Will travel

Wow. You never know when a “must-visit” tourist draw is going to underwhelm, and when it will exceed expectations. The Alhambra in Granada certainly exceeded mine. Especially juxtaposed against the over-the-top ornate gaudiness of the Chateua de Versailles, where we recently were, I was astonished by the building’s grace, simplicity, and luminosity. The marble floors and reflecting pools made the palace feel lit from within. The symmetry and geometric designs gave a sense of peace and balance. The integration of long horizontal planes and framed vistas gave the eye constant interest and constant places to rest. The tile work and materials were elaborate, but cohesive. The interior courtyards were beautifully landscaped and calming. They do a nice job of crowd control, so the building wasn’t too overrun, but even with all the people, I felt at ease. I really thought it was a moving environment. And the gardens! They just went on and on, overflowing with floral blooms of every kind and color, and manicured shrubbery creating garden rooms. The layering and building of plants and other design elements really created one of the prettiest gardens I’ve ever visited. I could have stayed all day, and if I lived here I’m sure I’d go back all the time. I wanted to just soak the place up, but the view around every corner begged a picture. Here are a few.

Four nights ago I tried writing this post, but the internet went out. It just came back on a few hours ago. I normally wouldn’t much care, but with pending travel arrangements and the inability to keep to my writing schedule (kind of), it was frustrating. The upside is we are staying in a lovely (very) old neighborhood in Granada, the Albaycin. A UNESCO world heritage site, it’s a winding maze of cobblestone alleys and whitewashed buildings on the side of a mountain overlooking the city. It’s impossible not to get lost, and hard to imagine how modern infrastructure even works here.

As it turns out, this past week was the biggest festival week of the year in Granada, Corpus Christi. The streets have been full of parades, processions, perfomances of music and dance, costumes and more. I need to read more about the origins of the festival, but I think it is such a big deal here as it celebrates the return of Catholicism to the last stronghold of Islam in Spain. We saw some questionable large puppets in a religious parade, lots of flamenco dresses, and even, in passing, a crowded bull ring. It kind of felt like all Spanish cliches rolled up into one. I’ve got a full slate of experience to write about, so here we go.

On the way to Granada, we stopped in Cordoba for the afternoon to have a quick walk around, eat lunch, and see La Mezquita. We arrived via train from Barcelona, stored our bags at the bus station, and set off. Our only complaint was that it seemed like such a lovely town, we would have liked more time there. And all the adults felt we had the best jamón ibérico we’d ever had at lunch. The restaurant was in the old Jewish area, right next to the Mosque-Cathedral. Amazing to see in such a physical way the interaction between those big three religions. Fascinating, haunting place.

I remember Sebastian’s first day of Junior Kindergarten in Toronto like it was yesterday, though it was 9ish years ago now. After dismissal from the half-day program, most of the kids stayed around to play in the snowy kindergarten yard in their big puffy snowsuits. I came to pick him up with his one year old sister in tow, likely grouchy because I always had to wake her from her nap to make it school on time.

I quickly realized there was a lot less helicopter parenting going on than I was used to when several boys tackled Seb, and they all rolled around in the snow. No one ran in to the yard. No one corrected the behavior. I peered over the fence to check on Sebastian, and he just looked at me with this huge grin on his face. Okay, I thought. He’s okay, I’m okay. One of the boys in that pilepup that first day was Sam, and he and Seb stayed friends throughout our five years in Canada. Sam’s mom Sharon became a dear friend of mine. We were in a book club together that became an anticipated and anchoring presence in life there. Most of us were in some moment of transition/transitory time, and we supported each other (and okay, maybe drank a *little bit of wine together).

The boys played soccer together for several years as well, with Sam’s dad Geoff sometimes coaching the team. We enjoyed many school yard and rec center conversations and family dinners over the years. After we left Toronto, their family relocated to Spain, a seaside town called Sitges just outside of Barcelona. We were able to meet up with them for dinner in Sitges and a relaxed Sunday afternoon strolling and eating a fantastic lunch in Barcelona. Sitges was beautiful, and it was wonderful to see them. The boys played frisbee down the spine of Barcelona, and invented ways of bouncing the frisbee off of the stone streets and narrow sides of old town walls. I didn’t take many pictures because I was too buys enjoying the moment. It was great to reconnect.

