Tag Archives: travel
And away we go…!
View of the Old Seven Mile Bridge from the Florida Bay side….
Swimming lizards???
I’m sorry, but lizards just shouldn’t swim. It’s too freaky! (I think he was doing the dog-paddle.)
Sombrero Beach Resort, Marathon, Florida
View from our balcony – so sad…an empty boat slip.
Ah, that’s better! Our very own Beach Music….
Learning to cha-cha
Bar Barossa
The terrorist attacks in Paris made us want to stick pretty close to home. Our apartment is on one of the best restaurant streets in Madrid, similar to a couple of those targeted in the Paris attacks. At night and all throughout the weekend people spill out from the tiny bars and dining establishments and party in the street. From our fifth-floor apartment we look down upon a river of people.
We went out on Friday night, several hours before the Paris attacks. On Saturday, we stayed in. By Sunday we were starting to feel claustrophobic. This apartment is not big and is our least favorite of the entire trip. The grime in the corners, the chill of the marble floors, and the meager cooking equipment in the kitchen made us long for some freshly cooked food in the brilliant Spanish sunshine.
paella and vermut
Marcus had been reading an article in Saveur magazine on the sweet, red vermouth (vermut, in Spanish) that is so popular in Madrid. The magazine mentioned a little mom-and-pop place in the Mercado de San Fernando not far from our apartment. I started putting on my shoes as he told me about it. ¡Vamanos!
San Fernando is a typical fresh market prevalent in every city in Spain. Madrid has at least one in each barrio. They’re usually not open on Sundays, so I was surprised to hear music blasting out the doors and see the people milling in and out. Inside, in the center of all the closed market stalls, people were dancing to the hip-swaying Latin beat.
Some of the cafés around the periphery of the market were open, serving up tapas and beers, wine and jamón, and other Spanish delicacies. It didn’t take us long to find Bar Barossa. We even recognized Mom and Pop from the magazine photos. We ordered two vermuts and gobbled down the tapa of paella that comes free with every drink order. When we were done, we climbed up to the market’s second floor that overlooks the open, center space. On an ordinary weekday, this space would be full of tables and chairs for shoppers to rest and refresh with a beverage and a snack after a busy day of shopping, but today it was the dance floor.
It was so good to see people out and enjoying themselves. Giving in to our fears and sequestering ourselves indoors can do us more psychological harm than good. Life will go on, but you have to make that first step. One-two-three, cha-cha-cha.
Not in Paris
courtesy of CNN
Marcus’s cell phone woke me at 2:00 in the morning with a ring tone notification, a piercing strobe light, and the persistent buzzing of vibration mode. This is the way his phone gets his attention with every new communication, but this time it seemed different—more urgent—but perhaps that’s hindsight talking.
It was an email from his sister Emily: Glad you are not in Paris! Be safe.
Paris? Why Paris?
Marcus checked his news feed. “There’s been a terror attack in Paris,” he said. He read bits and pieces out loud: More than 150 killed in Paris attacks. State of emergency declared. Shooting outside restaurant. Neighborhood evacuated. Night of terror. Chaos in the streets. Explosion heard at soccer match. Gunfire heard outside the Bataclan Theatre.
My mind, still groggy, recalled another news report just ten days earlier: Moroccan Nationals arrested in Madrid; maximum-risk suspects were extremely radicalized and had a full willingness to take action and carry out terrorist attacks in Madrid.
And there I was, listening to stories about terror in Paris while I was lying in bed in Madrid. My heart went out to the people of Paris. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and I can assure you they weren’t giving out any T-shirts.
Leonardo da Vinci airport, Rome, December 17, 1973. First time I had ever traveled alone. I had turned seventeen just the week before, and was traveling from school in Switzerland to my parents’ home in Saudi Arabia. By the time I arrived in Rome, I had negotiated a pre-dawn taxi ride from school to the train station and a train from Lugano to Milan (where I was chewed out by the conductor in a language I didn’t understand for unknowingly sitting in a first-class car on an empty train), and had agonized through an excruciatingly long taxi ride from Milan’s train station to the airport during a transportation strike, barely catching my flight from Milan to Rome. All that remained was the flight from Rome to Riyadh. One more leg, and I would be home. I only needed to get to my gate and sit tight until the flight boarded.
