Paris (at last!)

Paris apartment

I'm back in my little apartment after so many nights in hotel rooms in Spain (very nice ones, I might add), but all the same this feels much more like home.  I sit at the little desk (out o sight at left) to write this with the windows open and the shutters closed to keep out the heat and the bright reflection from the building across the street.

Pastel by Mary Cassatt

This is my week to do whatever suits me and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.  Shopping on Monday.  Lunch on Tuesday with one of my conversation partners on the little rue du Marché Saint-Honoré just across from the Tuilleries Metro station.  I didn't know that little pedestrian corner of Paris was there as it is north of the busy rue de Rivoli, but it is full of restaurants and a delightful place to be, although the market is long since gone.

Wednesday was devoted to the Jacquemart-André Museum with it's magnificent exhibition of works by Mary Cassatt.  They've assembled  over 50 oils, drawings, and pastels from various places, including many American museums and some private collections.  No photos allowed, but I managed to cadge the pastel at left from the web site and the little video on the Museum's web page is exceptionally well done:  www.musee-jacquemart-andre.com/fr/mary-cassatt.  As Cassatt worked more and more with children, she turned increasingly to pastel to capture her young subjects who were understandably reluctant to pose for long periods of time.

Karen, Christiane, Hollis

Thursday was another conversation exchange with my attorney friend, Alain, and then lunch with a Seattle friend, Hollis Palmer, and our mutual conversation partner, Christiane Jaffré.  We met on the eastern edge of Paris in the Village of Bercy.  This is a fascinating old warehouse district where the big barrels of wine that were transported on the river used to be stored and aged.  Some of the old warehouses are still there, occupied by shops, cafés and restaurants.  Rail tracks are still embedded in the cobblestone streets, but the area is now a pedestrian haven full of restaurants and shops and a lot of wonderful new housing looking out on a big park.

Friday featured a visit to my French tax accountant to finalize my French tax declaration for 2017 and then on to lunch at the charming Au Petit Marguery on Boulevard du Port-Royal out near the Observatory at the far end of the Luxembourg Garden with Barbara Stickler, Chantal's friend, who is as full of adventure as always.  Later that evening I enjoyed dinner with Alain and his lovely wife Valerie.

Photograph of Fair Building (like our Big Top)

Karen in baby disguise

On Saturday morning I met Hollis and a visiting friend of hers at the private Musée des Arts Forains in Bercy.  It was a lot like the Ruins (very artfully decorated old warehouse), only bigger and with more stuff, full of artifacts from fair grounds all over England, France, Germany and the Netherlands.  The fairs used to be set up like a big top, except they were portable buildings rather than tents (above left).  The collection of artifacts is astounding, artfully arranged, such as the rear end of a carnival horse sticking out of the second story of one of the warehouse buildings.  There were gaping mouths through which one could toss a ball for a trophy and many opportunities to "pose" in various guises (see moi at right).

Game imitating the Palio in Sienna

Of course, examples of carousel horses and several carousels themselves were there along with games of chance like we find in American county and state fares to this day.  Most of the artifacts are from the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Belle Epoque.  There were games like pinball in which 12 people compete with each other in order to advance 12 competitors (horses in one case; waiters with full trays in another) to reach the finish line first.

English Cycle Carousel

The most interesting carousel was an English one with bicycles which one rode.  All those people, regardless of their prowess, pedaling their bicycles produced a powerful amount of energy and they pushed the carousel faster than any I've ever seen.  Not for the wimpy, I can assure you.

