, October 8. We arrived in Barcelona at 8:30 that evening.
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| You can't see it very well, but that's a double rainbow. |
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Bill and Susan loved the trains. |
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