Aragón

I know, I know.  Just start, and don't apologize.  I suppose this will be an occasional rather than a regular series, but I cannot imagine this will grieve anyone with the questionable judgment to follow it.   As this might otherwise be an awkwardly long account, I think I'll post Part One this week, and work on the exciting conclusion for next week.


We are in the midst of Andalusian summer.  Daily temperatures are well into the 90's, and we are promised hotter days ahead, before a cool down to the balmy 80's later this week. We manage by use of strategic use of fans, moving to the cooler parts parts of the house when possible, parsimonious use of air conditioning, and liberal use of the backyard pool.  Although I'm sure it'll be a bother for the 8 month of the year it's not in use, on a sweltering dog day afternoon in lat summer it is a god send. Jack has started school, and the poor fellow is now up with me at 0530 - tough on a teenager - to get his first class started at 0700.  He's bearing up well after the first week anyway.


The house is approaching some semblance of order, although the combination of heat, limited storage and recovery from a long vacation and the start of school have slowed us down a little.  It is to that vacation I wish to turn now, to bring you along on a little travelogue of our trip to Aragón.

The Province of Aragón.  It's not all red, though.

Why Aragón when the wonders of Andalucia lie unexplored all around us?  Well, neophytes that we are, we had heard that the summers hereabouts were hot and filled with tourists (oddly like San Diego).  We decided to pick a less well known part of Spain in the north of the country to see if escaping either were possible.  We briefly considered the northern coast, but vague plans for a future walk along the northern route of the Camino de Santiago pushed us a bit further south in our planning.  Aragón seemed to promise a wealth of historical and artistic sites of interest, as well as the Pyrenees by way of natural splendor so, otherwise unencumbered by actual facts, off we went.  In the event we were right about historic, artistic and natural wonders and wrong about the crowds and weather - although I suppose that Andalucia was worse...

It's a duck! It's a train!  It's El Pato!

We started at the train station in El Puerto de Santa Maria.  We had unknowingly hit a peak time for taxis - as it turns out, at 0700 on a Saturday morning many vacationing Spanish youth are headed back home by cab after a night's revelries. Our calls to the cab company had not been answered and it was only by random chance that, walking to a deserted taxi stand 3 blocks from our house, we spotted a vacant cab headed the wrong way on the other side of the road and managed to flag him down.  Once at the train station we could relax a little bit.  We had booked passage on the high speed train to Zaragoza, and shortly after 0830 the oddly shaped  Spanish-built Talgo train pulled into the station.  As I learn from Wikipedia, this one was the Talgo 350, nicknamed by the Spanish "Pato" - meaning "duck" on account of its beak.  The beak is designed to reduce noise caused by air resistance at high speeds, and as we watched the Andalucian countryside roll smoothly by at 250 km/h, it seemed to be doing its job marvelously. 

In about 3 hours we had climbed out of the coastal lowlands and ascended to the Meseta, the central plateau in the middle of which Madrid is located.  We changed trains at Madrid's bustling Atocha station, and were whisked along north and east to the ancient city of Zaragoza, the capital of Aragón.  The trip took about 6 1/2 hours - around 3 hours less than driving (with considerably less fatigue to the traveller).  We picked up our rental car near the station, and headed into town.

Zaragoza and the Ebro river

I could spend pages describing the city of Zaragoza, but I'll try to winnow it down.  The city is an ancient one, established by Caesar Augustus on the site of an old Iberian settlement around 25 B.C.E., and named after himself: Caesar Augusta. The modern name is merely the sound "Caesar Augusta" makes after it said by many people with different mother tongues, over 2 millennia.  caeSAR AuGUStA.  I had stupidly not made that connection until I visited the city, and still think it is cool to think about.  All those years of sloppy pronunciation...Anyway, like most major cities in Spain it was by turns Iberian, Roman, Visigothic, Moorish, and Christian.  The Romans and the Moors left their imprint, but Zaragoza is probably most well known to the Spanish as the home of the Basilica of Nuestra Señora del Pilar (pictured above). 

 Here,  legendarily, the Virgin appeared to a discouraged St. James, gave him column of jasper,  and encouraged him to continue his proselytizing efforts in Spain.  That he is now Spain's patron saint should tell you all you need to know about his subsequent success.  Interestingly, the feast day of Our Lady of the Pillar coincides with the date of Columbus's discovery of the New World (October 12th), and El Pilar is in some sense the patroness of all the Hispanic peoples worldwide. The cathedral now standing on the site is a lovely baroque construction dating from the 17th century, with commanding views of the city and countryside from atop its spires.  In the huge Plaza below the enormous Fuente de Hispanidad - a modern sculpted fountain depicting Central and South America cascades, burbles and gushes impressively.

Zaragoza sunset

We spent two days in Zaragoza.  We definitely didn't escape the heat or crowds, but by virtue of getting up a wee bit earlier in the morning than many of our Spanish fellow travelers seemed to be inclined to do we did get a chance to explore the extensive Roman ruins with their excellent accompanying museums, to spend a hot afternoon in the cool vastness of La Seo  ( Catedral del Salvador) - a glorious mix of Romanesque, Gothic, Mudejar, Renaissance and Baroque architecture with a stunning collection of 15th-18th century tapestries located in the attached Museo de Tapices located in the former chapter house. 


We spent another sultry afternoon at the Aljaferia palace on the outskirts of the old city.  The palace was the home of the Moorish rulers of Zaragoza and reached its apogee in the 11th century as the home of the Banu Hud  dynasty.  After its conquest in 1118 it was at various times the home of the Aragonese kings,  of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of the Spanish Inquisition.  Most romatically, one its towers is the site where the events of Verdi's Il Trovatore are set (Count Luna was real, but alas his son Manrico was not, and history appears silent on the existence of Leonore).  The castle is a lovely blend of late Spanish Islamic architecture, with later Renaissance fortifications and has been extensively restored.  It now serves as the Cortes of Aragon - the region's governing body. 

