the western and southern coasts

Spring 2014: A trip around Portugal and southern Spain via train

20 - 23 mar LISBON Albergaria Senhora do Monte
24 - 26 mar TAVIRA Guesthouse Imperial

27 - 30 mar SEVILLA Apartamentos Las Cruces

31 mar - 2 apr CACERES Apartamentos Turisticos Caceres Medieval

03 - 06 apr SALAMANCA Salamanca Suite Studios

07 - 08 apr SEGOVIA Hotel Don Felipe

09 apr MADRID Best Western Hotel Villa de Barajas

This trip did not go as planned (above), because by the time we got to Sevilla, a major storm system had moved north from Africa and was affecting -- and forecast to affect for the next week -- exactly our route up through Extremadura. So we changed plans, and continued along the coast, to places we'd never been before (Malaga, Almunecar, Cartagena). It turned out to be a lovely trip, as described in my posts.

Lisbon

21 March

Jerome and I are on our way to Spain, with a stop in Portugal first. We are delineating a large "J", starting in Lisbon, then south to Tavira on the coast, then around eastward into Spain and Sevilla, then north to Caceres, Salamanca, and Segovia. All train travel, with some bus side-trips. We will fly home from Madrid.

So here I am again with my travel journal, looking forward to sharing our adventures with you. Our flights and arrival were all fine; so far we've had no real jet lag to speak of (though we are only one day in). More posts and photos to come.

Lisbon adventures

24 March

Eight years after our first trip here, we are revisiting some of our favorite places in Iberia. Lisbon is an exotic (in the sense of alien) version of San Francisco, built on hills, with a Golden Gate bridge spanning the river, a population packed cheek-by-jowl into a small urban area, a tourist zone down by the water, an upscale shopping district up the hill, a skid row, and even cable cars. It is at once familiar and foreign. The latter quality comes from the language, of course (we barely understand Portuguese), from the centuries-long history (Neolithic Iberians, Indo-European Celts, Phoenicians, Romans, Visigoths, Moors, reconquering 12th-century Christians, a trans-Atlantic empire into the 18th century, a 20th-century dictatorship, and so into the modern Eurozone), and from the struggle to expand beyond its fishing and agricultural economy into something more enriching and sustainable (there is no Silicon Valley in Portugal). It is a charming city, if a bit of a backwater as it struggles to emerge from the recent economic crisis.

Lisbon also is just emerging from winter. Plum trees are in bloom, but not much else, and the weather is cool and damp. A light drizzle on Friday evening prompted us to purchase an umbrella, and though it hasn’t rained since, there is a good possibility that we will find use for it again as the trip unfolds. And if we encounter cold temperatures again, we both have new Portuguese hats from a hat store downtown that Jerome had researched prior to arrival.

We have had sunshine if cool temps for the last two days, and we have renewed our familiarity with the city while seeking out new experiences and a more nuanced understanding. I can’t estimate how many kilometers we have walked. We discovered a Chinese district abutting an area dominated by Indian stores and restaurants, bordered by a few blocks of Arab establishments. All this independent of the famed Alfama Jewish quarter, the Baixa business district, the Chiado shopping district, the Bairro Alto with its pubs and restaurants. Lisbon is nothing if not a typical crossroads city, and the street life is as colorful and as varied as the population, from mimes down in the Rua Augusta to strains of fado heard through open windows.

Ah, fado. This quintessential Portuguese music is unique, a mature solo voice against one or two twelve-steel-string guitars played softly in counterbalance, pouring out poetry in songs that express a longing that cuts across cultures. I can only rarely understand an actual word, but the music can bring tears to my eyes in a line or two. We had two unforgettable fado experiences this trip, the first at a tiny local bar a couple of blocks from our hotel that has a tradition of fado sessions on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. We spent perhaps an hour there yesterday, listening to three singers who were clearly local favorites perform songs that were clearly well known. Lots of respectful, low humming along. An informal setting, but a professional level of performance. Then today we went to the Museo do Fado, a very well designed public museum that uses audiovisual techniques to simply but very effectively trace the history and aesthetics of the art form, with many examples available to listen to. We came away with a new CD by a young woman who performs in the traditional manner.

