On the way home

At Christmas you could buy a belén. In Semana Santa...

A monstrance, a tabernacle, and a selection of crowns and halos - wow.

Madrid has so many fantastic domes, rooftops and rooftop statues. Given the wonderful sky up here, hasta al cielo, it's hardly surprising.

Ah well, it's the last day of the holiday. I'll try to blog again before the end of June!

Easter Sunday

We had planned a trip to the mountains today, to Cercedilla, which lies a little way north of Madrid, in the Sierra Guadarrama. We thought we'd take a long walk (for us!) and a picnic. Then yesterday, we had a small hailstorm. Hmm. Habibi checked the weather forecast, and discovered that we could expect temperatures of between 3 and -4C, and snow.

So we wrapped up warm, picked up our sunglasses, and headed for Plaza Mayor and the drum parade instead. Note the glorious blue sky and fluffy white clouds. What you can't see is the wind, which blows those clouds past the sun like a policeman directing traffic across a junction. With no clouds in the way, and the sun shining directly down on you, it's a beautiful warm day, and you can feel the glow on your face, or back. Thirty seconds and a few clouds later, it's freezing! And then the sun breaks through again. So there we all were,
under the watchful eye of Felipe II,

and his rather cute deputy (What is it about the selection process for Madrid police officers?)
in front of what used to be the headquarters of the bakers' guild(?!).

listening to the drums.


Cool!

And then we came home, because it was too cold to be out unless you had antifreeze in your veins, or several hundred people to huddle for warmth with. We kept to the sunny side of every street. (Google says it's a max of 9 and min of 0C, with a 19kmph wind from the NW if you're interested. Sheesh! Wind chill factor!)

Good Friday

First an honour guard.

Then the penitents, carrying long wax candles, keeping slow pace with the drums of the marching band, far behind.
Next, Mary, Queen of Sorrows.
At the church, her bearers turned her to face the open door, and set her down. The band played a slow march, and the crowd began to sing. After a few minutes, the bearers lifted her up again, slowly turned her 90 degrees, and moved on.
As they came closer, we realised that all the bearers were women; thirty-two of them, all moving in slow rhythm. The palanquin was chased with silver, and draped in black velvet, with a circle of silver stars in the canopy above her head. She carried the crown of thorns on a white cloth.

A group of women came next, in formal black, with high combs and black mantillas. The first marching band passed, and we could hear the second one in the distance. Ahead of the second palanquin walked a girl swinging an incense burner, and another group of penitents. These were members of a different hermandad, or brotherhood, from the first group, and wore different coloured robes.

The Crucifixion. This time, thirty-two men carried the solid wood platform banked with red roses. The four candles were unlit. As before, they stopped at the church door before moving on again. When they picked up the palanquin again, the movement was so slow and smooth that it seemed to float up and round. After this, the second band passed, in uniforms straight out of a Goya painting.


Finally the bishop, and a number of clergy and lay people brought up the rear, many of them carrying votive candles. After that, the crowd dispersed, but an hour later, the procession passed through Plaza Santa Ana, and there, I think, having walked, played, and carried those palanquins for two and a half hours, they finished.

Members of the first band.

The women in black.

It was a strange experience. For the people in the procession, and many of the people lining the street, this was a significant silent procession. Yet there were people talking and cameras flashing everywhere, and when the procession halted, relatives of some of the walkers stepped in to take photographs. There were even one or two people taking shortcuts behind the walkers! All religious practices become tourist attractions in the end. I should know, I was there with my camera.

Toledo 4 - a grand day out

Did I mention marzipan shops? Note the marzipan Semana Santa penitents (yes, the ones who like mini klansmen). You can buy your marzipan in the shops, or go direct to the convents where the nuns make it. (It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it...)



I couldn't believe it, first that it was possible to reproduce the interior of the Transito Synagogue and one end of the Cathedral in marzipan for a window display, and second, that I didn't take pictures.......

Something for him - a suit of armour perhaps? Maybe a nice sword?

Leaving Toledo: screening baggage.

I don't know. A tourist. English, I think. Nice.
Toledo's authentic Mozarabic railway station. Built 1319. I mean 1913. Very handsome inside, too.
Sigh.........................

