Spain 2000

Spain 2000

August 31 - Friday, September 1
I saw the first great sight of my trip to Spain while flying southwest from Amsterdam — Paris. There was no mistaking it for anywhere else; Paris is the largest city in Europe. I strained to see the great sights -- the Eiffel Tower, the long boulevards, the Arch de Triomphe, but inconvenient clouds impeded my view.
I could positively identify nothing else until we approached the Pyrenees. Far off to the right, the Bay of Biscay shimmered in the sun. Biarritz lay along the coast in clusters of green. The terrain changed radically as we passed over the mountains. The French are fond of quipping that Africa begins south of the Pyrenees. And yes, from the air Spain is radically different from the voluptuous rolling hills of France. If France is feminine, then Spain is masculine, hard, sere and uncompromising. The appearance of the country from the air is almost surreal: oddly-shaped patches of browns, earth reds, ochres, carved with difficulty from the stubborn land, and stippled with dots of blackish green.
We dropped slowly to earth and I was finally in Spain, a dream since the summer of 1968, when I first read James Michener’s Iberia. I’d explored Spain only through its cuisine and its music, but its essence remained a mystery.
In the Madrid airport I became hopelessly lost trying to find the baggage carousel. I raced from terminal to terminal, certain that my abandoned bags would be carried off by someone else. I needn’t have worried. When I finally retrieved my luggage from the carousel and asked directions to the bus for town, I was immediately stopped by a stone-faced member of the Guardia Civil. He demanded to see my boarding pass and baggage claims. When he was satisfied that I wasn’t trying to carry off someone else’s stuff, he waved me on with a reptilian smile. Just as I arrived at the curb so did the bus. The fare into town was ludicrously cheap — a good sign of what was to come. The bus, after a short ride through dusty suburbs, deposited me in the Plaza Colon.
According to the map the Hotel Monaco is only a few blocks from the Plaza, so I donned my sunglasses and set out, charged with energy. The Monaco was farther away than I thought and the day was hotter than it seemed at first. By the time I reached the Gran Via, I was panting and my face gave off that unhealthy heat signaling the onset of dehydration. But the hotel was close; I pressed on.
From the end of World War I to the 1950s the Hotel Monaco was an elegant brothel famed throughout all Spain. Even the king, it’s said, came there to, well, come there. The elegance has long faded, but the vague suggestion of a whorehouse remains, evident in small details. The lobby is sumptuous, furnished with gilt mirrors and an overblown mural of some feminine spirit in the toils of ecstasy. The desk was manned by a male clerk of startling beauty (he would be a welcome sight on subsequent returns to the hotel.) Alas, his English was even more primitive than my Spanish. Eventually cutting through the linguistic fog we finally established that my room had indeed been reserved by Señor Delamere, and that one of our party had checked in half an hour before. This was Steve Dumble, the only one of our quartet whom I didn’t know.
I piled my bags into the tiny elevator, which painfully creaked up to my room on the second floor. This room had decidedly not been the chamber of the royal favorite. It was small but neat, with a comfortable bed and a small fan which turned out to be a godsend through the warm nights. The extravagant decorative scheme of the lobby ended at the elevator. This room’s decor had stopped in its tracks somewhere around Rita Hayworth’s early career. The bathroom was so tiny that one could perform virtually any duty required by simply turning in another direction, squatting or rising as the occasion demanded. But I didn’t care. I was more than ready to get out and explore the city, so I unpacked a couple of things and called Steve’s room. If I was going to be touring Spain for twelve days with a perfect stranger it seemed a good idea to meet him as soon as possible.
Steve Dumble is an affable man, tall, heavyish, with short hair, glasses, and a salt-and-pepper goatee. He emanates hearty good will and in less than two minutes after meeting we were firm friends. And what do new friends do? Well, they can set out for a bite to eat.
We settled on a sidewalk café near the Puerta del Sol, the Armenia. Over a couple of beers and some indifferent tapas, we filled in the details of our lives. Steve lives in Swanage, South Wales with a partner named David, in a reconverted stone water tower which they have cleverly adapted into a home. Steve has performed in a considerable number of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas in the bass-baritone roles. He has known David Delamere for ages. In fact, David introduced him to his partner.
After our little refreshment, we wandered on to explore Madrid further. We stopped at another bar for two coffees, then walked half a block to the Plaza Mayor, a flagstoned meadow almost completely deserted in the hot haze of siesta time. A pigeon-bespattered equestrian figure of King Philip II dominates the square, but our focus was the tourist office. We wanted primarily to find out if there were any music or theatre events going on in the city, and I was looking for something in particular.
The zarzuela is something like an operetta but with a pronounced Spanish flavor. I was acquainted with them through a handful of recordings and wanted to explore the form better, preferably through performance. But the clerk at the office told us sadly that we were both too late and too early: a couple of zarzuelas had been performed in the summer and more would come later, but the official season was not yet started. Well then, I reasoned, I could compensate by buying more recordings. Here in Spain they would surely be easier to find.
The bullfighting season was still going strong, and the next performance in Madrid was scheduled for Sunday afternoon at six. I knew I’d need a hat, so I began my search immediately in the shops lining the Plaza Mayor. I found nothing in my size, but on Sunday morning the large outdoor market El Rastro would surely provide something suitable.
For dinner, we stopped and made reservations at a restaurant recommended by my guidebook, La Barraca, then returned half an hour later. This is a well-established place known for the best paella in Madrid, and since paella is my favorite dish in all the world, this was clearly the right choice. It has been a Madrid fixture apparently since the 1950s. Pictures on the walls show Cary Grant, Grace Kelly and her prince, and Arthur Rubinstein all dining happily — though not together. The restaurant meanders through several cozy and discreetly lit rooms, with copper pots and decorative plates on the walls. As soon as we sat down I was seized with a powerful thirst; we ordered a large bottle of mineral water. We chose to dine on one of the special all-seafood paellas, accompanied by a marvelous red rioja, El Coto. The paella was perfection and the restaurant itself is an attractive place, so a return was inevitable.
Reluctant to bring a perfect evening to a close, we walked a couple of blocks north of The Monaco into the Pink District, the lively gay area of Madrid, for coffee. It had been a long day since I left Boston, so I left Steve to explore and was back at the hotel and in bed by midnight.

Saturday, September 2
I was awakened at 9:30 by a jangling phone. It was David. He and Fred had arrived late the previous evening and they were eager for me to come down and join the party. I performed my ablutions on the double, even hopping into the shower with my watch on (it survived its bath). With mounting joy, I sped down to the lobby, and arrived to hugs and kisses. David is one of my closest, dearest English friends. I’ve known him for fourteen happy years, and we began to plan this trip two summers ago. We were joined during the planning stages by Fred Evans, a mutual friend who lives in Wrexham, North Wales. Fred is 62 but seems much older, with the starchy and pedagogical air of a retired schoolmaster, which in fact he is. He is also a shrieking hypochondriac, inclined to pamper himself like Aunt Pittypat. That isn’t to say that Fred can’t twinkle; he can, especially when the talk turns to show music, Sondheim in particular.
After a coffee in the lobby we moved down the street to a corner bar for a fairly unconventional breakfast consisting largely of seafood, then lit out for the Prado.