The road to the Abbey of Veruela

I'm a sucker for a nice cloister

Much more could be said of Zaragoza, but after two days,  we piled into the rental car - a Ford Fiesta that reeked of old cigarette smoke - and headed first west and then north.  The western detour was to visit the old Cistercian Monastery of Veruela, nestled into the valley of Vera de Moncayo.  As with most such venerable sites in Spain, this lovely spot has been through many owners, remodels and restorations, but it preserves a lovely interior cloister,  an impressive gothic chapel and a general air of restful antiquity that was refreshing after the urban bustle of Zaragoza.  We then turned almost due north, for a trip through the Cinco Villas en route to the little town of Sos del Rey Catolico.  The Five Villages were so designated when they came to aid of King Felipe V during a the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), and are a set of picturesque little communities in a variety of different settings scattered along the border with Navarre, on the approach to the foothills of the Pyrenees.

The town of Uncastillo

The road took us through the tiny town of Uncastillo, which does indeed have one castle perched atop its central promontory.  We had arrived on the afternoon of the Feast Day of the Assumption, and as far as we could tell every inhabitant of the town was gathered in the small central square at the confluence of the several winding roads that descended among the houses piled around the hill at the feet of the ruined castle.  After a bit of hesitant inquiry about where lunch might be had we were directed up the nearest of the roads to the delightful (and appropriately named) Restaurante Uncastello.  The service was warm, friendly and not put off by our terrible Spanish.  After a two hour Almuerzo we piled back in the car to complete our journey to Sos.

Sos del Rey Católico

The chief claim to fame of Sos del Rey Católico (hereafter simply "Sos"), is its status as the birthplace of Ferdinand of Aragón - husband to Isabelle and half of THE 15th century power couple.  To call their legacy complicated is to gravely understate the case, but they are still objects of respect here.  Sos is a typical Aragonese hilltop town, with a crumbling castle atop and narrow cobbled streets winding past mansions and courtyards of honey colored sandstone.  The house of El Rey's birth, La Casa Palacio Sada, is now the home of the local tourism office and a museum of the Aragonese monarchy.  We wandered the streets through a gentle summer rain and finally settled into our quarters at the Parador Sos del Rey Católico.  This is a fine exemplar of the Spanish Paradors - luxurious hotels founded by the Spanish government often in adapted castles, monasteries and other monumental buildings.  The setting here was a particularly lovely one, with panoramic views across the rooftops of the town and over the hills and valleys to the east.  We breakfasted the next morning at the hotel, spent an hour or so exploring the lovely Romanesque church of San Esteban, which preserves as a special treat a wonderful lower chapel, reached by a narrow circular stair from the main nave, and containing 14th century frescoes whose vibrant colors seemed undimmed by 800 turbulent years since the paint was first applied to plaster.  An amazing spot that we had all to ourselves in the quiet of the morning.

The cloister of San Juan de la Pena.



We next loaded up the Fiesta and set out to the east.  After a couple of hours of winding our way through forests and past lakes - tracing in reverse one of the routes of the Camino de Santiago - we made our way to the Monasterio de San Juan de la Pena.  This is one of the oldest and most important monasteries in Aragon (no mean claim!).  It sits under an enormous cliff, facing east toward the Central Pyrenees.  The ancient under-chapel around 920 AD, features  Mozarabic elements, the section above that holds a pantheon where the remains of the early kings of Aragon slumber away the long centuries, and tucked into a declivity in cliff face above that is a wonderful 12th century cloister  whose capitals, carved with lively depictions of biblical scene have to be one of my favorite sights of the trip.   It is an amazing spot - into the mountain, surrounded by a lush pine forest, and contemplatively regarding the cloud covered mountains eastward across the valley.  It was to those mountains we were headed next, and perhaps I'll stop there and get to the second part of the trip in a day or so.

The Pyrenees beckon....

What's been up

Hello All!

I suppose I shouldn’t start every post with an apology for being late to get it done, but this one really is behind schedule, and I am suitably chastened I assure you.  I was going to blame it all on the Summer Olympics, but as we haven’t been able to watch them that would be too disingenuous.  Although it does prompt me to ask if anyone remembers the 1984 film “Blame it on Rio”, starring Michael Caine and Demi Moore?  It was described by reviewer Vincent Canby as “…one of those unfortunate projects that somehow suggests that everyone connected with the movie hated it and all of the other people involved."

It has been a hectic couple of weeks since my last update as several events collided with the ferocious heat of Andalusian summer and a persistent Levante wind to make life seem a chaotic whirl of chores, paperwork and near-heat prostration.  It’s been interesting for all that though, so let me share a few brief stories and perhaps some pictures.

Not Isabel, but quite like her.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when a delightful little sky blue 125cc Vespa Primavera scooter became mine.  She had been owned by a supply officer aboard one of the US destroyers stationed here (there are three), who was returning to the states and couldn’t bring her back.  Isabel (the scooter, not the officer) had a mere 800 km on the odometer, and is as appealing a wee thing as you can imagine.  Scooter commuting – they are called “mopeds” by the Americans here, inexplicably – is very common.  For the Spanish, I reckon it’s because the costs of gas, insurance and maintenance are pretty low in a country where those things can be pricey relative to the average income, and because the ability to pull your ride up onto the sidewalk makes chaotic and crowded urban parking almost a non-issue.  There’s always room for another moto.  For Americans, I think they are popular for many of the same reasons and because the driving age in Spain is 18 - meaning that all the kids here who would be starting Driver’s Ed back home and driving themselves to High School are stuck without wheels.   As long as a scooter is 50cc or less though, no license is needed and thus crowds of American – and Spanish – kids can be found whizzing back and forth on 50cc 2-stroke Vespas, Peugots, Kymcos and Yamahas, sounding somewhat like a crowd of angry lawn mowers urgently en route somewhere.  As I was a happy scooter rider back in San Diego where my Celeste Blue 150cc LX is stored awaiting our return, it’s been pleasant in a way to spend time in the land where the Scooter is King.  Or at least Prince.

