#737 Spanish Architectural Extremes

Everywhere we go we find architecture. In Spain, we find architectural extremes.

Antoni Gaudi designed a rural hillside to be an exclusive neighborhood for Barcelona's elite. But when circumstances doomed those plans, the real estate failure launched one of Barcelona's major attractions, Park Guell.  Ornate and wildly ornamented, it opened to the public in 1926.

Across town, sleek, clean, and free of ornamentation, Barcelona Pavilion, the reconstructed modernist masterpiece designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1928 stands in start contrast to Gaudi's naturalistic mosaics.

Steel, glass, straight lines, and horizontal floating planes exemplify Mies' architectural theme "less is more".

These two Spanish constructions are close in age only. In Barcelona, we find architectural extremes.

Yours in Spain,
Kelly 

#588 The Canary Islands

So close and yet...

Our first stop since leaving Morocco is the beautiful city of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, a Spanish territory.  With their climate and beaches, the Canaries are a major tourist destination.

Alas, this is a bunkering stop for us and we are restricted to the ship for our 5-hour refueling.

Yours in enjoying the view,

Mary

#582 Ronda, a White Town of Andalusia

Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles were right.  Ronda is beautiful!

I suspect Ernest spent some time in the oldest bullfighting ring in Spain - Plaza de toros de Ronda.

Ronda, one of the White Towns of Andalusia, is perched on top of a steep canyon with magnificent views in all directions.

Yours in appreciation of Ronda,
Mary

#581 Europe's small towns

Thinking about the first seven ports of our fall voyage, we discover that we enjoy getting out of the big cities to explore the small towns and the countryside.

From Saint Petersburg, we travel to Vyborg and walk Monrepos Park.

From Hamburg, we travel to Lubeck and marvel at the Holsten gate.

From Antwerp, we travel to Bruges and admire the canals in The Venice of the North.

From Le Havre, we travel to Honfleur and its beautiful harbor.

From Dublin, we travel to Howth and hike the exhilarating cliff walk.

From Lisbon, we travel to Sintra and walk through fog at Pena National Palace.

From Cadiz, we travel to Ronda right up to the edge of its dramatic cliffs.

 

Yours in this small-town girl loving the small-townness of Vyborg, Lubeck, Bruges, Honfleur, Howth, Sintra, and Ronda,
Mary

#518 Saint and Nation and Maps

Kelly keeps telling me he has a cool job in the Scholars' Lab.  

He's always been inquisitive, so he's energized by working with scholars from so many different disciplines who use Geographic Information Systems.  And he likes to make maps.

A few months ago, he came home with stories of his search for 17th-century political boundaries of Spain.  He'd been consulting with Erin Rowe on her forthcoming book tracking the "Spanish devotion to the cult of saints".

Now Saint and Nation is published and shelved at Alderman Library.  Four maps are bound inside. They clearly show, among other things, Spanish political boundaries from the 17th century.

Yours in agreeing Kelly has a cool job,
Mary

#85 Camera Obscura

First, punch a hole in your roof. Then arrange a mirror and lens to project light through the hole onto a horizontal screen. That’s a camera obscura.

In Cadiz, we visited one (that's me on the left, Mary on the right). Cadiz is surrounded by ocean on 3 sides, so watching the ships come in has been a local tradition for centuries. With the camera obscura, you can watch the ships come in all day and never get rained on or sunburned. It’s the low-tech version of a video camera and monitor…no electricity-no problem. Now I want one. Do you know anyone who has the home version of camera obscura?

Yours in low-tech gadgetry,
Kelly

#83 The Rain in Spain…

Stays mainly on the plain.

Yes, we’ve had some rain here in Spain, but only enough to get us wet. We spent our Spain time primarily in Seville. Even though Spain’s Alhambra is in the competition for the new Seven Wonders of the World (Thanks for the list, Zoya), we didn’t get all the way to Granada to see it.

Seville called to us for 2 reasons. I know what you’re thinking – flamenco dancing and bull fighting. But no, we didn’t see any dancing flamencos or any fighting bulls. We wanted to visit Seville 1) because Seville and Kansas City are sister cities and 2) because we wanted to see the Alcazar (a UNESCO world heritage site.) My parents’ wedding reception was held in Cleveland at the Alcazar Hotel and it was high time we saw the original.

As you can imagine, the Alcazar in Cleveland and the Alcazar in Seville are slightly different. The Alcazar Hotel was originally built as a hotel with a Spanish-Moorish motif in the 1920's. The Alcazar was originally built as a fort in the 900’s. Over the 11 centuries since then, it has been expanded and rebuilt many times. As we wander from courtyard to courtyard and from garden to garden, it’s one wow after another.

Of all the fabulous sights to behold, wouldn’t you know that Kelly focused in on a map? It’s a huge tapestry of the Mediterranean where north is down, from the Spanish perspective a few hundred years ago.

Our timing was right to see a temporary Alcazar exhibit we deemed a highlight: Descubriendo a los descubridores, la vuelta al mundo de la Nao Victoria. The first circumnavigation of the world in 1522 proved the spherical shape of the earth. In 2004, 20 young sailors recreated that voyage in a replica of the original wooden vessel. Realizing the substantial differences between their voyage and ours, there are also many similarities. One voyager said the land looks better from the sea than from the land. Another says that he now has a before and an after. A third emphasizes the importance of sailing with 3 guides: course, altitude, and imagination. We spent a long time listening to the wisdom of these modern circumnavigators.

When you leave the Alcazar and walk across the street you’re standing in front of the world’s largest Gothic cathedral. So we entered, enjoyed a mini-concert from what must be one of the world’s largest pipe organs, then climbed over 300’ to the top of the cathedral bell tower for a panoramic view of Seville.

From the tower, we could see the train station in the distance. The street leading to the train station is Avenida de Kansas City, the only evidence we saw of the sister-city relationship. We found comfort in this tie to our Midwestern roots.

Yours in finding ties to la familiar,
Mary

#82 A Thanksgiving celebration in Cadiz

Gracias Susanne and Johannes!

A few years ago when I met Susanne at a library meeting in Indianapolis, I didn’t realize that one Thanksgiving Day we would wander the streets of Cadiz together. But that’s just what happened. Susanne is an Ohio native who now lives year-round in southeast Spain with her husband Johannes. This morning, they greeted us as we stepped off the ship and we spent the day exploring Cadiz - and occasionally reminding ourselves that it was indeed Thanksgiving Day.

This was their first time in Cadiz too, so we used the map to find our way around what may be the oldest city in Europe – more than 3000 years old. Cadiz, now with a population of 135,000, is where Columbus sailed from on his 2nd and 4th voyages. We wandered, window-shopped along the narrow streets, tasted a variety of tapas, visited a University of Cadiz library, and celebrated the holiday with some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

Thanks to Susanne and Johannes for exploring Cadiz with us, for introducing us to tapas, for helping us with our Spanish, and for giving us a look at life in Spain.

Yours in wondering about the possibility of our lives in Spain,
Mary