At the Plaza de Cibeles we turned down a wide boulevard shaded by enormous plane trees, the Paseo del Prado. Inside the museum, we split up; it’s impossible for four people to go through an art collection at the same pace and an artist is inclined to linger over favorites. They agreed to meet me at the entrance at 3:30.
The Prado needs no introduction; it is one of the world’s supreme museums, and the greatest collection of Spanish painting on earth. Everyone’s favorites are the masterful canvases of Velázquez. Las Meninas in particular benefitted by being actually seen; in reproduction, one fails to appreciate its impressive depth of field. Fans of El Greco can find in the Prado everything they can possibly want; I admire the painter without really liking him. I was drawn to Goya’s so-called black paintings, the tortured expression of a mad old man. But I stood longest in front of Bosch’s great triptych, “The Garden of Delights.” In this unbelievable fantasia, even hell is attractive. The work has been recently restored, and it glows like paradise itself. Four hours later I still hadn’t seen everything I wanted to see, but I couldn’t keep my friends waiting. By the time we met, they had already eaten, so I had an ice cream on a stick as we walked beneath the plane trees.
We stopped at an outdoor café for beer, then headed for the Plaza Mayor. The ice cream hadn’t made much of a dent, so I stopped at a small, dark café. The burly barman made me a sandwich of manchego cheese while two old people, his mother and father, entertained me as far as our mutual incomprehension would allow. Out of frustration I lapsed into Italian — and hit pay dirt. The father was from Venice. I extolled the charms of his native city at impassioned length and the old man beamed with delight. The sandwich was plain and good, if a bit of hard work to chew; the cheese is flavorful and similar to parmesan, though not quite as dry.
David and Fred hadn’t seen the Plaza Mayor yet, but as it was again siesta time it didn’t take us long to exhaust its arid charms. On the previous day Steve and I had found a chocolateria nearby which we’d hoped to return to, but now it was closed.
Steve went back to the hotel to rest. (Rest? What’s that?) David and Fred and I wanted to see the Palacio Real, which dominates the western end of the city. The inviting gardens of Plaza de Oriente are spread before it like a green banquet, so we sat beside the gardens at a café and had another beer. It was around 7:00. The day was cooling off as the rich clear blue of the sky deepened. The Palacio Real itself was just an 18th century pile, with no more architectural distinction than Buckingham Palace. Walking to the public gardens at the side of the palace, we were surprised to see countryside behind the palace, the bare hills of central Spain. The city abruptly ends at the palace walls, with no fading off into suburbs. The Manzanares River runs below the palace but we couldn’t see it.
After going through the part of the gardens allowed to the public, we headed back toward the hotel. I stopped at a large department store, El Corte Ingles, to look for zarzuela CDs, and found five. I returned to the hotel and collected the chaps, and we walked three blocks north to Chueca Square for a pre-dinner drink at a busy café under the dusty trees. (We hadn’t yet fallen into our later gin-and-tonic routine.) Shortly it was time to return to the restaurant where we’d made reservations.
The Carmencita was formerly a local tavern for impoverished intellectuals, established in 1850. It is now a modest and attractive restaurant. The waitress in charge was very frank about not speaking English and my Spanish, I’m sorry to admit, was virtually worthless — though pronounced beautifully. We were given a plate of bright red chorizo, huge wedges of bread, and we ordered a by-now obligatory bottle of red rioja. I started with vichyssoise garnished with a dab of black caviar. The soup was sinfully creamy, like mainlining cholesterol. But no matter: it was here and I was ready for it. My main dish was partridge, served cold in a savory fruit sauce. It was heavenly, but a pincushion of small, treacherous bones. Only the dessert was a disappointment, a pot of custard devoid of sweetness, served with a separate pot of honey.
I was in bed before midnight.

Sunday, September 3
We met at 9:45 in the lobby and took the Metro from Chueca Square to El Rastro. This huge outdoor market goes on for the better part of a mile on Calle de la Ribera de Curtidores, spilling out onto the adjoining streets. First we stopped at a bakery for coffee and obscenely decadent pastries bursting with marzipan. After going through the market for about a block, we lost one another momentarily. I suggested that if we did so again, we should meet at the subway stop at 1:30, and in under a minute I had lost them again. I enjoyed the pushing crowds, the delicious weather, but nothing tempted me. I did find my straw hat, a pert number which cost me the equivalent of about $4.50.
At the café by the Metro stop, we had a pitcher of sangria. Spanish sangria, it turns out, is much less potent than its American cousin, more like a light wine punch and very sugary. But it was a hot afternoon and we slurped it up greedily.
The day was too lovely to take the Metro again, so we strolled north toward the Plaza Mayor. Our eye landed on Taberna la Percha; the posted bill of fare tempted us to try it for lunch. We had a good deal of sport over the hilariously innocent translation of the menu, which featured such quaint items as: illustrated salad, smashed eggs with ham, breadcrumbs of the shepherd, and (this really got us going) meatballs of the parish priest. The fixed menu was a bargain: a great seafood salad, rough red wine, and roast lamb which, oddly enough, I didn’t dislike. We finished with flan, sheer rapture.
Our chocolateria was nearby. Now we would have our treat. The Spanish, I was told, prefer their chocolate richer and denser than we do. But the chocolateria was again closed. Back at the hotel, we separated. This was my first chance to see a bullfight, so I took the trusty Metro to Las Ventas, the bullring in the northeast part of the city.
I said goodbye to my brave compañeros. They had other, less bloody plans: the ballet.
Las Ventas is large and architecturally a treat to the eye, Moorish brickwork and tiles, arches and arabesques. I took several photos of it, and dodged whizzing cars to reach a traffic island so I could shoot the whole structure from across the street. A gust of wind blew my hat off and carried it into the middle of a huge patch of prickly stuff. I waded into it, and a familiar, pungent scent rose to my nose — rosemary. I broke off several twigs and put them into my bag. Back at the box office, I bought my ticket, but no one was admitted till five. A seller in front of the ring sold me all my postcards, and I wrote a couple while waiting for the ring to open. When the gates parted I found my seat easily, only about 5 rows up. The corrida didn’t begin till six, so I drank a couple of icy beers and a bottle of mineral water while I wrote more postcards.