Las Ramblas teemed with people, the Gothic charmed with its narrow streets and historic buildings. The Mediterranean put on its blue show. Lunch in a seaside restaurant. Food and wine so reasonable priced, especially considering the quality. Rests at the apartment. The kids took to the subway immediately—Saoirse was standing and reading her novel by the third ride. Such a density of people, of movement, and up close coexistence.

Though all was relatively peaceful on the surface, political tensions abound in the region (as they seem to everywhere at the moment). Buildings were often dripping with Catalan flags and signs to free political prisoners now. The odd Spanish flag stuck aggressively out. It’s interesting having a teenage son so fascinated by history, and so in the process of understanding context, how deeply and far back some tensions go. I thought a lot about the year-long course I took while studying in London, Literature of the 1930’s. It let me to read so much about the Spanish Civil War. And now we are in Granada (I’ll be caught up and in real time soon!), where the beloved poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca was from and which he wrote about so movingly. He was killed by nationalist forces, perhaps for political views, perhaps for being gay, perhaps both and more. History doesn’t go away, and it doesn’t repeat itself, exactly. It changes shape, but keeps on.

Ten to fifteen minutes walk uphill brought us to the another Gaudí extravaganza—the large and elaborate Park Guel. A ticket error meant we went twice, once to the free and beautiful natural exterior portion of the park and once to the restricted portion. Ryan and I have a picture of the two of us on the famous tile snake bench overlooking the city in February 2000 when I went to see him (from London) when he was studying there. Things have changed and we’ve multiplied, but it’s hard to believe that was over 19 years ago. Still no one else I’d rather see the world with.

Made it to BCN and went straight to meet my parents at the Airbnb in the Gracia-Park Guel area of the city. They got to Barcelona a couple of days prior and had been staying at a hotel and exploring cava wine country. Our host recommended a wonderful local restaurant where we all had a delicious filling lunch. I had paella, and Ryan ate this massive bowl of snails—as a first course.

And then… Sagrada Familia. Stained glass warmed the stone in different areas of the cathedral into different hues. I loved the yellow gold behind the altar. The reds blazed and the blues cooled. Every corner detailed in some way. Everyone except Mac (too young) and my mom (hates heights) went up one of the towers of the passion for an amazing view of the city, and a vertiginous 450 steps down.

Afterwards we enjoyed snacks from a wonderfully stinky cheese shop, where a very knowledgeable woman offered to give a cheese tutorial to whomever could come back the next day…

More Barcelona to come…

Our last day based in San Sebastián, we rented a car and drove to Bilbao. Site of the iconic Guggenheim museum.

We saw some exhibits…

In addition to the museum, I was reallly impressed by the city of Bilbao. One of the first things we came across was a playground adjacent to the museum, with a nice little outdoor cafe next to it. Why can’t we have playgrounds with cafes? Mac ran off and joined the several groups of school kids there playing. We had cappuccinos and snacks. There were interesting street performers. One of my personal favorites sightings was the electric tram that ran through the city, and the way the tracks had been purposefully made into a public green corridor through the city.

On the way back to San Sebastián, we drove through Gernika and talked about history. It was a beautiful town, hard to imagine what happened there.

Our time in San Sebastián did end up being defined by food, though not in the way we anticipated. We arrived late afternoon and, after checking in to our apartment, wandered towards the packed jumble of stone streets and alleys that is old town. I’ve come to think of this stretch of afternoon as no man’s land, though perhaps no man’s sandwich would be more accurate—after lunch, but before the famously late Spanish dinner time, the beginning of which roughly coincides with our youngest’s bedtime. Especially since the old town of San Sebastián (or Donostia, as it’s known in Basque) is quite touristy, I figured we’d be able to scare up something to eat no matter what time it was.

As it was a Sunday, many restaurants were closed. The places that were open were bars showcasing the region’s famous “pintxos,” or often-elaborate Basque tapas. Our airbnb host explained that the way to do pintxos was to have one pintxo, one drink in one bar and then move to the next, etc. Sounds like fun, except if you’re trying to feed three hungry kids who couldn’t care less how delicious the 1.90 euro/cup vino tinto is. After establishing that there really was nowhere we could sit down and order dinner, or even take away sandwiches, we settled on a couple of pintxo bars down an alley that weren’t too crowded. We tried our best to grab snacks that were appealing to all, with varying degrees of success. There weren’t a lot of other kids around, but no one seemed to mind ours. Rafa Nadal had just finished winning the French Open (again), and patrons at most bars had been watching the match. I’m not sure exactly what we ate, but most of it was delicious—seafood, roast peppers, pickled beans, olives, anchovies, bread with cured meats and cheeses, various creamy salads, fish.