In the afternoon, I met my friend Brigitte for a conversation exchange and a movie at the Cinematheque du Quartier Latin on the rue Champollion, just off the Blvd. St-Michel.  It specializes in American movies from the great studios of the 1930s and 1940s.  "Morocco" was playing, a 1930 black and white film starring Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich, both 29, in the first movie Josef von Sternberg made in the United States.  I had never seen it and I must say it was magnificent.  Pre-morals police, so no problem with some ambiguous sexuality on the part of Marlene Dietrich and camp followers in various stages of disarray.  It is a love-at-first-sight story about a love-'em-and-leave-'em French Legionnaire played by Gary Cooper (though clearly an American fleeing something disturbing in his past) and a cabaret singer washing up on the Atlantic shores of a Legionnaire outpost in Morocco.  To add to the improbability, Adolph Menjou has also just arrived, a wealthy artist with a fabulous mansion there (what on earth he's doing in a Legionnaire outpost is never explained).  The plot incongruities notwithstanding, Dietrich is utterly mesmerizing and in the end love conquers all (however improbably).  Perhaps the the best moment is when Dietrich abandons the fort in the wake of the camp followers to follow the troops and her lover, ditches her high heels, catches up with the youngest who is trying to lead a goat and grabs the lead to help out.  She's wearing a silk skirt and blouse with a silk scarf tied around her neck and not another thing!  That's chutzpah!

Breakfast at Café Marly on Sunday morning and then packing up for a Monday morning departure at before the crack of dawn.  I'm home and the usual jet lagged mess, but all worth it.

Another wonderful adventure!

Sevilla

Arcos de la Frontera

The last three days of our tour in southern Spain went by in a whirlwind.  We drove from Ronda to Seville through Grazalema and Arcos de la Frontera, two of the white villages of this mountain region.  Arcos is one of many villages with 'de la frontera' added to its name as one by one they were captured by the Christians kings and so became part of a new frontier between Christian and Moslem Spain.  As in North Africa, the houses are still white washed annually to keep out the heat -- a lasting legacy of the Moors.  They are really lovely to see, though not all that easy to reach, especially in a large motor coach.

Skyline of Seville

After our arrival in Seville, we attended a concert of cinematic music at the Teatro de la Maestranza de Sevilla, starting with Ben-Hur and ending with Star Wars.  Kynan Johns, an Australian, was the guest conductor and most of the musicians were very young.  It was a diverse group as well.  We all got a kick out of the woman playing the kettle drums and the lovely young woman who played first violin.

Plaza de Espagne

Tile detail, Plaza de Espagne

I was so happy to see Seville again.  I love the skyline -- interesting domes and spires poking up here and there.  It was wonderful to walk through the narrow streets of the old quarter and revisit the magnificent Plaza de Espagne, which was designed for a World's Fair in the late 1920s.

















The tile work is particularly impressive, reflecting a long Moorish tradition.

Tony (right) and our Chef Making Paella

Grazalema

In the evening, we took a cooking class at Padre Lazama's Cooking School, a sort of Fare Start on steroids started by a Catholic priest to help delinquent youth and now many, many others.  Our main accomplishment was two enormous dishes of paella.  I was quick to join Tony Geist's team as I'd watched him make paella before we left the States and it was absolutely delicious.  We also tasted a flight of Andalusian wines with our meal: a decent white, a wonderful red, a sherry I'd never heard of called Olorrosso (utterly fabulous) and a lighter, sweeter sherry.

Wines of Andalusia

On Saturday, the day of the Corpus Christi celebration in Spain, we took a river excursion all the way to Sanlúcar on the Atlantic coast where we enjoyed a fabulous seafood lunch/dinner at a restaurant called Bigote.  I found a new Spanish wine there, Barbadillo -- utterly delicious and perfect with fish.  I'm told it is occasionally available at Trader Joe's.

And all of a sudden, we were back in Seville, full of good food and wine, utterly exhausted and saying our goodbyes to each other and to Spain.  It was a wonderful trip, full of truly unique experiences and I just loved it.

Ronda, La Cueva el Gato and Setenil

Ronda

Built astride a huge gash in the mountains carved out by the Río Guadalevín, Ronda occupies a spectacular location atop El Tajo gorge.  It is the largest of Andalucía’s white towns. Modern bullfighting was practically invented here in the late 18th century, and the town’s fame was spread further by its close association with American Europhiles Ernest Hemingway (a lover of bullfighting) and Orson Welles (whose ashes are buried in the town).