We bought public transit passes for our three days here, and have had fun just hopping on and off of busses and trams whenever it seemed appropriate. This morning we took a ferry across the river to Cacilhas, where many of the non-professional workers of Lisbon live. Other than tourist-oriented restaurants and tchotchke shops right at the ferry landing, we saw nothing of interest, and headed back to Lisbon, admiring the view of the city.

Meals have been primarily grilled fish with potatoes and greens (or a green salad), all fresh and delicious. Exceptions have included feijoada (a typical bean stew), shredded roast duck combined with rice and sort of pressed into a patty, and some excellent soups of chick peas and vegetables. Simple food, well prepared, with simple but good Portuguese wines. Last night, on a whim, we changed pace with dinner at Bistro Gato Pardo (Brown Cat Bistro), a pocketbook of a place (four tables), offering more international nouveau style cuisine. Jerome had pork cutlets in a peppercorn sauce, I had pasta in a light lemon sauce, and the salad was much more complex than the normal Portuguese lettuce, tomato, and onion, however delicious the latter always is. Tonight we ended our stay in Lisbon with a more traditional dinner, though Jerome’s bacalau (cod) was tossed shredded with egg, onion, and cilantro on a bed of lettuce, and my duck breast was in a delicious honey and port sauce.

Tomorrow morning, after breakfasting on the top floor of our hotel with its breathtaking view over the city, we will board a train for the four-hour ride south through Faro to Tavira on the Algarve coast. More adventures to come!

r & r in Tavira

I woke up this morning to the cry of a seagull, and opened my eyes to brilliant morning sunshine bouncing off white walls, red tile roofs, and a blue blue sky. “Is this Greece?” I thought. No, we are in Tavira, a small city on the south coast of Portugal, protected from the Atlantic by a barrier island offshore, some 200 miles south of Lisbon. Tavira is at the east end of the Algarve, the southernmost region of Portugal and the country’s most popular tourist destination. Unlike the predominantly British urban sprawl that has overtaken most of the Algarve, Tavira remains largely Portuguese, and still a fishing center. The area around the barrier islands is an ecological zone as well, so that much natural environment still surrounds the town.

As a settlement, Tavira dates back to the Bronze Age, and it was one of the first sites settled on the European continent by the Phoenicians in the 8th century BC (!!). Roman, Moorish, and Reconquest eras spanned the centuries, with Tavira becoming a major port for salt, dried fish, and wine. Then the 1755 earthquake, which did huge damage to Portugal all the way up beyond Lisbon, decimated the city and silted up the delta, ending Tavira’s era of importance. As a result, the town is a bit sleepy, the predominant architecture is 18th-century (most buildings have only two or three floors), and it is a delightful place to explore on foot. Salt and dried fish are still produced, but the main industry is clearly tourism.

But it is off-season, and although we are by no means the only foreigners in town, the atmosphere is low-key and relaxed (although compared to Lisbon, I have a feeling that relative relaxation is pervasive here). There is not a lot to do except walk in the sunshine, visit the few historical sites, eat at an outdoor cafe in the sunshine, visit the local stores, and sit in the plaza in the sunshine. Did I mention the sunshine?

Traditional Portuguese restaurants line the river banks, and our hotel is set just back from the river by a narrow park. We found a charming modern “lounge” (as it calls itself), a combination coffee house, bar, and restaurant with more sofas and low tables than dining chairs, and fresh, flavorful food. Our second dinner there ended with a spirited conversation about the differences between Portuguese (spoken by the proprietor) and Brazilian (spoken by our waiter, a young man from Manaus).

Tavira is just developing its public self, fixing up plazas and parks and developing local museums. We visit the Islamic museum this morning, dedicated to that era of Tavira’s history, depicting the story that unfolded here under the different caliphs and displaying the few items that have been found here by archaeologists. A lot of these are pottery shards, and as we have wandered the actual remains of the original Moorish walls of the city, we saw hundreds more shards buried in the mortar. Clearly, serious archaeological work remains to be done, if the city desires. But I have a sense that Tavira is rooted firmly in today, as the kids traipse across the bridges to school, the matrons gather in the markets to shop and chat, the business owners clean their doorsteps, and the fishing boats go in and out under the bridge.

