Rather than try to recap the details of the trip I am summarizing the experience and what I learned. 

History – an abbreviated short form

Everything starts with 711, as every guide began. In that year the Muslim forces entered the Iberian Peninsula  and swept through in a 7 year conquest to rule everywhere in Iberia. This began a rule that lasted in some form or other until 1492 when essentially all non Catholics were required to leave Spain. 

Prior to the Muslims there were the Visigoths who were christian. They made life miserable for everyone that wasn’t them, especially the Jews. The Muslims considered Christians and Jews lesser groups who were tolerated within their society so long as they paid taxes. This lead to a golden age for Muslims and Jews which lasted almost 500 years. The Reconquesta (When the  Catholics started to retake Spain) turned this around and tolerance for “other” began to diminish. Through the 1400’s many Jews found it better to convert for safety and to reduce their tax burden rather than to continue to openly practice as Jews. The 1492 expulsion of all non Catholics swept away the remaining unconverted Jews and Muslims. 

We visited Churches which were built on/in Synagogues and Mosques. One mosque in Cordoba, the Mezquita, contains a Cathedral within it. The mosque is so large that the cathedral cannot be seen from everywhere within the remaining mosque. We visited synagogues that had been converted to churches and then restored as museums and so many variants of the theme that it is hard to list. 

Art:

From the Prado (Madrid) to the Guggenheim )Bilbao) by way of Fundacion Miro, Picasso, Tapies  (all Barcelona) and so many more. To capture some of the span, we spent time in the Prado is  front of Velasquez Las Meninas to Picasso’s Las Meninas In the Picasso Museum in Barcelona  in which he recreated the painting in his style, but oh so much more. We visited Gaudi’s Casa Batlo and Sagrada Familia, not to mention Park Quell. And then in Cantabria we visited El Capricho. 

Wine (actually Port):

We learned that Port is still made by stamping out the grapes in vast tubs.

Touring through miles of vineyards, olive trees, cork trees (in Portugal) with rivers, mountains and small towns to stop for a technical break and an espresso. For those of us who are addicted to long road miles and seeing things from ground level this was a most magnificent trip.

Our “mountain climbing” was replaced by carrying our carry on luggage up long steep cobbled walks to several of our Paradores which the bus could not get to. Even in Madrid the bus could not get closer than a block from the entrance because the streets are so narrow. 

We are assembling our pictures and one of these days I will put up a slide show of mine in the blog.

We did spend three more days in Madrid and saw two more museums, special item was Guernica by Picasso in Sophia Reina Museum. We said farewell to our main tour the last night in Madrid and while they flew home we four flew on to Bilbao for the Post Trip Tour of northern Spain. 

What can I say:

Iconic images of Bilbao and the Guggenheim in Bilbao. We  are footsore and exhausted. This morning we took public transportaion with our Tour Leader to Gernicka where the terrible bombing attack  on civilians in 1937 that inspired Picasso’s painting took place.  It is a small peaceful town in the heart of Basque country. It is the center of the Basque history of self governance since before John Adams visited. 

On our return to Bilbao we took a lunch break and went to the Guggenheim where we explored the Tannhauser Collection and then the retrospective of Giacometti’s work – over 200 pieces of painting and sculpture. DONE the brain can take no more. The feet are done. in 15 minutes we will meet our fellow travelers to see if we can take in some art at the Museum of Modern Art across the street from our hotel then dinner, pack and be on the bus at 9 tomorrow. 

Fantastic fun for another 5 days, then back to a form of reality.

Somehow this trip is unreeling faster than I can get my head together to write about it. Three days in Lisbon with a side trip to Sintra to visit the fairy tale Pena Palace high on Pena mountain overlooking an impossible park planted with trees that could never have been in the same landscape had they not been purposely brought there from all around the world and planted to create the park in 1839! This was happening as the palace was being built. 

The next day we left Lisbon for Evora in the south of Portugal for our fist Pousada located in a former monastery. Our room is an historic cell for a monk who enjoyed more space than we might have imagined, still less than is common in most hotel rooms, but this is what we signed up for. This trip continues to be about food and wine. Yesterday, Saturday, we had a home hosted dinner with a well off family in a room they built to entertain family. The 17 of us had plenty of room to sit at the table with the four family members present., father, mother, daughter and long time boy friend of the daughter. The younger daughter and her boy friend were absent. This was followed up today with a “cooking lesson” Where we assisted in the preparation of 2 appetizers, 2 deserts and 2 main courses, plus side. This was aided by the application of continuous flowing sangria. 

