15 oct 2010
Greetings from Tarragona, Spain! Our flights (Salt Lake-Paris, Paris-Barcelona) were delightfully uneventful, with the direct SLC-Paris leg a huge improvement over stopping stateside in either Atlanta or JFK. We boarded in Salt Lake at 5 p.m., took off, ate dinner, went to sleep, and woke up yesterday morning at Charles DeGaulle airport. No sign of any labor strike. A short hop south, and we deplaned in Barcelona, picked up our Hyundai rental car, and by midafternoon had checked into our hotel in Tarragona. Our second-floor room looks out over the Plaza de la Fuente, a pedestrian-only, three-block-long rectangle lined with four- and five-story buildings, ground floors occupied by tapas bars and restaurants, and upper floors by apartments.
Located on the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian peninsula 114 km south of Barcelona, Tarragona was first settled by Iberians, then taken over by Carthaginians. It became a Roman foothold in the 3d century B.C. What began as a wooden Roman fortress on a high hill was reinforced with a couple of stone battlements; the battlements became a wall, and as the settlement grew the wall gradually was extended from the hilltop all the way down to the port at the mouth of the river. Scipio marched south from Tarraco (the Latin name) to defeat Hannibal. Caesar Augustus made it the capital of Iberian Rome, and it became a classy Roman resort during the Imperium. All this history is still here, and we spent four hours this morning exploring the old walls, the forum, the circus, and various other ancient structures. These monuments pop up in unexpected places, since the modern city lives right on top of the old. The city today is smallish, confined mostly to the peninsula north of the river’s mouth, and has a series of lovely avenues, or “ramblas”, that radiate out from a central rotary. The city ends at the beaches, where people stroll along a promenade. The weather is sunny and warm, and a mild breeze off the Mediterranean is keeping temperatures moderate.
Juxtaposed with all the ancient history, two modern-day highlights marked the morning. The first is that the dominant language is Catalan, which Franco tried unsuccessfully to stamp out but has come back proudly. Fortunately for us, most everyone also speaks Spanish; it is the signage that is unintelligible. The second is a lovely modern art museum and various galleries that are quite contemporary. Tarragona seems to be a vital place and has moved to the top of our list as a place to which to return. We’ve taken photos, but Jerome is napping off some jet lag, so I will send them later after he downloads them from the camera. Wishing you all well, I’ll say so long, or “hasta la vista”, for now.
….
Jerome pointed out that I did not mention food, much less wine, in my previous message! I guess we each have our priorities. The fish here has been excellent (not surprising for a seaport). Other highlights have been delicious white asparagus, gazpacho, jamon serrano served with melon, and, of course, crusty, fresh breads. We had good regional wines, a white yesterday and a red today. The coffee is fabulous.
Arriving at our hotel -- 21st century modern housed in a 15th-century shell -- in time for a healthy midafternoon meal (spinach crepes, stuff pepilla peppers, grilled steak, pork cheeks), we scarcely had appetite for an American-style dinner, so we scouted out the town during the late afternoon for a potential tapas crawl later in the evening. As it turned out, we only crawled into and out of one establishment, but what a delightful couple of hours we had there. Imagine a 12-foot ceiling, marble floor, bar down the right wall, small tables down the left, counters surrounding marble pillars down the middle of the room. It was jammed with people by the time we got there, a little after 8 p.m.: everyone from a month-old infant in her stroller to several tables seating grandmothers just as decked out and coiffed as any of the twenty- and thirty-somethings present with their boyfriends and husbands. Kids of all ages. Cacophany and chaos, all good-natured, and surely representing a healthy cross-section of Tarazona society. Groups would leave, and others come in. It was a great people-watching opportunity. We sipped beer (Nancy) and wine (Jerome) and snacked on green olives, toasted Marcona almonds, jamon serrano on bread, Spanish potato tortilla, pastry with jamon and cheese, as time -- and the soccer game on the big screen at the far end of the room -- rolled on. The game was Barcelona (comprised of half the World Cup team) vs Valencia, and as a true Barca fan, I had a great time watching them win. What an evening. We must be in Spain!
