Spanish Grand Tour

By David Whiting

We marvelled at Madrid's monumental Plaza Mayor, a square dating from the early 17th century. Small shops and cafes line the arcades. We walked to the Puerta del Sol, site of a former gate, from which all distances in Spain are measured; and past the parliament buildings. We returned past the house where the writer Cervantes (1547-1616) lived and died: he died on the same day as Shakespeare.

Plaza de Espana, Seville (photo: Helen Matthews)

We returned through the Plaza Mayor as far as the 16th century Royal Palace, which has a fine panoramic view of the valley below. King Juan Carlos lives in a palace called La Zarzuela, but uses the royal palace on state occasions. Then to the adjacent cathedral before continuing to the monumental victory arch at the Puerta de Toledo (Toledo Gate).

On a sightseeing tour, we passed El Prado, with the world's best collection of Classical paintings, including Spanish, Flemish and Italian artists. Then the Parque de Retiro and Columbus Square; the Columbus Statue was erected in 1685. We stopped at the bullring, built in 1020, which has 27,000 seats. In ancient times, bulls were allowed to run in city squares. Adjacent is the statue of Dr Alexander Fleming, erected in gratitude for his discovery of penicillin, which saved the lives of many injured bullfighters. Another stop was in a square which has a lovely statue of Cervantes overlooking Don Quixote and his good and faithful servant, Sancho Panza.
We visited Toledo on a day trip from Madrid. This city was founded around 4000 BC on a naturally fortified site, overlooking the River Tajo (Tagus), which flows to the Atlantic Ocean at Lisbon. In AD 711 Arabs (Moors) conquered Spain; they were the most scholarly people of the time and had huge libraries. Around AD 900 craftsmen from Damascus came to Toledo to introduce their damasquino metalwork. Their tradition of making knives and swords is still maintained here. Toledo has changed very little since medieval times; the streets are often narrow and steep.

We visited the splendid cathedral, which has 750 stained-glass windows - half are original. The cathedral treasury contains many crosses made with precious jewels and other religious relics, as well as a 13th century Bible of St Louis (Louis IX of France). The cathedral was founded on the site of the first temple here (5th century) in 1227, but is mostly 14/15th century, finished in 1496. The cathedral is beautifully decorated, especially the choir, with its high reliefs in stone and wood. The magnificent brightly coloured late 15th century retable depicts 24 steps in Jesus's life.

The Sacristy contains numerous works by El Greco, Van Dyck and other artists. El Greco came to Toledo in 1575 after a request in Venice for foreign painters to come to Toledo to paint works for the monastery. We visited a small gallery, part of a church showing El Greco' s chief masterpiece, the burial of El Conde de Orgaz (Burial of the Count of Orgaz).

From Madrid, we headed northwards, stopping in Segovia, once an important Roman city, before continuing to Burgos. We saw the tomb of El Cid in Burgos Cathedral, which was founded in 1221. 

El Cid was born Rodrigo Diaz in the nearby village of Viler. He fought first on the side of the Spanish before changing sides and fighting with the Moors, who named him Sidi, meaning Lord. Later he changed sides again, helping Spain to reconquer Valencia, where he died. His body was finally brought here in 1942.
Nearer to Bilbao, where the rainfall is greater, the fields and trees are greener. Coniferous forests cover the mountainsides, reminiscent of the Tirol. We entered the Basque region to spend the night in Bilbao. It is now famous for its Guggenheim Museum, built in 1997 at a cost of $100 million, looks like a ship and was made of titanium. Outside the front entrance of the Guggenheim is a 'puppy' around 10 metres high, covered in a wide variety of flowers.

We spent a night in Pamplona, famous for an annual festival in July, when bulls are chased through the medieval city streets. Ernest Hemingway wrote about this festival, the Encierro, in his novel The Sun Also Rises. We explored the city, visiting the cathedral, which is mainly plain brick but has several highly decorated chapels and a fine altar. It also contains the tomb of Charles III who founded the cathedral in 1416.
Our next stop was Zaragoza, founded in 14 BC, Spain's 5th largest city and the capital of Aragon. The artist Goya was born here. The huge Basilica de Nuestra Senora del Pilar was built on the spot where the Virgin Mary appeared to St James (the patron saint of Spain) and ordered him to build a church. The present basilica, dating from 1677, has some very rich decoration and a small museum contains jewelled clerical garments, chalices etc, and paintings by Goya. Some Roman fortifications are visible.