Eating in the area had a learning curve beyond the timing of meals. Every bar or restaurant has its own procedure for acquiring and eating pintxos, and no one seems particularly inclined to help a newbie out. Eventually Ryan and I would just go greet someone and ask how things were done. I can’t say people were overly friendly, or friendly at all really. I had to ask a lot of very specific questions, leaving me wondering how people with no Spanish manage. I often find American service overbearing, even aggressive—this was the opposite. No one cared what you bought or if you bought anything at all, and they were certainly not going to serve it with a smile or a suggestion. In the end, we had some snacks and drinks and split up to find the one small open grocery store and bakery in town to buy provisions. We went back to the apartment, and I made the kids pasta. We snacked on bread, jamón, and cheese, and went to bed.

I had planned the next day as recovery. We had been sight-seeing in Paris at a decent clip, then traveling, and I thought we could all use a sleep in and non-ambitious itinerary.

What I got was food poisoning.

I went from being mildly sick to completely out of commission. So much for our first taste of pintxos! Actually, I know better. If you’re going to eat food that’s been sitting out buffet style, don’t eat the creamy stuff, and only eat at places that have good turnover. I guess I felt overly confident eating in a city with more Michelin stars per square meter than anywhere else in the world (16 in a city of approximately 187,000 people, or roughly half the size of Hamilton County, IN for reference).

Ryan took the kids out, though, and they had a great day wandering through town and hanging out with the surfers at Zurriola beach. Ryan made an early reservation at renowned restaurant Gandarias, and they enjoyed a by all accounts wonderful meal, while I lay in bed alternating between sleeping, getting sick, and watching bad Spanish television—mostly novelas, and then a dubbed episode of Law and Order. I figure I might as well go on adjusting to the accent. When a Mexican novela (one of those cheesy morality shows) momentarily popped up, everything was blissfully clear. After the littles went to bed, Ryan snuck down to the bar/cafe beneath our apartment and watched a soccer game with some locals. I was asleep by 9pm.

I started to feel human the next day, but we were all very lazy until lunch, which we had planned at a place outside the city. We took a local bus to the town of Astigarraga, famous for its cider, and ate at Kako, a traditional Basque restaurant. We had grilled cod, monkfish, squid, salmon, salad, a lovely white wine, and we marveled at the packed house in the middle of a Tuesday. Long live the long European lunch! The food was simple, fresh, not shy on butter or garlic, beautifully prepared, and appealing to everyone in our crew.

But for dinner or a dinner time snack, we found ourselves in the same predicament as the first day. Saved again by the grocery store and a couple of frozen pizzas.

Our final full day, we took a road trip to Bilbao and a couple of other places, which I’ll write about separately. But we had a light breakfast at home, and then snacks throughout the day, somehow missing the elusive lunch window yet again. We ended up at a recommended restaurant off the beaten path that would only sell us pintxos I didn’t have much of a stomach for. By the time we were almost back to San Sebastián, we were all so hungry, not having eaten much of anything since the toast we had for breakfast.

In short, we had been in town going on 4 days, and I’d had one real meal. I just wanted to bite into something substantive. So we recalled seeing a burger restaurant, and I had the strongest, most uncharacteristic drive to go there. We don’t eat fast food. Rarely eat at chains. Rarely eat beef. But I really wanted a simple burger. And after a long and complicated order, I received my “Classico,” which turned out to be made with… egg. Not in addition to the burger, but instead of. What could I do but laugh and drink my beer in a glass, because that’s what you get at a chain burger joint in Spain. The kids all ate and enjoyed their (actual) cheeseburgers, though, and I at least felt somewhat full.

Redemption came easily on the slow walk home. We crossed the street to Playa Zurriola in the golden twilight and watched surfers and groups of friends and families hanging out on the boardwalk. We walked along the river, watching the fresh water come down from the mountains mix with the breaking Atlantic surf. Kids playing soccer next to the cathedral kicked a ball towards Sebastian on accident, and he pulled it from a construction dumpster for them. Leafy boulevards, ornate buildings in a mash-up of architectural styles, shops closed for the day. The cafes under our apartment were packed, people spilling into all available doorways and steps. Sebastian and I found an open grocery and picked up snacks for the next day’s trip and a bit of wine to fortify us for the packing process.

Próxima estación: Barcelona.