10/17
We have moved from Tarragona to Tarazona, four hours west by autopista and halfway to Portugal. Tarazona is at the western edge of the Aragonese plain, where the rain in Spain falls mainly, and is nestled at the base of the Moncayo mountains. The town itself dates from Roman days, but also fell to the Visigoths, Moors, and Christians, successively, and sustained a healthy Jewish community under the Moors, as well. All of these cultures overlay each other here. Originally a walled town on a steep hill overlooking the Queiles river, with time it spread its skirts down into the valley itself. Today it is a lively little city of some 11,000, with charming narrow and winding streets in the old upper town, and steep steps down to the lower neighborhoods along the river. The overwhelming characteristic that makes Tarazona stand out is its Mudejar architecture, with lots of Arabic style incorporated into the brick buildings of the Christian era. Even many contemporary buildings incorporate the arches, columns, and other graceful touches of Mudejar style. Photos to come.
…
This has been a quiet Sunday, as well as cool and blustery. Few people were on the streets until after mass, around noon. After the mid-afternoon meal-of-the-day, we came back to the hotel and rested. Here are photos of the town, some windows, and lastly the view from our room.
10.19
Monday meanderings
We left Tarazona this morning for the Cistercian monastery at Veruel. It lies in a fold of the foothills of Moncoya, in a remote area of isolated farms and tiny villages. En route, we passed mile after mile of fallow wheat fields, large patches of spent sunflowers, and magnificent oak trees. The monastery, now deserted, was once among the largest in Spain. It was founded after the region was reconquered from the Moors by the Christian kings, and is beautifully preserved, well protected by outer walls, and arrestingly serene with its simple gothic arches and walkways. Gray stone comprises its walls and floors, though there is beautiful mudejar tile in some places, and lovely woodwork. Part of a mural remains to be seen in the abbey’s meeting room, giving a hint of what the walls looked like when they were painted. As is usual, the cloister was the heart of the monastery, with access to all other sections (including the cathedral) opening off of it, adding to the medieval security of the place, since there was only one outside entrance into the cloister. The monastery is surrounded by almond orchards. An exhibit of the winners of the annual art competition held in Madrid at the Instituto Velazquez – very modern, 21st-century art – was on display in the 12th-century refectory, providing a delicious contrast. And, finally, the monastery houses an exceptional “Museo del Vino” that explains the winemaking process as well as any we’ve seen stateside. The region, known as the Valle de Borja, is a designated region for the garnache grape.
From the monastery we continued due west, further into the heart of old Spain, into the region of Castilla y Leon, and into the small city of Soria. We oriented ourselves, with the help of a wonderful guy at the tourism center, had lunch in town, and headed 25 kilometers north to our b&b in Almorza. We are in a renovated grain mill that has become a snug inn, with radiant heating in the floors and the original rock walls on the outside. The climate is colder, but it was sunny today and quite bearable. I would know that we were in the heart of old Spain if only for two details: (1) the locals use the vosotros, the informal plural “you” that has been replaced by ustedes in most of the world, and (2) we could not through any means find dinner anywhere earlier than nine o’clock tonight. It is late, and I’m going to sign off here. More tomorrow, after we explore Soria in greater depth.
10..20
Yesterday (Tuesday) was our Soria day. We wandered the center of town, which runs down a small valley between two high hills to the Duero River. The upper part of the town’s valley floor is occupied by a beautiful long park, while the lower valley is the town center, a series of plazas lined with shops, restaurants, hotels, etc. The both areas are now open only to pedestrians. Today the hillsides are built up, but you can still get a sense of the original layout. This was aided by an hour spent in the Museo Numantino, which demonstrates beautifully the occupation of the valley, from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, when the CeltIberians (Celts from Gaul who integrated with the earliest pre-Indoeuropeans on the Iberian peninsula) arrived, through their conquest by the Romans, and the eventual takeover by the Visigoths, then the Moors from the south, and finally the domination of the Castillian Christians. It took our breath away to sense the sweep of some tens of thousands of years of human history under our feet.
Soria is the emotional home of Antonio Machado, one of my favorite Spanish poets of the early 20th century, and we passed his pension, the school where he taught, the church where he married Leonor, and the grave where she was buried after three years of marriage, struck down by tuberculosis. After driving up to the vista point on the southern of the two hills overlooking the town, we ended our visit to Soria with a walk along the Duero, on the path that Machado used to walk, now known as the “Path of the inspiration of the poets” (it sounds better in Spanish). The last two photos sent last night were of this walk. Tired of restaurant dining, we stopped in a small specialty foods shop for fresh bread, jamon Serrano, goat cheese, white asparagus, and a bottle of local wine. We ate dinner back at our inn, where our room and two others give onto a very pleasant living room/kitchen area.