The ceremony began with a parade, with the toreros proudly walking before the horses. This group, the cuadrilla, marches around the ring to festive band music, just like in the movies. Then the actual corrida begins. There were six different contests between man and beast. Each followed a pattern which varied little; the first match was typical (though each bull and each matador had his own personal peccadillos). The bull was released from the chute; he burst into the ring with a taurine fury that took me by surprise: I’d expected a fairly placid animal that would be gradually goaded into fighting. This huge black monster, speckled with white about the hindquarters, had only one thought in his massive head: to do as much damage as he could do to as many men as he could reach. The first matador was Martin Antequero, an exceedingly handsome young man who looked more like a Harvard sophomore than a haughty torero. Of all three matadors, he had the most stylized, balletic style. He addressed the bull with silken disdain, his pelvis thrust forward insolently. Considering the sheer massiveness of this particular beast, I was impressed with his willingness to put his cojones in such obvious danger. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before the first address of the bull, the animal chased all the men around the ring. It was odd to see them scrambling to hide behind the burladeros, the panels parallel to the sides of the ring which I had assumed were for emergencies. Not so: they ran like rabbits from the moment the bull appeared. The matador, to his credit, stayed mostly out in the open. After a bit of this cat and mouse business, the picador trotted out on a horse padded as extravagantly as a Wagnerian soprano — and with good reason. The horse, incidentally, is blindfolded. Any sensible horse without a blindfold would probably wrest the lance from his rider, pole vault over the edge of the ring, and head for the border. After the matador played the bull awhile, the bull inevitably charged the horse, attempting with all his might and main to penetrate the poor animal’s interior regions. During the bull’s attempt at exploratory surgery, the picador sends his lance into the bull’s shoulder to weaken him and cut his shoulder muscles, then it’s time for the banderilleros to attempt to place the banderillos. These men had the trickiest job: stabbing the barbed, satin-flounced sticks into the bull’s shoulders, two at a time. (Generally they did well, except for one man in a green suit. He was clearly terrified of the bull, advancing on him crabwise out of sheer naked fear. He was inept in placing the banderillos, and was frequently booed.) When the bull was thus weakened by the picador and banderilleros and losing blood fast, Antequero exchanged his magenta and yellow cape for a small scarlet one. With this cape he played the bull with shorter, more delicate strokes, then pulled out a sword and drove it as far as he could into the bull. The sword didn’t go in far enough to do much damage, so it was withdrawn and another attempt was made. When the bull, weakened from loss of blood, finally sank to its knees Antequero dispatched him with a dagger stuck into the base of the skull. All the contests but the last ended with this thrust of the dagger. After the bull is killed, three horsemen come out with a sort of yoke attached behind their mounts, and drag the fallen hero around the ring and out the gate. I’m told that the bulls are butchered and the meat given to the poor. I hope so.
The next matador was Curro Gea, who looked, from my vantage point, something like the weak-chinned matador in Ferdinand the Bull. He was skillful, but without a discernible style. A compact black bull hurtled out of the gate. First came the obligatory chase, then the picador’s work, but at this point the bull appeared to be disqualified. Six or seven brown and white bulls were let into the ring. Our little black bull made a few aggressive moves toward them, but eventually he trotted out with them and a new bull was introduced. The same process happened again, but on the third try, the bull was finally dispatched.
The third matador was Tomas Lopez, young and good-looking, in a blazing suit of lights in purple and gold. His style was excellent, very stylized and graceful. While knowing little of the sport, I observed carefully; I imagine that Lopez is a very promising torero. His bull was a brown, blunt beast, short-legged and ferocious enough to satisfy anyone. The kill went well and quickly, but again, the dagger was required to finish him off.
All three matadors took second bulls. Antequero was more elaborate and balletic than before, Gea markedly less effective than his first time out. During Gea’s contest, the green-suited banderillero was humiliatingly inept. It took three tries to place the banderillos and he was so clearly terrified that the crowd howled a storm of disapproval. By now I suppose the poor man is looking into the exciting world of flipping hamburgers, or some other non-aggressive form of beef.
The last bull of the day belonged to Lopez, whose performance was excellent. His last bull was a superb match for him, large, brown, a ton of muscle, gristle, and ferocity. This bull was very determined to stay alive. Lopez’s capework was brisk and efficient, but his first sword only went in about three inches and had to be withdrawn. This served only to madden the bull. On the second attempt, the sword went in up to the hilt. It must have punctured a lung; from the bull’s mouth spewed what seemed to be gallons of blood. It was the only clean kill of the afternoon, but it was also very disturbing to many in the stands. I heard one woman nearby plead, “Oh, please someone, kill it!” But the killing had already been accomplished; the bull snorted forth a final quart of gore and sank lifeless to the sand, to great cheers and general clamor. And it was all over.
I was curious before the corrida began as to what my attitude would be to the whole experience. Well, I wasn’t nauseated, and was quite impressed with it as spectacle. If I lived in Spain I might go to other corridas, but I doubt that I could become a true aficionado. I hated to see the blindfolded horses attacked by the bulls, though they appeared to be unhurt. Bulls must die, of course, or masses of people would not be streaming into Burger King and Ponderosa and Wendy’s. But toward the end I felt a pang of species disloyalty and wouldn’t have minded seeing one of the bulls’ tormentors punctured or tossed into the stands.
Back at the hotel I finished up my postcards and read the last pages of my Patricia Highsmith novel. The boys came in from the ballet starry-eyed, the final chords of Giselle ringing in their ears. We returned to La Barraca and had another fabulous paella. The waiter we’d had before beamed with pleasure at seeing Steve and me return with two more patrons in tow.

Monday, September 4
I awoke at 8:45. We had arranged to meet at 9:45 in the lobby. I raced to the Puerta del Sol, where I’d seen a Cambio with a good exchange rate. They weren’t open yet so I raced back to the hotel; Steve and David had gone for the rental car and would be returning at 9:45 sharp and I didn’t want them to have to wait. But in Plaza de San Luis a café beckoned: I hadn’t yet had a cup of chocolate. It was everything I’d hoped for: thick and dense, and so sweet I marvel that Spain isn’t a nation of diabetics.
The car was a green Peugeot with exactly enough room for our suitcases and no more. Shopping for large items would have to be sharply curtailed. I had no cash, so a return to the Puerta del Sol was imperative. Luckily Steve found a place to idle the car while I made my transaction and mailed the postcards.
We rode north out of Madrid, and I was dismayed to see how much of the wonderful city I’d missed, broad boulevards lined with smart shops, parks and palaces and a magnificent triumphal arch at the northern gate.
The countryside was both lovely and stark, and very mountainous. The nature of the landscape kept changing; there was even a stretch that reminded me of Quartz Mountain State Park, near my Oklahoma hometown. On the opposite side of the road stood a slim tower of a ruined castle, but we hurtled by so quickly I couldn’t shoot it. I didn’t know it then, but many castles still lay ahead.
Our goal was the Escorial Palace, Philip II’s monument to his power and glory — oh yes, and God’s. Philip was an utterly humorless king, alleged to have smiled only once in his life: it was reported to him that a batch of heretics had been burned to death. The palace was remarkable, a forbidding fortress brooding over a lovely town, San Lorenzo de Escorial. We walked into a bar for lunch. I ordered a bocadillo (sandwich) of ham and crusty bread, accompanied by a café solo (my old friend espresso). The bocadillo was so good I ordered another of omelet and chicken; it was heavenly. We walked through the leafy town to the palace, but it was closed on Monday, so we trudged back to the car and pressed on to Segovia.
Do you believe in love at first sight? We came down out of the mountains around a curve — and gasped with pleasure at the city before us. Segovia appears from this approach to be in a valley but it is not. Segovia is a spectacularly sited walled city, the first of three we visited. This lower end of town is fronted by the most impressive sight I saw in all of Spain: a magnificent Roman aquaduct. Taller than a five-story building, graceful as a line of birches, it’s a brilliant piece of engineering. This aquaduct has stood for almost 2000 years and was in use well into the nineteenth century. Now it remains as a grace note to an incomparably beautiful city.