Ronda’s old town largely dates from Islamic times, when it was an important cultural centre filled with mosques and palaces, many perched on the precipice of the gorge.  The "old" bridge at the bottom of the gorge, which dates from Moorish times, was the only way to get to the other side of the river until the "new" bridge was built during the Renaissance.  Now the new and old towns are connected straight across the gorge.  

The "New" Bridge in Ronda

The  'new' town is perched atop steep cliffs, with parks and promenades looking regally over the surrounding mountains.  At its center is the bull ring, where bull fights are held just twice a year in September.  

Street bench, Ronda

Courtyard, Ronda

The old Moorish town is full of beautiful tile work not only in the parks and plazas but also in entryways and stairwells, some of which can be glimpsed from the street.  Flowers, especially roses, abound.  This is a beautiful time of year to be in Andalusia, although our weather has been cooler and cloudier than usual.

Setenil

On our second day in Ronda, we took a trip to La Cueva del Gato, a cave in the mountains where prehistoric cave paintings are to be found.  It was a rough climb up to the cave and up and down through it, but it was all worth it, for in the last chamber we saw a drawing of a huge fish!  There were horses and bulls, of course, but the fish remains unexplained.  

One of the chambers or rooms of the cave, our guide explained, had perfect accoustics.  Paco Diaz, who joined us for the day and was to give us a concert that evening (more on that in a minute) was with us and before we knew it, he had whipped out a pair of castanets and begun to sing.  The room exploded in sound and the echos lasted long after the song was over.  What an amazing experience!

Our lunch stop in Setenil was refreshing but it is such a fascinating little place that we we wound up walking all over it (the proverbial post-prandial stroll).  It, too, is built in a gorge, a more shallow one than Ronda and in this case, the buildings are built right into the cliff faces.  The streets were so narrow we wondered how anyone dared drive anything bigger than a Smart car and there seemed to be only one street that was flat!

Paco with Spanish Bagpipe

Paco with Pan Pipe

But the biggest treat of our day was a concert in the evening by Paco Diaz, a charming man, who is one of Spain's most outstanding folklorists.  His specialty is the sephardic music of Spain, but his repertoire includes old ballads and love songs with Moorish and medieval Christian influences as well.  

Tony, our always informed guide, translated the sense of the songs and I found that many told stories parallel to the English and American folk songs that so fascinated me in the 1960s -- soldiers gone to war, star-crossed lovers, and the like.

Paco with Hurdy Gurdy

Paco's collection of instruments matches the age of his songs.  He not only plays the guitar but also a Spanish bagpipe (said to be the origin of its more famous Irish and Scottish cousins); a pan pipe made of a vulture's bone, which he accompanies with two sticks that operate like castanets; and a small hurdy gurdy.  

Not only a talented musician, Paco has a wonderful voice and the songs were lovely.  But, in the hit of the evening, he confessed that he does occasionally sing in English and offered us a perfect rendition of "Love Me Tender, Love Me True".  What a hoot!

Úbeda

Olive Trees Seen from Úbda

Not far from Granada lies the medieval town of Úbeda.  Perched on a hilltop, it lies in an area so totally devoted to olive growing that it is said to produce 20% of the world's olive oil.  After driving past miles and miles of olive trees, one could believe that there are indeed 66 million of them in this province of Spain alone!  Unfortunately, the day was cloudy and prone to fog, so the picture at the right can't quite do this landscape justice.

Medieval Square in Úbeda

Úbeda is a world heritage site because of the beauty and cohesion of the medieval architecture in the center of the city, which is a series of squares that open one upon another.

The city owes its beauty to the wealth of one of the families born there.  Francisco de los Cobos y Molina became state secretary to King Carlos I, and his nephew Juan Vázquez de Molina succeeded him in the job and kept it under Felipe II.

