Snippets of Spain

Spain is a country neither of us had been to before and we were curious to experience it for ourselves, and to see how long we could keep a straight face in the presence of a language with so much in-built lisping (in Castilian, the letter ‘c’ followed by ‘e’ or ‘i’ is pronounced ‘th’). We kept it together for the whole month we were travelling, in fact developing respect for the subtleties of the language and its sound combinations, even when we didn’t always understand what was being said.

As in Portugal, sometimes we were pleased with ourselves and how we were managing to communicate with a few basic words and phrases, listening carefully and filling in gaps in understanding with what we’d guess might be being said from the context. We could ask for a table for two, order a coffee, beer or that delicious combination, chocolate con churros (loops or sticks of doughnuts dipped in to thick hot chocolate).

We could book a hotel room and ask how much something costed. And sometimes we could string a few words together to create sentences, with the help of a phrasebook we picked up.

Sometimes this just didn’t make the distance though, as happened in a tiny town called Almagro, two hours by train south of Madrid, where we stayed for a day on the way to Madrid.

We arrived in the town with nothing to eat in the middle of lunch time (between 1.30 and 5pm) when everything was closed, so we thought we’d share the set lunch menu that was all that was on offer at our hotel cum 15th century monastery. We ordered one menu and managed to convey that we only wanted one and would share it, which the young waitress obliged with (we learnt from the French proprietor of another restaurant in that town that it is common to share food in Spain, whereas in France if such a thing were suggested – he mimed a downwards stabbing action with his knife).

Things were going well, we ate the bread and seafood soup, then the grilled meat for main course, and answered what we took to be her asking how we liked the food with a ‘very good thank you.’

Now for desert. The waitress returned with a long spiel of which we could make neither head nor tail. I said ‘I don’t understand.’ She tried again. I had no idea what she was saying. It didn’t sound like a question, but she must be asking something of us. Perhaps she was asking how we liked the main course? I said ‘very good thank you.’ She started giggling and shook her finger, and repeated her speech. Whatever it was, I thought perhaps I should just agree with it, so I said ‘yes.’ She was now laughing so hard she was struggling to maintain a professional poise and could hardly speak or stand up straight. She gave up, left and came back with a small tub of strawberry yoghurt. In retrospect, we deduced that she must have been giving us a choice for desert.

So what did we do for a month in Spain?

We didn’t see any flamenco dancing or bullfights  – the former, because what was on offer to tourists were expensive, apparently rather tourist-oriented early shows starting at 9.30pm rather than the midnight starts that locals enjoyed; and the second because we don’t endorse bullfighting, much as it must be a fascinating and colourful experience for a tourist. Nor did we go to any of Spain’s beaches, so loved by sun-seeking English people (apart from the city beach in Barcelona). Instead we spent a lot of time in parks, galleries, and museums. We went to so many galleries and museums that not only did we see many of the great works of Spanish art, but we saw different artists playing off each other in very different interpretations of the great classics. Hence:

1. The Prado, Madrid: The ‘Ladies in Waiting’ (Las Meninas’), Velasquez’s  1656 painting of Felipe IV’s young daughter and her ladies in waiting (looking almost as young), one of whom is passing her a drink while the princess’s dog sits in the foreground. Velazquez puts himself in the foreground painting the scene, with the artist’s cross that he had not yet earnt painted on his chest.

2. The Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid: A photograph of 1950s viewers admiring Las Meninas in the Prado.

3. The Picasso Museum, Barcelona: Picasso’s series of about 12 paintings capturing different aspects of Las Meninas in a cubist style in yellow, red, green and black, painted during the course of 1957.

4. The Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia: Contemporary Spanish cartoonist Mingote’s cheeky rendition, with the princess in her 17th century meringue-like dress floating up to the ceiling while the dog bites the leg of one of her ladies in waiting in the foreground.

We loved Barcelona for its atmospheric old town, wondrously strange and original Gaudi architecture, and throbbing atmosphere;

and Madrid is an exciting city too, with a huge park like New York’s Central Park and excellent galleries.

Granada in the south is another place we’d like to return to one day, for the stunning architecture of the 800 year old Alhambra (arabic for ‘red castle’), lavishly decorated with arabic inscriptions, delicate latticework and joyful gardens.

In Valencia we experienced the street procession for the ‘Festival of the Virgen’, which was as moving as the church service in the pilgrim town of Santiago de Compostela, in which we and a packed cathedral full of pilgrims watched in awe as according to tradition, the head-size incense holder (botafumeira) was swung slowly then more and more vigorously, like a reckless child on a swing, from a pulley suspended just over our heads, leaving wafts of incense in its wake (see ‘Religious Spain’).

We also spent a lot of time in restaurants (as above), tapas bars and cafes. We were particularly fond of the tapas bars, where you order ‘las tapas’ (canapés) at around 7 or 8pm to keep you going before dinner. These are regionally concocted bites, such as little morsels of shredded, creamily dressed salad on toasted baguette topped with grilled prawns; small bowls of chunky stew; plates of lightly battered fried sardines with a squeeze of lemon; or kebabs of marinated grilled vegetables. We ate tapas with sangria or beer (Steve), sometimes dining solely on six or eight tapas and skipping dinner altogether.

Slices of Spain. Viva!