Toledo 3 preservation

First the Romans came, then the Visigoths established their capital, then the Moors established theirs, then came Isabel of Castile and Fernando II of Aragon, known in Spain as Los Reyes Catolicos. Toledo has a lot of history for a little place. It's called la ciudad de las tres culturas (the city of the three cultures) because in between religious and political upheavals, this is a city where Christians, Muslims and Jews managed in to live in something like peace. It shows in the architecture and the street names.

The city walls are ancient,
as are the bridges which span the river, which surrounds the city on three sides.
Actually, some parts are younger than others, what with assorted armed struggles, the expansion of the city, plus time and weather of course.



The stone ball on the left, for instance.
There are some seriously handsome buildings here, all in daily use.

There are odd signs of delapidation, of course (It's a city, not a theme park.)
but nothing prepares you for this,

and this,
or this. The pristine building with the filled in the window stands at the top of the slope, and the metalwork starts halfway down. Which makes me wonder about the condition of the building at the top of the slope, before they restored it......................

Across town, there's this.

But these are its neighbours. And all the houses in the surrounding streets are sound.
Both the middle and right-hand houses have had a lot of work done on their facades - and some serious structural work throughout, I imagine! In every Spanish city I've visited, I've seen variations on this: brace what can be salvaged, knock out what can't, and rebuild so it looks just the way it used to, only spanking new! Cities expand with modern tower blocks, but the old hearts are preserved.

Consequently, in places like Toledo, they still need stonemasons
and specialist glassmakers.

Oh yes - and housepainters! None of this stonework is stone.
None of this brickwork is brick........

Looking good.
This, on the other hand, is all authentic.
The trompe l'oeil paintwork may raise the hackles of purists (and some examples are better executed than others) but one of the challenges here, as in most cities, is the trickling away of young people. The apartment blocks may not be pretty, but they're modern, sound and relatively affordable. What price handcut stone and traditionally manufactured (i.e. obsolete) bricks? (It's a holiday. Let's not talk about career opportunities and entry-level salaries for Spain's university graduates....)
If these old places can be restored as affordable homes rather than souvenir shops, I think that's a blow for real life. Maybe a bit of weathering and a window box or two?

Toledo 2 - mineral, animal, vegetable

Today we took a high speed train to a medieval city. OK, it wasn't the AVE (Alta Velocidad) but it was definitely pointy and shiny, and got us from Madrid to Toledo in half an hour.
Then we caught the No. 22 bus outside the railway station, at €1.80 for the two of us. If it had been a roasting hot day, I might have gone for the plush coach in the station forecourt, at €2.50 each, which I presume provides a mini-tour. On our 10-minute bus ride, we had the old city - the Casco Viejo - rising on our left, the Rio Tajo (River Tagus) on our right, and beyond the river, the modern city of Toledo spread across the plain and up and between the hills.

Hills. I was glad we were wearing comfortable shoes, and had left the fat guidebook at home. The old city is no urban sprawl, nor are its roads clogged with traffic, so although there is much to see, you can take your time visiting the churches and synagogues, the cafes and restaurants, the marzipan shops and the souvenir shops, as you wander up and down, and up...... and down........ and up....... and down the streets and alleys of this fascinating place. There's even a MacDonalds for emergencies.

I can't remember whether it's Toledo or Sevilla that's known as 'the frying pan of Spain', but the narrow lanes and tree-filled plazas suggest that shade is quite important here! We enjoyed the sun and shade on our springtime day out.

The guidebooks cite two 'must see' buildings in Toledo: the Alcazar, and the Cathedral.

Actually, it would be difficult to miss the imposing Alcazar with its four elegant turrets, but unfortunately, you can't go inside at the moment, because it is in the process of being turned into an army museum.

However, you can walk round the outside. The bus has one stop only, in Plaza Zocodover, the old souk; and the Alcazabar - everything, in fact - is just up the road. At 10 a.m. the street, Cuesta de Carlos V, was cool, and the facade rather glum and unappealing (medieval Barclays Bank just across the road!), but round the corner there's a plaza overlooking a small park, the river, and the Academia de Infantería. and if you keep going round, you find this turret, perched incongruously on the fourth corner,
and then the new front entrance, in a really handsome modern facade, and a plaque announcing the Museo del Ejercicio (Army). Like most alcazas (Moorish fortresses) this one has been altered and extended with the passing of centuries and the fortunes of war. Most recently, Toledo was besieged by Franco's Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War.
The Cathedral is the other landmark on the skyline. It has the ugliest spire I have ever seen, all lumps and nobbles, prefiguring Gaudi's Sagrada Familia (great church, shame about the spires). So, no photo here! Buuuuut, here is part of the cloister. where restoration continues.
I despatched Habibi to a bar (poor henpecked husband), and spent €7 and an hour and a half in the Cathedral. I'd have been at least another hour, but we had a train to catch!