High office exposed these men not only to great wealth but also to the Renaissance aesthetic just then reaching Spain from Italy. Much of the wealth that they and a flourishing agriculture generated was invested in some of Spain's purest examples of Renaissance architecture. As a result, Úbeda (like its little sister Baeza) is one of the few places in Andalusia boasting stunning architecture that was not built by the Moors.  I loved the facades of these beautiful buildings.  

Of equal interest was the time we spent in an abandoned church being renovated by three brothers as an art space.   Their fondatión Huerta de San Antonio has raised money privately to rescue the building and to provide space for working artists and their students as well as for exhibitions, concerts and other activities.  We met one of the leaders of the effort as well as the well-known Spanish artist Juan Vida.  It was a most interesting day.

Granada

The Alhambra

After a wonderful day in Cordoba, the Meany Theater tour group, with Tony Geist, Chair Emeritus of the UW Spanish Department, at the helm, headed for Granada where we had a wonderful tour of the Alhambra led by University of Granada professor Domingo Sanchez Mesa.  I particularly enjoyed Domingo's ability to read to us some of the Arabic texts that are always mixed in with the geometric designs of the Alhambra.

So many of you have visited the three major cities on this tour -- Cordoba, Granada and Sevilla -- that I hesitate to add my inadequate descriptions to your own treasured memories.  But I love these places because of their testament to the integration of three great religious cultures and the consequences when things fell apart after 1492, consequences from which we suffer up until today.  So here goes with my own personal take on these great treasures.

Visiting this fortress-like structure today with its beautiful open air rooms and gardens that are so serene, it is easy to forget how tempestuous was the era in which the Moors ruled this last tiny bit of Spain.  All of the last nine Muslim rulers except the one who surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella died as a result of war or family conflict.  Indeed, there is a set of apartments here in which the eldest son (i.e. the one most likely to try to seize his father's throne) was kept a virtual prisoner.

Interior Courtyard
Palace of King Charles V

It was one of the Emir of Granada's conditions for surrender that the Alhambra be left intact.  For reasons unknown, the rulers of Spain did so.  But their grandson, Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, constructed a huge palace designed by an Italian architect right in front of the Alhambra and up against the wall.  It is, of course, a total eye sore except for the remarkable round courtyard in the center of an otherwise overdone, Florentine-style brown stone palace.

Plaster detail

Interior detail, Alhambra Palace

The walks and gardens of the Alhambra seem modest in comparison to Charles V's great palace, but their delicacy is breathtaking.  Of course, like most of the Christian cathedrals we see in Europe today, the elaborate geometrical plaster carvings would have been painted in the heyday of Muslim rule.  Now they are mostly plain but the photo on the left gives an impression of what the people of that era might have seen within the palace walls.

Lion Fountain

The use of water, flowing in great quantity off the Sierra Nevada mountains just above Cordoba, in the design of gardens and courtyards such as the one below is indeed impressive.  The most famous, of course, is the fountain of the lions.  When Lloyd and I were here in the early 2000s, it was still possible to wander freely through that courtyard, but now the number of visitors must be truly astronomical and the center is cordoned off as tourists file around the cloister (what an odd word to use, as it is usually associated with monastic houses, but it is the only one I can think of).   This second visit did not disappoint.  The Alhambra is a treasure everyone should see.

Lorca family home

Lorca Portrait

But the Alhambra is not Granada's only treasure.  It is also the family home of the famous twentieth century Spanish poet and playwright  Garcia Lorca.  The house is now a museum and we visited it on our second day in the city.  Lorca was liberal, gay and from a wealthy family.  He was killed in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War at the age of 38.  There is a wonderful portrait of him in the house, which contains many original furnishings as well as beautiful art books combining his poetry with the work of various Spanish artists.

Reading Lorca
(Tony on right)

After touring the house, we sat in the beautiful garden for a reading of Lorca's poetry, first in Spanish by a member of the University of Granada and then the English translation (several of them his own) by Tony Geist.  A beautiful moment.