Entering Barcelona, we passed the two great towers of the Placa Espana, marking the entrance to the site of the 1929 World Exposition. We continue to Montjuic, named after a medieval Jewish cemetery on the hill; many Jews came to Spain after the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, 70 AD. Below it is the Poble Espanyol, a 'medieval' town of Spanish buildings created for the Expo 1929.

We drove through the botanical gardens, with tropical plants and cacti from Spain, Central and South America. We descended to the port, which is overlooked by a statue, erected in 1880, of Christopher Columbus, who sailed from here to America in 1492.

Picasso studied at Barcelona's Academy of Fine Arts, now the Stock Exchange. Nearby are several large sections of the medieval fortifications. We walked to the cathedral, completed in 1913, although the foundations contain Roman and other ancient stones; there were many beggars on the cathedral steps. The cathedral contains beautifully decorated chapels: I wonder if modem cathedrals will last as long as those built centuries ago? Two years ago, one of the King's daughters was married in this cathedral. She works in a nearby bank, which we pass.

The 1920s bullring is decorated with blue and white tiles, typical of Spain. The bullfight season had finished and there was a circus in the building. We then made a short stop at the Temple de la Sagrada Familia, begun in 1884 by local architect Antonio Gaudi. He died in 1926 (run over by a tram) without leaving any plans for the unfinished church and work stopped until it was decided to recommence in 1940. It is expected to be finished around 2050. Parts of the church were damaged in the Civil War in 1936.

The tomb of Gaudi is in the crypt. The church can be visited by tourists, as can the Gaudi museum in one section of it, but we did not have time. Mila House (1906), another of Gaudi's works, looks like a cliff of the Costa Brava with 60 balconies. His buildings are totally surreal; it's hard to believe his audacity!
We also visited Montserrat ("serrated mountain") and its Benedictine monastery, founded in the 9th century. A Black Madonna was found there in the 12th century, as a result of which it became an important place of pilgrimage. It was rebuilt after being damaged by Napoleon's troops in 1812. It has a remarkable position on a sheer cliff, 100 metres above the valley floor and there are tremendous panoramic views.

When I came here in 1974, the Catalan language was banned under Franco. Now it is the first language. Montserrat attracts an enormous number of tourists and is seriously over-commercialised. Cable cars and walks are provided for the more adventurous to explore the mountains. We took the motorway towards Valencia.
Some rice is grown in this part of Spain. In fact, Valencia is where Spain's national dish, paella, originated. Valencia is Spain's third largest city and is surrounded by orange groves and ceramics factories. The city was captured from the Moors by El Cid in 1094; he died here in 1099.

We arrived late in the afternoon at our hotel and took a bus to the centre where, drinking a beer near the cathedral, there was a sudden series of fireworks and a great explosion, announcing a wedding inside. After the wedding party left, another arrived for the ceremony in one of the chapels. The whole city was awakened by a fireworks display at 12.45 am, evidently part of the wedding celebrations!

We crossed La Mancha, by-passing the city of Albacete (from Arabic Al Basite, the Plain), surrounded by agricultural plains and famous for the manufacture of knives and scissors. The drive along county roads through small towns, all very quiet, amongst vast panoramas of olive trees, was very pleasant. The picking season starts at the end of November. On the approach to Cordoba, the olive groves alternated with cotton fields. Immigrant workers, often from Morocco, come here at harvest times, and there are numerous signs in Arabic.
Cordoba, with a population of 320,000, was an important city under the Romans and Moors; it was founded in 152BC and used to contain over 1,000 mosques. Cordoba's medieval Arabic walls, built on Roman foundations, are complete and form the back walls of many later houses and shops. Some columns have been re-erected on the original foundations of the Roman temple, 14-15 AD. A partly Roman bridge still carries traffic over the River Guadalquivir. The land was recaptured from the Arabs in 1236 and the Mezquita (mosque) was converted into a cathedral. TIle minaret was incorporated into the 16th century cathedral tower; some of the Arabic arches were opened out in the 15th century so that Gothic arches now support the cathedral.