We found our hotel easily. The three-star Infanta Isabel, recently redecorated, is neat and comfortable. It’s a dozen steps from the Plaza Mayor and as unlike the Monaco as it could be. Segovia’s main Plaza is a lovely open space ringed with locust trees so green and lush they looked freshly-washed. A lacy wrought-iron bandstand stands in the center of the square. From the northwest corner, a spun-sugar Gothic cathedral rises like a golden wedding cake in the sun.
I unpacked hurriedly and went out to get a few shots of the cathedral. When I picked the boys up a few minutes later, we walked back down toward the aquaduct. As it was Monday – and siesta time — the town was very quiet, only a few intrepid tourists about. David went up to an old church to enquire if we could visit, but it turned out to be a monastery and therefore off-limits unless we were willing to commit to vows of chastity. I for one was not. In a small square a statue of Juan Bravo stood halfway up a flight of steps, looking like the Angel of the Lord with a bit of Billy Budd thrown in for good measure.
At the bottom of the steep streets we came to the aquaduct. It was even more impressive approached on foot. When I’d finished shooting it from every flattering angle, Steve shouted down to us from the top: he’d found a flight of stone steps. We all joined him, Fred muttering about his heart. I couldn’t help but note that he looked damned healthy for a dying swan. At the top a comely young German with long hair offered to shoot me with the aquaduct as background. I fought down the impulse to ask him for further, more intimate favors but he was with a small group and soon moved off. Seeing the aquaduct from this angle I was filled with admiration for that great Roman achievement, the engineering genius which helped conquer Europe.
The great cathedral where Queen Isabella was crowned is ethereal and spacious, dreamlike in its amber dimness. The organ is an instrument of some note; David was eager to find out if there were any recitals scheduled, but was dourly informed that the organ was only played during divine services. How sad, I thought. Throughout Italy, churches are used for their musical capabilities at every opportunity, both sacred and secular. David inquired of several people if CDs were available, but nobody seemed to know or care.
The others required a rest but I still wanted to explore, so I set out on my own. We parted at a lovely little park with children playing under copper beeches. I wandered down a narrow winding street to the western end of the city. Segovia is shaped somewhat like a ship; if the aquaduct is the stern, the Alcazar is the prow. Its towers soar above the trees, a standard Disney-issue fairy-tale castle. We were to visit the following day, so I merely wandered through the ornamental gardens. By the entrance, two large chestnut trees were cacaphonous with clacking, metallic birdsounds – I hesitate to call this racket birdsong. I looked up to see a parliament of odd blackbirds, hundreds of them, larger than starlings but not quite crows. Their clatter finally drove me away. I walked over to an open space to my right, where the road winds back along the city wall. Below the city lies a valley thick with trees. The present drops away. I walked past the Alcazar entrance again to the other side. I leaned over and looked down, suddenly wide-eyed at the sheer drop to another deep valley. Far below lay a monastery, a church, a winding road. I turned back toward what I assumed to be the center of town. The road followed the city wall, and at times I seemed to be walking within the city, sometimes without. I stopped to look at a tangle of wildflowers growing by the side of the road: purple echinacea, tiny delicate poppies of an almost incandescent red, and banks and banks of foaming, frothy white flowers. They had an odd odor, not exactly unpleasant but a magnet for bees. (David told me later with disgust that I’d been admiring something called Russian vine, despised throughout Europe much as we do kudzu.).
There were several roads I could have taken. I didn’t have a map so I trusted to luck. The road kept dropping; eventually I hoped to arrive back at the aquaduct — and did. Consulting a map later, I saw that my walk had taken me halfway around the city walls. It was now early evening and people were starting to come out of hiding: old people, teenagers, children, groups of friends. The Spanish, I note, are much more sociable than Americans. They love to gather in small groups and eat and drink and talk. It’s an evening phenomenon very much like the Italian passeggiata. Americans would do well to emulate this, but our society is too fast, too breathless, and disinclined to support a custom from which there’s no financial gain to be made. Pity.
I strolled along enjoying the sweet evening air, the people in the broad boulevard, and along the way I found another CD shop, where I bought six more zarzuela recordings.
Back at the hotel we decided to go with the guidebook recommendation again: the Méson de Cándido is cited as a place no visitor should miss. We were seated upstairs in a room which suggested an alpine hunting lodge: rough wood, wonderfully romantic murals executed by a master artist -- and photos of visiting celebrities. Decorative elements grew organically from the room; nothing seemed to be placed by a decorator. Just outside the open window stood the aquaduct, palely lit against the velvet sky.
We ordered two bottles of rioja, Ribero del Duero, rich and red with a pronounced notes of cherry and spice. I started with little red peppers with bread and mushroom stuffing, then slices of roasted wild boar in a rich brown sauce. The boar was gamy but good, garnished with cherries and slices of baked apple. Dessert was a baked Alaska. It was as good, as decadent as anything I’ve ever eaten and I almost levitated with pleasure.
After coffee, we repaired to Steve’s hotel room for something that very quickly became a cherished custom throughout the rest of the trip: brandy and conversation before bedtime.

Tuesday, September 5
I woke up dreaming I’d been performing an equestrian act in a tattered little itinerant circus, with my old friend Marianne Cary.
On the previous afternoon walk I’d found a pastry shop across the street, filled with wondrous things. We had arranged to meet at ten; it was still early so I walked across. I ordered too much: four little ring-shaped pastries, gooey with ultra-sweet frosting. The bitter café solo was a necessary corrective to the excruciating sweetness. It was served by a dull-eyed slattern more concerned with talking to her boyfriend. This oaf sprawled bonelessly on his stool and dumped his paper trash on the floor, little caring that she would probably be the one to clean up.
Once together, our aim was to tour the Alcazar. To get in, we had to cross a narrow drawbridge over a moat, another heartcatching drop. The castle had everything it was supposed to have, but much of it was reproduction. A fire had run through many of the apartments in the mid 19th century. But in the chapel where Ferdinand and Isabella wed was an original alterpiece, blessedly undamaged, a lively work portraying Saint James (Santiago de Compostela) lopping off the heads of the infidel.
Lunch was in the dark and amber-lit Restaurante La Tasca, around the corner and down a crooked street from our hotel. To simplify matters we had the set menu, chicken noodle soup, wine, a celestial fried trout, easily boned. The flan for dessert was eggy and rich. An attractive Israeli family asked us to take pictures of them, and when we parted, I recommended they try the Méson de Cándido for dinner. We split up again and I arranged to meet David at 6:30. Returning to the boulevard down by the aquaduct I stopped at a coffee house for another thick chocolate. This one had orange syrup added — no real improvement on perfection. I found another CD shop and made another haul, then went back to read The American Scholar and a newspaper. I had luckily found The London Times at a kiosk in the Plaza Mayor.