But fate had other plans for me that day, and Riyadh was not a part of them. As I approached the security checkpoint on the way to my gate, Palestinian terrorists opened fire just fifty feet in front of me, killing two people and taking many more hostage. Thirty more would die in fires on board a PanAm jet in the hellish aftermath of grenades thrown through the open doors of the plane on the tarmac. I saw the tail of the jet explode through the floor-to-ceiling window in front of me as I stood unable to help myself, immobilized by fear. I would spend an hour cowering in a restroom, waiting for the gunfire in the terminal to stop, and then several more hours in a cold, dark parking lot while police scoured the terminal for remaining terrorists. When we were finally allowed back into the terminal, I waited in the mayhem of cancelled flights and anxious travelers for a flight that would never depart.
Before that day, I wouldn’t have thought it possible to define the exact moment when I would pass from childhood to adulthood, but for me it was clear. After quietly enduring the hours-long charade of asking the gate attendant when my flight would depart for Riyadh and being assured repeatedly that it would definitely happen in the next hour or so, I faced him across the Saudia Airlines desk. Always a shy child afraid to question my elders, I drew from some previously untapped well. “I know the flight to Riyadh is not leaving tonight,” I said calmly. “I want you to put me on tomorrow’s flight, and I want you to contact my parents in Riyadh and tell them I’m alright. I also want you to get me a room in the airport hotel—at Saudia’s expense. I will not sleep in the terminal tonight.” The attendant looked at me, nodded, and picked up the phone.
I barely slept that night; I was so afraid I would miss my flight the next day. After a few hours of tossing and turning, I got up, showered, put yesterday’s clothing back on, and returned to the terminal. Despite the congestion from the previous day’s debacle, I made it home that day. The nightmares started two days later.
So I’m lying here in this apartment in Madrid, thinking about the terror in Paris. The Madrileños in the tapas bars below our apartment haven’t yet heard the horrendous news and are laughing and carrying on like there’s no tomorrow…as thousands of Parisians were doing several hours ago.
I wish them peace in their souls.
Our familiar
After 75 days of packing up and moving on to unfamiliar territory, familiar feels good! Don’t get me wrong: We have loved exploring new places, and that is why we weren’t at all prepared for how good it would feel to come back to something we know.
Over two months ago we began this journey in Madrid, a city I expected we’d find too large and uninteresting. Compared to most of the cities we have stayed in, there really aren’t that many sights to see here in the capital. I thought we’d spend the first week in Madrid recuperating from jet lag and adjusting to the language difference. And after driving 4200 miles through the rest of Spain, we’d spend the last week in Madrid winding down and preparing for our flight home.
Madrid may be the largest city in Spain, but the distinct personalities of its neighborhoods, or barrios, give it such character. It is the kind of city you want to wander in. Within minutes you can stroll from the historic barrios of Palacio and Sol to the art museum promenade of Retiro, the international bohemia of Las Letras, the tapas bars of La Latina, or the chic boutiques of Chueca and Malasaña.
After ditching our luggage in the same apartment we stayed in in September—quickest check-in yet, all our host had to do was hand over the keys!—we turned in our third and final rental car and wandered back “home.” We delighted in seeing places we knew and knowing where we wanted to go. We stopped at an outdoor café on the Gran Vía (it’s still warm enough to have tables out in November!), ordered a couple of beers without having to worry if we got all the verb tenses right, munched on our daily dose of olives, and sat and watched the world go by. No car, no map, no worries. It’s good to be back!
15 of 15!
the communidades (states) of Spain
Today on the final leg of our three-month drive through Spain we crossed from Mérida in the communidad (state) of Extremadura to Madrid in the communidad of Madrid through Castilla-La Mancha. We have now seen all fifteen mainland communidades up close and personal.
Our hosts in Mérida were intrigued by our extended travel through Spain. “Where have you been?” Pablo asked as we rode up to the apartment in the elevator. I rattled off just the 18 cities we had stayed in, and he said, “Oh, my God! You’ve seen more of Spain than most Spaniards!”
In my mind that’s the only way to experience a country, from the inside out.
Mercado de los Tres Culturos
el Casco Viejo (Old City) in Cáceres
We’re winding down—only four days to go on this Grand Tour of Spain—and it’s getting harder to get excited about venturing out. While I love my Roman ruins, Moorish fortresses, and medieval walled cities, how many can you continue to experience with enthusiasm after three months? We had exhausted Mérida’s offerings the day before and didn’t like the thought of staying in the apartment all day, so we went ahead with my plan to visit the ancient city of Cáceres.