But, no matter how happy I am to be once more perched atop 2 wheeled transport, the administrative details must be seen to.  Without going into excruciating detail, let me just observe that whatever the undoubted virtues of the Spanish bureaucratic apparatus may be, speediness is not among them.  Thus, two and a half months after applying for my Spanish driving license, it still has not come.  Not a problem yet, as my International License is good for a few more months.  The registration of the scooter, applied for a month ago, has yet to appear.  I have been on multiple trips to the folks in charge of each of these critical pieces of paper, who are serenely untroubled by the slow pace of progress and are quite content that the dog-eared and badly photocopied temporary license and registration papers should suffice me.  They are good natured, resigned and encouraging in the way one might encourage a child to be patient and wait until Christmas…

In any event, most days now I can be found somewhere in the cloud of scooter commuters, where Isabel’s somewhat throatier 125cc 4-stroke note adds a bit of elegance to the buzzing of the smaller bikes.  Just don’t ask me for a license…

Casa sweet casa

Well, all of this which might have extended into a nostalgic exploration of the history of the scooter (Piaggio factory, post WWII Italy), or a reflection on the Byzantine administrative structure created by smooshing the US Navy and Spanish bureaucracy together (and isn’t sad that this is what the Byzantines get remembered for?), was almost immediately superseded by …THE MOVE.   The last week of July saw us packing up our small batch of possessions and moving them from our temporary on-base house into our house in El Puerto de Santa Maria.  We are about 10 or 15 minutes east of the base, in the urbanización of Vista Hermosa, in a smaller two story place with a big, walled front yard and a medium sized swimming pool.  That last detail becomes important later.  We have lemon, orangeWe’re not too far from shops, cafes and an ice cream store, and far enough away from the beach that even the summer crowds don’t really affect parking.  It’s a nice place, with a couple of teensy weensy little issues. 

The kitchen is an obvious afterthought, with a smallish 3 burner electric cook top and something that could best be described as a really big toaster oven jammed onto the countertop nearby substituting for a real oven.  The sink is…odd, with one smallish actual sink and a flat, shallow oval pan with a drain next to it whose purpose we cannot guess.  This would all be easier to manage if it wasn’t also jealously claimed by little tiny ants who evidently feel that sharing our food is their due for the privilege of their company.  As far as I can tell these are pharaoh ants – polygynous, unicolonial wee pests that are a successful invasive species everywhere in the world save Antarctica.  I hate to be accused of illiberality, but I cannot share the ants’ view of our proper relationship and I foresee turmoil ahead. 

Another issue is utilities.  While we were on base we could blithely crank up the central A/C to “Ice Age”, with no more worries than the obvious ecological ones.  Out in town we are paying for our electricity, which is reportedly quite expensive.  Many of the rooms have individual units, but we are loath to power them up and face ruination come the end of the month.  A lot of our personal comfort therefore is now associated with the pool in the backyard.  Temperatures have been solidly in the mid-90’s for the past month, only varying between still, humid 90’s and windy, dry 90’s.  We’ve been trying to live like our Spanish neighbors, using shade, fans and strategic opening and closing of windows and shutters to try to stay cool.  The evenings – after about 10 pm – are pretty nice, and one comes to understand the Spanish inclination to wait until then to contemplate dinner and entertainment.  I wish we could accommodate our schedule to theirs, but it seems unlikely I could convince everyone else at the hospital that we really should be starting later in the morning and staying up at night with our Spanish hosts.  So…we sit in the coolest room in the house and eye the A/C controller speculatively.  And spend as much time as possible in the pool.

On Monday we moved into the new place, and on that day - as we were signing the lease documents and finalizing the inventory of furniture that is part of the house - the folks from the Housing Office here were moving our temporary loaner furniture into the various rooms.  This consists of beds, dressers, chairs, tables, sofa and lamps to make the place livable until one's household goods shipment arrives.  Last we had heard, our earthly possessions were shipboard, having left Alabama en route to Algeciras.  We had three interesting days of settling into the new place. 

Boxes, boxes, boxes

On Thursday morning I got a call from the moving company saying that our 12 crates of stuff was here on a truck and that they would be really, really happy if they could deliver it Friday morning.  So the rest of Thursday was spent scrambling around trying to arrange pickup of the loaner furniture, and at first light Friday morning our puzzled Spanish neighbors were treated to the sight of one truck packing up furniture and taking it away, while another one unpacked furniture and trundled it in.  Americanos locos, indeed.  Anyway, the rest of the weekend was occupied in unloading the boxes, peering into the folds of the wrapping paper, and shaking our heads at the packing methods of the movers who had packed us out of San Diego.  To say that for the most part a troop of gibbons could have done a better job is perhaps unfair to the gibbons.  They - the gibbons - seem like amiable primates, lacking the evident devious malignity of the outbound packers.  By the end of Sunday, we had crammed as much of everything into everywhere as seemed possible and spent the next week trying to figure out which of our possessions ended up where, and where they should actually go.  We are, at least, no longer walking sideways to squeeze between the mountains of empty cardboard shipping boxes and paper.  Our Spanish movers were true to their promise that they would come back to reclaim eventually the cardboard and paper, blessings be upon them.   Ah, the joys of moving.  Nothing really brings home the essential folly of acquiring material possessions like seeing all of yours laid out before you....