The mosque, formerly the second largest after that at Mecca, was built for 25,000 people. It was the only mosque not correctly aligned to face Mecca. There are hundreds of red and white striped arches and granite and marble columns brought from Arab lands. The cathedral, built 1523-1628, seats only 300 people. The choirstalls and organs were added in 1750.

We walked through some of the ancient lanes and courtyards, with their pretty trees, in the Arab and Jewish quarters. Ferdinand and Isabella prepared for the conquest of Granada in Cordoba. In 1492 they promised Columbus help to get to India, the land of spices, by sailing westwards, as all the lands eastwards were in the hands of the Arabs.

Next stop was Seville. One evening, after dinner, we attended a colourful flamenco show, near the bull ring, in El Patio Sevillano; on the way we passed the former cigarette factory where Bizet's character Cannen worked. The lOO-minute performance comprised dancing to taped and live music. Immense concentration is required for the stamping of feet and heels and the clicking of castanets. The tunes included Granada and Carmen. The costumes are sumptuous; the smart caballeros and the senoritas in their colourful frilly dresses. Flamenco has gypsy and Arab roots and is a medium for the dancers to express their emotions. It is a serious art; will the same be said about rock and roll and break dancing in 50 years? The city is the host for an annual flamenco festival, which attracts around ten million visitors.

We stopped at the beautiful Plaza de Espana, built 1917-1929 for the 1929 World Exposition. Lovely pictures on the walls represent historical events and the various Spanish provinces in alphabetical older. The building now contains Government offices.

Near to the Alcazar (fortress) is the Archive of the Spanish exploration and discovery of South America, containing some 82 million documents. The present Alcazar is the fifth on the site since the first building, a 1st century BC Roman fortress. This building, 1350-1309, was built by Moslems for the Christian rule, and unique in that respect. It is the winter residel1ce of Spain's royal family when in We walked through medieval lanes to the Plaza de Santa Cruz where painter Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1617-62) was buried, marked by a 17th century cross on the site of a church which no longer exists. As we were about to leave the square, another group arrived, accompanied by a minstrel! We passed the house where Murillo lived, now open to the public.

The cathedral was originally built (1184-1198) as a mosque. Two thirds of the minaret and a courtyard of the original remain. The minaret was incorporated into the tower, 98 metres high, known as La Giralda after the weather vane weighing one-and-a-half tons on top. This building was mainly erected in 1434-1517. Two massive pillars are being dismantled as cracks have been found in them; temporary scaffolding is being noisily erected and it is hoped the work will be complete in six months. The monumental tomb of Christopher Columbus stands at one side of the cathedral although three other places claim to have his body. His descendants have now agreed to DNA tests to prove once and for all where he is buried. Opposite his tomb is a grand altar used in the annual procession through the city.

Jerez de la Frontera is famous for the breeding of horses and the production of sherry. The soil here is chalky, ideal for the grapes required. These grapes were introduced into this area by the Phoenicians in the 11th century BC. We visited the Gonzalez Byass Aodega (wine cellars), where Tio Pepe sherry and other brands are produced. The bodega is close to the town's Moorish fortress. The bodega was established in 1835.
We were welcomed in a conch-shaped hall, with barrels bearing the name of every nation to which Tio Pepe sherry is exported. The cellars contain many barrels (amply) dedicated to or autographed by celebrities, including heads of state from many countries, sportsmen etc. There is a small museum, with old bottles and barrels etc.
We drove along the Ruta del Toro, named after the many ranches where fighting bulls are raised. In some parts of Spain, the barbaric so-called sport of bullfighting is gaining fierce opposition, like fox-hunting in Britain. Perhaps soon, both "sports" will be extinct. The land approaching Gibraltar is covered with much woodland and is sparsely populated. We entered Gibraltar through the border town of La Linea.