Today we made a foray up into the Rioja province, to see if we wanted to explore it. We left Soria, at 3,500 feet of elevation, climbed to the top of what we thought was a low mountain range, then dropped down a precipitous canyon to Logroño, which is 2,300 feet lower than Soria. It was a long way down a narrow windy road. We viewed the Ebro River valley sweeping east and west, whose alluvial sides are lined with vineyards in full fall colors right now. The river itself is lined with industry and the city. We decided not to go in; it was cloudy and cold, and we still had to climb back over the mountain to Soria (Jerome is doing all the driving, since having a second driver in the rental car is costly). The trip back was even more precipitous, over the next pass west, and we left the beautiful colors of the valley vineyards to drive through miles of deciduous trees being cultivated for the local furniture industry. It was gorgeous. We crossed the Camino de Santiago, where pilgrims still make their journey to Santiago de Compostela, and saw a couple of hikers on their way. We followed a beautiful stream up to the reservoir that captures it. The latter is 90% empty, and the towns that were drowned by it stand eerily ghostlike below the road. Over the top, we caught another stream, the Rio Pedroso (rocky), down to the headwaters of the Duero itself, which eventually gives into the Atlantic at Porto, Portugal. We drank port on the banks of this same river there, four years ago. And so home to our inn, after a stop at a supermercado – another cultural experience! – where we will again eat dinner at home, as it were.
10/22
Sorry not to have written for a couple of days. We have been deep in Castilla y Leon, looking at, well, castillos (castles) along the Duero. We moved west yesterday from our inn near Soria to a town called Burgo de Osma, and tonight are a few miles further down the road in San Esteban del Duero. Both these small towns are sleepy, and while San Esteban rests charmingly on the river below a ruined Moorish fortress, Burgo de Osma was in the middle of nowhere interesting, and its streets were mostly deserted. Apparently it is a seasonal town, and this is off-season. Many stores were closed for “vacation,” and we found all of two overpriced mediocre restaurants. So today we moved on. We followed the Duero River westward into its wine country (Ribera del Duero denomination of origin), which we had imagined to be a valley of vineyards and wineries. We saw about six of the former and three of the latter, in a fairly industrialized region. On top of the empty towns, I have a bad cold, and we can’t get dinner before 9:30 this deep into Spain, and so tomorrow we are going to turn around and head back out toward the Mediterranean coast. Meantime, it is mushroom and truffle season here, and we have had some excellent soups and sauces at meals today.
Now that the grumping is out of the way, I can tell you that we have seen some spectacular places. Yesterday began just north of Soria, at a spot named Numancia. The Duero curves south and westward through this region of gentle drainages, and all along its valley the Celtiberians defended their turf against the Romans in the 2d century BC. The tribe at Numancia was particularly stubborn and held out for some 20 years, until the Roman Senate decided that enough was enough, and sent Scipio to finish the job. His army laid siege to Numancia, which was a defensible walled city on a hilltop. After 11 months, the Celtiberians were starving, but rather than give up, they massacred themselves. Scipio took the town, but it was rather a hollow and nasty victory. There is actually an adjective in Spanish, “numantino”, that means a hopeless struggle against overwhelming odds. Numancia today is an historic site, with just enough of the excavated ruins left accessible to let one imagine the history of the place. Some photos will come.
The day ended at another siege site, the castle of Gormaz. This, an impenetrable walled stone fortress on an incredibly high hill, was a Moorish castle that held out against the Christians for years. It was one of a string of castles with which the Moors defended their push northward, and it was along the northern frontier of Moorish occupation. Celtiberians and Romans had occupied the site earlier. The Moorish caliphs held onto Gormaz for several hundred years, defeating a succession of Christian assaults, but it finally fell to them in 1059. The ruins are impressive, and we were there in the very late afternoon, so the light and the views were gorgeous. Photos to come.
This morning (Friday) we continued our exploration of this cultural crossroads area with two more ruins, the first of Berlanga del Duero, a castle whose site had been the usual Celtiberian/Roman/Moorish fortress, but which was taken by the Christians and then held by a local duke, who renovated the surviving 13th-century castle into a 16th-century marquisate. This place is gorgeous, and photos again will be forthcoming. Long walls, ruined fortress, ruined gardens, all hanging above a small river, a tributary of the Duero. The small village at its feet still exists.