Box madness.  It's a real thing.

But all of this is not to say that we haven’t taken any time to explore!  The week prior to all of these goings on we piled into the Golf and headed to Southeast, toward the Sierra de Grazelema.  This is a mountainous region in the heart of Cdiz, home to the Parque Natural Sierra de Grazalema, several moderate mountain ranges, and many of the "Pueblos Blancos",  which are famously picturesque towns perched atop and between the crags and valleys of this region.  I'll have more to say about them in future postings I hope.  This trip was by way of a preliminary exploration of an area we hope to return often for hiking and sightseeing.  I saw Griffon Vultures several times on the drive up, and the area is rich with other wildlife including short-toed eagles, and a few pairs of increasing rare Egyptian vultures to name a couple.  On this trip we stopped at the small town of El Bosque to pick up trail maps at the tourist office, and then headed to Ubrique.  Besides its almost impossibly lovely setting at the foot of the Sierra de Ubrique, the village is famous for its leatherwork.  It's currently a site of manufacture for several prestigious fashion brands, and a place where there are plenty of gorgeous leather goods for very reasonable prices.  We left with a cleverly designed purse for my wife, and plenty of ideas about future shopping excursions for all of us.  There are also extensive Roman ruins close by - so returning often seems likely for this history/nature/travel enthusiastic family.  Stay tuned!

Ubrique and the Sierra de Ubrique

Less distant but interesting  in its own way was a mid-week visit to Rota's own Jardin Botanico.  This is a modest but well-maintained botanic garden nestled among the pine trees that line the western beaches of the town of Rota.  The exhibits were nice, although I would like to have seen more time and space devoted to Mediterranean natives, but the true highlight was the sighting of 3 chameleons.  These were Chamaeleo chamaeleon, members of the only native European chameleon species (the African Chameleon is found in the Peloponnese, but is thought to have been introduced).  We saw what our guide assured us were two smaller males and a large female making their deliberate way through the branches above us.  How cool!

I wish we had seen one this clearly...

We've been otherwise occupied with just the business of settling into life in "real Spain" as we started calling the world outside the fence line of the base.  The great thing about life overseas is that, plebeian though the tasks be, negotiating them in a new place, in an unfamiliar is a new adventure every day.  I look forward to sharing the adventure with you all, gentle readers, and shall hope to be a bit more prompt with my next.  We've got a big trip to the province of Aragon coming up, so my next may be from the foot of the Spanish Pyrenees.  Hasta luego!

A very different Carmen

Hello Gentle Reader,

This will likely be a shorter post, as the past weekend was a largely uneventful one.  That – the uneventfulness – is actually a good thing, as it was a long weekend and I was on call for the stretch from Thursday to Sunday.  I’m happy to report that neither surgical disease processes, recreational misadventure, nor man’s inhumanity to man resulted in any surgical cases for that whole interval.  Of course we also had no deliveries – either by C-section or the more usual route – so there were no joyous events either.  My duties therefore consisted of toting the duty phone hither and thither, answering the daily test call, and staying reasonably close and completely sober.   Tough duty for a habitual traveler and enthusiastic oenophile (and sincere cerevisophile), but not too bad for all that.  I will say that, despite a long weekend spent delightedly quaffing my wife’s kindly concocted and quite tasty plum shrub, that first frosty ale on Monday evening went down gratefully.

“Reasonably close” does allow some latitude however, and we took advantage of that to head into the heart of Rota this past Saturday (July 16^th) for part of the celebration of  the feast of Nuestra Señora del Carmen.  Now, I must admit that the exact origin of the feast took me a bit of time to work out.  It was not clear to me – as it would be to anyone who comes from a Spanish speaking country or culture – that the figure involved was the same know to Anglophones as “Our Lady of Mount Carmel”.  Isn’t it interesting that somewhere along the line the terminal “L” became an “N”?  Where and when, I wonder. 

Anyway, the Lady in question is the Virgin Mary in her role as the patroness of the Carmelite Order, which takes its origin from a group of 12th and 13th century Christian hermits who built their hermitage on Mount Carmel (Karem El in Hebrew, Kurumal in Arabic) in the Holy Land.  The mountain itself is more properly a mountain range, a flint and limestone promontory in what is now northern Israel's Haifa province, and is by all accounts a cultural, ecological and historical treasure.  In any event, the Carmelites constructed a chapel dedicated to Mary using her title Stella Maris - Star of the Sea - on the site.  From that beginning, and associated with many prayers, devotions, apparitions, manifestations and at least one attested miracle, the feast of El Virgen del Carmen had its origin.

In Rota, the feast is celebrated by parading the statue of Nuestra Señora del Carmen from its usual spot in a side chapel of Rota's central church Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la O. The "O" in the name of the church is a good story of itself, but I think I'll keep it for another time.  Anyway, after 8:30 am Mass on the morning of the 16th, the statue is paraded from the church through the streets of the city to the water front, where she is moved to a boat and then ferried around the harbor in a blessing of the Roteno fishing fleet and fishermen  (remember that Stella Maris thing).  Nuestra Señora is then returned to the church, where she rests until the evening.  At 7:30 pm she is once again paraded through town, visiting many of the larger and smaller plazas and religious sites throughout the city before returning to her side chapel for another year.  It was this evening procession we headed out to see.


