Madrid vs Seville

So, what ever happened to the blog posts about Madrid? And Seville, and Porto, Portugal? Well, we’re still mulling over Porto. Nice town, but we are not drawn to it. Still, lots of possibilities in Portugal, I think. Maybe we’ll spend more time there, later.

As for Madrid… as expected, our return to Seville at the end of April clarified our lack of enthusiasm for Spain’s largest city. Sitting in a small plaza in Seville on a busy Saturday this is how it appeared to me.

Madrid vs Seville

It has been very satisfying to be back in Seville! I feel the same elegance, the same beauty, the same heart and soul as the last time we were here. It’s satisfying to walk down the same streets, see the same landmarks, and find our way through the narrow, tortuous lanes that once seemed so impossible, but now so familiar, even after being gone for 18 months. And I’ve come to understand our dissatisfaction with Madrid.

Monumental buildings. Broad boulevards. A massive park. World- class museums. Huge, open squares jammed with people speaking every imaginable language.

          Such is Madrid

Narrow cobbled streets. Odd street angles. Low buildings with beautiful tiled courtyards. Streets suddenly coming together in a small plaza filled with kids and baby carriages. Small hidden parks with large spreading trees and exquisitely tiled benches.

          That's Seville

La Giralda with the full moon

I know now that it wasn't just jet lag or unfamiliar surroundings that put us off from Spain’s capital. Seville really is more lovable! (Well, I meant “livable” but lovable works too!)

The street life here (and we're talking Seville now) has a certain low-level intensity ­­– noticeable, but far short of frantic. Around the cathedral the crowds are thick, the foreign tongues many, the cafes and shops tourist oriented. There's a Starbucks, and down the street, across from another Starbucks, is a Burger King next to a Dunkin' Coffee (they don't have donuts here). Not too far away, in the small plaza where I'm sitting, with cafe tables spilling into the street, younger kids are climbing on the play equipment tucked into a corner of the plaza, while locals stream through, going about their Saturday afternoon business.  Meanwhile, a few tourist types wander by, studying their maps and rubbernecking at the buildings.

There’s vitality, a lived-in-ness, here that is endlessly satisfying. Madrid felt too big, too distant, too cold to appeal to us in the same way.

I spoke to our landlady, Victoria, about the two cities. She owns the apartments we stayed in, both in Madrid and in Seville.  I explained our dilemma over our lack of enthusiasm for Madrid. About how we found more love in Seville than the larger city. She nodded; she understood, but she grew up in Madrid, has family there, and visits often (using the apartment we rented). She finds plenty of heart and soul in Madrid! But she understood; we just don’t have the connections that she does.

Plaza d'Espagna, Sevilla

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While travel is endlessly engrossing, and can be very satisfying and exciting, seeing new sights and experiencing different customs, we never forget our friends at home. Rarely, though, do we actually get to see them until we get back. So we’re always grateful when we have a chance to visit with someone we know. This time we were able to visit with our friends Judy and Robert, from Los Osos,  CA. They were in the midst of their own travels, and we were able to meet up for a few days in Seville.

We had a good time showing them some of our favorite places in Seville, like the Plaza de Espana and the incomparable Alcazar (the 12th Century Moorish palace). Plus, we got to share travel stories. Thanks, Judy & Robert, for making sure we got together!

 

Night time tour of the Alcazar

 

Daytime in the Alcazar gardens, with Judy and Robert

Now, back in Alicante, we are spending more and more time thinking of what happens after August. It’s an interesting balance, this long-term travel. We want to be in the moment, experience what’s happening now. At the same time, we’ve got to keep an eye on where we will be, where we will stay, four to six months from now. Plans are locked in through the end of August (a month in London!). We’re currently looking at Central Europe and Turkey in the fall, another visit to Croatia, and then back here in Alicante in November. We were quite taken by the Christmas season in Seville, so we expect we’ll be back there for December and January. After that? Too early to tell!