The second place today was also amazing. Originally a Visigothic hermitage, it was built upon by mozarabes, Christians who had lived in the Moorish south of Spain but headed north as the Reconquista evolved. Because of their exposure to Moorish culture, they brought with them (among other things) Moorish architecture, so that the church that they built over the hermit’s cave is a tiny, elegant mozarabic structure, with keystone arches inside and mozarabic frescoes on the walls. A lone gatekeeper let us into the little mosque/church, out in a valley well away from any roads, and spoke to us of the cross-cultural nature of the place. It was charming.
We have dined well tonight at our hotel in San Esteban, having finally learned to share the late evening repast. A savory chicken broth with noodles fed my cold, and Jerome had consomme with truffles! Then we shared a plate of chicken cooked in a flavorful mushroom gravy. With a bottle of (of course) a Ribera del Duero table wine that was excellent. Lunch (at 3) was at a roadhouse that also had great food, with a lot of mushroom dishes. Tomorrow we head east to end our exploration of the inland Roman empire in Iberia. More tales to come. Thanks for listening!
10/24
This Saturday was another exquisite fall day in northern Spain. We have been so lucky with the weather, and it has made the trip just that much more special. We left San Esteban de Gormaz this morning after a short walk through town, and retraced our steps through Burgo de Osma. I’m glad to say that our view of the latter town, which had seemed so dead on Thursday, improved. One reason was that, perhaps because it was Saturday, residents were home and running errands, the plazas were (relatively) busy, and there even seemed to be some kind of a market taking place. The second reason was that we discovered Uxama. This is an archeological site just outside of town, marked modestly by a small brown sign. We found that it covers an entire series of hilltops above Osma, whose name derives from Uxama. It is largely untouched except for a Moorish watchtower that has been reconstructed – it was built on top of a small Celtiberic house – and a Roman villa whose foundations have been reconstructed – it was also built on top of a small Celtiberic house, which the Romans made into their wine cellar! So littleof Uxama has been uncovered that much was left to our imaginations, which were stimulated by the obvious lines of streets and foundations that lay everywhere under the grass. I know I’ve said this a lot, but here we go again: originally a Celtiberian settlement, it fell to the Romans, was taken by Visigoths, and later became part of the chain of frontier command posts of the Al-Andaluz Moors, which also included Gormaz and Berlanga. As we walked over the crest of one of the hills, we were literally walking on top of broken roof tiles scattered abundantly around us, shaped to be fitted together and sometimes decorated. It was an amateur archaeologist’s dream.
We made one final stop in Soria province, at Medinaceli (a name from Arabic). Another high hilltop town above a river, Medinaceli was definitely Roman (and probably Celtiberic), but its main role was as another of the Moorish frontier fortresses established by the caliphs of Al-Andaluz at Cordoba. The Reconquest didn’t take the town until 1124. Not much is left of the Moorish town except one arch in the old town wall. Today it is mostly the beautiful latter-day (14th and 15th century) stone houses that draw the crowds, plus the view. Only a couple of hours from Madrid, many city folk were having a Saturday outing along with us, which only added to the interest of the place. After the relative quiet of western Soria, the urban dress and mannerisms of the Medinaceli visitors stood out in contrast. We had a delicious lunch at “Restaurante La Ceramica”, whose staff are artists in clay, not so much pottery as plaques and other wall decorations with interesting shapes and glazes. I had a great conversation with our young waiter about his work, several examples of which were on the wall, and his methods. The chef was obviously an artist of the culinary sort. Our lunches included a cheek of beef cooked like a pot roast but tender and tasty, and thin slices of roast jamon in a port wine sauce. We had to walk around town, and have coffee, before continuing our trip.
We are now in the town of Daroca, in Zaragoza province in Aragon, and our Soria visit is over. Daroca is a small town with an ancient wall around it, set down in a defile between two high hills. We are in a charming posada, with a lovely veranda looking over a garden. There is plenty to explore, but we are both tired, and took only a short walk -- enough to pass by the open doors of a community center in which a local fashion show was being held! Tomorrow we are off to Teruel, not far south from here, for the next portion of our stay. After a day or two exploring Aragon, we are thinking of heading north into Catalunya before our last few days in Barcelona. But first things first: we are in definite need of a laundry service, which we hope Teruel will provide. If not, there's always the bathroom sink....
