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We arrive Madrid on Sunday the 24. Expensive, long-way-around cab ride to a hostal recommended by friends -- typical "newcomer-to-the-city" treatment anywhere in the world, I guess.
Backing up, the transatlantic flight was. . .long. Extremely crowded seating, & we were only a few rows forward of the smoking section. People not in smoking kept trying to sneak a few (or a lot of) puffs when the flight attendants weren't looking. I don't think either of us slept. Didn't help that both of us had been sick with flu, and I was still coughing and light-headed. On top of that, one of my bags turned up missing on arrival! (It showed up the next morning & was delivered safely to the hostal.)
The recommended place was clean and the dueños pleasant, but one entered thru a dreary sort of alleyway, rode up on flight in the world's funkiest funny little box of an open elevator. The lobby wasn't bad but the room was tiny and dark, and opened out onto a narrow dirty alley. Two tiny beds in which, tired as we were, we slept soundly -- after poor Elsa scalded her leg while trying to adjust the water temp in the bathtub! Still, it wasn't exactl what we'd had in mind for our vacation, and we decided to keep our eyes open for something nicer in the same price range.
The things we saw and did in the first few days have already blurred in my mind. Our time here has been so packed with places, sights, impressions -- and the vestiges of flu still hang on in the form of waves of light-headedness and disorientation that make me spacey. All I can say is that I seem to be getting better rather than worse.
Sunday we walked past the Prado, which was closed; along the Gran Vía, all over the place. We passed the house where Velazquez painted Las Meninas. We walked as far as the Palacio Real, and thru the Plaza Mayor, which I think must have been the model for the Zócalo in Mexico City. Vast, with rather severe arcaded façades on 3 sides, the 4th façade much more ornate, though with my brain as out of whack as it is I can't remember whether the decorations are murals or bas relief friezes. In the covered walkway that surrounds the square, stamp and coin sellers had set up their tables and were drawing a pretty good crowd -- appeared to be a mix of regulars and passers-by. I don't remember where we ate; I do remember that the sopa castellana I ordered was delicious -- once I figured out that what I thought was a great slab of pork fat was really a chunk of bread over which the broth had been poured!
Breakfast on Monday is worth noting. We ate in a cafe or coffee-bar near the hostal. Breakfast here consists of café con leche y pan o churros. We stood at the bar and could see thru an open door into a back room--I wouldn't call it a kitchen--where a man was mixing up a huge vat of batter or dough. For churros, it turned out. Fascinating! He mixed the heavy batter by hand, reaching in past his elbows to the bottom of the tub, and then dumped it into another big galvanized metal container on a stand, from which it gravity-fed out in an inch-diameter gooey strand. After about a foot of the stuff had oozed out (actually, it came pretty fast) he'd loop it up and punch the loop off into yet another vat, this one full of simmering oil, where it joined the others merrily bubbling away. It made me think of the donut place in. . . Watsonville? where Doug and I used to stop on the way to Monterey. We'd watch the donuts being floated along in a trough of hot oil, flipped by a metal roller they passed over-- the whole process timed so that when they finished their journey to the end of the trough they were perfectly cooked on both sides. Here, the guy pinched off just enough churros to cover the surface of the oil in the vat. They sank, of course, but rose to the surface as they cooked. As they did so, he'd scoop them out, sprinkle them with powdered sugar, and they'd be on a platter on the counter in seconds. The process is much like that used to make funnel cake, now that I think of it.
Monday, walking around after breakfast, we passed a pleasant-looking hostal, asked ourselves what a room in such a place might cost. We went in to see, and it turned out that for about $3 more per night than we were paying we could have a much bigger and more pleasant room looking out over the plaza Sant' Angel (where at night drug deals go down, but in a non-threatening, almost amiable way). The Hostal PerSal is a real find, and it's in none of the guide books. The people who run it are extremely pleasant and helpful and give patient, thorough answers to our questions. Breakfast is available for about $3, and it's bigger than what we were paying about twice that for in the cafes on the street. The difference is the juice, which isn't fresh-squeezed, but it suffices.
Late nite, 2a.m. Sunday 5/1
A wonderful day! We took the train to Alcalá de Henares, birthplace of Cervantes and Catherine of Aragonne, site of one of the oldest universities in Europe. Took a quick guided tour thru the [Colegio Mayor?] University of San Ildefonso, founded by Cardinal Cisneros in 1495 (my walking historian says!). The university itself goes back to the 13th c.
Took pictures in a pretty street, closed to vehicle traffic at least on weekends, then headed to the Plaza Cervantes, where I'd read there was going to be a performance of early music and drama put on by Paneagua, whose CD's I'd heard and liked. Turned out to be less music than drama, but wonderful all the same -- 2 medieval morality plays, one in which the virgin queen is led astray by the devil (wonderfully costumed, rapelling down from the top of the church tower); then St. George & the Dragon--priceless! The acting was wonderfully broad, the costumes were great (before the plays, the performers paraded thru the street, with decorated horses and carts, a hurdy-gurdy and drums, stiltwalkers, jugglers, 2 women in a wonderful siamese-twin dress). St. George was very funny -- kind of a sweet pious dope. The young actor must have been having great fun -- winking broadly at the audience as he unclipped his microphone, took off his shirt and strapped on a hi-tech climber's harness before his upside-down crucifixion; then matter-of-factly removing harness and reattaching microphone when he replaced his shirt. We loved his look of blissful idiocy each time he rolled his eyes heavenward and proclaimed: "Mi dios es el único dios!"
