To Leave Things Unvisited
November 16, 2015
“The wisest thing is to leave unvisited in every country some place that one wants very much to see.”
— William Somerset Maugham, The Land of the Blessed Virgin: Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia
I don’t know whether I will ever return to Spain, so I cherish the two plus weeks I spent there this October. I say this not because I have exhausted my interest in Spain, but because life is so short. There are so many places and activities competing for my limited time and savings.
We never did drink from the supposedly magical fountain, Font de Canaletes, on the Ramblas — a single drink is supposed to guarantee that you will fall in love with Barcelona and return again. So perhaps we stacked the cards against us!
Still, I did leave unvisited some places that I would very much like to return to, if time and money permit. Here are my top two:
- In Toledo I regret that we did not have enough time on our single day trip to see much beyond the magnificent cathedral. What I would most like to see would be El Greco paintings hanging in those locations where he painted them. Here is a list.
- In Barcelona, I would love to make a day trip to Colonia Guell to see more of Gaudi’s imaginative architecture and art.
Now that my travels have ended and I have completed my recap in these blog posts, I am ready to stop looking back and start looking ahead. Where will my future travels take me? Will I change how I travel in my retirement? While I doubt I will give up completely the idea of traveling as vacation — a fun break from my regular routines — I am thinking more along these lines:
- Retreats: to deepen my skills (watercolor painting, photography, sketching, writing, journaling, etc.) — among other like-minded souls
- Action adventures: hiking or walking trips, for example, or pilgrimages
- Sojourns: renting an apartment for three or four weeks in a single destination, like Seville or Manhattan, living like the locals and making day trips from there
- Work assignments: perhaps someday someone will actually pay me to take photographs and write and blog about a place
How do you fashion your travels? Any suggestions?
Al Andalus Luxury Train Tour Day 6: Cordoba
November 11, 2015
We spent our final day of the Al Andalus tour in Cordoba before one last lunch on board while we returned to Seville, where we started our Andalusian interlude.
“The [Guadalquivir] river flowed tortuously through the fertile plain, broad and shallow, and in it the blue sky and white houses of the city were brightly mirrored. In the distance, like a vapour of amethyst, rose the mountains, while at my feet, in mid-stream, there were two mills which might have been untouched since Moorish days.”
— William Somerset Maugham, The Land of the Blessed Virgin: Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia
” . . . Cordova offers immediately the full sensation of Andalusia. It is absolutely a Moorish city, white and taciturn, so that you are astonished to meet people in European dress rather than Arabs, in shuffling yellow slippers.”
— William Somerset Maugham, The Land of the Blessed Virgin: Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia
“The bridge that the Moors built over the Guadalquivir straggles across the water with easy arches. Somewhat dilapidated and very beautiful, it has not the strenuous look of such things in England, and the mere sigh of it fills you with comfort. The clustered houses, with an added softness from the light burning mellow on their roofs and on their white walls, increase the happy-impression that the world is not necessarily hurried and toilful. And the town, separated from the river by no formal embankment, lounges at the water’s edge like a giant, prone on the grass and lazy, stretching his limbs after the mid-day sleep.”
— William Somerset Maugham, The Land of the Blessed Virgin: Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia
We began our guided tour of Cordoba in the old Jewish quarter. After the reconquest of Spain by the Catholic kings, the Jews of Cordoba had to convert or leave. Most went into exile, and our guide said that even today there is no Jewish community in Cordoba.
The highlight of our Cordoba tour was the Great Mosque, the Mezquita. It was rather imposing, but stark, from the outside. But inside was a marvel.
“Of all the buildings in the Islamic world this is to me the most fantastic. . . . It reminded me of an immense forest full of zebras. The striped red and white arches stretch away in innumerable vistas, and whichever way you look you see the same view. It is like a trick with mirrors, yet the feeling it roused in me was one of delight. . . . There is something primitive about the arrangement, yet the effect is, oddly enough, sophisticated.”
— H. V. Morton, A Stranger in Spain
“I know of nothing that can give a more poignant emotion than the interior of the mosque at Cordova. . . . The mosque of Cordova is oriental and barbaric too; but I had never seen nor imagined anything in the least resembling it; there were no disillusionment possible, as too often in Italy, for the accounts I had read prepared me not at all for that overwhelming impression. It was weird and strange, I felt myself transported suddenly to another world.”
