Seville

Given our general distaste for big cities, my strategy for our trip to Spain was to start big (Madrid) and go progressively smaller. As such, we spent the last three nights in Seville. With a population of 600,000+, Seville isn’t exactly “small” by American standards but it’s a lot smaller than the 3.2 million in Madrid proper (and 6+ million in the metro area). Overall, I would say that Seville is second only to Florence on my roster of favorite European cities.

Our apartment in Seville sits in a quiet corner literally adjacent to the western-most wall of the Real Alcazar (i.e, Royal Palace). Seriously, when we visited the Alcazar and were in a sort of isolated part overlooking what I believe is called the Poet’s Corner, we looked down and saw the front door of our apartment maybe 50 feet away. The apartment is also within probably 300 steps of the Seville Cathedral. So … if you’re considering Seville as a travel destination (highly recommended) and you’re looking to stay somewhere that is dead perfect, contact Alejandra here.

Anyway, after arriving via train (2 ½ easy hours from Madrid) on Sunday afternoon, we visited the Seville Cathedral and the Church of the Savior. The cathedral is the third-largest in Europe behind St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s. Since it actually has the largest footprint of any cathedral, I’m not sure what “third-largest” covers. Volume? Height? Weight? Anyway, it’s big. The cathedral was begun in 1401 and finished in 1528. It has an 80-foot altarpiece (aka wall of gold), the tomb of Christopher Columbus, and was home – infamously – to the first (forced) public confession and punishment for heresy during the Inquisition.

The Church of the Savior is a couple blocks north of the Seville Cathedral. It has many of the statues that people parade through town on floats during Holy Week, which is a Very Big Thing. If you want more info, either Google “Semana Santa” or visit Laura’s blog on that topic here. Most importantly, en route to the Church of the Savior, Paige found her favorite thing about Spain. If you know Paige, you know that she is fond of order and symmetry. She particularly likes topiaries and uniform hedges. Yes, almost as much as she likes power-washing. As it turns out, Seville is a complete triumph where all of these things are concerned, as it seems like they wash the streets every night.

We started Day 2 with a long walk through the Triana neighborhood. Triana is on the other side of the river from Seville proper and used to be viewed as the wrong side of the tracks (bridge). Now, it’s just a more colorful part of town. Less touristy. More “real.” And home of possibly the best tiny patisserie on the planet – Dulceria Manu Jara. We then looped back around and spent some time meandering through Seville University and the surrounding area. The classrooms – one of which is pictured below – are slightly different from ours at KU. While Paige and Hollis joined the locals in the typical Siesta, I put in a full afternoon of completely random wandering. This time, the wandering included stumbling upon a terrific hole-in-the-wall men’s shop. The name of the shop is Cabello Sastreria and it’s on the order of Drake’s of London. So if you’re into that sort of thing and you have plans to come here, you’re welcome.

In the evening, we went to the Flamenco show (one of the billions available) that was recommended by the woman who owns our apartment. I appreciate and support Flamenco primarily for the reason that I appreciate and support bullfighting: tradition. More than anything, the performance drove home two points. First, I could never play the Flamenco style of guitar. Second, the only thing that would be more annoying than having a kid who is a drummer (mercifully, Hollis never practices) would be having a kid who is an aspiring Flamenco dancer. After the show, we had dinner at our apartment owner’s dad’s Mexican restaurant, La Cantina Mexicana. It was the best meal we’ve had in Spain.

On Day 3, we started with a visit to the Royal Alcazar. The Alcazar has been used by Spain’s rulers – including the Moors that ran things until the Catholics managed to conquer them – for over a thousand years. Instead of waiting in line for who knows how long, we had skip-the-queue tickets that also granted us semi-private access (15 people per 30 minutes) to 20 or so rooms that are still used by the current monarchs. As Paige told Hollis, nobody – and I do mean nobody – does advance vacation planning better than I do. The Alcazar was rebuilt in the 14th century after the Catholics took over, but a lot of the original Islamic design was kept intact. In places it looks like the kings throughout the years basically didn’t want to deal with redecorating and said, “fine, we’ll leave the floors and wall tiles and ceilings alone and make up for it by just hanging a bunch of European art and tapestries.” While the palace is interesting, the gardens are terrific … and, making The Boss happy, neatly manicured.

