Toledo and arrival in Sevilla

April 12, a bright and sunny morning in Madrid as we check out of our hotel, and take a cab ride with a very disappointed cab driver to pick up our rental car. To get from Madrid to our next destination, Sevilla, we will drive. What are we driving? A yellow blue Mini (thanks Meg for reminding me). After we find our way to the right highway, we are on our way to our first stop of the day: Toledo, Spain.

Toledo was the capital of Spain (or at least of the territories under control by various groups, including the Moors) until Philip II moved to Madrid in 1561. The old city, despite portions of the city coming under bombardment during the Spanish Civil War, still retains many of its old buildings and feel- including the city walls.

We drive into Toledo, and find a parking lot very close to the Alcazar, which was subject to heavy fire during the Spanish Civil War, and the site of one of Franco's first victories (the garrison stationed in the Alcazar at the breakout of fighting supported Franco, and survived the siege, allowing Franco to eventually come to its rescue). The Alcazar is currently closed, as it is undergoing renovation as it is turned into a military museum. With that closed, we walked through the narrow streets, paved with stones and bricks, to the Cathedral. The Cathedral of Toledo is a prime example of Spanish gothic architecture. It also houses many paintings of El Greco, who lived in Toledo. The paintings, primarily religious paintings, are housed in the Sacristy, along with other artists, such as Velazquez, Reubens and Goya. Meg doesn't really care for El Greco and his use of space and the body- El Greco tends to elongate faces and fingers, almost to the point of the grotesque. She also thinks they all look dead, since the elongation of the face and fingers make them look hollow and shriveled. After wandering through the church, we take leave of it, and walk back up the hill towards the parking lot as we have other business to attend to.

Wine. The area that we are to cover from Madrid to Sevilla crosses several large wine growing areas of Spain, including the Madrid appellation and the La Mancha appellation. So, eager to get going and sample some wine, we head out for Sevilla. The countryside is quite beautiful, covered with trees (almonds I believe), windmills, abandoned and falling apart houses and barns, and old castle walls on hilltops. But, no vineyards or wineries so far as we can tell. We keep moving on, looking for a single word: bodega. Bodega signifies the location of a winery. As we hit the highway to Sevilla, still no luck. However, having done a bit of research beforehand, I know there's a city along the way that I know has wineries, and keep that in mind as we make our way south.

Having only passed 1 winery, which was closed, we hit the town of Valdepenas. Valdepenas is its own appellation as it produces a distinct style of wine, in that it's a red/white blend and meant to be served chilled. He hit the town of Valdepenas and see many wine companies, so we stop and drive around trying to find an open door. However, no such luck. We don't know if nothing is open because a) it's siesta time, b) it's a Saturday or c) they simply are not open to visitors. After driving around for nearly an hour, we give up, and continue our journey to Sevilla. I would like to note that it is very apparent that wine tours in Spain is still in its infancy. Other than the big Rioja areas northwest of Madrid, there is not a large amount of effort, at this time, put into wine tourism. This greatly contrasts with, not only the U.S., but also France, and, as we will see, Portugal. I know that for a long time now, Spanish wine has not had the best reputation- often cheap swill not good for much else than mixing for Sangria. However, Spanish wine has begun to show very positive signs, even beyond Rioja. Maybe I didn't do enough research into wineries in the areas of our drive, but the available resources were very haphazard, and not very informative in the way of stopping and tasting.

Driving south, we pass through several small towns, and as we get closer to Sevilla and Cordoba, the remnants of the Moors becomes even more apparent. Small towns, covered in white buildings, churches containing Moorish arches in their bell towers, orange groves interspersed with almond trees, and just a general feel of the towns.