Our first two midday meals were modest, but today we took a taxi out to Santa Luzia at the mouth of the delta (beyond the silt), where the fishing fleet is based and restaurants abound in the otherwise sleepy residential district. The local specialty is octopus, in which Jerome indulged for lunch while I had shrimp. He had the house special: cut-up octopus and baby clams in olive oil and spring garlic over cubed fried potatoes. It was delicious. It was a long lunch, and we had our fill of warm breezes and (yes) more sunshine, and felt quite lazy and vacation-ish. Just as well, since we leave tomorrow for Spain on the 9 a.m. bus that will take us across the border to Sevilla, three hours away, where rain is predicted for the weekend.

Photos will follow; I am having trouble uploading onto Google from here and am going to wait until Sevilla to try again, hoping that the problem is the local Internet connection. Stay tuned!

rainy Sevilla

We took a modern, comfortable bus from Tavira to Sevilla yesterday, crossing the national border midway through the three-hour trip. Since this is the Euro Zone, crossing from Portugal into Spain was like crossing from Nevada into Utah -- all we had to do was to adjust our clocks an hour ahead. Actually, Spain should be on the same clock as Portugal, and France, and other countries on WET (Western European Time), but Franco forced the clock an hour ahead in a show of solidarity with Hitler and Mussolini, and Spain has never gotten around to correcting the anomaly.

Sevilla is stunning, with its Andalucian character and Moorish and Mudejar architecture, extensive city parks and the Guadalquivir River running through it. We have a small two-room apartment right in the heart of the historic pedestrian-only district. It is early spring, with trees budding and leafing out. Unfortunately, it is also raining, raining, raining. It was sunny when we arrived yesterday, but today is dark and gloomy, umbrellas are everywhere, and temps are in the low 50s.

The rain, plus a head cold on my part, have curtailed our plans to explore Phoenician and Roman ruins outside of town at Itálica and Carmona. We did, however, make it to the archaeological museum (under the protection of our Portuguese umbrella), and it was a real treat. Human occupancy dates back to the Iron Age here, and the museum covers the findings in the region up through Roman times. Sevilla was a populace at the northern mouth of a large bay back then; the bay has silted in over the centuries, to leave the port stranded on a shallow river. Columbus, who is buried in Sevilla, would have set sail from here for the New World, but instead had to leave from Palos de la Frontera some 95 kilometers west of here, where there was open water.

I am always stunned in particular by the fine workings on the pottery, kitchenware, and religious burial plaques of people who lived so long ago as the Iron Age and Bronze Age, and there were plenty of examples in the exhibits. They made the colossal marble statues that the Romans erected in the last centuries of their dominion seem almost crude in comparison, though the renderings of some of those figures are also most impressive if in a different way. Tiny markings on knives, clasps, oil jars, and even fine gold jewelry are notable dating from Phoenician times, and the iron work of earlier periods is remarkable in its sophistication. They make our modern, mass-produced wares look cheap.

At any rate, the main activity since we arrived has really been eating. Our first meal in Spain was a classic traditional lunch: salmorejo, followed by veal steak in brandy sauce with potatoes (me), and eggs and Iberian ham on a bed of fried potatoes (Jerome). Flan for dessert. For dinner, we went to a more modern restaurant and ate tapas, but they were not traditional. The specialty of the house was fresh tuna, so we had it two different ways (one, sashimi-ish and the other tempura-ish) along with a small salad of garden greens and tomatoes, followed by a risotto. Lunch today was traditional tapas: mushrooms grilled with garlic, Spanish tortilla (a thick egg and potato omelet), veal in a beer sauce, eggplant slices rolled around cheese and jamón, spinach with garlic and jamón. Then tonight we went to a Japanese restaurant and had an excellent meal of, well, Japanese cuisine, even down to green-tea ice cream.

The nasty weather is predicted to last through at least next Wednesday, and the storm, which has moved north from Africa, covers exactly the region of our planned trip up though Cáceres, Salamanca, and Segovia. So we are seriously considering changing our plans and heading east to the Mediterranean coast, to sunshine and warm temperatures. Stay tuned!

exploring Sevilla

Yesterday and today brought partly sunny skies and cool temperatures but no precipitation, so we were able to explore the city a bit. The town of Triana sits on the opposite bank of the Guadalquivir river from Sevilla, and is where many people who work here live. We walked across the bridge, past the Torre de Oro, a watchtower built in the 13th century by the Moors to control access to the river. It also served as a prison in the Middle Ages. In Triana, we found people out and about on a Saturday, running errands and socializing in the pubs and restaurants. People were lounging along the riverfront, taking ferry rides, and even skulling and kayaking. In Sevilla itself, throngs of tourists enjoyed the sites, standing in long queues to get into the cathedral and the palace. (I kind of liked it better when it was raining and there were fewer people on the streets, but this was much more comfortable.)