Rota, like a lot of the Costa del Luz, is a tourist destination in the summer.  The lovely sand beaches which shelve gradually into the waters of the Atlantic attract thousands of folks from inland Spanish cities as well as from the rest of Europe.  The city seems to soak them up pretty well, and unless you're looking for parking (or trying to get to sleep at 3 in the morning in a downtown hotel) you might not notice that the population has tripled.  Worried about parking, and wanting to be sure we could effect a speedy return to base if the hospital called, we headed down to the waterfront at about 6:30 pm, paid for a parking spot near the Cádiz ferry terminal, and walked into the town.  We found a comfortably low wall in the middle of Plaza Bartolomé Pérez just outside the doors of the church and waited.

As time went by the Plaza started to fill.  Littler, older folks at first who found the few remaining seats, then families and elegantly dressed couples all angling to place themselves somewhere in the shade.  Even after 7, the July sun packs a good deal of power.  Lastly a band somewhat haphazardly seemed to coalesce at the foot of the steps leading to the doors of the church.  I hope the video I'm appending below gives some idea of the experience  of what happened next.  At one moment it was sort of a pleasantly buzzing chaotic bunch of people assembled in a town square.  Then seemingly all at once the church bells rang, the doors were opened and the band snapped to order and began to play.  The front of the enormous, gilded platform upon which the lavishly appointed statue of Nuestra Señora is borne nosed its way onto the stairs of the church, and the Lady herself could be seen, catching the slanting rays of the early evening sun.  It was a breathtaking moment.

Having stood there for a bit as the many bearers of the enormous platform positioned themselves, the whole was hoisted into the air atop their unseen shoulders, and as the band struck up another hymn, the whole gorgeous tableau moved slowly down the stairs, turned deliberately to the right as two score bearers aligned themselves, and moved majestically through the square. People reached out to touch the sides of the float, turning back to bless themselves, or solemnly watched the procession pass.  

The parade stopped for a minute or so in the the next small plazoleta, and then moved gradually on, disappearing slowly into the labyrinthine heart of the old city.  

This all took about 20 minutes from the time the doors of the church had opened.  The crowd dissolved then, filtering back down the streets and alleys from whence they had come.  We strolled down to the golden Playa of Rota, recovered the car from the lot and drove back to the much more ordinary and orderly streets of base housing.

Golf, Flamenco, and the President

Hello all, and apologies, should such be needed, for the hiatus between entries.  I must say that I am always impressed that folks who write for a living are every day able to put pen to paper or finger to keyboard without being distracted by the infinite universe of vaguely agreeable and diverting things that could be done instead of composing a piece – especially as the vast world-wide time wasting web beckons at every idle moment.  A toast to professional wordsmiths the world round for their diligence.

Since last update we’ve had a long Fourth of July weekend, trips around the area, and visit to a bull ring for a flamenco opera, and a visit by the President.  Our Golf TSI has arrived from San Diego, the weather has moved into full Spanish summer mode, and we’ve started Spanish lessons with a private tutor.  Our house-to-be is now a mere 12 days from being ours-in-fact, and the trickle of Hospital folks coming and going from the Command has become an ebbing and flowing tide as new faces arrive with every Wednesday’s rotator flight and familiar ones are seen no more.

I shall try to describe each event briefly in the following, and see if I can find a few pictures to add a bit of interest to maundering and meanderings, but I will post this tonight come what may.  Let’s see how far we get.

We had initially planned to take advantage of the weekend of the Fourth with a trip to Lisbon, a few hours’ drive to the north of us, and by all accounts one of the favorite sites of the folks here to visit.  We had reserved a hotel located near the beach, on the train line between Lisboa  and Sintra – the summer home of Portuguese royalty,  known for a gorgeously whimsical collection of summer palaces.  Alas, the boy began to feel unwell, and I began to have reservations about dog sitting arrangements, so figuring no vacation is worth too much stress we pulled in our horns and decided to stay local.  And on reflection, everywhere we look we’re surrounded by….Spain!  So it’s not exactly a sacrifice.  We explored a couple of locales right outside the base at first.

We devoted the first morning to finding a popular local churro stand in the town of Rota.  I know that Taco Bell  and Disneyland sell "churros" but these have the same relation to Spanish churros that Wonder Bread has to a crisp, hot French baguette.  These guys are fresh made to order, flash fried and sprinkled with sugar or drizzled with chocolate and then served with a cup of hot chocolate that is so thick the churro will stand up in it.  Absolutely, decadently delicious.  I'm not sure that Spain ultimately profited from all the gold it took out of the New World, but they definitely knew what to do with chocolate when it arrived here.  They are served out of a large wheeled kiosk - think Food Truck with no actual truck - and taken away in paper cones and small paper cups.  I think we made it 5 steps before a shady bench offered us a chance to feast in greedy, lip-smacking bliss.  We spent the rest of the morning wandering through the old heart of the city, finishing with tapas for lunch at a sidewalk bar in the shade of some buildings past which a cooling breeze made a merciful transit inland from the sun roasted beach.  The sun having reached its zenith we retreated through the rapidly emptying streets, and joined our host nation in a mid-afternoon siesta.  What a civilized custom.

The next day, all agreeing on a yen for shawarma (who knows what sets the gustatory imagination to work?), we headed to El Puerto de Santa Maria to a local Middle Eastern place located almost on the banks of the Guadalete river, near the historic center of the city.  We made our way past the huge buildings occupied by the sherry bodegas (El Puerto has a long history as a sherry transshipment point, and boasts a couple of estimable producers of its own), past the castle one so often finds buried in the center of old Spanish cities, to the riverfront and parking.  Shawarmas eaten (not exactly the flavor I recall from the food stands at home, but pleasantly spiced and  a bit more exotic ), we walked out to see the castle and check in with the folks at the Oficina de Turismo, only to find both in the last moments of closing for the day.  The remains of an antiques fair were being noisily stacked away and loaded up in the courtyard outside the castle walls.  We stood a bit to take in the scene, the Castillo de San Marcos resplendent in the early afternoon sunlight, and then turned tail and made our way home.  This siesta thing is an infectious idea!  How have we let this escape us in the States? 