We arrive in Sevilla around 6, and try to find our hotel, which is located in the Barrio Santa Cruz, which is a very old part of the town and used to be the Jewish Quarter, before the Reconquest forced them (along with the Moors) out of Spain. The Barrio Santa Cruz is made up of buildings, 5 floors or so high, and alleyways not much wider than our Mini (say 7-10 feet wide at their widest). Oh, and there's not much signage, which our practically useless maps and directions rely on. So, we enter the Barrio, winding our way through narrow (and possibly one way) streets, trying desperately to find a street that is near our hotel. After going in circles a few times, and not having any luck with street names, we finally find our way out of the maze and, miraculously, on a street 2 streets away from out hotel. However, our hotel, as we come to find out, is on a pedestrian only walkway, with no practical way to get our car there (the 3 alleys that lead to our hotel range basically only allow for people to walk single-file). But, we find the local parking garage. We park, get our bags out, and drag them to our hotel. I only wish we had been aware enough to take pictures of us trying to maneuver through these streets and how close we actually were to other cars and buildings.

I should point out at that moment that the weather has changed dramatically. Madrid, which is located in the center of Spain, had us in clouds and rain for nearly the entire time we were there; on the other hand, as we started moving south, the temperatures only got higher, ranging into the 80s and sunny. The Barrio, it is said, is often 5 degrees cooler than the rest of Sevilla due to the closeness of the buildings, which block the sun.

We hit the hotel, and decide what to do next. We decide that tonight would be a prime night to hit a flamenco show, and we are recommended to one just around the corner from our hotel. We miss the early show, but buy tickets for the late show. Having some time to kill, we wander the neighborhood, and stop for some dinner. I have fried nuggets of cod, which are wonderful and Meg has beef, which is very tasty. We share a plate of white asparagus, and wine. Afterwards, we head back to the flamenco show.

Flamenco is a show where a dancer, normally a woman, dances using a series of stomp-stomp-stomp across the dance floor (for use as additional beat and percussion), while doing a series of intricate arm and hand gestures, ranging from grabbing her skirt or dress and swooshing it around her, to raising her arms above her head and twisting her hands and wrists to using castanets to keep the beat and additional percussion. The dancer is accompanied, in our show, by a guitarist (playing traditional spanish guitar- think a banjo player, using the thumb for the bass lines and beat, and the fingers plucking the rest of the strings for melody) and two singers (in our show, male). The singers sing out a story or poem, and the guitarist and dancer then provide the song and melody for the story to continue. It was a very fascinating experience- noticing how the 3 different guitarists had ever so slight differences in beats and melodies (one, probably slightly more advanced than the others, was able to go up in scale and make his melody more modern, while the others stayed in their ability), as well as the guitarists watching the dancers' feet for their percussion and beat. The singers vocal styles also differed, but their facial expressions were amusing (think a mix of Joe Cocker and Al Jarreau). The dancers styles also differed from showy to more technical and precise. It was a very enjoyable 2 hour show, and upon reflection, made me glad that when I first visited Sevilla in 1992, I skipped the flamenco show option- I can only imagine how that 17 year old boy, uninterested in the technical and operational aspects of any music other than alternative, would have viewed this spectacle (I imagine I would have taken away that it is primarily dance-based, and would have found it boring, thereby not allowing me at this point to take as much interest and observation as I did this last time).

With the end of the show, we walked back to our hotel and rested for our only full day in Sevilla.

Sorry about the length of these posts (and probable running on and on and on's recollections), but I feel it's important that I try to capture these fleeting moments in words, as inexact as that may be. Having last been to Spain in 1992 (I was in high school), my memories of Spain are certainly colored by who I was then. Being older and a different person, writing these experiences down allow me to internalize the changes in Spain, the changes in my experiences in Spain and the changes in myself. As noted above, there would have been no way that I would have focused on the interplay between guitarist and dancer during a flamenco show when I was 17- I would have been bored out of my mind with the dancing, and I would have come away with a negative perspective. As it is, going to a flamenco show was something that I now considered and looked forward to, even though as I unaware of the intricacies of the dance and the show (which I am now able to appreciate).

Anyway, I've gone on long enough for this posting- I'll try not to ramble on, but I think these ramblings are not only necessary to convey the experience Meg and I had on our trip, but also as way for me to remember this trip in more than just pictures.