travelswithalice

August 21, 2019

Seville, August 2019

We arrive in Seville to an elaborate royal palace, the Alfonso XIII.

We’re to discover later, at a walking tour in which our hotel is one of the highlights, that King Alfonso refused to stay in the customary royal residence, the Alcázar. He reportedly had this palace built for him so he could have the privacy needed to engage in his preferred hobby: pornography.

Today though, we enjoy the more sedate use of the palace as a hotel. And lunch in the courtyard is as dignified as can be.

Later, from our bedroom window, I watch the near full moon brighten up the western sky, a brilliant Jupiter at its side.

Barrio Santa Cruz is in the old Jewish quarter.

We once stayed at a hotel here, so we look in to see if it has changed much since. Hotel Amadeus seems to have been frozen in time; it looks just as it did back in 2007. The hushed rooms with musical instruments everywhere, string instruments parked casually on the floor. Several violins are mounted on walls. In a small practice studio off the wrought-iron gated front door, an upright piano has a sheet music open.

We go up to the rooftop to see if we can find the attic room we stayed in before. There’s a bar and a plunge pool. We’re told our old room must’ve been in the adjoining building.

We watch the sun go down behind the towers and spires.

Hotel Amadeus is on Calle Fabiola. It’s here that we now find a small flamenco theatre, Sala Fabiola, as authentic and honest and protective of the art as anyone can hope to find.

Saturday, we go on a walking tour with White Umbrella Tours. Our guide is José, a charming well-informed young Sevillano, an English and History of Arts graduate from the humanities-heavy University of Seville.

It’s an enjoyable leisurely walk towards the cooler end of the day through Seville’s historic centre. We start in Plaza Virgen de los Reyes where we are surrounded by three UNESCO listed heritage sites: Alcázar, Archivo de Indias, and the Cathedral.

We’re looking straight out towards Giralda Tower, the cathedral’s bell tower which at a height of 104 meters dominates the city skyline.

On the other side of the square is the Alcázar. It traces the city’s history through eleven centuries with the evolution of its architecture and decorative style from Mudéjar, to Gothic, to Renaissance, to Baroque.

Seville is a photographer’s or cinematographer’s dream. Indelible scenes from opera, movies, and TV were either made here, shot here, or inspired by places found here: Carmen, Kingdom of Heaven, Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars, and Game of Thrones, to name a few.

The headquarters of University of Seville used to be the Fabrica Real de Tabacos.

It’s here where Bizet’s Carmen meets and seduces the soldier Don José whom she promptly drops for a famous bullfighter. In the end Don José stabs her to death outside the bullring.

Outside Seville’s Maestranza Bullring, I ask our tour guide how people here today feel about bullfighting. José would rather not voice an opinion.

Legend tells us that Seville was founded by Hercules. His image guards the entrance to the Town Hall, an elaborately decorated building executed in the Plateresque style of the Spanish Renaissance.

So how did the faces of Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner end up on the facade of this 16th c. building? And why does our guide himself, to this day, refuse to go through its entrance archway?

The tour ends in quiet splendour at the magnificent Plaza de España, built for the 1929 Ibero-American Expo. Designed as the Andalucian Pavilion in a Regionalist mix of Mudéjar, Renaissance, and Art Deco styles, it is grandiose in scale and presentation.

It’s a bit over the top and kitschy, but I believe art on this grand scale has a very particular purpose: to tell a story, to glorify, or to frighten. Think Sagrada Familia or Sistine Chapel. Plaza de España was built to impress: to show off Spain’s superiority in industry and craft.

On its inside curve, the crescent-shaped brick building features 48 alcoves, one for each province, individually decorated with lavishly painted ceramic tiles called azulejos. Each alcove has inviting tiled benches and a matched pair of cubbyholes for books.

PHOTO CREDIT:

Tiles Plaza de España ©Carlos Jiménez Ruiz

A free outdoor library open to all. Brilliant!

I promise myself I will come back to this exquisite place. I’m bringing books to put in those darling little bookshelves. ❤️

Labels: Alcázar, Alfonso XIII, Carmen, film, Giralda, on TV, Plaza de España, UNESCO, University of Seville

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # August 21, 2019

August 09, 2019

Jerez de la Frontera

The lush tropical garden in the central courtyard of Madrid‘s Atocha train station gives it a cool and relaxed feel not usually associated with train stations. We’re catching the 1:30 to Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia.

It’s 3.5 hours to Jerez through vast stretches of the famed olive groves of Andalusia. More than half of all olive oil in the world comes from Spain and a third of that is produced here.