Andres, our OAT Tour Leader felt we had not had sufficient wine yet so some of us set off for a wine tasting of the wines of the Evora region. One stands out as memorable. It is called “Invisible”. It is almost as clear as water although it is a tempranillo type grape having been taken off the skins and stems before they have a chance to color the wine. The flavor was quite strong, surprising me. 

On  Wednesday we got up early to fly to Porto to join our OAT trip. At 7 AM our doorbell rang and there was Eddie with a cab on the way to help get our luggage down to the cab. Unbelievable service!

The flight was uneventful and so was the cab to Grand Hotel Porto. The hotel is located on a pedestrian street, but cabs have access to bring passengers with luggage to the door of the hotel. After checking in we started looking for what to do in Porto. The first thing that jumped off the page was an exhibit of photos collected by Frieda Kahlo over her life. With a stop along the way for lunch we walked to the exhibit which is at Centro Português de Fotografia located in an old prison which was worth the visit itself.  Carol has written papers on Kahlo and we have gone to every exhibit and film about her life so it was appropriate for us to see this exhibit which will be moving on in January. Watch for it, it has been traveling for several years. 

Dinner and a nights sleep left us with most of an open day until our group gathers so another online search turned up a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit at Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art. More photography by a renowned if “difficult” photographer. We got a cab for the trip across town and paid our fee and only then realized there was so much more to see at the museum. There is a major exhibit of models built by Anish Kapoor plus four constructed pieces in the gardens. We took lunch at the museum so we could keep going.  

I have not included any Mapplethorpe images here. 

Back to the hotel to meet with our group.

I was asked a question about  how I felt about the galleries we visited in the previous post. Both MACBA and Tapies are excellent galleries. I would not make a special trip to Barcelona for them unless you had an unusual interest in Spain’s development from the civil war through the end of Franco. That being said if you were in Barcelona for any time and had a day to explore, do not miss them. Today as we prepare to depart in the morning we took the funicular from the Para’llel station to Mountjuik (Mount of Jews!) and  went to the Museu Nacional D’Arte de Catalunya. Add this one to the list of must see. We spent almost 4 hours just in the “modern” art galleries 1890’s to 1950’s. It also happens to be a short walk from the Miro. Also the lunch in the dining room on 2nd Floor was amazing with great views out a huge window

There are reasons beyond art galleries to come to Barcelona. Yesterday we took a tour of the Palau de la Música Catalana in the morning. 

This glass box contains an acoustically wonderful concert hall as we heard in performance last night. The program was listed as Bach Partita #1 Bernat Prat violinist and Adrian Diaz Martin, trompa accompanied by piano for the second half. I never looked up trompa and just assumed it was trumpet. To my absolute delight  Martin walked on stage with his french horn (trompa!) and played  3 pieces: Vignery,sonata for horn and piano; R Strauss, Andante for Horn and piano  and Bowen, Sonata for horn and piano. We were entranced! According to the guide in the morning there are about 300 performances a year in the building including the large hall and a new small hall beneath the terrace. For those who don’t know my instrument in my youth was French Horn.

We are preparing to leave Barcelona so glad we took the 7 days here to get to know it. What we learned is that even more time is required to get past just scratching the surface.

I have lost creativity in naming I fear.  We continue to soak in this incredible city. Two more museums following our tour to Montserrat. MACBA and Fundacio Antoni Tapies. MACBA is the Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona. The timeline on the first floor from 1929 to current took us over an hour to follow. It follows the cultural scene of the world with a long look into the history of Spanish civil war and the Franco Regime as seen by Spanish artists. Many we know such as Miro and Picasso and several we were totally unfamiliar with, in particular Antoni Tapies.

 Having soaked in  Spain’s history as seen by many varied artists we moved on to the Fundcio Antoni Tapies. I must admit to total ignorance. I do not remember hearing of his work before this trip. I was only able to photograph one of his works and it is hardly representative

This is done on a sheet to commemorate a retrospective of Joan Miro in Barcelona. It is the Catalan flag  calling for Catalan Liberation. It is signed by many well known and lesser known artists of the day. 