La Vila Joiosa, a cutesy beach town up the coast from Alicante

Next up: we ride the tram up the coast, and visit some other beach towns...

Three Weeks in Alicante

My, my! Five weeks into our European adventure! And what's up with us?

We’ve been in Alicante, on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, for almost three weeks. We’re finding our way around, and finding many reasons to like this sea-side town.

Initially we were put off by the town’s appearance, after the elegance and beauty of Seville. Here we find high-rise buildings on the beach, and newer high-rises built in front of older ones, blocking their view. (Indeed, where we are staying has a large, wide living room that may have had wonderful views of the ocean at one time; now it looks out on the brick wall of the building in front of us!) The downtown area is a jumble of styles and ages, neither classily ancient, nor fully modern.

 

What it's all about here -- the beach! We live at the far end, kinda to the left of that high rise.

View from our roof. See the highrise to the right? Those buildings to the left used to have a view!
(Thanks to my daughter Nina for the photo; that's her shadow on the right!)

Inside. Nice big room; lovely brick wall!

But then, this is a beach town! People come here from all over Europe – and the world – for the sun and sand, not lessons in history. Not that there is no history here. It was a Greek settlement, then a Roman one, and the Moors first fortified the hill overlooking the city. After they were driven out in the 15^th Century various European factions moved through, enhancing the hill-top fortifications to protect the town from pirates, and the Turks. Throughout it all, the city was bombarded and destroyed several times, the last being during the Spanish Civil War when it was attacked by Italian war planes and over 1000 Republican supporters were killed.

Today, though, it’s all about good times. Our first night here, when we were joined by my daughter, Nina, we wandered through a very lively restaurant and café area. The tables spilling out into the streets were filled with diners and drinkers. We passed streets full of outdoor sports bars, where patrons followed the game on huge screens hung outside the bars, and every good play was marked by loud cheering all over the neighborhood.

Lively outdoor sports bar, one of many cafes in downton Alicante.

We later came upon a quiet park with massive fig trees, their air roots reaching the ground and forming enormous trunks, much like Banyans.  A dozen or so tables surrounded a kiosk bar. We sat in the golden glow of the sodium-vapor lights and had cocktails. A very romantic setting!

Yeah, it's a bar.

Nina and her dad, me!

Paula and Nina. Nice cocktail!

Since then we’ve covered the city pretty well. We heard about a fantastic art venue, the old train station now called Casa Mediterraneo. While in the process of being restored it’s had a translucent blue roof installed that lends a beautiful relaxing glow to the large interior space. Alicante was just ending a festival celebrating Turkish culture, and the space, while empty, had large portraits hung around the walls, paintings inspired by the artist's visits to Turkey. We returned at the end of the week for a Sunday concert presenting Turkish-inspired music played by a local orchestra.

Casa Mediterraneo. Great performance & exhibition space!

A local orchestra, play8ing Turkish-themed music

The portrait artist, on the far left, next to Teresa.

Afterwards we ran into Teresa, the rental agent for the apartment we’re renting; a Madrid native, she’s been here in Alicante for almost two decades. We walked with her back through town, among local families out strolling on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. We passed along the beach, already crowded, and it’s only mid-May!

Copacabana in Rio? No, just folks out for a Sunday stroll on the Passeig Esplanada d'Espanya in Alicante

And a little further down the beach another trippy walkway!

Detail of the beach walk. Interestingly, this pattern is identical to one I saw in Fez, Morocco.
The Moorish influence is still prevalent!

We arrived at Teresa’s favorite xiringuito, or beach bar, just a few blocks from our apartment. Although the tables were jammed with the Sunday lunch crowd, we found places at the bar and tried Teresa’s suggestion, Vermout, which she referred to as a “home-made martini.” Dark, clear, and well-iced it was very refreshing, and went down well. But I stopped at one! Two hours and several plates of shared tapas later (not as sophisticated as the gourmet dishes in Seville, but good and not expensive), we were satisfied, full, and very amused. I ended with a different view of Alicante – this is a fun town!