The entrance to Gibraltar is across the airport runway, controlled by traffic lights. We opted for a 90 minute taxi tour, costing £10 each. British money is interchangeable with Gibraltarian money; Spanish money is equally accepted. The main industries are tourism and philately. The coach park is on reclaimed land. The local taxi-bus took us past the British-built sea defence walls, then past the scene in the 1980s when three IRA members were killed by members of the UK's Special Branch.

There is a vast system of tunnels inside the limestone rock, which was used in World War Two when they housed hospitals, generators and so on. During the war, the entire population could retire into the tunnels. We passed the entrance to a tunnel where, in 1942 Montgomery organized the offensive in North Africa; it is now NATO property. We stopped at Europa Point, near Europe's most southerly mosque, built by the King of Saudi Arabia for the small Arab community of Gibraltar. At this point is the Last Shop in Europe, originally built in 1844 as a magazine to store ammunition; it became a shop in 1965.

We drove up to the Upper Rock area, a protected part. We visited St Michael's Cave, known since Roman times. It was converted into a hospital in World War Two (but never used) and is a cave system; one cave is as large as a cathedral. We also encountered some of the 300 apes, which are wild and dangerous. They will eat anything that remotely looks like food, and they constantly climb on (and if possible into) vehicles. Crossing from Spain into Gibraltar is a simple business, but crossing back into Spain we all had to leave the coach and carry our hand luggage across the border. We headed inland to Granada.

Granada has around 250,000 inhabitants, augmented by some 2.4 million visitors to the Alhambra each year. Although Granada is one of Europe's hottest cities, it has plenty of water as there is snow in the Sierra Nevada for most of the year. The Alhambra (meaning Red Castle) was built by the Moors in the 14th century on the site of a 3000-year-old Iberian settlement, later a Roman town.

The walls of the Alhambra are covered with Arabic patterns and inscriptions from the Koran. The ceiling of the Ambassador's Salon is said to consist of 8,017 pieces of wood, the same number as the verses in the Koran. The Arabs were so technically advanced that they did not use screws, nails or adhesive. The proportions are symmetrical and perfect.

After the Moors were ejected from Spain, Emperor Charles V built a palace in the grounds of the Alhambra in 1526. He ruled an Empire larger than the Roman Empire. Part of the city of the Alhambra was mined by Napoleon's army. Washington Irving wrote his Tales of the Alhambra in Charles V's palace in 1829.
After visiting the Alhambra we walked round the Generalife Gardens, originally built as a private park for the Sultan, although its present Italianate gardens date from after 1492.

After lunch, we walked along The River Barro, past ancient Moorish fortifications and into medieval quarters of narrow steep streets, from where there are grand views of the Alhambra.
The Capilla Real (Royal Chapel), built 1506-1521, contains the tombs of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who wished to be buried on the site of their victory over the Arabs; their coffins are in the crypt beneath their tombs. The adjacent museum contains Isabella's crown and mace, her personal art collection and other treasures. The altarpiece is very colourful and beautiful.

Finally, we visited the Cathedral, which contains an exhibition of religious art and artefacts and a second exhibition concerning Charles V and the city of Granada, with pictures, documents and other objects. There is atmospheric mediaeval background music to take the visitor back in time. Some of the cathedral's beautiful chapels are obscured, but there is a fine organ.

First published in VISA issue 40 (spring 2001)

The Alhambra

by Glen Strachan

Some older (or perhaps I should say longer established) members of the SIG might remember that I was a fairly regular contributor to VISA some years ago. Since my wife Flora and I spent so many years living in the beautiful mountain city of Oaxaca in southern Mexico - and I did write one piece extolling the virtues of that fabulous part of the world - there was little travelling to write about and so I have been absent from this magazine for a long time.

But life changes and after a distinctly scary encounter with the old Grim Reaper in late 2008 which fortunately was concluded with a temporary reprieve for both of us, we decided to come back to Europe for a while and travel around a continent that was our home for more than forty years before we developed a taste for tropical living. Now based in Spain we are picking off some of our outstanding travel targets in that part of the world and a little beyond.

If there is one place in Europe that demonstrates, at a glance, the history of the southern part of the continent, it is surely the wonderful old walled palace of Alhambra which sits proudly within the city limits of the present day Granada.

