long long ago

 

This photo was taken Tuesday morning on approach to MAD Suarezz aiprort. But it reminded me so much of arrivng on my first trip to Spain. It was April of 1999. I arrived the day before my mother who was coming from Anna Maria Island (so I assume now that meant Tampa) and I had come from Chicago. 

And one from 1999 - 

It is strange how some things just stick depsite it being more than a quarter century ago. I remember going to a hotel near the airport and it seemed very rural by comparison to the O'Hare area hotels. But if vague, my distinct recollections of the day were two.  

One, the shade for the window in my small hotel room was a complete novelty. It was a metal shade on the outside of the window and it was part way down. I wanted the room dark to sleep and could not figure out how to make it work (no remote! - ah Americans!) I called the front desk and the guy came to my room and showed me that inside the window frame was a wide fabric tape that raised and lowered the shade and when it was fully lowered the room was pitch black. When it was nearly lowered it had small holes in betwen the metal slats theat let in light but kep the room darkened. and it could go up completely and disappear. Fabulous! Still one of the best ways I have seen.  Security and shade all in one. 

above- tape shown to the left of the window.

The second was that as we came in to land at the airport I could only think of dotted swiss material as we flew low over fields and fields and fields of olive groves.  

Here I will apologize for the antiquated photos: film, rangfinder camera, and then scanned decades later at a high speed scanner company that would do a whole box for a flat rate. (I had 15,000 photosa scanned.) When my mother arrived we got a car and drove to Toledo our first stop. We had planned this trtip for fifteen+ days exploring Andalucia. 

We spent two nights here overlooking the city from the parador. We took a cab into the city to explore the sites. Then we headed to Ubeda for the Parador (we only styed in Paradors on this trip.)  We went to a number of pueblas blancos and stopped in Ronda, Arcos de la Frontera, Carmona, Cordoba, Granada (where we stayed in the Alhambra) and finally a number of days in Madrid. 

Our trip had its challenging moments mostly due to the fact that my extremly recent Michelin Road map was out of date as they had literally a month before renumberd all the roads to coordinate with their EU status. LOL So we relied upon roundabouts with "direction to X" as our route LOL

Some photos from long long ago- with captions if I can figure out where we were.

The view from our room in the parador in Arcos de la Frontera

Quite possibly Sevilla  but could be Carmona, or Arcos- LOL 

The Adriatico Building (which is right across the street from my current bank in Spain!)

The Giralda in Sevilla - nearly 20 years ago- 

The Plaza in front of the Alcazar - I loved the Alcazar and Sevilla so much I decided to go to Morocco the very next year.

View of the bull ring in Sevilla from the top of the Giralda. We live just off the lower right hand corner of the picture now. Such a strange thing and I so wish my mother could see us now - she would be totally in love with the choices we have made to move to Spain.

Pictures from my first visit to the Mezquite in Cordoba

And the Alhambra

oru room was in this courtyard of the convento (now parador) of the Alhambra-

Some views of Ronda

Ubeda (and Jaen - which we did from Ubeda)

The view from our room

my first glimpse of a local procession- this was in Arcos-

A few from Madrid 

It was a great trip and one of the last ones where my mother was in good enough health to fully participate. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in the later part of 1999 and never went to Morocco with me (she had been before.) Although she lived another ten years her health got worse. In 2002 we took a trip to the Baltics with my Aunt - just we three - and she fell and things got wosre. But she rallied and came on my first Croatia trip with me (brought my Aunt as her roomate and helper) but that was 2005 and after that I think she only did river cruises in North America. Other than China (in 1987) she never saw Asia and she never got to South America but she still (for her cohort) was an intrepid explroer. 

I became a better photographer because that way she could "go" on the trips with me, as I continued my travels. And when she died, I scattered her ashes for years in countries she had never visited, as a way for her to keep on exploring the world. 💔💝

Road trip - Ronda

 So Jean & Tim arrived back in town late on Thursday night. Then Friday they went out to explore the city and we had Leslie. We met up for coffee  and a light lunch at Santa Gloria. Dnner that night was at Islamorada where they have the amazing tortilla trufada (Spanish omelette with truffle). The guys had the big shrimp and avocado dish. We drank a large pitcher of cava sangria. MITO on the way home (the one in Postigo not our regular) then walked back via Guichot to drop Tim off at his hotel. An easy evening with only a bit of drama when a full glass of sangria broke at the bottom of the bowl and flooded Jean's side of the table with wine. Luckily it was white not red.

The next day we were off on a road trip adventure to Ronda and Gibraltar. We stopped at a roadhouse on the road to Ronda for lunch. We had a simple meal: chicken for Phil, eggs for Jean, a burger for Tim and I had "albondigas" (meatballs.) there were literally more than a hundred people here for Saturday lunch. Some in a large dining room and some in the garden and we ate in a small dining room off the bar with a fireplace. Very atmospheric if not gourmet.

Then on to Ronda and Palacio Hemingway our hotel for the night.  Our short trip out of Sevilla this weekend started with a night in Ronda. It has an absolutely spectacular setting on the top of the mountain. The old town and new town are joined by a bridge over a steep ravine with a stream that runs through it. We went out in the very late afternoon to take a walk aorund town.

Below the hotel - which was less than a block off the birdge and in the oldest part of the city 

The bridge over the ravine and some views into the valley below- 

view of old town from the bridge-

the countryside from the bridge-

The new town, seen from the bridge with the afternoon shadow of the bridge projected onto the cliffside.

We walked to the bullring - one of the oldest in Spain and a favorite of Hemingway's 

 

a nearby park overlooking the countryside below-

We also stopped for coffee and churros at an excellent place right on Plaza Espagna. They had a choice of sauces I went for a delicious dulce de leche and Phil had the nutella 

Later we met up with Tim & Jean and made the short walk to dinner. We had virtually all the food as Tim skipped dinner and just had wine.  And Jean only had the EXCELLENT canelloni. Phil and I shared the tartar with the bone marrow. Then he had the giant lamb dish and I had the pastrami sandwich. 

The next morning we were off to La Linea, the border town by Gibraltar.