At the xiringuito with Teresa and Elenor, a visitor from Florida

So, whatever happened to Madrid? And Porto? And Seville? Ah, those are tales for another time! Perhaps we'll hear more about them soon, but for now, we're in Alicante, living five minutes from the beach!

One of the more elegant buildings in Alicante, reminiscent of the South of France -- Nice, or Montpellier.
And, note the "Peace" sculpture to the right.

Another former train station

Alicante's Central Market, built in 1912; damaged but survived the bombing during the Civil War (1939)

Inside the Central Market

The whimsical mushroom street (Calle San Francisco)

        Up next: 
Seville vs. Madrid. And maybe something about Porto

On to Porto

      4 April 2018

​My, Sunday night again! It’s been only a week since we left! We’re now in Porto, an old city in the north of Portugal. Things have been moving fast, but let’s see if we can step back and see how they went…

Sunday

(Sunday, April 15, that is) We left, locked the door behind us, and headed to a friend’s house to spend the night. All week we’d been working towards our departure. The house is empty; the garage full. All the big stuff is gone (Goodwill; sold; given away; or stored in the middle of the garage), the final few random boxes finally cleared out. The car is settled in among everything else, with new oil and the battery disconnected.

The house is locked up tight, the rooms empty, the refrigerator off and open, the toilet valves shut (my son once had a terrible experience where a toilet connection failed while he was gone and he came back to a flooded house; rare, but let’s not take chances, ok?). Our new tenants will be along in a couple of weeks and we want everything to be as perfect for them as we can make it! Meanwhile our downstairs neighbors have been briefed on yard watering, mail pickup, trash day, and all the other exciting details of home management. They’ve been great, and we know we can count on them to keep track of things in our absence. Other neighbors have a house key, and everybody has emergency contact numbers. Ouf! It’s been a busy week.

It all feels great, and we’re ready to leave!

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Sunday night

Now that we’ve got the house settled, we’ll be spending the night with a friend who lives quite near the airport. (It turns out that Uber and Lyft have pretty much killed the regular taxi services, but the “ride sharing services” are at the whim of the driver, and no one is out and about at 5 in the morning, when we’ll need to be at the airport.)

But now it’s Miller time, and after most of a beer I find myself sinking into a state of relaxation. No, actually, I’m falling asleep in the middle of a conversation. But that’s ok, because we’re done until tomorrow, when it’s up at 4:30AM to catch our 6:30 flight! (And Beryl, thanks again for giving up your beauty sleep to get us to the airport at 5AM!)

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Monday Morning

Now we’re relaxing in the lounge at SFO, San Francisco’s airport. Our departure from San Luis was spectacular.  The rain had stopped, the sky was clearing, the sun just below the horizon as we ascended. It’s always special, flying in and out of SLO; seeing those familiar hills from a different perspective. Today there were trails of fog and mist threading the valleys as I tried, mostly in vain, to discern exactly where we were. The hills were that intense green that we only see here for two or three months a year – and seemed mysterious in the half light. I was acutely aware that we were leaving, and that we don’t expect to be back on the Central Coast for a year, maybe more, making the misty landscape unrolling below even more poignant.

It’s a quick flight to SF. I always like that low, slow (well, 150 MPH) arrival over the bay, with the wheels touching down just as the land appears [and hopefully not sooner!]. We’re flying business class on this trip, thanks to careful management of our frequent flyer miles. This first leg was short, but now we’re enjoying one of the perks of Business Class: the United Lounge. Well away from the bustle of the hoi polloi in the main terminal, we can relax in armchairs with our coffee and snacks on a low table. There’s various breakfast options: dry cereal, hot oatmeal, fruits, sugary pastries. Coffee, bien sûr, and a Cappuccino machine (missing il mano del barista, of course, but not bad for all that). There’s also a full bar, but it doesn’t open until 8 AM (and we’d probably have to pay for drinks, unlike the coffee and snacks!).