After that performance we went to hear a concert of 13th c. cántigas -- wonderful! (I'm getting tired of that word! Precioso! Una maravilla!) Afterward we talked to the performers; Elsa explained that she taught some of the poems on which the songs are based. The singer, Adolfo Osta, was a charming young man who invited us to contact him when we got to Barcelona, where he lives. He'll be giving a concert there all thru May and said he'd give us tickets and perhaps we could have coffee or dinner.
Random notes:
El Museo de Jamón: a chain of restaurants with Serrano hams covering the walls, overlapped like huge fat grey tiles. (I tried not to think how much they looked like blood-engorged ticks!) I think this is where we ordered the tortillas españolas that turned out to be so enormous. Kind of like being served a lumpy tan bathmat. Delicious!
The women's bookstore on c/ San Cristóbal -- much stuff in translation: English and German. Dykey-looking young customers. Elsa had a long conversation with the owners while I was out wandering the streets & the Plaza Mayor. She got the names of some women's bars and the address of the Centro del Feminismo.
The jointed-in-the-middle busses--new and in excellent repair. Ditto the metro cars. Don't know about new, but clean; run smoothly and quietly.
We walk the streets in central Madrid at all hours. Drugs are being dealt; there are groups of young men hanging around, there are hookers, but none of it feels threatening in the least. There are always lots of people in the streets. It's almost 3:30 a.m. now and there's still a crowd in the Plaz' Á&ngel. Noisy, but good-naturedly so. Or so it seems to foreign me!
There's some dirt and litter, some graffiti incl some gang-looking scrawls, but not nearly as much as you'd find in any good-sized city in the states.
Impressions. The streets are always full of people, and the thing I noticed first was that these folks are talkingto each other. You hear voices, voices, voices. It's most noticeable in the narrow streets of the old parts of the city, but certainly not confined to there. In the plazas people, mainly men, are sitting or standing around, charlando, charlando, endlessly charlando.
Unemployment here stands at +- 20%. Maybe this explains all those chatty hombres? However, what I've seen of the country so far looks pretty prosperous: buses & subway cars are newish, clean, in good repair (I know, I said that already). Lots of big new motorcycles, incl BMWs. Roads outside the old city in excellent shape. Tons of construction and renovation both w/in the city & in the surrounding area. It seems to be ongoing.
Scaffolded buildings shrouded in enormous green or orange screen blankets. Renovation, or possibly cleaning -- the screens to protect passers by from falling whatever (incl workmen?!)
Tues. a.m. 5/3
Constitution Day workers' protest march (5/2). All the old lefites, not many young ones, protesting el paro --plant closures -- and the maltreatment of immigrant workers, among other things. Elsa was in her element, talking to people, taking pictures, really fun to watch. I'm not good at crowds and haven't any guess how many people took part. Maybe 20 different groups, but some of them were represented by only a few people. The press was there; maybe there was coverage on the TV news that night. Only a tiny article in the paper.
El Rastro -- your basic flea market. I expected something much more along the lines of a central American outdoor mercado for some reason. This was pretty much kitsch city. I suppose if you're looking for something specific and have a pretty good notion of its value you can find bargains. But just as a wander-thru it's not much different from its American counterpart.
We returned to the Plaza Mayor that evening. The "Dutch Pavillion" was in business--a bunch of little sales booths and some music and puppets and dancers-in-costume, all rather odd. I sat for a long time, drinking coffee and writing. Back to the room at about 2, & slept until 11 Monday morning.
Email, sent after our return Andalucía and El Rocio
Date: Fri, 12 June 1994 21:28:42 -0800 (PST)
Five weeks in Spain, + another week in England, visiting friends. We spent 11 days in Madrid, then after that took a train to Granada, then another to Seville, where we rented a car. We drove to Córdoba, then took off for 12 days in the southern mountains, visiting some of the most beautiful little hilltop towns I ever saw. The mountains are gorgeous, remind me of California's Sierras (the ones in Spain are the original Sierra Nevada, & it's easy to see why the Spaniards named the new world variety after them). This was the best part of a wonderful trip. The south is Moorish Spain, and the Arab influence is everywhere, in the architecture, in the place names (most if not all Spanish words that begin with al-are Moorish: alamo, alcatraz, alhambra etc) and in the music. We were in gypsy country, flamenco country. Hair-raising, really; you're walking down the street minding your business and all of a sudden there's this torrentof wild glorious sound. Maybe someone's having a party, maybe it's a radio ... or maybe, as often turned out to be the case, it's just some people sitting on their front steps, singing or playing guitars. In Sevilla, we saw signs in the streets: "No flamenco after 11 pm."