Before meeting Steve and Fred, David and I scouted the area for restaurants. We settled on the Restaurante El Concepción on the Plaza Mayor, a most fortuitous choice. This, we all agreed at the end of the trip, was our finest evening; everything was magically right. We watched the perfect sapphire sky gradually turn to peacock, then purple. The cathedral, a mere twenty steps off to our right, was softly illuminated, a rich gold against the changing sky. A scrawny boy with a sure, expert touch played classical piano a few tables away. Any sour notes he might have played were easily absorbed by the chatter of the patrons and the cries of children happily playing in the square. He began with Scarlatti and Mozart, then worked up to Satie and Debussy. I’m passionate about turn-of-the-century French and Spanish music, so I ventured a request. Some Albeniz? No, he didn’t know any. Granados, surely? No. He brightened momentarily when I mentioned Turina, but could only play a few bars with confidence. No matter; we still enjoyed everything he played. Two old pusses closer to him seemed mildly offended that anyone would dare interrupt their gossip with mere music. Eventually they powdered their noses and trotted away.
The set menu here was exceptionally fine, with a number of choices. I had, along with the inevitable red rioja, a superb risotto nero: bright bits of cuttlefish glowing in the black inky rice. The main course was bonito on a bed of sautéed vegetables. Dessert was an unearthly treat: thyme ice cream — thyme! — floating in a confit of raspberries.
In the Spanish style, we lingered over our meal as long as we could. It seemed a shame to bring this carnival of sensual pleasures to a close but Fred was chilled so he went back to the hotel early, thus missing the postprandial brandy in my room. I went to bed drunk on the evening itself, not the wine, not the brandy, but Spain, seeping into my soul.

Wednesday, September 6
I hated to leave Segovia, but other undiscovered treasures lay ahead. A bank near the hotel gave me the best exchange rate to date. Breakfast was in the hotel, and superb. We piled into the Peugeot and drove straight back to San Lorenzo de Escorial to see the palace. I enjoyed touring through it, but I toured alone. We were quickly separated when I stopped to linger over the superior collection of paintings. Thinking that the others had gotten ahead of me, I accelerated my pace but at some point I must have passed them, for they were nowhere to be seen. I finally fetched up at the exit cooling my heels for the better part of an hour, trying to suppress the nagging feeling that they had finished and were combing the town looking for me. Finally they came walking across the vast courtyard in front of the cathedral, to my great relief.
Lunch was at an outdoor café, the Alaska. (Many bars and restaurants and small hotels throughout Spain have American place names.) I had a wonderful seafood soup and paella.
The next stop was the only sight on the trip I didn’t enjoy. The Valle de los Caídos, the Valley of the Fallen, lies a few miles outside San Lorenzo. An enormous cross sits high on a mountain peak, a memorial to those who died in the Spanish Civil War. (A cross seems to me a perverse symbol for Franco’s dictatorship.) Below it, burrowed 820 feet into the side of the mountain, is an enormous basilica built by captive Republican slave labor. It’s a prime example of fascist chic: the overt worship of power easily overwhelming its ecclesiastical elements. Franco himself is buried below the high altar, opposite the founder of the Falangists. I was relieved when we left this smug, vulgar display and drove back down the mountain towards Avila.
Avila’s Hotel de Jardin is just outside the city wall. True, the front courtyard and lobby are thick with luxuriant plant life, but on balance this mom-and-pop operation is less like a garden than a roach hotel. There was no point in seeking out another: we were only to stay one night. My room was large, neat and plain, but the tiny bath off it was rank with a pronounced smell of sewage. I resolved to spend as little time in there as possible.
We walked into the city through a massive gate and found the tourist office opposite the cathedral. A pleasant young woman gave us maps and advised us where to go outside the city walls for a magnificent view at night. Across the way was the cathedral, a fine example of the early Gothic style, and older than most of the other churches we visited. The light in the chancery was inviting, a soft orange glow, but one had to pay to get in and they were closing anyway. So we repaired to another sidewalk café and began another cherished (British) custom: gin and tonics in the late afternoon. I hadn’t drunk any sherry since I’d been in Spain, the country that produces it, so I blithely ordered a manzanilla, mouth watering in expectation. The barman dutifully brought me a cup of tea, Manzanilla brand. He seemed mildly offended that I wanted sherry instead of this fine libation, but admitted that they had no actual manzanilla. I gratefully accepted a glass of fino instead.
Off to the side of the city is a narrow park with high trees, where elderly couples sat enjoying the mild late afternoon. The park overlooks the terraced town below and the hills beyond. More of Avila is outside the city walls than within. We walked south along the walls and re-entered at the gate opposite the Church of Santa Teresa. Here the great Catholic mystic lived as a girl; the garden she played in is preserved. The church itself is a modest gem of the late baroque, but Teresa’s chapel off to the side was the attraction. It is small and dark and dimly lit with candlelight, but the altarpiece is surreal, a frenetic rococo fantasy. All of it, every inch, is richly gilded. I sat there for a few minutes drinking it all in, and after a clutch of worshippers left, I managed to take a couple of shots without flash. This would have been a hard sight to top so we didn’t try.
The Puerta del Carmen towered above the rest of the city walls. I suspect it’s a later addition. This gate is topped by a wild tangle of stork nests. To my disappointment, no birds were currently in residence; perhaps they were out delivering babies. Outside the walls the low sun against the battlements made for a good picture, and I experimented with shooting against the sun.
At the Café Felipe in the Plaza Mayor we stopped for another gin and tonic and discussed our options for dinner. We decided on the Hostaria Bracamonte, which we’d recently passed. The Bracamonte has an elegant interior, very high style, and the food reflected this. We ordered a bottle of the house red wine. I started with empanadillos with meat, savory little pies. When the fish proved unavailable, I ordered the escalope del dia, a fried filet of pork. For his starter, David had a langoustine soup which I won’t soon forget. By this time he was laughing at virtually anything I said and a mild witticism brought forth a soup-spewing guffaw, which spotted me liberally and brought the party back to sobriety.
After the meal, after nightfall, Fred went back to the hotel, thereby missing the loveliest, most ethereal sight of the entire trip. David, Steve and I hiked across the river to the Mirador de los Cuatro Postes, a Roman temple Christianized by a cross in the center. This, the girl at the local tourist board had told us, was the perfect vantage point from which to see the city at night. Ghostly Avila drowsed in the moonlight, its unbroken walls lit softly with hidden floodlights. The centuries melt away and we saw the city much as it was when it was built nine hundred years ago.

Thursday, September 7
On the road to Salamanca, we stopped briefly to give Fred a daylight view of the city from our moonlit observation point. Morning robbed the sight of much of its magic, for the sun was still low and an early morning haze lingered.
The landscape changed rapidly over the miles. A valley of boulders became a plain with short scrubby trees. About a dozen miles out of Avila we stopped at the little town of San Pedro del Arroyo for croissants and coffee. I ambled down the street to a bank, where a heartbreakingly handsome young teller gave me the best exchange rate yet. (For the rest of the trip I mostly went to banks to exchange money.) On the other side of San Pedro the harsh, stony landscape changed to flat hot fields of wheat and sunflowers. It was here on this pitiless and sun-parched plain, Fred informed us, that the armies of Wellington and Sir John Moore clashed with Napoleon’s marauding forces. As we approached Salamanca a black cut-out of a bull stood presiding over the fields in the distance. When we reached him, he stood taller than a billboard. No lettering, no detail, just the black figure of a bull. Fred says they’re found all over Spain and advertise a kind of sherry. The symbol of the bull is so well known that he needs nothing but his silhouette to make his point.
