Ultima publicación

Off tomorrow through Castille-La Mancha, back to Madrid.
Sad to leave but looking forward to getting back, we fly home Monday.

¿Me puede decir cómo llegar de aquí para allá?

Can you tell me how to get from here to there?

Bill has been practicing Spanish off and on for years. And it has paid off many times while we’ve been in Spain. But it is still only one step away from pigeon English…. In one of many times he was insisting on getting directions from a non-English speaking woman. He hung in there long after weaker men would give in but when they actually figured out what he wanted, we all shouted in triumph!! Not a common word between them but good will and laughter worked wonders. 

However this morning Bill summed it up. As he left the cafe, he said “Au revoir!” to our waitress and to her “Huh?” he turned to me and said, “So many languages, so few grey cells…”

Dinner in Spain

Dinner last night in a little water-front cafe filled with Spaniards summed up our experience here. We were jammed in tight on the balcony and had a table of men right behind us. They were nursing their one cup of coffee (7:00 pm - way too early for dinner!) as they sat there for two hours and talked and talked and talked. Their staccato Spanish was a tongue-twisting phenomenon and their ability to all talk at the same time and have fun doing it made me think of the Monk Parrots in the trees outside the cafe: constant chatter occasionally interrupted by excitement and increased volume followed by more talk. Oh how Bill wished all his hard work with Spanish had been more successful, We would have loved to know just what they were saying - possibly talking about those foreigners who eat so early and talk so little….. 

View from our table

Christmas in Spain

So tomorrow is December. And the Christmas decorations are up and ready in every hotel, store, and street of every town we’ve visited lately. I expect that tomorrow night all of Spain will light up! In fact, one of the reasons for one of our fiascos with directions in the obscure white town of Benaojan was the fact that a truck with a cherry picker was blocking the most unlikely one-way steep narrow street - putting up Xmas lights. 

Poinsettias in pots - probably geraniums in the summer

Watch your step!

The streets of old towns in Portugal and Andalucia in Spain are often cobbled. Some in mosaic patterns. This tradition was brought to the Iberian peninsula from Rome and originally used round stones from rivers.  They are beautiful to look at, romantic to listen to when horses trot over them, and murder to bike over….

Toledo

Tevira, Portugal

Tevira - waiting repair

Very old pattern from Jewish Quarter, Seville

Main street of Arcos de la Frontera old town

Arcos de la Frontera

Mosaics all through Frigiliani old town

Hands ward off evil

We have noticed door knockers on old doors in Portugal and Spain shaped like hands. Turns out they are from Moorish tradition and represent the hands of Fatima, daughter of Mohammed, used to ward off evil and protect the house. 

Más cuentos de comida ...

More about food....

One of our favourite stops for food was in Toledo. We asked a local where to go for traditional food and after skirting down many narrow streets, asking for help with directions more than once, we entered a different world. Locals crowded around the bar - seats were ignored, people used tables to set their beer and food on and the noise hit the ceiling. We watched two guys behind the bar manage everything with no apparent order. But it all worked. We returned a couple of times while in Toledo.

Gaspacho with jamon and cheese

Restaurant hidden behind curtain

carcamusa toledanas - a pork stew, specialty of Toledo

Ludena.