Madrid

I took the AVE [Spain's high-speed train] from Barcelona yesterday, without incident except for the fact that I had forgotten that my rail pass is a 21-day CONTINUOUS one, not one in which I get any 21 days I like within two months. SO, I have rethought my itinerary somewhat, since I started the clock running on the trip here to Madrid. I think I will go to Andalusia this coming weekend. Cordova and Granada. Then to Sevilla for Christmas.


Then, I am thinking of training all the way to Palermo, to get my money's worth before January 2, when the pass expires. I do love to ride trains, and this way I can stop off in Rome for the night if I feel like it. Naples or Salerno too, depending on the timing. Then I think I will rent a car, as planned, and just drive around for awhile. Maybe I'll even go to Tunisia! There should be some pretty good hotel deals there, right now! When I get tired of it, I will fly back to Paris. EasyJet has cheap flights from Palermo.


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Anyway, the AVE was great: not-bad food thrown in for the $30 supplemental fee (whether you eat the food or not, you have to pay the supplement). 


Humberto (Carleton Spanish and Art professor) gave me great directions around his university-area neighborhood and instructions on riding the bus. I did that successfully to the Prado and back today. it's a dandy museum. Not too big, and full of great stuff. I concentrated on Velasquez and Goya. I will remember especially the "Ladies In Waiting"  (Meninas) for its concept (the painter is looking out from behind his easel at the viewer, who stands in the place where the king and Queen are seated to pose, unseen except for their reflection in a distant mirror). 

Philip IV had a lot of these portraits painted. Too bad he was so butt-ugly (Habsburg jaw). Michel de Foucauld had something to say about this painting in the introduction to one of his books 


The Goya "black paintings" were suitably frightening. I think I will remember especially Drowning Dog, because - except for the poor pup's head - it is completely abstract.

A pleasant surprise was the Picasso on ol09an from the Pushkin Museum (Moscow). Acrobata con Bola (Girl on a ball). It was exhibited by itself in an oval room. i got to sit in front of it for a long time, and it was worth the price of admission by itself. the note said it was his "rose" or "harlequin" period (1905).

Note the ho9rse in the middle background, and how the two figures complement each other: the man on a cube, the girl on a sphere, the child's left arm and side echoing the line of the man's left shoulder, the angular male figure and the curving female one. But above all, the color. The cloth of the "blue period" giving way to the pale rose of his undershirt and the background hills.


Tomorrow, more Goya at a church he painted with frescoes.

Costa Brava

Northeast of Barcelona is the litttoral known as the Costa Brava. (roughly, the area between Barcelona and France). We drove up to Girona, a pleasant little city in the foothills of the Pyrenees,  which we could see, snow-covered, in the distance. Our aim was a scenic road between Girona and the sea. It turned out to be not very scenic, but we pressed on up the coast and happened upon something that was. Outside the town of Palafrugell is an old mountain fastness called Begur. 

Now it is a vacation destination – lots of villas and condos. But near the top it is still an old village.

On the way, we found another destination we were looking for, a good restaurant. Not too many of those open here this time of year, since the Costa Brava is not a winter resort. But we found a delightful one, by accident. 

The Galena  - Mas Comengau is an albergo – three-star hotel with excellent restaurant. The owner, Miguel, bought the farmouse (as in French, called a mas), made of stone in the old Roman style. This one is over 200 years old.

The menu was really terrific. We chose the first thing Miguel recommended: caldèr d’arròs amb llamartol  (rice-pot with lobster) for two. It was perfect:  a rich, brown broth in which the rice is simmered with the lobster. 

This was preceded by an appetizer of grilled squid and sausage, with garlic and peppers.

We got back to Barceloa by nightfall, just in time to get thoroughly lost and to take about an hour wandering aimlessly through the lovely streets to find our way back to the hotel.

Miguel, the owner, with Sharif. Miguel is a very sweet man - from La Mancha, but his wife is Catalan. Along with the rest of his staff,k he made us welcome and comfortable, in the hospitable tradition of this beautiful part of the world.


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Tomorrow, I will go to Madrid, starting my Eurailpass, on which I have 21 days of first-class travel anytime within the next two months. This includes certain ships, so it occurred to me that I could go all the way to Crete or Rhodes. Stay tuned!

GAUDETE, Gaudi!

