¡Viva España! (And Portugal)

Ordinarily I try to space out my trips so that I get over the jet-lag in between them, but when the door of opportunity opens, you run through it even if your laundry from the first trip is still drying. Less than a week after getting back from my family holiday in the Southwest, I flew to Europe with a friend to tour Spain and Portugal!

The Telefónica Building in Madrid. Because
isn't telecommunications the first think you'd
assume would be housed in this building?

It was a bit of a whirlwind tour, and anybody who has been to either country is going to be horrified at the places we had to skip over (Grenada, Valencia, Porto…). But we did manage to pack a lot into eight days, so forgive me if this post ends up being nothing more than a laundry list of “cool stuff we saw in Spain.”

Montserrat, which, the day we visited, was mobbed
with locals participating in a folk dance competition

We started in Barcelona, a city turned into a fairyland by art nouveau even before Gaudí made it a fever dream of curves and stalactites.

One of Wagner's Valkyries in the
concert hall of the Palau de Música

I’m going to offend every Catalan in the world by admitting that the Sagrada Família is not my favorite cathedral. I liked it better when I first saw it more than twenty years ago. Back then, it only had the four iconic towers that are still on all the magnets and postcards. 

A postcard I got on my first trip
to Barcelona in 2003

With all the additions since then, it’s starting to feel…overwrought.

The guide said they're planning on something
like 18 towers by the end, if they ever finish.

I remain a Gaudí fan, though. Casa Batlló, with its underwater theme, was one of the highlights of our trip.

You have to love that Gaudí made even the gables
and chimneys look like they're part of a sea monster.

After Barcelona, it was on to Madrid, where we arrived the same day as President Zelenskyy. He met with the king; we weren’t invited. But we did see the palace the next day, which is as close as we were ever going to get.

The royal palace, in which we did not meet
anyone famous

When we looked up “things to do in Madrid,” the first ads were always for day trips outside of Madrid. It’s a nice city, but aside from the Prado, which we did visit, about the most exciting thing we experienced there was seeing a random young woman practicing her falconry at the Puerta de Alcalá.

It's where I'd fly my falcon if I had one.

So what did we do? We took at day trip outside of Madrid! Toledo was probably my favorite city among all the places we visited, despite the fact that I had such a sore throat I could barely swallow. However, the sore throat gave me an excuse to practice my Spanish on a local pharmacist!

Toledo, a dream of tile roofs and winding streets

They were decorating for the upcoming
Feast of Corpus Christi.

As we left the capital, we passed through la Mancha, the region known for Manchego cheese, windmills, and the mad old knight who fought them. 

Three far-off windmills, easily mistaken for giants
by knights of a certain persuasion.

 I love Don Quixote, so I was delighted to see him popping up everywhere.

The man of la Mancha himself!

We drove through fields of wheat, sunflowers, and olive trees…

This is what sunflowers look like when you
photograph them from the window of a bus
going 65 mph on a Spanish highway.

 

…to Córdoba, with its mind-boggling mosque-cathedral. It’s almost impossible to imagine that in the middle of this enormous eighth-century mosque...

...there’s an ornate Renaissance church!

My favorite spot in Seville, our next city, was the Plaza de España, built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Expo (which, as far as I can tell, was a World’s Fair in which only the US, Portugal, Spain, and its colonies participated).

Beware influencers on bridges: they never move.

Aside from the ubiquitous Instagrammers, who would blithely monopolize the most beautiful spots for five minutes at a time while they posed for the perfect Insta shot, it was a delightful celebration of Spain’s architectural history.

Each province had a decorated tile bench
depicting an episode from its history.

While the rest of the group visited Columbus’s tomb in the cathedral, my friend and I opted to explore the Real Alcázar, a royal residence begun by the Muslim rulers of Al-Andalus and expanded and added onto after the Reconquista.

The Real Alcázar gardens, seen from
the second-story promenade

What we loved about this place was how it went on and on and on, room after room, garden after garden, each more ornate than the last. You could spend years wandering from room to room and notice new details every time.

The inside of a decorated door arch

A trip to Seville wouldn’t be complete without an evening of Flamenco. Sadly, something I ate at lunch decidedly did not agree with me, and I had to send away the lovely dinner they served at the show, but I still managed to enjoy the drama of the dance!

Flamenco at the Tablao. I had to go black
and white because the spotlight was
glaringly bright red.