At least 85 percent of the land area of Andalusia is planted with olive trees. I quickly tire of looking at this remarkably unchanging landscape and while away the time doing online crossword puzzles and watching Michael Gambon in Maigret.

*****

In Jerez, Casa Palacio de Maria Luisa seamlessly marries the scale and proportions of a grand aristocratic house with the lightness and playfulness of contemporary interior design.

There’s a lovely garden in back of the hotel where spread out on the lawn are bullfight-themed sculptures by local artist BALCRIS.

Because we want dinner way before the Andalusian dinner time of 10 o’clock but don’t want tapas, Ismael at the front desk helpfully informs us that we can eat at the Terraza where they serve tapas that are not really tapas.

I see what he means.

We start with a cold garlic soup with grapes and baby sardines. Little lilac cilantro blossoms float on top.

Next is asparagus tempura with majao, a traditional gypsy tomato and pepper sauce. Then follows a parade of dishes arriving in quick succession. There’s lightly deep fried lemon sole and pickled aubergines, fried marinated spinach on toast, cod croquettes in alí-oli, and boneless pork rib with garlic potato purée.

And to finish, a kind of french toast with honey and ice cream, a traditional Easter treat, I’m told.

This exceptionally delicious dinner is served on the terrace in the shade of a giant jacaranda tree. Doves fly overhead, their wings painted orange and gold by the setting sun.

There’s no one else around but Stuart and me with Ivan and Javier hovering by the bar. Soon a waxing crescent moon starts to set behind the trees too.

It’s a magical evening in this wondrous place.

*****

Jerez is the cradle of flamenco and there’s no better place to experience it than at a local bar. We’re at El Pasaje. There’s just enough room for 6 very small tables and a tiny stage of not more than 8 feet across.

There’s nothing small about the flamenco here though. It’s wonderfully loud, passionate, energetic, and everything we want it to be. The food and the wine are good too for the minimum charge of 40€ which we’re not able to use up even after having our fill of wine and tapas and buying drinks for the performers. The 40€ is for a reserved table. Buy a drink at the bar and you get to watch the show for free. The place is packed; you couldn’t squeeze another person in the bar.

*****

Jerez is also the birthplace of sherry; it’s where the fortified wine gets its name. The wine tour at Gonzalez Byass gives us an idea how it’s made and how it tastes in its various incarnations.

I like Jerez. It’s a quiet, refined town with nice buildings and good food and wine. It’s known for sherry, horses, and more recently, motorcycle racing.

For me, it has the two things that best remind me of my two Dads: Stuart’s Dad’s Bristol Cream sherry and my Daddy’s horses. ❤️

Labels: Andalusia, Casa Palacio Maria Luisa, El Pasaje, Gonzalez Byass

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # August 09, 2019

August 03, 2019

Madrid: more Malasaña restaurants.

A two-minute walk from Hyatt Centric Gran Via, is an old fashioned little restaurant that serves good “home-cooked’” meals. It’s called PUERTO RICO, serves traditional Spanish food and wines, and is manned almost totally by a Filipino crew.

Starter, main course, and dessert, plus crusty bread and a half bottle of wine total 12.95€.

An exciting new restaurant find in the neighbourhood is ORIO. The downstairs bar displays a delicious spread of Basque style pintxos- designer gourmet stuff.

Pork paté in deep amber aspic, tortilla richly layered with duck liver, and the “Gilda”: an anchovy curled up on a skewer with 3 small crispy green chillies and 2 olives. You get the picture.

Try a selection at 2.10€ a piece with a nice crisp lo-octane txacolí. A glass of cava comes with a pair of oysters for 9€.

The upstairs dining room has an extensive menu. Stuart had a “marmitako” fish stew. I had a “euskal txeria” cochinillo.

PUBLIC is another nice restaurant very close to our hotel. Set menu is 11.65€. It includes starter, main course, bread, a quarter bottle of wine, and dessert or coffee.

With its fresh white tablecloths and staff smartly outfitted in black, the restaurant looks immaculate on a grimy street in an area best described as interesting but dodgy.

Saturday sees the temperature shoot back up to 35 degrees by lunchtime. We scrap our plan to go to Escorial and decide to keep close to home.

Lunch at ORIO was meant to be a light snack. 12 pintxos, 1 apple tart, 2 txacolís, and 2 cavas later, we walk back to the hotel through very still, thick air with the sun beating down to punish us for our over-indulgence.

Labels: Hyatt Centric, Madrid, Orio, Public, Puerto Rico

posted by Alice Dimalanta Jones # August 03, 2019

travelswithalice

August 21, 2019

Seville, August 2019

August 09, 2019

Jerez de la Frontera

August 03, 2019

Madrid: more Malasaña restaurants.

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