An old friend once remarked that “you can’t lie with architecture”.  This is proven once again by the Bl. Antoni Gaudí, the aptly-named architect who ornamented this city a hundred years ago. His works smile, just as the Catalans do. (Just catch their eye and they nod and smile. It is almost like being in Thailand.) His great church, the Basilica of the Holy Family is all about the joy of creation. (He was so devout that he is called "God's architect", and he was beatified in 2000.) The Gothic-inspired design is what looks like late, flamboyant style so hot it melted. But, while the stones of flamboyant turn into fire, in the alchemy of theological architecture, Gaudí’s pillars become organic, living things. The finials turn into reeds and fruit. The columns become palm trees. All this celebrates the joy of creation, typified by the Nativity. The whole building smiles at its visitors – and they smile back. It is almost impossible to feel grumpy around this building.

The same is true of the Park Güell (pron: well), where Gaudí lived. 

At the turn of the last century, he was commissioned to design a housing development on a hill overlooking the city and the sea. It never worked out, and Señor Güell, the developer, gave it to the City for a park, 

but there are lots of Gaudí buildings, mostly walls and colonnades that look like trees, fountains, and whimsical sculptures with lots of brightly-colored mosaic tile-work. Above the main gate, there is a large plaza, which is the roof of what was to have been the market for the development. This lower floor is a dense forest of fantastic pillars, reminding one of the mosque at Córdova. The balustrade of the big plaza is am irregularly curving bench decorated with mosaic ceramic tile. It is designed ergonomically, so this enormous stone bench is really very comfortable to sit on.

On this holiday Saturday (Thursday, La Puríssima, is a national holiday and it seems that everybody takes  Friday off, too), there are lots of Catalans and tourists hanging out with children running around and musicians playing for tips. A fine flamenco dancer, small string groups, a saddhu with five dogs, playing a flute, and something like a steel drum.

You can tour Gaudí’s small house where his furniture is on exhibit. It is also inspired by living plants. 

This place is art nouveau paradise! The people seem to be just as happy as the architecture. I can see why everyone falls in love with Barcelona – it’s like San Francisco without the attitude!

This is really an appropriate way to spend the eve of  Gaudete Sunday!

Monastery of Montserrat

Montserrat is said to have  been a destination for pilgrims since before Christian times. No doubt the striking rock formations of the mountain attracted them. The ridge seems to form a kind of saw (hence the name), with large boulders jutting up as teeth. ) There have been monks here since the 7^th or 8^th Century. First, they lived as hermits, and then became a coenobitic community, which flourishes to this day, as a Benedictine Abbey.

In the 12^th Century, the celebrated Black Virgin arrived. The statue is now enshrined high above the choir. Millions of pilgrims visit each year. The Bl. Pope John Paul II visited and elevated the Abbey church to basilica status. The large monastery includes a really fine – and affordable – hotel for pilgrims: the Hotel Abat Cisneros, where Catalan food joins Catalan friendliness for perfect hospitality, at a very affordable price.

Not all visitors have been worthy of it, however. Napoleon destroyed the monasatery, and Franco, the late tyrant, also suppressed it after the civil war, in his attempt to erase Catalan culture. (The Black Virgin has been the [patroness of Catalonia for 125 years.) Now Catalan is the languiage of operation: the masses and offices are all said in the local language. [View short clip below.]

We were lucky to arrive on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Devember 8), which meant that there is special festivity all day. Beginning with Solemn Lauds, officiated by the Abbot in cloth-of-gold cope, assisted by two deacons. The Solemn Mass was concelebrated by the Abbot and about thirty priests. The large Basilica is about the size of the in Minneapolis, and it was filled to standing room only. I found a seat in one of the numerous side chapels. The choir included the boys from the choir school, who also sang the Marian devotions after mass, ending with Salve Regina, which everyone sang in Catalan.

There seem to be lots of monks, though not enough to fill the rooms in the vast monastery building. They are working on renovating a large Hostel, for official guests. There are lots of other buildings, a shopping center, and several restaurants at the foot of the monastery. All this is reached by a switchback road or by train or tour bus.