These walled cities, perched high on a hill overlooking what was once their domain, are always exciting on the approach. As the car enters the Casco Viejo (Old City), the roads become increasingly steeper and narrower, the massive stone buildings grow a bit closer together, and the parking spaces are fewer and farther between. There have been many old city streets that we have declared too narrow to be navigable only to see someone’s car parked outside their home farther up the hill. How do they get them up there? Nerves of steel.
jabalí (wild boar) on toast with melted local cheese
We tried driving to the top—car in first gear, mirrors tucked in tightly, breath sucked in, and ears tuned for that dreaded scrape of metal on stone that miraculously never comes. There comes a point where we wonder if we could actually wedge the car into a space so snugly that we wouldn’t be able to get out. That’s when we lose our nerve and look for a road—any road—heading back down the hill.
Safely at the bottom, we found a parking garage in the more modern and open part of the city and set off on foot to climb the hill. We arrived out of breath in the heart of the Old City and made our way toward the Plaza Mayor. As we walked, booths popped up here and there on either side of the narrow alleyways. By the time we reached the plaza, we were in the middle of a full-blown souk, or zoco as they call them in Spain—a Middle-Eastern market. Vendors, dressed in historic garb, were selling all manner of artisanal crafts. Unbeknownst to us, this was the first day of the Mercado de los Tres Culturos, the Market of the Three Cultures—Muslim, Jewish, and Christian. Spain is very proud of their four centuries of prosperity under Muslim rule when all three cultures coexisted peacefully, and well they should be. We could use a little more of that in today’s world.
grilled meat vendor
wood carver using a manual lathe
We had so much fun shopping: saffron and smoked paprika, olive oil soaps, meats and cheeses—all handmade in Extremadura. The food booths were extraordinary—whole roasting pigs and paella pans full of rice and vegetables, local wines and even craft beer. What an absolutely lovely day we had—the kind that makes you glad you ventured out!
Mérida
Augusta Emerita
Despite a fine collection of Roman antiquities, Mérida is one of those cities that doesn’t draw many tourists. It’s located in the Spanish communidad (state) of Extremadura in the remote west of Spain, adjacent to the border with Portugal. We visited the Évora district of Portugal, just across the border, four years ago. Geographically they are mirror images of each other. No surprise that they were once one region in the Roman province of Lusitania. Mérida was its capital.
The landscape of Extremadura is every bit as barren as its name suggests. Not much grows in the dust here except boulders. I have never seen rocks so large and round and smooth! I was looking for someplace different to break up the drive from Sevilla to Madrid, and Mérida seemed to fit the bill nicely.
circus maximus
I am just enthralled by these ancient Roman cities in Spain. I can only guess at their grandeur back in the day. Mérida, named for Caesar Augustus, was called Augusta Emerita, and was quite the place. Expansive ruins have been excavated, and they continue to unearth more. There is a gorgeous circus maximus, the first one I have seen outside of Rome. There is a theater with two tiers of exquisite slender arches that is still used for performances. It’s located next to the ruins of a sprawling amphitheater. There is an old Roman bridge that crosses the Río Guadiana, and two (count them: one, two!) aqueducts.
the ugly one
Our host referred to the aqueduct outside our apartment window as the “ugly” one. Although not as captivating as Segovia’s aqueduct, I thought it was beautiful and had high expectations for the “prettier” one. I was disappointed to find that it’s just a small section of the original structure. It’s built in alternating rows of red and white brick, which makes it appear even shorter and stockier. To me, the beauty of an aqueduct is its length. I love the perspective of arch after arch diminishing into the horizon. That the Romans (or their slaves) could even build these engineering marvels is a wonder. That they actually supplied fresh, mountain water to an entire city—even more so.
the pretty one?
the Alcazaba
As if Mérida needed one more gorgeous antiquity, there’s also the Alcazaba, or Moorish fortress. Built on the old Roman city walls four centuries after the Romans pulled out of Hispania, it overlooks the river. The shady side has several café tables on its pathway serviced by establishments across the street—a lovely spot to kick back and relax!
What a shame that the city doesn’t do more to promote itself. The modern city enveloping the ruins looks pretty rundown, and my guess is that unemployment is quite high, as is typical in Extremadura through the ages. But if you use your imagination, it’s not too difficult to find the diamond beneath all that dust.