In Salamanca we found an underground carpark and began searching for a hotel. We had rooms reserved in Zamora, some thirty-odd miles to the north. David had made them in desperation, because an enormous arts festival in Salamanca had caused a run on rooms. After four or five tries we were successful: the Hotel Condal had fine rooms at reasonable rates and they even called our Zamora hotel to cancel. David and Steve insisted on having single rooms, but I was willing to double with Fred for the two nights here. Our room was modern and sparkling clean, in short, everything our Avila hotel hadn’t been.
After settling in, we walked a couple of blocks to the Plaza Mayor, a large baroque square humming with people. The square is considerably smaller than Piazza San Marco in Venice but it has much the same spirit. Technicians were setting up for the musical events and an air of excitement crackled through the noontime heat. The festival was beginning that day.
The Restaurante Dulcinea looked promising, but we weren’t allowed in until one o’clock. We killed time by walking through the busy marketplace near the great plaza. People who haven’t yet been to Spain would never guess how plentiful the seafood is, even here in the flat central plains of Castille. In this market I saw more teeming varieties of seafood than I’ve ever seen anywhere, at any time. The two crowded floors featured every kind of foodstuff: fruits and vegetables piled into colorful pyramids; vast banks of meat, including organs I had no wish to identify. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the carcass of a rhinoceros freshly butchered and displayed on a bed of ice, a parsley wreath around its ears.
The Dulcinea’s set menu was plentiful and good: paella as a starter, then stewed chicken, falling-off-the-bone tender. Afterward, while everyone else took a siesta, I explored the town. The Gran Via was almost deserted, but I walked its length in search of a newspaper in English and a place to read it over a drink. I ended up at the great Convent of San Esteban, an impressive edifice faced with gothic lace, and with a fine modern sculpture of St. Francis presiding over the front courtyard. A young man on a bicycle stopped, tossed a small camera at me and asked me to take his picture. I talked briefly with a brisk young Scotswoman with a mouthful of bad teeth. They looked like a display of French country cheeses -- a most unsettling sight. After a few pleasantries I moved on.
Leaving the great cathedral for a later visit, I walked down the Rua Mayor and found a coffee shop, all gleaming chrome and mirrors, filled with students reading and talking. I ordered a lemon ice tea from a lovely young Japanese girl and settled down with the London Times I’d found.
Back at the hotel I met the boys and told them I would meet them later. A laundromat around the corner was attended by a pretty blond girl who took my coins and proceeded to do everything for me, even providing the soap. I was directed to an area with comfortable chairs and sofa and a television, more like a living room than a public facility. I settled down and read my American Scholar and soon she told me it was done. Everything had been neatly folded, so I tipped her liberally, which I’m sure must be the custom.
We’d arranged to meet at one of the sidewalk cafés on the Plaza Mayor. David and I ran to two more CD shops I’d found, where I made another raid on their zarzuela section. Fred and Steve joined us and we went into the Cathedral of Salamanca. This was my favorite church on the trip, magnificent, and more welcoming than most. Its upper reaches are filled with light, pouring through a ring of windows just below the dome.
Afterward we parted again, to meet at 8:30 for dinner. I went into a small antique shop — and flirted outrageously with the handsome owner — then spent the rest of the time strolling through the city. Roving bands of folk musicians marched through the streets. Some were small brass bands with modern instruments, others played medieval instruments like shawms and tabors. Still others accompanied dancing troupes in folk costume. A couple of times I witnessed two instrumental groups accidentally meeting in the street, their contrasting musical styles blending into a comical cacophony. I also discovered by walking beyond Puerta Zamora that a bold modern city surrounds old Salamanca.
In my perambulations I had stumbled onto an attractive place to eat, The Valencia. It was tucked into a pocket off the street, a candle-lit outdoor grotto. Our plump young waiter advised me to have the gazpacho. It was creamy and pleasantly sour, probably made with yogurt. Savory fish croquettes came next. I ended with fig tart, unlike anything I’ve ever had before, and marvelous.
Fred again took a pass on the post-prandial concert in the Plaza Mayor. It was Indian music, which sounded even more exotic here in the middle of Castille. Brandy and bed.

Friday, September 8
We were told that except for eating places Salamanca would be closed on this great festival day. So I slept till ten. The evening before I’d established that the Internet Café would be open at eleven, so for 500 pesetas (about $2.70), I spent a pleasant hour on the web reading The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and the Times Book Review. By now I was developing a sharp appetite for some good hard news, specifically, on how the presidential campaign was progressing. It was a pleasant little taste of home.
In the Plaza Mayor, several music events were starting up. I stopped for an empanada de bonita. It wasn’t tuna, as I’d expected, but a smear of tomato sauce with chopped vegetables. It was good but not very filling, so in the Rua Mayor I went into a bar for a veal bocadillo on a hard roll and two short beers, then walked toward the river. The Rio Tormes runs sluggishly under a Roman bridge, my real destination. To my disappointment it was in the midst of renovation and therefore closed to all traffic, even pedestrian. Instead, I wandered along the embankment listening to birdsong and the lazy hum of insects. It was a very hot day and relentlessly sunny, with that ever-welcome, hard porcelain sky overhead. There was no humidity and the shade was comfortable. Salamanca isn’t the farthest south I’ve traveled, but it felt like it.
During my afternoon coffee I was serenaded by a scruffy trio, more interesting visually than aurally. They came into the café to play a guitar, lute and recorder and sing at the top of their voices. After a while, silence seemed more agreeable, so I bought a bottle of mineral water and went to the Plaza Colon. Sitting on a rough granite bench just below the statue of Columbus, who points dramatically west, I read my magazine under a pleasant chorus of birds high in the plane trees and dark firs that ring the square. In Spain I’d hoped to see more exotic birds, but these were mostly sparrows, those little gray citizens of the world who know no borders.
By now a museum I couldn’t get into earlier was open. Salamanca’s Museum of Art Nouveau and Art Deco is unique in my experience; the museum is in itself worth a visit to Salamanca. The central hall makes a stunning first impression. It’s topped by a stained glass ceiling supported by lacy art nouveau columns and depicts a jungle rife with flowers and birds. The museum is spacious and cool, and the galleries lead naturally from one to another. First I looked at the novelty porcelains, dime-store figurines — from all over the world — that I’d always taken for granted. Items one might overlook at a garage sale became fascinating in a museum context. The highlight of the first level was a display of art deco figures, females in exotic and balletic poses, from before the Great War up to the 1930s. I had always discounted such figures as kitsch. But seen en masse and softly lit in glass cases, they had a kind of distinction, and even looked suspiciously like high art.
Upstairs I found a tiny gallery of furniture, disappointing, for the art nouveau style achieves its highest expression in furniture. Half of the upper level was the gallery of dolls. I expected to find this boring but I was absorbed for the better part of an hour. True to the museum’s focus, these were all products of the years between the Yellow Nineties and the Dirty Thirties, from cheap throwaways to costly works of art for the daughters of privilege. Many of the costumes were created with the artistry normally lavished on the wardrobes of financiers’ mistresses. Careful observation provides insight into the female children of each period — how they were regarded by their elders, the expectations of them as girls and as women, and the relative values placed on girls and on boys. I was left with as many questions as answers. Why was such a wealth of detail lavished on a nun doll, from her elaborately made-up face to the meticulous workmanship of her garb? Why on earth would a doll manufacturer painstakingly dress a doll as a grieving widow, in black bombazine and netting, jet beads and black fur, with glassy tears coursing down her cheeks?