The last weekend before we turned the car in, we went to the final days of what we were told was the biggest religious festival in Andalucía, and one of the 2 or 3 biggest in all of Spain. It was held in a tiny town called El Rocío, which is over near the Atlantic coast not too far from Cádiz, if you have a map handy. People came from all over Spain, riding in horse-drawn or ox-drawn carts, or in wagons pulled by farm tractors, or in trucks or in cars or on bicicle, on horseback, on foot, making a pilgrimage to this little town, which for the rest of the year is literally a ghost town, with hardly any inhabitants; it's looked after by the residents of Almonte, another town nearby. During the week of the pilgrimage, or romería, the carts and wagons may use the freeway; we'd been seeing these things putt-putting and clipclopping along in the slow lane of a modern 8 lane freeway, or taking their half out of the middle of a high-crowned 2 lane country road, and it was quite a sight because all the wagons and horses and tractors etc were decorated with ribbons and pompoms, and many of the people -- esp the women & girls -- would be in Andalucían costume (ruffly "flameco" dresses; the men wore short boxy jackets, tight pants and black hats). The best thing was that, since we were there in May, there were few tourists. Unlike Semana Santa in Seville, this festival was entirely for the Spaniards themselves, not something put on for foreigners. We felt really fortunate to be there.
The scene at the town of El Rocío almost defies description. The roads were unpaved, a soft yellowish sand. There were at least 3 big squares, with a lot of little side roads, all filled with horses and riders, horses and wagons, mules, oxen, all decked out in ribbons and bows. Costumed people would go strolling along in groups, & every so often stop and break into song. The squares and side roads were lined with little houses that stand empty most of the year, & are rented out (furnished! with TVs!) for the week of the festival. Families, church groups & other organizations rent them for the duration, days and nights of singing, dancing, eating, and (believe it!) drinking sherry. In addition, a sort of "tent city" had sprung up around the perimeter of the town; people camping, or living out of their trucks.
From all over Spain, church groups and social "brotherhoods" (cofradías) come, bringing large portable shrines called sinpecados ("without sins"), each with its statue of the Virgin. These shrines are very ornate, decorated with silver and gold and heaped with flowers. They're hauled in from wherever they come from by horses or tractors or cars, part of the procession that also included the pilgrims we'd been seeing. When the time comes, about 6 - 8 men hoist them up and carry them around the square and past the church, where the Virgin is ensconced.
The party goes on all week, and then Saturday night at midnight the church bells go crazy and then the priest and a bunch of church elders bring out a cloth banner that is associated with the Virgin of Rocío (it spends the year inside a rather bland 19th century church). Young boys light the scene with highway flares, so there's a weird pinkish glow over everything.They parade this banner past all the sinpecados and then to the biggest of the several town squares, where there's a 45 minute rosary for I don't know how many thousands of worshippers. Then they put the banner back inside the church.
Almost as soon as Elsa and I left Madrid we started hearing about El Rocío, and how we absolutely mustn't miss it. A million people! we were told. A million people crowded into that little square in front of the church. & for the whole first day we were there we couldn't figure out where the million people were. Sure, there was a pretty big crowd. But a million? We thought maybe at midnight, when they brought out the Virgin (or her piece of cloth, anwyay; it was never quite clear to us exactly what object was being venerated), maybe that was when the people would gather. But no. There was a big crowd, but no million. No million at the rosary either, though that crowd was huge. Well okay, we said to each other, this was pretty interesting. To us, it was a lot like the horse fair at Jerez de la Frontera -- same ruffly dresses, same music, same horse-drawn wagons, with a little Catholicism thrown in. By the time the virgin had gone back inside we were ready to call it a night ourselves, but we'd missed the last bus back to the town where we'd rented a hotel room. We were stuck there till 4 a.m. when the next bus would go, so we decided to have some hot chocolate and churros while we were waiting. A lot of other people seemed to have the same idea.
But then suddenly we noticed that we were almost alone in the outdoor cafe. Where had everyone gone? We got up & returned to the church -- & I tell you, there werea million people. Everyone who'd been camped out in the tent city had come in & was crowded into the little square, peering intently toward the door of the church. Up near the door, we noticed a large crowd of young men, all pushing forward, trying to squeeze through the opening. Suddenly there was a shout, and one young man was handed out over the heads of the crowd, clutching flowers in his hand. Everyone cheered. Apparently it's the tradition that after the Virgin is returned to her shrine, the young men of Almonte, who care for the church during the year, have a contest to see which one can climb over the iron fence into the shrine first and grab a handful of flowers from in front of the virgin. These flowers have special properties, we were told: they bring health and good fortune; the young man gives them to his family or his sweetheart.
After that we returned the car, got a cheap flight to Barcelona and stayed there 5 days. We visited with Adolfo Osta and his partner, took (peripheral) part in a demonstration re the sentencing of some "skinheads" (or so they were described to us) convicted of beating to death a transsexual. I was able to worm my way into the courtroom, but it was jammed (I'm more than mildly claustrophobic!), and the proceedings were in Catalán, which meant I couldn't understand a word. We enjoyed Barcelona (I was fascinated by the Gaudí architecture), but Madrid, when we returned, almost felt like home.