Our lunch yesterday was at the 5 Jotas, a tapas bar and restaurant run by one of the premium Spanish producers of acorn-fed, cured jamón, or dried ham. I took numerous pictures of our overabundance of tapas, which of course included the jamón. Not surprisingly, we weren't terribly hungry at dinnertime, and returned to the Japanese restaurant of the night before.

Today we went into the Centro, or shopping district, of the city to see the Metropol Parasol, a wooden structure built between 2005 and 2011 on the Plaza de la Incarnación, with soaring parabolic mushroom-shaped canopies secured to the plaza on stems. Hard to describe! I took photos. Exploring the place, we discovered the Antiquarium underneath it. When the plaza was excavated to build a parking structure in the 1990s, a wonder of ruins was discovered, dating from the 1st century AD. Different layers revealed structures from sequential settlements, and the whole area was dug up, analyzed and turned into a museum. Just our kind of thing, and an unexpected pleasure. After exploring it, we wandered around the historic district and found our way back to the cathedral, had another tapas lunch, and came home to rest. They say that Sevilla is the tapas capital of the world, and we are certainly finding more tapas restaurants open at all hours than anywhere else we have been.

I'll send the photos as soon as I send this off. It is threatening rain again, and rather than fight the weather, we are changing course. Instead of heading north tomorrow, we will board a bus for Malaga, to the east, and explore the Mediterranean coast around the southeastern edge of the country, ending in Cartagena. From there, depending on the timing, we will either spend a couple of days in Valencia, or head straight to Madrid for our flight home on the 10th. This is the only part of Spain that we have never explored, and we are both particularly curious about Cartagena. I'll let you know what we discover.

Málaga

We left a rainy, cool Sevilla on another very comfortable bus from another modern, attractive bus station. As we boarded, we were offered a paper bag containing bottled water and cookies for snacking, and we had a live wifi connection all along the route! As we headed east and south over the green fields of Andalucia, the storm front receded behind us. Within a couple of hours, we crossed over the coastal range into Málaga and into seaside warmth and sunshine.

Málaga is tucked between the mountains and the Mediterranean, on a shallow river plain. It is the sixth largest city in Spain, with all of a half-million people. It is the southernmost city in Europe, and has one of the warmest winters. And it is one of the oldest cities in the world, having been founded by the Phoenicians in 770 b.c., and so offers the usual layers of Spanish history to the interested visitor.

It is also a lovely city, at least in the city center where we were located. The "historic" district of narrow cobblestone streets lies between the cathedral and the modern shopping district, where our "high tech" hotel was located: an old exterior, renovated and modernized and outfitted with ultra-modern utilities and electronics. Unfortunately, it wasn't all that comfortable, having sacrificed comfort for design. But it is near the restaurant district, and we found a delicious modern place for a late lunch of tender grilled calamari.

The waterfront was about eight blocks away, a modern port and pedestrian park lining the well-protected harbour. A huge ferry was pulling in from Tenerife as we strolled along, and stores and cafes were doing a brisk business in the late afternoon  A local marching band was practicing in the park for the Semana Santa parades soon to come. (Malaga competes with Sevilla for the biggest and best Semana Santa processions  in the country).

After a short rest, we found a lovely traditional tapas bar near the hotel, had a snack of soup and boquerones (sauteed breaded fresh anchovies, a local specialty), and retired for the night.

We never made it to the castle on the hill, nor to the archaeological museum, but we did see an interesting exhibit of landscape paintings at the Museo Carmen Thyssen the next morning. (Jerome is in the throes of his travel cold, and we wanted to spare him extra exertion.) Then we took a taxi to the gorgeous new train station, where we rented a VW Polo and headed out of town for Almuñecar, our next stop on our Mediterranean tour.