I don;t think I have mentioned that this flag is seen throughout Catalonia and other flags and banners are visible everywhere. There are flags and signs abounding calling for freedom of the Catalonian government officials who are being held in jail by the Spanish government for over a year since they responded to an “illegal” vote demanding independence by declaring independence. People are carefree and seem relaxed on the surface, but there is a deep roiling sense that another battle is soon to be commenced. Spanish authorities are not at all liked in this Catalanonia . Catalonia is a major part of the Spanish economy. I’ll leave it there.

More to come. . .

We have had two active days since the last post. 

Friday we were picked up at our apartment by Eddie who manages the apartments and provides guide service.  We set out for the Montserrat Monastery in a grey, dreary day with some promise of rain. As we got closer to the mountain the clouds began to lift and presented us with this view:

Shooting from the car makes it hard to avoid street signs and wires.

Our first objective on arrival was to stop saying WOW at the mountain environment

We climbed these stairs to reach the level of the floor of the church

The miracle was I got a picture with no one on the stairs, we never saw them this open once an hour had passed. 

We waited in line to see the Black Madonna, we may have been the only people there not wanting to venerate her, other than with a photo

As soon as I tripped the shutter the guard said “No Photos” well he said something in Spanish that I took to mean that. The figure is surrounded by a glass case which barely shows. Surprising since people were laying their hands and faces on the glass.

We waited with many others to hear a boy choir perform in the church with the modern organ. 

We moved on from the Monastery after this performance for lunch in the ocean front town of Sitges at a restaurant called Pic Nic – for the movie. 

This was the view from our ocean front table. Eddie ordered for us and we shared, octopus, anchovies and a small fried ball of fish. The description hardly does justice to the food. It was heavenly. Carol had a vegetable tempura that thrilled her, with enough to make up part of her dinner in the apartment later that night.

As we prepared for bed a huge thunderstorm moved over the city. We were grateful to have no reason to move out of the apartment until morning.  

I will post the next day’s activity soon.

We had 3 nights here in Barcelona with the TBK Group, when they left we moved to a VRBO Apartment not far away in a very interesting neighborhood. Today – Thursday the 18th – we set out with our Barcelona Art Passport to see some art. First stop was the Modern Art Museum Fundacion Miro which houses a wonderful collection of Joan Miro’s work. I presented my phone with the voucher at the entry and we walked in with self guided headsets. We were entranced for 2 hours. When I was in grade school my parents put a replica print of a Miro in my bedroom. That print followed me through college, eventually going to our son’s dorm room and then to our nephew.  I do not think it survived past that. However I was imbued with a love of Miro’s work and when we started buying original lithographs in the ’60’s our first was a Miro. We own several now. Anyhow to say this was high on our bucket list would be an understatement. We stayed in the museum, avoiding the rain for a light lunch.

The rain had not abated when we were done so we caught a cab to the Picasso Museum. Entry here was more problematic as they wanted a paper copy of the voucher for their records. Through a series of conversations-they speaking fast Spanish, we speaking slow English –  we eventually found our way to a  tourist center which was pleased to help if I could email them the voucher on my phone. Problem, no wifi and my shift to Verizon International would not work immediately. Solution, go to Costa Cafe, buy an Expresso and the code for their wifi is on the receipt. Problem, I could not satisfy the European regulations that I understood that I would surrender some portion of my nonexistence privacy if I continued to log in. Solution the barrista saw my plight and after much swearing and thumb pressing (she has an extensive vocabulary) she got me logged in with my name and her particulars. I will never get near a Costa  Cafe again without remembering her.

We returned to the Picasso Museum and bypassed the very long line with our new Passports. 

We were not out of the woods, or rather into the exhibit, yet as we had to navigate the convoluted entry process during which we failed to pick up the wireless self guided tour, a blessing maybe. 
We were again overwhelmed with the amount of material on view, much of which was entirely new to us. I must admit choking a bit when we came to a room of glorious linoleum cut prints. 
When Carol and I were in our early collecting  days we saw a collection of  early linocuts that were priced at around $1,000 or so which was quite high for the time. Since we did not particularly care for the images we didn’t buy. Not one our better financial decisions.

After spending a couple of hours in the exhibition galleries we exited and decided we had had enough for one day. We took a cab back to the apartment and after a bit of rest and some of this writing we set out for dinner to La Pruna which is currently rated 16th best restaurant out of 11,000+ restaurants in Trip 
Advisor and it had the added benefit of being a three block walk from the apartment. 

Tomorrow Eddie, apartment manager and tour guide, will pick us up at 8:30 for a full day tour to Montserrat and the environs.