Paula relaxing at the SFO United Lounge

We do need to get on to our destination, but this lounge almost makes me wish we had a longer layover here!

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Monday Night

Well, that was the wrong thing to say. We are now in a lovely hotel in Newark NJ, scheduled to fly to Madrid on Tuesday. We had a considerable delay in SF; one in which we could have, note, gone back up to the lounge. We did make the first leg of our trip, to Newark, but arrived too late for the flight to Madrid. The airline put us up in a hotel for the night. We had a full day there on Monday, with our flight leaving at 8PM. We thought we might get on over to the Big Apple, only a $5US train ride away, but it was cold outside, and spending a few hours walking around did not appeal. Besides, even in Business Class air travel is exhausting. We rested up and got to the Newark airport extra early.

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Tuesday

The flight to Madrid went well, we arrived OK, and getting to the apartment was pretty simple. The few days we spent in the city were fine, although it will take more time to digest it all. We’re just not really drawn to Madrid. Last year we spent three months in Seville, about two hours south of Madrid, and found it to be lovely, elegant, and sophisticated. Madrid is… well, big. And crowded. Some fantastic monuments, great parks, world-class museums, lots of statues and fountains, but no heart, no romance. Or so it strikes us.

We did lose a day in travel, which cut into our time in Madrid. And we were pretty jet lagged during our time there. We’ll be back in Seville in a week, and will have had time to mull over our experiences of the two cities. Maybe then we’ll have more to say, but for now, it just didn’t light us up.

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Sunday

Here we are, a week into our travels, another Sunday evening. We spent the day walking our legs off in the historical part of Porto. Went down to the river (with thousands of other tourists) and had a very nice late lunch. More explorations in the coming few days, then we’ll be off to Seville for a week. While here we are looking forward to exploring the Duoro wine region (or at least some tasting rooms!), and take a simple river tour.

We’ll have more to say about Porto soon. Meanwhile, here's some photos of monuments and other buildings i found interesting in Madrid.

A modern building near where we stayed. I particularly like the tile work on the turret.

 Oddly, in spite of all the cathedrals built in the New World (and in Spain!) Madrid, the capitol city since 1561, never had one until 1879, when Almudena Cathedral was started, to be finished only recently, in 1991. The interior unusual, with colored ceilings...

Santa María la Real de La Almudena, Madrid's cathedral

Beautiful colored ceiling of the dome

Unusual painted ceiling of the cathedral

View of the organ 

Kilometro Cero, the reference point for highways in Spain, in the pavement in front of the Direccion General de Medios de Comuniacion in Plaza Puerto del Sol, Madrid (those are my toes at the bottom)

Same thing for France, in front of Notre Dame in Paris (Photo from the archives. My archives.)

A monument to Miguel Cervantes. Don Quixote and Sancho are at the bottom, hidden in the trees. In the left background: a monument to Franciso Franco, dictator of Spain until 1975 -- Madrid's first skyscraper.

The huge Royal Palace, with a pretty nice fountain in front

And... the Madrid metro. Not so different from the one in Paris (and elsewhere, presumably). We'll compare the London Underground when we're there in a few months.

Up next:
         Seville, Spain; and probably something about Porto, Portugal

This week, an extra bonus...

There's a timelessness to travel. Especially air travel. Hours spent waiting: waiting in line, waiting in the lounge, waiting in those hard seats at the gate jammed in with hundreds of other zombie travelers. Inside, always inside. (Because, you know, security perimeters and TSA, underwear bombers and drug smugglers. So, don't leave, or it’s the whole security ordeal all over again.) Recycled air and artificial light.

And then you're on the plane! Relief; relax. Nothing to do now but… wait. Wait in a long metal tube crammed with other people. Hours pass. Recycled air and don’t go outside! (It’s -60 degrees F out there! Yikes!)