We spent our last two days in Lisbon, but on the way, we stopped at a little town called Azeitão, where we had a tour of a tile workshop. Of course we saw tons of decorative tile on the walls of buildings and in the souvenir shops, but this was the only place where we saw it handmade by Portuguese craftsmen and -women, and I loved seeing the process. The results were much nicer than the machine-made versions in the shops.

Tiles have to air dry for months before being fired,
glazed, and fired again. It's worth the wait.

And then Lisbon! This was the only city where our hotel wasn’t walking distance to the historic district, so I felt the loss of the opportunity to explore on foot, which we’d done everywhere else (sometimes racking up 8 or 9 miles in a day). But we did get to visit some of the most famous monuments…

The Tower of Belém, guarding the mouth
of the Tagus River where it meets the sea

…as well as Jerónimos Monastery, with its beautiful soaring arches and peaceful cloister.

On our last day, we saw Queluz Palace, which, aside from being an immoderately fancy house...

 

...is also interesting because it has so much original furniture and decoration from the 18^th century.

 

The Ambassador's Room, complete
with an audience on the ceiling

Then a quick stop in the resort town of Cascais to see the Atlantic up close…

 

…and another in Cabo da Roca to see it from a little farther away.

 

Cabo da Roca is the westernmost point in
continental Europe. Naturally, the lighthouse
was under scaffolding. Our usual luck.

And the next day, it was back off home. We shall pass over the interminable flight delays in silence. There is so much still to see in Spain and Portugal, and the history is so fascinating, I would genuinely love to visit again soon. And I my Portuguese may be limited to “good morning” and “thank you,” but at least in Spain I can ask, “¿Donde están los aseos?” And I might even understand the answer!

I occupied this spot for approximately
five seconds. I'm not an influencer.

Canyons, Grand and Otherwise

When my dad and I visited the Grand Canyon five years ago, we didn’t know we were location scouting for another vacation. But as it turned out, this ended up being the spot for our first family holiday since my sister got married in 2015. And what a holiday it was!

The view from our room at the Sahara.

The five of us (parents, sister, brother-in-law, and yours truly) met up in Las Vegas, piled into a rental minivan, and road-tripped through three states in just over a week.

Home, home on the range...

We started on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, where my typical luck held good and we got clouds and rain and even lightning. Just like the last time I was there!

When the sky looks like this and you hear thunder,
take the shuttle back to the Village for lunch!

But we all agreed that the canyon is at its grandest in a storm.

Fortunately, most of the rain stayed
on the North Rim.

 

We stopped in Monument Valley, but the road was closed due to flooding, so we had to be satisfied with taking pictures from the visitors’ center. Fortunately, as Dad and I knew from last time, that just happens to be the place to take in the most iconic view, so we didn’t feel cheated by the weather.

The image that's on all the postcards,
courtesy of the visitors' center parking lot

Then it was off to Antelope Canyon, where, just by coincidence, our tour’s time slot happened to fall during the period in the day when you get those beautiful shafts of light filtering through the sandstone. It was magical.

 

No caption needed!

We spent two days in Page, Arizona, where we had a lot of fun despite being in the nastiest hotel (0/10 do not recommend cockroaches for roommates). We made friends with a local crow…

 

That's our rental car he's perched on.

…visited Horseshoe Bend…

Hard to get a nice picture when the afternoon
sun is right in your eyes!

 …and took a boat tour of Navajo Canyon on Lake Powell.

 

Same views as the house boats,
fraction of the price!

We were happier with our lodgings in Panguitch, Utah, a town as cute as its name.

Welcome to the Old West!

But we only stayed one night before moving on to Bryce Canyon. Our visit there happened to coincide with a hiking field trip from a local school, so we shared the trail with several hundred third-graders who were vociferous in their objections to a forced march under the summer sun.

The hoodoo called Thor's Hammer. You
can get a Lego kit of it in the gift shop.
I'm serious!

Our last stop was Zion National Park, where we hopped on and off the shuttle from the visitors’ center all the way to the Temple of Sinawava. After the gob-smacking scale of the Grand Canyon and the bizarre landscape of Bryce, Zion is bound to feel somewhat…ordinary. But it was pleasant to return to a land of water and green things after being in the desert for a week!

Some of the trees were only just
getting their leaves in late May!

I usually like to visit new places when I travel, but this trip was a reminder of the value of retracing one’s own footsteps. Not only did I get to share this stunning landscape with members of my family who hadn’t been there before, but I myself got to see it in a different year, in different light, under a different sky. 

Sunset on the South Rim

Its beauty, I suspect, could never become mundane, no matter how many times it’s seen. I guess I’ll find out, if I go a third time!