We spent the next two days running around the base gathering together the various documents, receipts, and official endorsement stamps required to pick up our car, which had arrived by truck from Bremerhaven.  We had last seen her on a bright San Diego morning, dropped off at the shipment office in El Cajon, California.  She was trucked to Galveston, loaded onto a freighter and made the ocean crossing to Europe from there.  The company website had allowed us to track her progress, but we could never get more specific than “On a ship at sea” or “In Bremerhaven awaiting inspection”.  This had an effect not unlike that of the NORAD tracking of Santa Claus’s progress on Christmas Eve has on eager children for us.  She’s getting closer!  She’s on land! She’s on a truck!  She’s almost here!  She’s here!  She’s here!  So, naturally we were on fire to get the paperwork out of the way and collect the car.  Had this been a base in the US it would, of course, have been impossible on a long holiday weekend.  As it turns out though, although there is a substantial US presence and infrastructure here in Rota, we are on Spanish base – more like visitors on a prolonged AirBnB stay than lessors of property.  So…all the Spanish folks, who we have hired in honoring our agreements with the Spanish government, were at work in the various offices we needed to visit.   Now, come the next Spanish holiday (that will be St. James’ Day on the 25^th of July) they will be off, but the arrangement seems an eminently practical one.  As an aside, the fact that this is Spanish base accounts for the fact that the US flag does not fly, except for on the 4^th of July and other special occasions.  It is quite a deal here when Old Glory is raised and lowered making the event even a bit more special for its rarity.

The car was eventually collected from the shipper’s offices, temporary passes displayed, and parked in front of our on-base house.  She seems no worse for her travels, and has but a few more inspections and formalities to go before getting her Spanish plates and – hopefully – blending imperceptibly into local traffic.

We next set off to Arcos de la Frontera.  Arcos is one of the Pueblas Blancas , a collection of impossibly quaint white washed villages  that occupy often breathtakingly high hilltops and promontories in the Andalusian provinces of Malagá and Cadiz.  Many of them have been occupied since pre-historic times, and have undergone the typical succession of rule in the intervening millennia.  Arcos de la Frontera was a Moorish possession in Al-Andalus until Alfonso the Wise took the town in the 13^th century.  Looking at the place, which is set atop a narrow ridge at whose base the Guadalete river winds around all but one side, I believe that Alfonso deserved his epithet for dislodging what I imagine must have been a determined enemy at considerable tactical advantage. The town subsequently earned the “De la Frontera” moniker by being on the front line of Moorish/Spanish conflict until close to the end of the long Reconquista.  It is as lovely a place as you can imagine.  We parked at a plaza in the new town below the ridge and hiked up to the ancient village.  We explored a bit, although we had arrived just as the churches, castles and museums were closing for a midday rest.  We did make it through the doors of the Convento de las Mercedarias Descalzas in time for Donna to step to the closed window inside the foyer, ring the bell on the wall, and, when the window was opened, to place money on the lazy Susan which rotated out, ask the somewhat discontented sister for galletas pinos, and then step back out into the sunlight with a box of delicious homemade cookies.  We were probably the last customers of the day, and I am sure that additional heavenly mercies will be accorded the nun who had to put up with this final group of ignorant tourists who could only just figure out how this dignified process was meant to go on.  May blessings be upon her; they were good cookies!

We headed up the street to the main square, Plaza del Cabildo,and  peered over the balcony at one side down the precipice and away to the South over the hills and fields of Cádiz province.  We had a lovely lunch at the Parador de Arcos, splitting a half bottle of cold palomino fina, a crisp white  wine made from grapes that would normally become sherry but decided to go in a different, very appealing, direction.  After a couple of hours sipping, nibbling and gazing out the window across the Spanish countryside we headed back out into the plaza.  The cathedral and the rest of the city were still a couple of hours from coming back to life, so we made our way back to the car, planning a next visit soon and early enough to visit the cathedral, and to get more cookies!

The week that followed was short one, during which each day grew warmer and more humid, and the essential wisdom of the southern European way of life – ceasing work when the sun is at its most potent, and heading out to begin social life at 10pm when the sun has been down an hour and the heat has begun to dissipate – became abundantly clear.  Modern times these may be, but most Spanish folks do not use air conditioning at home and really on this sort of adaptation to cope with summer.  Anyway, on Saturday evening with the day beginning to fade we found ourselves en route to the town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda. 

The town has many points of interest that I shall explore some other time at length, I hope.  It was, by way of example, the port of departure for Columbus’s 3^rd voyage to the New World, as well as the port from which Magellan’s small flotilla left on its way to circumnavigate the globe, and to which the last surviving vessel of his expedition returned.  It is also the home of my very favorite sherry varietal,  manzanilla.  We were headed there for none of these reasons however.  Instead we were on our way to La Plaza del Toros, where Salvador Távora’s spectacular rendering of Carmen – she of Bizet’s irresistibly hummable opera – as flamenco spectacular was to be staged.  And here, a couple of hours from the cigar factory in Seville, in a bull ring, in the heart of flamenco itself, how could we not attend?