10/25
As the second half of our trip gets underway, we have sort of changed strategies. Jerome has caught cold also, and so we both are under-energized. We are in Teruel, for three nights rather than two, lying low for a day or so. Further, we have booked four nights in Girona, a good central point in Catalunya north of Barcelona, from which we can take day trips to the coast or inland, as colds and energy permit. From Girona we will spend two days in Barça itself before boarding the big bird homeward.
So, Teruel. A provincial capital in the least known and least populated province of Spain. It was an important Moorish city, and the Muslim and Jewish communities survived the Reconquest to embue the town with interesting cross-cultural touches. The most obvious of these, for tourists like us, is the mudejar architecture in evidence everywhere. I’ll send some photos of, especially, the stunning towers that mark the old city gates.
We arrived on a Sunday, to find the historic part of town inundated with Spanish tourists, here for the weekend. It took a couple of tries to find a hotel: apparently all had been full the night before, but opened up for the week ahead. We are in a very traditional small-European-city hotel, right on the corner of what turns out to be *the* plaza in town. Just luck, and the first place where we found a room. It is easy to go out and walk around, find a coffee or a meal, and come back and rest (And there is Internet access from our room.)
The weather is still clear but significantly colder, with a chilly wind off the mountains around the town. There is a modern Teruel outside the old walls, but it is still a small place. The 15th-century aquaduct is still visible in a couple of places, and the cathedral is gorgeous, being primarily a very simple structure with pointed arches and mudejar touches. Otherwise, this old part of town is thoroughly modern, with interesting shops as well as professional offices, restaurants, bars, and stores. The core of town, including our plaza, is a pedestrian zone. We ate dinner last night at a Chinese buffet restaurant, not great but a welcome change, at this point, from Spanish food. Today the locals are out and about, and we imagine them breathing a sigh of relief that the weekend tourism is over. We found a lovely pasteleria, a bakery that also has a tearoom serving coffee (a coffeeroom?) and pastries, and spent a few warm moments there out of the chill of the streets. Our midday meal consisted of garlic soup, a taste of paella, baked dorado fish, and chicken scallopini. Not surprisingly, we both feel the need for a nap. Tomorrow we plan a modest day trip to a couple of interesting towns nearby, to get a sense of Teruel province outside the town itself. Then northward into Catalunya.
10/29
Girona
I have so much to say about Girona that it will have to be spread out a bit. To bring the itinerary up to date: today is Friday. We remained in Teruel, in the mountains of Aragón, until last Wednesday, lying low and nursing our colds. Except for the fact that the weather turned chilly, Teruel was a great place to rest. The old part of town, where we stayed, was small enough to become familiar, yet large enough to afford a variety of places to explore, and a variety of restaurants in which to eat. We did not explore the province, but promised ourselves to return another day. We stayed in and did a lot of reading: I finished The Angel´s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and Jerome read Augustus by John Williams. Since the first book is set in Barcelona, and the second is about the Roman emperor, we both felt that we were pursuing the themes of our trip, if indirectly.
On Wednesday, we made the five-hour drive down to the Mediterranean coast at Sagunto, then north to Girona. We left Teruel at 1 degree Celsius, and arrived in Girona to 21 degrees, a welcome change. There are occasional lovely wild patches of sea coast along the highway, but most of the way towns are well built up, fairly industrial, and not very pretty, until one looks beyond the land to the sea itself, which is a glittering, crystalline blue, and very enticing. Even the outskirts of Girona, between the freeway and the historic center of town, is nothing to write home about. We are about 35 miles south of the border with France.
The center of Girona, though, is glorious. I (Nancy) have taken to it as I have not taken to a city since we were in Salamanca five years ago, and Jerome is enjoying it, too. It is fairly small, diverse, lively, friendly, and with a spirit that is palpable. It is thoroughly Catalán, which is not the same as Spanish, and has a university campus right in the middle of the old center, so that the tiny medieval streets are always thronged with students, and lively discussions take place in every restaurant and bar that we enter. The town is spread out along a river, with houses hanging over its banks Venice-style, and with pedestrian bridges crossing it every couple of blocks. The oldest quarters -- Jewish, Moorish, and medieval -- spread up a steep hill from the river to the old city walls. The walls are virtually completely intact and there is a walkway along their top from one end of town to the other -- which we did yesterday in glorious warm fall weather again, thank goodness. The streets of this old part of the city are mostly pedestrian except for service vehicles, are barely one-car wide, paved with ancient stones, crossed by supporting arches as well as the second story of occasional buildings, and are scrubbed clean by the city every morning. Stone stairways join one street to another higher (or lower) street at random spots, so that one can wander up, down, across, and around what is really a fairly small area, and see something new all the time.