After lunch, I made a solo trip to the Museum of Belle Artes. This small museum primarily features 16th century religious art and satisfies my main criterion for making a museum truly enjoyable – basically no one was there. Then I did a few more miles of wandering in areas north of the primary tourist district before swinging back through the old Jewish quarter (Barrio Santa Cruz) again. The Jewish quarter typically is my favorite part of European cities and Seville’s is no exception. I find the random shops, incredibly tight quarters, and labyrinthian streets fascinating. I suspect the thousands of Sevillian Jews that were executed here both before and during the Inquisition and then the thousands more that subsequently were forced to live here would view the quaintness through an entirely different lens.

After a second run at paella for dinner (at a place that I can't really recommend), we ambled over to the Plaza de Espana, walked around quite a bit more, and finished -- as usual -- with ice cream. Although I'm walking at least 10-12 miles a day on this trip, the scales are going to have a field day when I get back.

Next stop(s) … Rondo, Granada, and Toledo.

Cheers,
Mike

Madrid

When Paige and I were planning our summer trip way back in February, we initially were thinking about going to Russia. I had done all of the initial recon, had planned and priced various things, and even had confirmed with my first-year PhD student that she and her husband would be cool with house-sitting, dog-sitting, small mammal-sitting, and Hollis-sitting for 10-12 days while we were gone. Hollis was fine with that, but then we got the idea that maybe it would be interesting to go somewhere that would appeal to him (Russia was NOT in that category).

As many of you know, Hollis was enrolled in Spanish Immersion programs from kindergarten through 8th grade. For many of those years, every subject he took (except English) was taught in Spanish, and the focus consistently was on proper grammar, execution, and accent. So … since he basically is fluent in Spanish, we thought he might like to go to Spain. We were correct. The only potential concern was what Reagan, Hunter, and Hadley would have to say about it. Every time Paige and I have gone overseas, we’ve left the kids at home. We’ve taken loads of family vacations, obviously, but trips to Europe have always been ours and ours alone. Since the other kids are older, live in Texas, and would have their own plans for the summer – and because we did, in fact, take everybody to Hawaii last summer – I was hoping that they would be OK with being abandoned. I’m not sure if I was right or if they are just extremely convincing liars, but either way we pushed ahead for a trip for three.

Our connecting flight from Kansas City was through Charlotte. Almost two hours after boarding in Charlotte we were still sitting at the gate due to problems with the plane’s software. After twice turning it off and on again (no joke), the pilots finally got us on our way to Madrid. The apartment we stayed in was dead quiet and ideally located – just a block south of Plaza del Sol – with easy access to all of the main sights in the city. On our first day, we visited the Royal Palace and the Almudena Cathedral. The palace supposedly is the “third best” in Europe, behind Versailles (France, obviously) and Schonbrunn (Austria). I would agree that it doesn’t match either of those places, but I have no idea what the people-who-make-such-lists would put at #4. The palace has 2800+ rooms but you’re only allowed to visit 20 of them. Most of the rooms are pretty spectacular, but you’ll have to take my word for it because Spain has a thing about prohibiting photography inside tourist attractions. I guess maybe their thinking is that if people aren’t allowed to take pictures, they’ll be more likely to buy a book in the gift shop. My sense is that they’re wrong. The Almudena Cathedral is impressive but very different from what you typically encounter in European cathedrals. Madrid isn’t really a “church city,” though, so perhaps that isn't too surprising.

On the morning of Day 2, we visited the Descalzas Royal Monastery. Although I am not Catholic, I am a big, big fan of monasteries. This one is accessible via guided tour only (which is just about my least favorite thing ever) and it’s a crapshoot as to whether you get an English tour or a Spanish tour. Ours was in Spanish (of course), but at least there were only about 15 other people in the group. During the tour, Hollis periodically translated insights while we spent a lot of time just looking at stuff. The main takeaways are that the monastery was founded in the 1500s and it currently houses 17 monks. Apparently there aren’t huge numbers of young men lining up to be monks these days. I understand the supply of nuns is even tighter. Anyway, this particular monastery is a very good way to spend an hour in Madrid.