It's a remarkable place, though too full to be appreciated as a whole. History again: the cathedral, which took centuries to build, replaces the original mosque, which was demolished after the Reconquista; and the spectacular Coro (choir) was plonked down in the middle of it some time later. Certainly, if you appreciate craftsmanship in carved wood and alabaster; wrought iron, gold and silver; stained glass windows and painted ceilings, go see.

Usually, I am struck by the scale and airiness of cathedrals - massive man-made caverns of rock, full of cool shadows and glowing with coloured light - and by the craftsmanship and devotion of the generations of artesans whose work has gone into realising these monuments to the glory of God. On this occasion, no. I realise, now, that it wasn't just because of the Coro, but because my only experience has been of Gothic cathedrals, and the aesthetic is quite different. Not only that, England experienced the Reformation, and the smashing and desecration of churches and cathedrals. You can still see the headless statues and empty niches of pre-Reformation churches, but who knows how much gold and silver was looted, how many windows were smashed, and frescoes painted over, never to be restored?

Even so, the Spanish monarchy and nobility famously poured the fortunes of the New World into their churches, and Toledo was the capital of Catholic Spain until 1561 (when Philip II presumably took the AVE to Madrid). A different aesthetic. A different climate too. Sun bad. The cathedral would be very dark if it weren't for the Transparente - basically a hole in the ceiling, which directs sunlight onto an enormous altar. (And electricity.)

And yet. This is Semana Santa (Holy Week), commemorating Christ's suffering, death and resurrection, and there are masses and processions taking place all over the country, from Wednesday to Sunday, with public holidays on Wednesday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. In a corner of the cathedral, you could see the floats (?) (palanquins?) for the procession. They were massive. The first had lifesize carvings of Christ and his two companions in the Garden of Gethsemane, with the apostles asleep on the rocky ground, and Christ gazing up at an olive tree. I thought that this was a wagon, with two heavy wooden shafts at the front and red velvet curtains covering the wheels, but of course, it couldn't be, not with steps, doorways and winding, crowded streets to negotiate: there must have been two more shafts behind. The second palanquin had Christ in a loincloth, tied to a whipping post; the third, the crucifixion; the fourth, his mother in sky blue cloak, and under a canopy, reaching forward beseechingly; the fifth, Christ on the cross, dead, with one arm dangling. I was brought up Catholic, and went through two Catholic schools, so this imagery - quite apart from the appalling suffering represented - is part of me, but again, while Christ's death and resurrection are central to the Catholic faith, you don't see anything like this in post-Reformation England.

OK, hands up if you know what a monstrance is? As in demonstrate, or show. It's basically an ornamental stand for a symbolic wafer (Christ as the bread of life). I have never seen anything on a par with the 16th Century monstrance in the cathedral sacristy, named the Custodia de Arfe after the goldsmith who made it. This thing is a vertical cathedral in itself, taller than me, made entirely of gold and silver, and weighing over 200kg, with saints like model soldiers in niches all over it, and a statuette of Christ up high. Apparently it is brought out for the annual Corpus Christi procession; they must mortgage the city to cover the insurance.

The Coro is magnificent, and I was lucky to be in there when an English speaking guide brought her group in. I recommend the guides!

One of my favourite rooms was the Capilla de la Torre (Chapel Tower) containing portraits of all the bishops of Toledo, going back to the 7th Century (as I recall). The earlier bishops are painted straight onto the wall, in chronological order, by a single artist; with framed portraits of their successors below them. It's interesting to see how the portraiture has changed in style and - I think - purpose. The most recent portrait is not just photo-realistic, I suspect that it was painted from a photo; and yet the sitter is made to appear as secondary to his office. All the faces are fascinating. The anteroom is also lovely, the upper walls painted with an orchard of many different kinds of fruit tree.