The basilica itself is baroque inside, with a full-strory for a triforium, which houses chapels above the ones off the aisles. When it was still the custom for every monk to celebrate everyday, the literature claims that five hundred masses were said every day in the chapels fo the monastery. Now, as at St. John’s in Minnesota, all these Masses are replaced by the single conventual Mass late in the morning. There isn’t much glass, but the pillars and ribs are elaborately painted, and all the capitals gilded – as are many of the retablos behind the altars.

After the image of the Virgin itself, high above the bema of the basilica, and accessible to pilgrims via a long stairway that I did not attempt, I will remember most the numerous hanging lamps. These are enormous fixtures, suspended from iron hangers jutting out from the walls. Each one is at least as big as the main sanctuary lamp at St. Paul’s-on-the-Hill, but much more fancifully decorated. And they ALL are lit! That’s because they have been electrified so carefully that one can’t see the wires at all. The colored lights are small and flickering, so they might be oil. I like it. The candles on the main altar and in the more important chapels are real. The six in the Lady Chapel were all lit.

Benedictine splendor.


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After this pious beginning, out visit to Catalonia continued in the afternoon by finding our hotel near the center of Barcelona. The  Vilamari is an elegant, modern,k boutique hotel, at a superb, significantly-discounted price, thanks to Booking.com.


today, we visited Gaudi's La Sagrada Faamilia, but decided to go in tomorrow, when we have bought our tickets online, and this won't have to stand in the hour-long line. Instead,k we drove up the coast to look at the seaside suburbs and the Mediterranean. Not very sunny, but then it IS winter. the temperature Is about like San Francisco.

We did drive around downtown a bit, too. La Rambla (above) is the famous main street, which is really jumping. Allo the streets are pretty nice, though: lined with sycamores or acacias in front of delicate old eight-floor apartment buildings - all with iron railings and many with turreted corners. Best of all, whoever laid out the streets (outside the old central core) cut off the corners of the blocks at every intersection, so that it actually forms a square. Not only is it attractive, but it makes driving allot easier.

OWS and Sermon on the Mount

A friend sent me this excellent sermon by Chris Hedges, with which I agree completely. It was preached at Liberty Square, as part of the challenge to Trinity Church, Wall Street (the world's richest Episcopal/Anglican parish) to give their vacant lt to the protesters.

It is really worth reading.

Weekend Notes

Dinner party went well. Old friend, Frank Kane (whom some may remember from his sojourn in MPLS 25 (years ago) brought some fabulous cheese, called St. Félicien~- one of those wondrous, runny French ones that you eat zith a spoon. Frank is doinig very well: bingin up his two children, now aged 13 and 11 and working as a free-lance translator as well as giving workshops on singing and sound, on the continent and the UK. He recently acquired a British passport (his late mother was Scottish), so now he has triple-citizenship: American, French, and British.

Mozart Reqieum was glorious, as one would expect. Especially notable was the bass-baritone, an African American right out of central casting. He had the body of a Sumo wrestler and the voice of Paul Robeson. he also sang at Mass on Sunday morning: a duet of "Oh, What a Beautiful City", with a tenor; and "Deep River", accompanied by the "Cole Porter piano". (This is a unique, old Steinway, unusual in that it is decoratively painted - like an 18th C. harpsichord. Porter owned it and left it to the Cathedral)There is something satisfying about these classically-arranged Spirituals; sung with authentic Jazz intonation - bending the thirds, and improvizing some of the harmonies.

I came to Thiais (SE suburb; just east of Orly, of airport fame) to visit my old friend, Jean-loup (our AFS student in high school and my reason for visiting France as often as I have done). We had fun talking about old friends, philosophy, and polkitics. He made a delicious steak - a cut called hampe; He says it come from the knee of the steer, and that it is usually kept by the butcher. I cqn see why. One of the best I have tasted: cut very thin, but completely jicy and flavorful.

Now back to Suresnes to get ready to go to Barcelona.

Mozart and Barcelona

Tomorrow I will have some guests over for roast lamb. Then on Friday, the Cathedral is doing the Mozart Requiem.

A week from today, Sharif and I will fly to Barcelona to look around for Gaudi buildings

and visit Monserrat inu the Catalan coastal range.

There is an Abbey there with a famous Black Madonna

This is where St. Ignatius Loyola renounced violence, and laid down his weapons before La Moreneta. And one tradition holds that the Holy Grail is hidden there, too.

After that, I intend to go to Madrid