I shall not be able to describe the production adequately, I am afraid.  The music owed very little to Bizet, and was provided by a drum and cornet band long famous for its performances in the processions that mark Seville’s Holy Week.  The tuning sounds at first high and discordant to an unaccustomed ear, but it fits the action and the setting unerringly.  In fact, about two thirds of the way through the piece a recorded section of Bizet’s score is played  (the habanera) and the lush, harmonious chords seem oddly facile and prettified for the earthy and passionate nature of the performance.  The essence of the show though is flamenco dance, flamenco song and flamenco guitar.  The guitar you have likely heard, and it was expertly played by a small group who strummed, picked, drummed and shouted the melodies and rhythms.  The flamenco song itself, sung passionately by two female artists, was as powerful a thing as I have heard.  Plaintive, elemental and altogether bewitching. The dance – which carried the bulk of the narrative of the story – was simply breathtaking.  Both male and female leads again and again demonstrated both athleticism and grace, carrying the audience along with sinuous motion and irresistible rhythm.   As it turns out, Spanish audiences really do cry “Olé!” when moved by a spirited performance and it was cried many and many a time during this one – both by my neighbors in our tiny plastic seats on the sand of the bull ring, and by yours truly on several occasions.  It was lovely, and indescribable, and I wish you had all been there.  There was a point at which the dancer playing Carmen performed a flamenco pas de deux with one of Andalusia’s legendary dancing horses, and it was marvelous.  The horse really does dance, and I’m sure had  better footwork than me.  No great claim perhaps, but he’s a horse!  Oh!  I could go on and on, but I suppose I have done.

The last of the weekend’s events was a visit by the President to address the troops here at Rota this past Sunday.  Tickets were distributed a couple of days before, so Donna and I grabbed a pair, and met up with some friends to carpool to the event site.  We stood in line for about an hour or so as we were all filtered through ID checks and metal detectors into a huge hangar where folding chairs had been set out and a podium had been erected.  It was a diverse crowd of Navy, Marines, Army, Air Force and civilians, as well as row upon row of Spanish military folks, all accompanied by spouses dressed to the nines.  We sat for a fair stretch, serenaded occasionally by the Navy Band, until the “Whoosh” of Air Force One landing on the airfield behind the hangar could be heard and the press corps ran off to photograph the official party.  We waited a bit longer as the Commander in Chief was whisked off to the pier to tour one of the USN Destroyers stationed here, and then – head visible above the crowd – the President strode into the hangar and onto the stage.  I wish I could report that the address was inspirational or stirring, but what it really was was inaudible.  That is to say there was sound, but with the echoes in the cavernous hangar and the constant whir of large fans pushing hot July air around the building, what one heard was something like  “ Murmur mumble rumble murmur Troops!  Rumble murmur grumble Spain!  Grumble murmur rumble Families!  Murmur murmur the USA!...”  I will observe that the President is an engaging enough speaker that we all clapped at the appropriate moments (or most of them, going back later to review the whitehouse.gov video), and then went back to snatching words from amongst the aural chaos.   Mr. Obama then thanked us all, climbed off the podium and - giving his Secret Service Detail fits no doubt – made his way through a rapturous crowd, shaking hands.  It has charmed me immensely in the days since to meet folks who are still moved to have been so greeted by the sitting President.  God Bless him for taking the time.

Anyway, then home for your exhausted correspondent who has only today recovered sufficiently to relate all of this, however poorly, to you my patient reader.  I’ll add some pictures tonight, and send this out forthwith.  I’m on call next weekend , and thus restricted to close by the base, so I promise my next will be briefer.

Jerez and Doña Blanca

This entry took a while to write, which I could blame on being busy, but will attribute instead to distractibility.  So much of the basic communication here at Rota is done via Facebook that one finds oneself constantly being directed to that fertile ground for the cultivation of wasted time again and again.  So... I blame society.

The Alcázar, with a view of the keep.

If you are intrigued by history even a little bit, Spain is an amazing place.  We had a chance to explore a couple of places that hint at the breadth and richness of the tapestry of Spanish history this past weekend.

Henry, the Ford.

The 2 week rental on Pierre, my Citroen Cactus, having expired, it was time to drive up the Jerez Airport on Saturday morning and swap him out for a new set of wheels.  So far rentals have been very cheap (on the order of 30 Euro for a 2 or 3 week rental), and I may indeed stay with a recurring rental scheme to avoid the costs of insurance, registration and the other expenses associated with car ownership.  And it would free up a bit more cash for a sweet little Vespa...  Anyway, Pierre had been a bit of a disappointment.  A stylish enough 4 door, with just three thousand kilometers on him, he was sluggish, with a maddeningly vague gearbox, and an off-putting all digital dashboard with no tachometer.  The kicker was rear windows that didn't roll down, but just popped out a little in the back.  Okay for just me, but a bit maddening for poor Jack, who was stuck in the back seat most of the time.  I bid Pierre a cordial farewell, and we transferred into Henry, a pert little Ford Fiesta.  So far he has been better in most ways, although I still find myself missing the SEAT that I drove for the first few weeks I was here - a nice balance of size, power, and economy.

Well, being already in Jerez (about 20km from the base), we decided to head into the old town to visit a couple of the sights.  Or sites. Either works in that sentence, I think.  I dialed the name of the town's main square, Plaza del Arenal, into the WAZE app and off we went.  We reached the underground parking structure without incident, having being led to do only a couple of complete circuits of various roundabouts and blow through only one unseen red light.  Actually not bad for driving to an new destination in an ancient city with a convoluted, medieval street plan and a navigation app.  Prying my fingers out of the plastic of the steering wheel, we locked up Henry and set off to the Alcázar.

I shall pause here to lament the absence of any really good book on the history of Spain.  Everything I have found is either so poorly written (or translated) as to be impossible for me to wade through, or else wanders off into abstruse ruminations about the "Spanish Character", which is interpreted as something either greatly to be desired or deplored.  I have no patience for such quasi-mystical evocations of a national character as something apart from the history, culture and circumstances - geographic and otherwise - in which folks find themselves.  It runs uncomfortably close to ideas of "purity of blood" for your humble narrator.  And that way lies nothing good.