The other beautiful room, decades into painstaking restoration work, is the sala capitular (chapter house) which represents stories from the New Testament in pictures. The walls and curved ceiling show the effects of time, with some paintings completely gone, and others partially damaged, partially restored. One corner is devoted to the Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel appeared to tell Mary that she was going to have a child. Beautiful.

Embroidery fans takes note: there is also a suite of rooms containing bishops' copes and mitres going back to the 16th Century, with tapestry bible scenes, and angels with really celestial satin stitch wings in rich greens, blues and reds on the copes, and stylised carnations and birds on the mitres. And sinuous gold work half a centimetre thick on both.

No photos indoors, but here's a very handsome doorway!

There's a lot more to enjoy, even if you never set foot indoors. Round the corner from the cathedral is the Museo de Santa Cruz,
and its cat,
and its cat lady.
In fact, Toledo is full of handsome stone churches and other buildings,
interesting flora,
and fauna.

Toledo 1 - buds and blossoms

Magdalena Abakanowicz at the Palacio Cristal

In El Jardin del Buen Retiro - Retiro for short - there's a wonderful building, the Palacio de Cristal, which I've written about before. It was built in the late 19th-early 20th century as an exhibition centre, and nowadays, as a satellite of the Museo Nacional Centro Reina Sofia (the Reina Sofia for short!) it is a venue for art exhibitions - smack in the middle of the park!

The current exhibition, called La corte del rey Arthur, or King Arthur's Court, charts the themes that have preoccupied Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz through several decades. I really, really liked this, and the links go some way to explain the flow of her ideas. The artist also designed a canopy to fit the peculiar design of the Palacio de Cristal, and the result is quite spectacularly successful. There is lots of space around the sculptures, enabling people to move freely, and to stop and reflect without causing an obstruction or being edged along by a flow of bodies. Daylight filters through the white canopy, so that every piece is perfectly lit, without shadows, and full of energy. At the same time, the frequent curving gaps in the canvas frame individual pieces so that you can see them in isolation. I loved it. It was only later, though, that I noticed the wonderful shadows that the camera had picked up, as the exhibition hall became part of the exhibition. Marvellous. I must go again.

Spring has sprung

Ya es primavera, according to El Corte Inglés. And who am I to argue, especially when there are:


daisies in the grass........buds on the trees.........
and caterpillars on the pavements..........................

If you're not a fan of creepy-crawlies, these little guys won't change your opinion. Habibi spotted them wriggling nose-to-tail outside Retiro, three days after I'd spotted another four in a row on the other side of town. When I pointed them out, all four people with me shot back, crying "Don't touch them! Don't touch them!" Never mind that these cute little fluffies do not turn into butterflies, they pack a sting like a cigarette burn. After messing with one of these, Stuart's beloved pooch nearly died, and had to be whisked off to the vet. So don't touch them!

And please, please, don't eat the daisies, either.

P.S. A link to Iberian Nature, and a video on the Pine Processionary Moth and its orugas (caterpillars). Scroll down: As every Spanish child knows, don't even think about handling the hairy caterpillars of the pine processionary moth ( procesionarias in Spanish). If they are touched, their hairs release an extremely nasty allergic skin reaction. Children have been known to go temporarily blind from rubbing their eyes after picking them up. They live in easily identifiable silvery nests in pine trees throughout Mediterranean Spain and get their name from their habit of forming head-to-tail trails as they move across land. Also see Forum on pine processionary caterpillarsIn depth look at the problem of the Pine processionary caterpillar (Thaumetopoea pityocampa).

¿Salimos a dar un paseo? Sunday in the Park

Retiro's the place to go on a Sunday, even a grey, cold, damp Sunday. On a fresh, sunny Sunday, though, it's hard to beat, if you want to get out of your flat, clear your head, go for a walk, take the baby out, walk your dog, meet your friends, have a coffee, have a picnic, have lunch, jog, run, skateboard, rollerblade, ride your bike, ride your scooter, row on the lake, read, meditate, listen to buskers, join a drumming session, watch a puppet show, have your cards read, sit for a portrait - or a caricature! - go to an exhibition, feed the ducks, feed the carp, feed the turtles, practise yoga or tai chi, or capoeira or kick-boxing, juggle, skip, work out, play with your yo-yo, stretch out on the grass and count clouds, snooze under a tree .......

Sundays....... what a drag.......