After lunch at the Mercado de San Miguel -- a tightly packed indoor foodie free-for-all just off of Plaza Mayor – we headed to the Prado Museum via Metro to show Hollis how to navigate subway systems. Luckily, we left all of our metallic balloons in Kansas. The Prado is a gigantic deal for lovers of non-modern (that is a technical term) European art. I view myself as being pretty cultured in terms of both music and literature, but not remotely cultured when it comes to art. I know that I like Caravaggio, Delacroix, Bierstadt (thanks, Hunter), and – very broadly – stuff from the Renaissance period. Beyond that, my ignorance has virtually no bounds. As experienced art novices, our initial approach was to use the museum’s guide to find stuff we were supposed to appreciate. That ended up being too complicated, so we ended up walking around randomly for about an hour and a half, appreciating things – while defying no telling how many knowledgeable-art-person conventions – as we passed from room to room. One thing the Prado definitely has going for it is that just about all of the art actually looks like art. I strongly suspect that is not the case at the two modern art museums nearby.

Post-Prado, Paige and Hollis went back to the apartment and I hopped the Metro north (sans balloons) and spent about an hour with Yunah Park at her workshop. Yunah is from South Korea but moved to Spain 14 years ago to study guitar performance. After finishing her studies at the conservatory, she decided that she wanted to build classical guitars rather than play them. She was mentored initially by a couple of famous European builders and then apprenticed with a master builder in Madrid – Angel Benito Aguado. She has taken over his workshop as he is trending toward retirement and moving outside of the city. Yunah has been building guitars for seven years and currently is working on her 50th instrument. Her work is outstanding. I bought a guitar that she finished a few months ago and placed with a boutique shop in Madrid (most of her work is commissioned at this point). As vacation souvenirs go, it certainly takes the cake.

For dinner on Day 2 we went to Botin, which reportedly is the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the world (founded in 1725). Hemingway frequently went there both to eat and to write. In fact, for those of you who are familiar with his work, it’s the restaurant where Jake and Lady Brett go at the end of The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway is my favorite author, so it was kinda cool to be in that space. Anyway, Botin is famous for their roast suckling pig, so that’s what I got. Paige got chicken and Hollis got steak, and both were better than the pig. But, when in Rome (Madrid) …

After dinner we walked around a bunch more, got dessert at two different places, and then stopped in at a hat shop. I was talking to the proprietor and she was handling things semi-capably, but when we hit a point where I couldn’t get my question across, I remembered that Hollis was standing right there. So I asked him to step in. The hat lady was visibly relieved (and very surprised) and said something on the order of “thank heavens.” I told Hollis to tell her that the only reason we brought him to Spain was to serve as our translator, which she found highly amusing. Anyway, Hollis got to use his chops and I got a hat, so it was win-win.

Day 3 was a bit lighter, with just a bunch of random walking around in town and then a trip to Parque de El Capricho. This gigantic and absolutely lovely park was created by the Duchess of Osuna in the late 18th century.  At the time, it was part of her estate. The park is a 30-minute Metro ride northeast of the city center and typically is ignored even by locals. We were there on a Saturday afternoon and I doubt there were 150 people in the whole place. I would say that if you’re in Madrid for three days and want to get away from the general hustle and bustle, it’s definitely worth your time.

When we got back from the park, we took the advice of a former student of mine (whose fabulous travel blog is here) and went to dinner at a restaurant called Tandem. Hollis was able to broaden his almost non-existent food horizons with samplings of some sort of mystery meat appetizer, cod, ox tail cannelloni, and a curried dish with beef cheeks. We capped the evening by going to see West Side Story (en Espanol, of course). It was very well done and may have been Hollis’s favorite Madrid experience.

My favorite thing about Madrid? Well, as usual, I mainly enjoyed striking off in different directions, visiting random coffee shops, and just generally absorbing the feel of the place. One thing that always hits me when I am traveling and that struck me in particular over the last few days is that 13-year-old boys are annoying wherever you go. And finally, as a public service announcement I thought it might be worth mentioning that if you're ever having trouble finding something that you really do need, Madrid can hook you up.

Next stop, Seville.

Cheers,
Mike