Most of the time I walked alone through this gallery. Or did I? The effect of being alone in a room with hundreds upon hundreds of lifelike dolls was almost sinister. It occurred to me that dolls are oddly comparable to clowns, those other figures one step removed from humanity — or even more disturbing, to ventriloquists’ dummies.
I met the boys in the hotel lobby and we wandered up and down the town looking for a restaurant. Unfortunately we settled on the Roma, a restaurant thoroughly unworthy of its noble name. It wasn’t a bad meal, merely an indifferent one. Our dining experience started badly when I looked over at Fred’s salad and saw movement — a tiny cockroach exploring the whorls of his lettuce. Fred merely flicked it onto the floor and remarked dryly, “When you’ve traveled in India...” I rather admired his sang-froid but it put me off my feed. I felt on firmer ground with dessert, vanilla ice cream.
Afterward we sat at a café table on the Plaza Mayor with a bottle of red wine and listened to a tiresome concert of Celtic music, which quickly bored me. Whether halfway through a bottle of rioja or stone cold sober, most Celtic music sounds to me like plodding variations on “The Irish Washerwoman” played in different keys.
Back in our hotel room, we had our brandy and cashews and discussed musical theatre. The topic turned inevitably to Sondheim, and Fred positively blossomed.

Saturday, September 9
After breakfast I sped over to another music shop and bought my final CD of the trip — twenty was the grand total. I can justify my extravagance by the price: the average CD cost me around $6.50. No banks were open in central Spain and next day was Sunday, so the hotel kindly cashed two of my checks at an excellent rate.
Getting out of the city was like running a maze, and was much more difficult than getting in. Steve was uncharacteristically intimidated by the hairpin turns and narrow lanes. A haze lay over the land as we sped back toward Avila. At a little town called Barraco, two sweet young muchachas served us cold beer and tapas: crisp bacon rinds, pickled herring, fried pieces of fish in a thick tomato sauce. We ended with ice cream sandwiches.
Halfway to Toledo the road wound through the valley between the Sierra de Gredos and the Sierra de Guadarrama. Several large lakes lie among the passes. We pulled over for a breather and I took some good shots. Soon after that we drove through miles and miles of forest, all umbrella pines. I thought fondly of Rome, though these pines were not so tall. We saw at least three ruined castles.
It was uncomfortably hot when we arrived in Toledo but our hotel, the Maria Cristina, more than made up for it. Our rooms overlooked a fine bullring, but we were told that no corridas were scheduled. The hotel stands a couple of blocks outside the city walls. Leaving Fred behind, we walked through a park and into the city, through the Puerta de Valmardón. The city is undergoing a considerable restoration of the walls; workmen were also laying a new road of old stone, and a dark charcoal gray dust rose all around us. Hurrying past this, we began a climb up a steep hill to the heart of the city. We were sweating and panting with exhaustion by the time we reached the center, the Plaza de San Vicente. The streets are narrow and twisted, virtually unchanged since the middle ages. We saw a bar ahead, not a mirage and more than welcome. We got seats at a table outside and went in to order tapas and beer. I had pickled herring and something I’d seen throughout our trip, ensaladilla rusa: Russian salad. It’s made of potatoes, peas, and carrots in light mayonnaise, and was quite good. Our large schooners of San Miguel were icy cold and we poured them down our throats. My head was spinning as we continued our climb, but I was glad we’d stopped for fluid replacement.
There are two museums in town we felt we couldn’t miss. The first, the Museum of Contemporary Art, has a modest if not terribly important collection. The building itself is a beauty, and the true attraction. It was formerly a private home, an old-fashioned city house with an open courtyard in the center. I had an instant desire to live in this wonderful building of spacious plain rooms in dark wood, white plastered walls, steps faced with Moorish tile.
We wandered through the town to the other end, to a small plaza dotted with spindly trees struggling to remain alive in the cruel heat. This looked out over the deep Tagus River valley far below. Toledo, like Segovia, is walled and dominates a high promontory. A broken Roman bridge spans half the river and rich villas are set among the green hills.
Next we toured the small El Greco Museum. The essence of the collection is a series of portraits of the twelve Disciples, all elongated and greyish and emaciated, like most of his work. (His models could clearly have used more fiber in their diet.) There were a handful of other portraits here, too, and a few paintings by El Greco’s contemporaries. I suppose they were included by way of contrast with The Master, but I found most of these works livelier than his dour, hollow-eyed saints. Still, one has to admire the painter’s originality and his strict adherence to his own unique vision. For better or worse, El Greco is inimitable.
Back in the real world, we tottered down another hill to a shop, blessedly air conditioned. It’s one of hundreds dealing in the metalwork known as Damascene, one of the city’s specialties, a kind of workmanship in which intricate gold and silver designs are worked against a black surface. After demonstrating the real work they produced, the proprietress, an Englishwoman, showed us samples of the cheap stamped stuff found in many of the souvenir shops.
Across from the shop was another green park overlooking the La Mancha countryside. I got an ice cream on a stick and — absolutely vital — mineral water. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Sinagoga del Tránsito. The friezes running around the top of the sanctuary were like lace spun from light. Attached to the museum was a museum of Sephardic Jewish culture, but they were on the point of closing so we gave it the old once-over-lightly treatment.
That night Steve didn’t feel like going back into the city; I’m sure he found the steep streets as daunting as I. Instead of going out and leaving him alone, we ate in the hotel restaurant. This turned out to be the best food of the trip, and best of all, we ate in air-conditioned luxury. The waiter recommended a local red wine, Gran Valdad. This was the first of our wines from La Mancha, light and dry and with a distinct undertone of fine brandy. And this exquisite bottle was the least expensive wine on the menu! David and I both began with the Fisherman’s Stew, which I would match against the finest bouillabaise in Marseilles. (David thoughtfully refrained from spewing me with it.) My main course was baked salmon with tiny clams and tender young vegetables. The champagne cream sauce served over these treasures was a culinary miracle. I admit I sopped up every drop of the excess with chunks of bread. If a dollop of this celestial sauce had landed on the floor, I blush to think what I might have done.
The conversation at dinner sparkled, till the end, when it turned sobering. The subject: amour. Poor Fred has given up any dream of ever finding love and saddest of all was his reason. He actually admitted that he didn’t want to share his things, his house, with anyone. I marked his words to hold in my mind as a warning.

Sunday, September 10
I had intended to wake early and walk around the circuit of the city’s walls before the heat became oppressive, but the exertions of the day before had taken a toll and I slept till ten. We’d agreed to meet for lunch at Plaza de San Vicente, so I spent the late morning exploring the interior of the town, hills and all. Plaza de Zocodover is a triangular square of shade trees and sidewalk cafes. It’s disfigured by the golden arches of a McDonald’s, which I scrupulously avoided, as I would in Boston, Kyoto, Venice or Gotebo. At a bar I had the classic Spanish breakfast, churros and chocolate. The latter was more like standard issue hot chocolate than the thick orgiastic syrup I’d expected, but it was still good. The churros, which look something like albino dog dumplings, tasted of the corn oil they’d been fried in. Dipped in the chocolate, however, they were divinely guilt-inducing.