Finally, arrival at the destination! How exciting! Feeling fuzzed out, dulled by hours of staring at the seat in front, wandering in another vast confusing space with no connection to time or location. Day? Night? Could be either… and you’re plunged into that limbo known as “Jet Lag”.

Travel is so exciting.

Coffee as an Art Form

     28 March 2018 

“Do you want to buy one of these Mr. Coffee makers? They’re on sale for $15”, Paula asked one day shortly after we returned from our fourteen-month European travels. The new school year had just started. We live far enough from Cal Poly, the local campus of the California State University, that we are little affected by the sudden influx of students.  But stores in San Luis, vying for the students’ business, always have school start-up specials. (I got a couple of cases of beer at a great sale price from a supermarket close to student apartments, a loss-leader to get the students’ attention.)

We were resettling into our home again and sorting things out, finding what appliances and utensils we needed after our long absence. But I knew all about making coffee, and an appliance manufacturer’s idea of how to do it did not interest me. Because, you see, a few years back I decided to become a coffee snob.

I felt completely supported in my decision when in the very next week I discovered a commercial coffee roaster only a mile from our house! And just after that I found a classic Italian stovetop espresso maker at a local Goodwill store. Well, three, actually. A large one that had seen heavy use and little cleaning; a small one, never used, that was heavily corroded, and a mid-sized one that was just right. (Really!)

I grew up visiting my Italian grandmother in San Francisco, and she always had one of those aluminum, octagonal pots on her stove. For me it is the very symbol of an Italian kitchen, which is to say an Italian home. So I was very pleased to finally have one of my own!

The classic moka pot, made by Bialetti
(Photo from the article referenced in the text) 

As part of my new coffee snobiness I began to investigate on-line coffee sites and blogs, of which there are a very great many. And I found I was just a neophyte snob: there was much more to know, and so many coffee snobs so much more… snobby than I. And there was so much about ordinary coffee to disdain!

I quickly came to the realization that the ultimate expression of brewing coffee, the technique that led to endless debate and discussion, the darling among the élite of the coffee snobs, was espresso.

Now, espresso is not coffee. They are both a hot-water extract of ground coffee beans, but there the similarity ends. Espresso is made by forcing super-heated water through finely ground coffee at a high pressure. This requires a boiler (only pressurized water will get to the required 225°F/ 107°C) and a pump (to produce the required 9 bar – 130 psi: espresso, after all, means expressed: pressed out under pressure.). The result is a fine, delicate thing; its production is more art than science, although the science part is important, too. To quote an article on Gizmodo:

“To brew great espresso, a confluence of events must occur that marries human judgment with mechanical precision.”

    --- https://gizmodo.com/espresso-101-the-methods-and-machines-behind-the-perfe-484457706

Using the right coffee, correctly roasted, is important; the grind is critical (slight changes in fineness can make or break a good espresso!); so, to, is the temperature and pressure of the water. And, ultimately, it is il mano del barista, the hand of the barista, the human judgment, that determines the quality of the final brew.

It starts with a good machine (the “mechanical precision” part). I bought a real espresso maker, a Gaggia. An Italian brand. I used it for several years, came to understand the principles of making good espresso, how it differed from, you know, just coffee. And the engineer in me reveled in understanding the machinery developed to make espresso. I also began to see where this inexpensive machine cut corners and made compromises to save on cost.

My Gaggia Evolution, a reasonable beginner's machine

Eventually I bought a better machine, a Rancilio. Another Italian company, Rancilio makes commercial espresso machines, those giant, five-foot long chrome-and-enameled monsters common in cafes and bars in Italy (and all over Europe), and increasingly in real coffee shops in the US. The model I got (from a great deal on eBay!) is their only consumer unit, small but solidly made of stainless steel and brass. It furthered my exploration of the art of pulling a good espresso, trying always for that elusive crema, the white, creamy foam on the top of a real espresso (composed of caramelized coffee sugar, according to the chemists). The Rancilio – Rocky to its friends – was a good machine, a great tool for artistic espresso expression; the rest was up to me. Il mano del barista was now my hand!