For the casual visitor the very pleasant city of Granada - a university city with all of the style that usually implies - is a bonus and, while Alhambra’s position and presence cannot be matched, time in Granada itself can be spent very pleasantly in a modern city which is safe, quite walkable and boasts some interesting shops and restaurants - particularly the ones in the areas that include large Arabic populations and businesses.

Granada is the capital city of the province that bears the same name, situated in Andalusia, Spain, and it offers the contrast of being 750 metres above sea level yet less than an hour’s drive from the coast and a similar distance from the ski resorts of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The waters from the melting snows on these mountains empty into the three rivers that run through Granada - the Darro being the principal and the most attractive of these.

The clear influence of the area’s Islamic heritage is seen in the clever use of water in the architecture of Granada and that adds another dimension to this lovely part of Spain - sheltered as the city is beneath the towering, white peaks of the Sierra Nevada.

In addition to the itinerant Spanish student population, there is a considerable smattering of settlers from various countries of South America. This cosmopolitan mix ensures that Granada - although boasting the usual representation of up-market High Street stores that can be seen in almost any major town or city across Europe - has enough variety around its shopping areas to make it very interesting. I have to admit that the sole reason for our visit to the area was to visit the Moorish citadel of Alhambra, but a huge bonus from the trip was finding the very smart city that we really enjoyed exploring in Granada itself.

And so on to the Alhambra. One of our better decisions was to go online ahead of this trip and book a tour guide and Alhambra entry tickets, which spared us the delay of getting in line outside and hoping that there were still places available for the more heavily subscribed areas of the citadel.
Second only to the remarkable Prado Museum in Madrid as a much-visited cultural site in Spain, the decision has been taken to be very careful with the fabric of the Alhambra. That has led to restrictions being placed on the numbers of visitors allowed into the more sensitive areas of a very old and, in some ways, fragile building with great beauty, at any given time of day.

That visitor package costs a little more than simply going it alone but, while we will re-visit the Citadel in the future on our own, the guide was a tremendous asset to new visitors - a history graduate who spoke to his little group of about twenty English speakers from all over the world - by microphone to our collection of headphones. He had a fund of stories about the history of the palace and was not in the slightest troubled at being somewhat politically incorrect and frank when discussing the ‘dirty little secrets’ of Spain’s ruling classes and the shameful way they conducted themselves in order to try to keep their financial misdemeanours hidden with pogroms in an effort to avoid their creditors. It was difficult to imagine such a frank analysis being delivered in a public place during the years when the dictator Franco and his stifling established church persecuted anything resembling free speech and anybody ‘foolish’ enough to utter these truths. That was also a reminder that while the history of Civil War and Inquisitions might be fading in the minds of today’s younger generation - more occupied by their concerns over living in a country that is shamed by the highest unemployment rates in the European Community - such events have scarred too deeply to be fully extinguished.The Alhambra today is wonderful and any visitor with an interest in art or politics will find it to be a veritable paradise that amply explains why so many countries - my own birthplace included - offer theatres named after it. The Alhambra of yesterday must have been spell-binding in most if not all of its ‘incarnations’.

I little thought, as a youth, when enjoying these Christmas shows in Glasgow’s Alhambra Theatre - while Spain was still labouring under the control of the ruthless dictator Franco – that I would one day be able to savour the delights of the original palace in a free secular democratic Spain - but such is life. Progress is not always something achieved overnight - but it is nonetheless sweet when it does eventually arrive.

Advice if you choose to make a visit yourself is to wear something comfortable on your feet, take a supply of liquids - especially if you visit in summer - and make sure you have plenty of space on your camera. There are few more enticing targets for the photographer.

You will be fascinated by the accounts of how that part of Spain (roughly the bottom left corner of the Spanish map as we cartographers know it!) was fought over by the forces of Ibero, the Greeks, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Jews and the Moors (remarkably fighting in tandem) before it fell to Castile in alliance with the Nasrids. Five hundred and twenty years ago (2 January 1492) the Muslim ruler Muhammad XII surrendered Granada to the fabled Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I and the Spanish empire building that would eventually bankrupt the monarchy began in earnest.