I rambled about the town for a couple of hours (can one be said to ramble up a 45 degree incline?) then met my friends for lunch in Plaza de San Vicente. The Restaurante Palacio wasn’t terribly palatial, but it was filled with happy diners and the food was plentiful and cheap.
Next we toured Toledo Cathedral, one of the largest in Christendom. The Transparente is an altarpiece of figures in marble, bronze and jasper. Its saints and angels playing musical instruments appear to tumble out of the great dome in a cascade of baroque excess. Light pours onto the figures from an unseen skylight, and one almost expects the whole galloping mess to fall to the floor in a heap of arms, legs, and viols. It’s deliciously over-the-top and utterly unforgettable. The Sacristy is a treasurehouse of great paintings, notably El Greco’s The Disrobing of Christ. Centuries of silt, dust, and smoke have darkened these magnficent pieces to near-invisibility. Even the Goyas, the most recent paintings, could do with a good scouring.
The Hostal del Cardenal is a hotel-restaurant quartered in the former summer residence of Cardinal Lorenzana, just inside the city walls. This was our happiest setting for a meal — except for that perfect evening in Segovia. Here one dines in a garden. It was lovely to relax under the tall trees as the temperature dropped and speculate upon the availability of the waiter’s splendidly built assistant, thus cleverly combining two of my favorite deadly sins, idleness and lust. I started with a delicate, fragrant crayfish soup, and continued with partridge in casserole, another minefield of tiny bones but very much worth the effort. The wine was the first and only white we had on the trip, another from La Mancha. It tasted provocatively of sherry and must be made from the same grapes, or perhaps it’s aged in the same casks. Dessert was marzipan, another specialty of the city, and coffee. Brandy, courtesy of darling David, finished a near-perfect meal.
We walked back to the hotel through the park, enjoying the soft lights glimmering in the trees and listening to a strolling trio of musicians wailing plaintive songs from some unspecified eastern European country.

Monday, September 11
The breakfast buffet provided by the Maria Cristina was a banquet; I gorged without shame. We left Toledo in a roundabout way, driving halfway around to the other end of the city to see it from below. Our last sight of Toledo was the squat, foursquare Alcazar standing guard over the town.
We returned to Madrid by way of Aranjuez. This small city is the site of a royal summer palace built in the 18th century. We didn’t tour the palace, preferring to walk through its more inviting gardens and fountains instead. The gardens were the inspiration for Joaquin Rodrigo’s great guitar piece, the Concierto de Aranjuez. The fountains, liberally decorated with writhing cupids and dolphins, gods and goddesses, were spouting water in a display worthy of Versailles.
We stopped in the center of town and had tapas for lunch. I bolted my bocadillo and beer and left the boys, determined to buy a light and capacious shoulder bag to carry all my CDs and camera back in, but without success.
Madrid wasn’t very far. Somehow we sailed blithely past the right turnoff to get into the center of town. I realized this just as we flew past the bullring, Las Ventas. “Turn around,” I said, “We’re passing Madrid!” We got off the expressway and headed for what my instincts told me was the right direction. I wasn’t entirely certain, so after a while we stopped and I ran around to the trunk to retrieve my Madrid guide. As it turned out, we were headed straight for the Plaza de la Independencia, and I was able to bask in my newfound glory as a navigator.
Back at the Monaco, Steve and David dropped Fred and me, and went to return the car. Our gorgeous hot-eyed desk clerk was on duty. My new room was an improvement on the previous one, featuring more mirrors and open space, and charmingly, windows between the bath and the bedroom. I didn’t stay long but made a beeline for El Corte Ingles and immediately found the shoulder bag I wanted. We had agreed to meet for dinner an hour later, one more time at La Barraca. But I trotted off alone, for there was one more great sight I wanted to see before leaving Madrid.
The Parque del Retiro can be favorably compared to Central Park in its beauty and variety. Formerly a royal preserve, it’s now open to the public. I didn’t have time to do more than explore a corner of this green Elysium. Many of the Parque’s avenues are named for Spain’s former New World colonies. Starting from the Plaza de la Independencia, I wandered down to the Estanque, a lovely lake alive with waterfowl. A somewhat pompous monument to Alfonso XII overlooks it. The monument is a semicircular colonnade with a tall pedestal in the center, surmounted by an equestrian statue of this quite insignificant monarch. This was the time of evening when people emerge to socialize: lovers and musicians, old ladies and children, superannuated hippies and businessmen, all enjoying the passage of afternoon into evening.
I returned by way of the Prado to pay homage to the glowering statue of Goya outside the north entrance, then walked briskly back to the hotel just in time to meet up with the boys for our evening gin and tonic.
Our last meal at La Barraca went slightly off, but only at the end. We gorged -- yet again — on fabulous paella, washed down with another faultless rioja. We also took care to order the baked Alaska in advance, as the menu advised. A young couple sat down next to us halfway through our meal. As they were served a baked Alaska, wheeled out with great pomp and set alight, we looked on with gleeful anticipation of our own. When our time came, the restaurant couldn’t accommodate us. We had to assume the couple had been given ours so our tip was correspondingly smaller. We left with Fred fuming and spouting like a teakettle, indignant that we’d left a tip at all. But then, he’d been the only one to save room for dessert.
Back at the Monaco, our elevator got balky and I discovered that my mustard seed of claustrophobia had suddenly ballooned into a watermelon. After we escaped and I calmed down, we sadly said our goodbyes, for my flight in the morning was an early one. I was sorry the vacation was ending on a down note, but then, goodbyes are inevitable. Traveling with three friends had been a new experience, and a good one. The night was suffocatingly hot and the tiny fan mounted high on the wall barely stirred the air. I was still badly shaken from my ordeal in the elevator, and it took me a couple of hours to fall asleep. I was certain that this time I’d be plagued with jet lag when I returned. (I was wrong.)

Tuesday, September 12
My 6:30 wakeup call came five minutes after I dropped off — or so it seemed. But I wasn’t tired. Indeed, all day long I hummed with energy. I checked out quickly and walked up the Calle Barbiere to the Chueca Metro stop. The sky was still dark, and a hush lay over the city. My subway connections were made smoothly and I ended up at the airport a comfortable two hours early. I checked my bags and spent the last of my pesetas on a hearty breakfast and a bottle of good Spanish olive oil for Tom and Holly.
My KLM flight left Madrid exactly on schedule. The Northwest connection at the Amsterdam airport, however, was a sad succession of screwups. A taxi strike in the Netherlands made the aircraft personnel an hour late; then a hole was discovered in the baggage department and we had to wait for advice from some technician in California; worst of all, after the baggage hold had been okayed, some imbecile decided at the last minute not to fly. It took Northwest a full additional hour to remove her bags from the hold, during which time I thought of an exciting new place she could put them. I breathed a sigh of relief when we lifted off and left Amsterdam behind. It was good to be on my way home.