A Rancilio Miss Silvia much like mine, including an external controller ("PID") for exact water temperature
(image from Flickr user TonalLuminosity via the article referenced in the text)

Every morning I’d go through my ritual of warming up the machine, making sure the water tank was full. Then grind the beans, a three-minute affair with my hand grinder (espresso – and coffee in general – is a sensory experience; I like to feel each bean as it splinters and is crushed), load and tamp the grounds; then hit the switch that runs the pump for a precise 25 seconds. Watch as the precious liquid runs into the tiny cup: how’s the color? The texture? Does the viscosity seem right? Carry the cup to the window and examine the brew: oh, dark with a fine crema today! Try a sip. Ah! Better than yesterday, but not as good, quite, as the day before. Decide on any fine adjustments – a firmer tamp, perhaps, or one notch coarser on the grinder.

 

A commercial espresso machine, this one made by La La Marzocco
(image from the article referenced in the text)

Then carefully weight out another portion of beans and grind them up while the machine reheats from the last pull. Repeat. Looks like a good shot; set it aside and switch on the steam heater. Prepare the milk. Foaming milk with the steam wand takes a delicate touch.  (And I’ve found that some brands of almond milk foam really well; others, not at all.)  The foam was always good, but only about once a week did I achieve a really fine micro-foam. My cappuccinos were always great; every once in a while one would be extraordinary. A gold star morning!

Then we left on our open-ended European trip, and a lot of hard decisions had to be made. I packed up the Racilio. It didn’t seem right that this fine machine should sit unloved until we returned, so I sold it to a friend, Frederic. Now, Frederic comes from Holland, and appreciates the finer things in life, including a good espresso. He readily agreed to take the machine, and I left knowing Rocky was in good hands.

During our six weeks in Italy in Spring of 2017 I finally – finally! – came to fully appreciate espresso. There ain’t much of it in those miniscule cups, only an ounce (30 ml) in the typical shot, and it is a learned experience. To the uninitiated, it can seem bitter and, well, disagreeable.  I like it, but it took an advertising slogan to really drive home what espresso was all about.

There are not many chain stores or restaurants in Italy, or in Europe in general; most shops are individually owned, especially restaurants and cafés. Many cafés, at least in Italy, are sponsored (if that’s the right word) by major coffee companies; cafés tend to serve coffee exclusively from a particular company. One company puts its slogan outside each of its sponsored cafés: Piccoli sorsi di grande piacere: small sips of great pleasure. (See here for more info on coffee in Italy!)

So the patron stands at the espresso bar and sips – or gulps – their tiny cup of espresso, and leaves. Then, for the next 20 minutes or so, the flavor, the sensations from those small sips, lingers and gradually fades: the bitter, the sweet, the sour melding and slowly vanishing. That’s why, in Italy, coffee is never served with meals. Rather, it comes after dessert as the diners relax, savoring and prolonging the pleasures of a fine meal in good company, providing its great pleasure.

 

Tiny sips of great pleasure!

 I contemplated all this as I was making the coffee one morning shortly after our return, hand-boiling the water, carefully pouring it into the filter full of fresh-ground beans, waiting as the water dripped its slow way into the thermos below. And I thought, this is exactly what that coffee machine would do: heat the water, and slowly dribble it through the very same coffee resting in the very same filter. But I wouldn’t have to stand here and watch it. I could go do something else, something more interesting. Play Sudoku, for example…

“Hey, Paula! Buy that Mr. Coffee machine!”

And we’ve been it enjoying ever since. 

(And yes, I do miss Rocky! Every time we visit Frederic and Lynda, our friends in Santa Barbara, I get to sample one of Frederic's fine espressos. And some day, once we settle down a bit, I'll get me another good espresso machine. Because I know Frederic won't be letting go of Rocky...)

Time grows short before our departure! Only 3 weeks left!