The Alcazar, Patio de las Armas

Anyway, the Alacázar is the well preserved (or perhaps well restored is more accurate) Moorish fortress at the heart of what was once Sherish . It was built in the 11th century as Jerez was briefly the center of an independent taifa, and reached its Moorish apotheosis under the rule of the Almohads in the 12th and 13th centuries.  As with many urban constructions in Spain, the site itself sits atop even earlier ruins of an even earlier structure, but these were largely destroyed by the zealous Almohads.  It fell to the forces of the Reconquista in the late 12th century and has survived through the centuries both the reforming zeal and the benign neglect of its rulers.  Happily in the last couple of centuries interest in preservation and restoration has guided management of the site, and there are enough traces of the its earliest architecture to make it fascinating visit.  I refer the interested reader to the blog site http://gazules.blogspot.de/2011/02/alcazar-of-jerez.html for some really excellent pictures and a bit of the relevant history.

Wall, and octagonal tower: Classic Almohad architecture 

The old mosque and fountain

The walls of the ancient fortress are massive and impressive - the towers and crenellations made less ominous to the viewer by the honey colored quarried stone of which they are built.  Once inside the perimeter to my untutored eye the most appealing structures are the mezquita - the last remaining of what were once 18 mosques in the old Moorish city - and the Arab baths. Both combine a lovely simplicity and elegance of line with an appreciation of the use of natural illumination that makes the stone, brick and mortar feel light and not oppressive.  The inclusion of water as an integral feature of the architecture also just feels right in the space.  There is probably an architecture or interior design term that applies, but I confess it escapes me.  In the courtyard the reconstruction of the gardens - aesthetic and functional components what was both palace and fortification - is a lovely ordered collection of flowers, fruit and olive trees and fountains.  Even at Andalucian noon the green of trees and murmur of the flowing water conveys a sense of comfortable coolness.  We clambered around for a couple of hours, peeking at towers, cisterns, and court spaces and climbing to the top of the walls to look across the city to the countryside where the last of the fields of sunflowers shade the rolling hills in gold.

Bar Juanito, and a couple of disreputable tourists

By this time the Andalusian sun was well overhead, and and beginning to insist that it be taken into account in any further planning.  We agreed, and descended the castle ramparts, making our way from shade to shade until we were back out the gate and into the city outside.   Here both tourists and locals were making their way toward luncheon choices.  Only the tourists of course were serious about eating so early, as a true Andalucian really aims for lunch no earlier than two pm.  Happily consigning ourselves to the ranks of the former we made our way along an alley to the west of the plaza, and found Bar Juanito awaiting us under the cool shade of umbrellas.  A faint but welcome breeze wafted through the alleyway, and we indulged in a chilled half-bottle of manzanilla (La Guita  from Hijos de Rainera Pérez Marín, in nearby Sanlucar de Barrameda) the refreshing bite of which was perfect complement to tapas of fried fish, garbanzo stew, (berza jerezano) and cold potato salad with olive oil and sherry vinegar.  We finished off with a couple of café cortados (like café con leche but with less milk), and headed off to the cool darkness of the nearby Catedral San Salvador.  I'm sure I shall have more to say about the abundant sacred architecture of Spain, but will only observe that the evident change in the popular styles which occurred over the centuries of the cathedral's construction have resulted in an unhappy mix of gothic and renaissance/baroque elements that only a local partisan could really love.    It is in any event a huge and impressive building, with some excellent paintings hidden away in side chapels and sacristy.  Suitably restored after luncheon and a leisurely wandering through the cathedral, we sought out the parkade and after only a little confusion about how to pay the fee made our way out through the streets of Jerez and home.

Doña Blanca's last residence?

Walls of the ancient city

Archeological Seven Layer Dip

The next day, emboldened by our adventures of the day before, we gave the dogs an extra long morning walk, and a nice treat - if you enjoy pup-a-roni sticks - and headed out once again.  Our object this time was Yacimiento Arqueológico Doña Blanca.  The landmark that lends its name to the site is a small tower, once part of a fortification of a coast which has long since ceased to exist, in which Pedro the Cruel is supposed to have imprisoned his wife, Doña Blanca de Borbón.  There is a good deal of doubt about the historical accuracy of that claim - the locale, not the imprisonment which is well attested - but there is none about the real significance of this site.  It is an excavated ancient settlement of evident Phoenician origin.  It may date back as far as 800 B.C.E., and may thus give Cádiz a run for its claim to be the oldest city in Europe.  It sits high atop a hill that looks to the west across an alluvial plain that is now farmland and suburb, but was once a part of the great bay of Cádiz.  The height of the current site is a bit deceptive, as one of the archeological excavations makes it apparent that the last settlement - the area was settled from maybe 800 to 300 B.C.E. - is stacked in layers upon the ruins of all the previous  habitations, like a 100 foot tall archeological 7-layer dip.  Peering down from a catwalk above the dig one can make out the alternating layers of different construction styles and materials, and perhaps the sooty black traces of some ancient unguessed calamity.  We spent an hour walking around the ruins, listening to cattle and horses being herded across the plains below and following the progress of the trains running back and forth between Cádiz and El Puerto de Santa Maria on the far distant tracks.  Save for one other chap, who strode through the site like it was part of his exercise routine, we had the place entirely to ourselves. It was absolutely lovely.  As we left, the cheerful custodians who had admitted us an hour earlier bade us Hasta luego and locked the gate behind us.

La Venta del Pollo: try the chicken...

We made our way a bit further down the CA-201 to Venta El Pollo, a cheerfully dilapidated and chaotic inn where three of the "Plata del Dia" proved to be far more than we could have ever finished in a "dia", even though the food was wonderful and we had set to it with a right good will.  We were still finishing the last of it - taken home in boxes when we admitted defeat - 2 days later.  I must admit to liking Spain so far...