North and South (of England)

Often, I take courses to further my research and teaching. Occasionally, those courses are held in other countries. This year, my course was held in the country where my beloved sister and her husband live. So it was off to Merry Old England for a week-long course in sixteenth-century typography at the London Rare Book School. It was riveting. I swear I have perfectly normal interests and hobbies!

With my sister and brother-in-law at York Minster

But before I learned about kerns, serifs, and fallen type, I got to spend a week with my sister and brother-in-law in Durham, visiting nearby castles and cathedrals and ruined abbeys. It was windy and occasionally rainy and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more.

Durham (the one in England, not the one in North Carolina)

Durham Castle was, sadly, closed to the public because it was graduation week for the university. (Why do they need the whole castle for the whole week??)

As close as I could get to Durham Castle

But I did get to visit the imposing clifftop cathedral, built in the twelfth century.

Durham Cathedral

Note the varied patterns on the pillars!

From Durham, we took day trips to other stunning sites in the area, starting with Alnwick Castle. Have a go at saying that name aloud; I’ll wait. If you correctly guessed “Annick,” you are far smarter than me.

Alnwick Castle, one-time home of Harry "Hotspur" Percy, for you Shakespeare fans

 

Aside from its refusal to acknowledge all the consonants in its name, Alnwick is one of the most interesting places in the North of England. It has gorgeous flower gardens…

I've never seen so many delphiniums!

 

…threatening statues on the ramparts… 

Don't attack Alnwick Castle!

…and a poison garden. That’s right: it’s got a garden made up entirely of plants that want to kill you. Or get you high.
 

Giant hogweed, which causes severe burns for up to seven years after exposure

Cannabis, which, unlike the hogweed, they keep in a cage

After Alnwick, we spent a day in York, probably my favorite city in England.

York Oratory, with the Minster in the background

The ruins of St. Mary's Abbey

 

I’d been to York several times but had never taken the Chocolate Story Tour. As a chocolate fan, I have to say I recommend it! York is the home of Rowntree, the company that brought us Kit Kats and Aero Bars. It’s hard to go wrong with a history like that.

The tour's double attraction: history and lots of chocolate!

Next up was Bamburgh Castle, which has been a fortification since the Anglo-Saxon period (which you know if you watch The Last Kingdom, where it goes by its historic name, Bebbanburg).

 

The pedestrian approach to Bamburgh Castle

Yes, they have absolutely jumped on the Last Kingdom bandwagon

One of the things I liked about Bamburgh is that, even though it’s a tourist destination, it’s not as crowded as the places near London. So instead of being hurried from room to room for the sake of crowd control, we could linger wherever something caught our interest.

A cheeky gargoyle

Our last stop in the North was Holy Island, a magical place you can only access between high tides. 

The Holy Island Causeway at low tide

 The signs warn you what can happen if you try to cross when the road is flooded.

"Warning: This could be you." The photo is of a flooded car.

On Holy Island are the ruins of Lindisfarne Monastery, home to St. Cuthbert, the patron saint of Northumbria. The shocking raid on the monastery in 793 is now often cited as the beginning of the Viking Age.

Lindisfarne Monastery

The ruins don’t date from that time, though; the monastery was rebuilt in the Norman period and only fell to ruin after the Dissolution in the sixteenth century.

The cross at the top of St. Mary's Church, seen through the monastery ruins

A half-hour’s walk from the monastery is Lindisfarne Castle, which dates to the sixteenth century itself.
 

Lindisfarne Castle

But the inside is fitted up to look as it did a hundred years ago when it was a retreat for artists. The writer Lytton Strachey seems not to have enjoyed the place very much: they have quotes from him all over the castle, complaining about the wind and the wet.

The desk in Lytton Strachey's room

 

After our adventures in Northumbria, my sister and I took the train south for London Rare Book School (she was taking a different course but at the same time, so we had a week of very nerdy fun together). 

Senate House Library, home of LRBS classes

We didn’t have a lot of time for sight-seeing, so mostly I took pictures of interesting buildings when we were walking from place to place.

Seven Dials at night

 

A vacant building given over to green space

Whimsical chimneys on Chancery Lane

Our last adventure (for this trip) was a visit to Leigh-on-Sea, hosted by my sister’s very kind extended in-laws. There we explored Belfair Wood…

Two roads diverged in a [green] wood....

…and Old Leigh…

High Street in Old Leigh

 …and the beaches along the Thames estuary.

Cockle boats on the mud flats at low tide

I couldn’t think of a better way to end my time in England. We had a little taste of everything, north to south, urban to rural. I can’t wait to visit again.