The river was the first thing that caught my attention. The next thing was that we took a walk past the university’s campus, housed in a 14th-century Dominican convent, and from an open window came the sight and sound of a young woman playing a cello. Around a few street corners, in the Jewish quarter, we came upon a tiny shop from whose door came the strains of a Jordi Savall CD of baroque viola da gamba music. After two weeks of travel with no music, these were welcome sounds indeed.
The streets were full of people, and small shops everywhere were selling everything from fresh produce or meats or breads to Gucci shoes or designer clothes, to dorm-room décor from Morocco. The crowd was notable for its heterogeneity – of age, race, nationality, language – and obviously also comprised tourists, locals, and students. After the relative homogeneity of Castilla y León, it is invigorating. The latter province, along with most of inland Spain,has lost most of its youth to the big cities, and the population is largely below 12 and above 40. Girona seems youthful in part simply because there are youth here.
There is much more to say about what we’ve done and experienced, in part because it turns out that this week, from yesterday through November 7, is Girona’s annual city festival. But I am going to continue that in another message, later.
11/01
Empuries y Cadaques
It is late Monday afternoon, and we are sheltering from a Mediterranean rainstorm in our snug hotel in Cadaqués. This time tomorrow, we will be turning in our rental car in Barcelona and packing for the trip home. But there are still tales to tell from the last couple of days….
We left Girona on a *very* quiet Sunday morning; the Saturday night revelries of the feste were being slept off, we think. We headed north on back roads for about an hour, to our first stop, Empúries. This is a Catalonian governmental archaeological site, an ongoing excavation of a 6th-century BC Greek fishing village on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, named Emporion, Greek for “market”. The Greeks interacted with the local Iberian tribes and created a thriving trade zone, which the Romans decided looked too good to miss. Emporion was the site of Scipio’s first landing on the Iberian peninsula in 218 BC, with the intent of blocking the Carthaginian expansion from the south. Over the next century, the Romans built a second city uphill from the Greek town, and both sites still exist without superstructure: Girona, Barcelona, and Taragona became the centers of Roman power, and in the 3d century AD the whole area around Empúries was abandoned. Although some occupation existed through the Middle Ages, the “modern” (11th century onward) development shifted south a few miles to the site of the modern town of L’Escala. So the Greek and Roman towns were left virtually intact, and it is an incredible site, only excavated by about 25%. Just ruins, but fascinating. We saw it on a sunny, mild morning with incredible light quality. I’ll send photos separately, as usual.
From Empúries we moved on north to Cadaqués, to all intents and purposes the last destination of our trip. This is a jewel of a coastal town: uniformly white-plaster, red-tile-roofed buildings rising up the hills from a very small, protected bay in the Mediterranean. The setting is exquisite (see photos). Fresh but mild sea breezes, brilliant sunshine amid partial clouds, Mediterranean flora and fauna. Cadaqués is historically a fishing village, but was discovered by artists in the 19th century and made famous by Salvador Dalí, whose presence still looms large. Picasso summered here, and Miró, Duchamp, Magritte, García Lorca, and various other artists, musicians, and actors, visited. Tourism took over fishing long ago.
To our amusement and chagrin, Cadaqués, being in Catalonia, speaks not just that language, but a dialect of it. What little we began to understand of the language in Girona was of no use. However it didn’t really matter, because we arrived to hear not only Catalonian and Spanish but also French, German, and Portuguese. It turns out that today, November 1st, is a European holiday, and so this was a three-day weekend, and the town was awash with mostly urban people off on holiday. A few Brits, too. Most have left during the course of today, and the town is quieting down. So we will venture out for a last Spanish supper tonight before we turn our sights to home. It has been a fabulous trip, but we are ready to be done. Tomorrow, Barcelona airport and an airport motel, then our early morning flight to Paris on Wednesday, then directly into Salt Lake City, thanks to Delta. I hope you have enjoyed these reports, and my thanks to those of you who wrote in response. It has been great to have the contact with home. See you stateside,