— William Somerset Maugham, The Land of the Blessed Virgin: Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia
“I then entered the mosque by an unprepossessing door and decided to look with unprejudiced eye at this so-called miracle; and as I stood in the darkness and began slowly to adjust to the shadows, I found myself in an architectural fairy tale, surrounded by so many pillars and arches that I could not believe they were real. I suppose that from where I stood I was seeing something like four hundred separate marble columns, each handsomely polished and with its own capital of Corinthian foliage. The arches that rose above these columns formed a maze which attracted the eye this way and that, for they were striped with alternate bands of yellow and red, and they were extra impressive in that in certain parts of the mosque they were double, that is, from the top of a capital one arch was slung across to the facing capital, and then three feet above that a second arch was thrown across in the same plane, producing a wild confusion of line and weight.
My first impression was of this wilderness of columns and arches; my second impression was expressed in an involuntary cry ‘It’s so big!’ I think no words could prepare one for the magnitude of this immense building. Its columns stretch away to darkness in all directions, so vast are the distances, and the fact that light enters at unexpected places adds to the bewilderment. Also, those vibrating bands of yellow and red increase the confusion, so that one cannot focus on a specific spot in the distance, for his eye is constantly drawn to another. The men who built this mosque, over the remains of a Visigoth church, had a vision of permanence and magnitude that still stuns the imagination.”
— James Michner, Iberia
“The mosque was dimly lit, the air heavy with incense; and I saw this forest of pillars, extending every way, as far as the eye could reach. It was mysterious and awe-inspiring as those enchanted forests of one’s childhood in which huge trees grew in serried masses and where in cavernous darkness goblins and giants of the fairy-tales, wild beasts and monstrous shapes, lay in wait for the terrified traveller who had lost his way.”
— William Somerset Maugham, The Land of the Blessed Virgin: Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia
“At length I came to the Mihrab, which is the Holy of Holies, the most exquisite as well as the most sacred part of the mosque. It is approached by a vestibule of which the roof is a miracle of grace, with mosaics that glow like precious stones, ultramarine, scarlet, emerald, and gold. The arch between the chambers is ornamented with four pillars of coloured marble, and again with mosaic, the gold letters of an Arabic inscription forming on the deep sapphire of the background in a decorative pattern. The Mihrab itself, which contained the famous Koran of Othman, has seven sides of white marble, and the roof is a huge shell cut from a single block.”
— William Somerset Maugham, The Land of the Blessed Virgin: Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia
“Here, lost in this wilderness of columns, hid a full-sized Catholic cathedral, one of colossal ugliness.”
— James Michner, Iberia
“Nothing could be more emblematic of Andalusia, perhaps even of Spain, than to see this Christian jewel in its unlikely Moslem setting.”
— H. V. Morton, A Stranger in Spain
The awesome beauty of Cordoba’s Great Mosque and cathedral left me speechless. I cannot think of a more impressive way to end our Al Andalus train tour.
Al Andalus Luxury Train Tour Day 5: Linares, Baeza, and Ubeda
November 10, 2015
In the early morning of Day 5 our train made its journey to the station at Linares-Baeza where we parked for the day. We were definitely in olive country. Rows upon rows of olive trees stretched to the distant horizon outside the train windows.
An accident blocked the road to the Olive Oil Museum in Baeza, so we had a change in itinerary and started the day with a walking tour of the town. Our guide, Andrei (he was Italian and loved to talk with his hands), was very enthusiastic about sharing the history of this area of Spain, where he is now a resident.
Baeza was a center of learning and the location of an antique university. Today the new International University of Andalucía is located there.
This was a day for small towns. After we left Baeza, we took the bus to Ubeda, where we went on another walking tour.
Finally, after another delicious lunch at the National Parador of Ubeda, we were able to drive to the Olive Oil Museum for a tour and olive oil tasting. Our guide said that this area of Spain has 65 million olive trees, of which half have been planted in the past 50 years. There is now very much a mono-crop agricultural economy here. And 95-percent of the trees in the Baeza area are of the Picual variety which make the best olive oil.
When we did the olive oil tasting, I discovered that the oil of the Picual olives leaves a very bitter aftertaste. But it is high in nutrients and good for cooking.
We learned that virgin oil is derived by simple pressing or squeezing (no refining). Extra virgin oil has only positive attributes. The color of the oil doesn’t reflect on its quality. If green, it just means the olives were picked earlier in their growth cycle so they retain more chlorophyll. Olive oil never gets better with age. Two years is the maximum expiration date. Olives for eating need to sit 40 days in salt brine.