It is a spine-chilling experience to stand on the very spot where these decisions that had such prodigious repercussions for much of the globe were made. In the rooms of this palace, the funding was put in place and the schedules set for Christopher Columbus to make the explorations that would lead him to sail into the Bahamas, having slightly miscalculated the whereabouts of his intended target, Japan.

While I have tried to give a rather potted version of the features of this remarkable Nasrid palace city, please do not feel that this is simply some dry, bookish trail for historians. Alhambra is so much more than that and very beautiful, too.

If your taste runs to flamenco, it should be added that this part of Spain offers a raw, gypsy version of the dance called zambra. You will be well satisfied with one of the evening shows presented in narrow rooms where you have to be careful as the performers crash their feet down, inches from yours. Even if dance is not your preference, the music from their accompanying singers is worth a visit on its own. These ventures are controlled by long established gypsy families with all the front of house staff, bar tenders etc being retired dancers themselves. This fabulous, unique entertainment should in no way be confused with, or compared to, the rather homogenized form of that dance available in the tourist traps of Madrid.

In short, this was a great trip to start us off on a series of short visits to various Spanish regions and, while the churches which offer sight of the tombs of the Spanish monarchs of the day were rather dull, the Alhambra and the gypsy part of town at night more than sustained our interest.

First published in VISA 101 (Feb 2012)

Beyond the Alhambra (Spain)

By Helen Matthews

I passed through the doorway and was almost overwhelmed by the cloying scent of jasmine and citrus that filled the courtyard. It was a quiet, calm refuge in the centre of the city, and I appeared to have it to myself. Walking round the cloister, I came to the refectory, a simply furnished room with wooden benches, whitewashed walls and a dark wooden ceiling.

Next was the chapter house, in a similar simple style, with just a few paintings adorning the walls. Outside, the paving stones of the cloister were interspersed with memorial tablets to deceased monks, some of them peeping out from beneath aspidistra pots. The sacristy was another simply-furnished room, which did nothing to prepare me for what was to come.

At length I came to the main church of the monastery. I stepped over the threshold and was transported to a different world. It was decorated in breathtaking contrast to the simplicity of the rest of the monastery, with deep ceiling relief, exuberantly painted walls and ceiling and a gilded altarpiece. A recording of baroque music was playing, so I lingered, enjoying the atmosphere.
Outside the monastery the helpful bilingual plaque explained the disconcerting contrasts within. The monastery of San Jerónimo itself had been founded by the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, and given to the Hieronymite order. Later, the Duchess of Sesa had obtained the main chapel to use as a family vault and it was her architects who had wrought the transformation in order to provide more fitting surroundings for the family memorials.

Near the monastery is the hospital of San Juan de Dios. This is another Renaissance building but its courtyard is very different from the austerity of the monastic cloister. It is decorated with colourful wall paintings and ceramic tiles – perhaps how the monastery would have looked if the Duchess’s decorators had been let loose on the whole monastery . The surprise here is that the building is still in use as a working hospital, and its highly decorative courtyard is full of signs directing patients to various clinics.

Later, wandering around the town, I came across a street market at which old coins, stamps and postcards were for sale. At the end of the street was a large open square thronged with people. At first I imagined that this was a continuation of the market, perhaps selling bric à brac or antiques. On closer inspection, I realised that the women were not fighting over bargains but were seated around tables working with their lace pillows and bobbins. Around the edge were stalls selling patterns and equipment. To add to the feeling of unreality, Mickey Mouse was wandering among the tables selling balloons to the children.

In the nearby Plaza Bib Rambla, Winnie the Pooh was selling the balloons and children were also enjoying rides on a roundabout. At first this appeared to be just an ordinary ride for small children. But on closer inspection, the horses, reindeer and dragons they were riding were made out of old rubber tyres, and the roundabout was powered not by a smelly, noisy generator, but by a bespectacled man serenely riding a bicycle. This was Granada’s ‘ecological carousel’.

My visit to Granada had been full of surprises. Of course I visited the obvious sights as well - the Alhambra, the Royal Chapel and the Cathedral, but sometimes the most memorable parts of a trip are the things that you were not expecting.

First published in VISA 83 (Feb 2009)