Segovia: Snow and Meat in Old Castile

After a week in Madrid we hopped on the high speed train for the half hour trip up to Segovia. Rather than do a quick day trip and back to Madrid, as most do, we decided to book 2 nights there, to do our site-seeing (and meal-taking) at a more leisurely pace, and get the feel of living behind the old walls of the city for a couple days.  

It was cold when we left Madrid, but we were very surprised to arrive in Segovia and find it snowing! The kids were very excited to see it, and spent lots of time catching snowflakes on their tongue, and even making a snowball. 

The reception at the hotel was the least friendly of our entire trip so far - and that's saying something. (Several places in China come to mind, along with our late arrival at the dump we stayed at in Perth.) I said "Hola" and was given a long look up and down before the nice man condescended to reply with "Hola" and then turn his back on me to continue on with whatever he was doing.  But we did eventually get checked in, and got some small measure of revenge later when he wad forced to come and fix the safe in our room, due to the presence of his manager at the reception desk when I informed him of the problem.

We had a few other incidents like this in Segovia - unfriendly bartenders, etc - though most people were pleasant and/or professional. Maybe they just get burned out on tourists, or maybe the cold weather had everybody down. 

But not us.  We had arrived in time for lunch (at 2pm) and we intended to make the most of it.  A place called Restaurante Jose y Maria had come highly recommended, and we found it just off the Plaza Mayor. The food is Castillian and the specialties are Corderito Asado and Cochinillo Asado, respectively roast baby lamb and roast suckling pig.  But first we were brought a small dish to tide us over - tripa. We did our best with it and even had E and D take a bite, though we didn't exactly tell them what it was. We ordered our standard vino tinto, and they wisely brought us a whole bottle. We also ordered an ensalada verde - we make a point of ordering this with every meal as the Spanish cuisine is otherwise fairly light on vegetables - and a roast vegetable plate, which was delicious. And we opted for the corderito. Most of the other diners opted for the cochinillo, and we got to watch the show. They come out splayed over big clay dishes, hooves splayed, snout high, ears wrinkled and crispy, and a slight smile - it looked as though they were flying, perhaps from this world into the next. The professional waiters then serve it up, using a plate to cut the cochinillo into about 6 servings - cutting it up with a plate demonstrates that it is cooked just right. The corderito had less fanfare, but was unbelievably good - better even than the cochinillo (which we had the next day). The wine was delicious, the corderito exquisite and, not wanting the meal to end, we kept ordering things - dessert, Porto, coffee, until finally there was no choice but to leave, 2+ hours later.

In high spirits we stumbled across the plaza mayor and into the cold, vast, and somber Catedral. It was begun in the early 1500s and is considered the last major gothic cathedral, in all of Europe I think. We saw gruesome relics - bone shards from obscure saints, and countless paintings and alterpieces, some dating back to the 12th century. 

The next day we had our cafe, churros y chocolate, y tortilla espanola, then set out for the roman aqueduct. It spans 9 miles and was still used to bring water to the city up until about 100 yrs ago. At the entrance to the old city it crosses a gorge, and rises to a height of about 100 feet, above a structure of two levels of arches, constructed of giant granite blocks, assembled with no mortar, no cement. It has to be one of the most amazing roman-built structures still in existence in the world, though there is apparently some disagreement about whether it was in fact built in the 1st century AD by the Romans. There are no records in existence of its construction, and some claimed that it was actually built 1000s of years before the Romans, though the best explanation I heard is that it was built by the devil. Apparently there was a woman who toiled every day to carry water the long distance from it's source to her husband. The devil appeared one day during her long journey and asked how he could be of assistance. The woman struck a bargain with him: her soul, but only if he could build her something to transport the water to her front door, and have it done before the call of the first rooster the next morning. The devil and his minions toiled all night, and had but one last stone to place when they heard the first rooster the next morning. The devil left, humiliated, the woman kept her soul, and the town of Segovia gained an aqueduct.

We tried a different restaurant for lunch, and had the cochinillo this time, and the fanfare was even greater as, after delivering a speech and then chopping up the cochinillo with the plate the chef yelled "Buen Provecho!" and raised his arms into the air, letting the plate crash to the floor behind him as he did so.

After lunch we went to the Alcazar, the restored castle/fortress at the edge of the walled city. Like the one in Toledo, it was built on the foundation of an old roman fortress. It's an extremely iconic, Disney-esque castle to behold from the exterior, but much of that is owed to 18th and 19th century restorations and additions. But because of those it was extremely well preserved and really neat to walk around. After having seen the royal palace in Madrid it was really interesting to see how a previous generation of kings would have lived. Big heavy wooden dining table and chairs, and thrones in the throne room. Ornate decorations on the ceilings, and religious paintings everywhere, including one of St James "the moorslayer" with bloody moors' heads rolling around at his horse's feet.

On our way back to our hotel we wandered through the old narrow streets, bundled up in all of our warm clothes and hats and gloves, catching snowflakes on our tongues, and enjoying immensely this corner of old, old Spain. And now we are on another train, speeding south to a warmer, and possibly even older corner of Spain. Next stop: Cordoba.

The First Days of Winter

I am so woefully behind on my blog entries! I‘ll just start where we are and then can try to fill in the older stuff.

We finally arrived in Madrid about a week ago after traveling 30 hours from New Zealand – almost half way around the world (the longitude of New Zealand is about 174 E and that of Spain is 4 W). It was long but not as bad as we thought it would be. We have been flying on all sorts of cheap airlines where you have to pay extra for everything. For this trip with flew with Emirates and felt like kings when we actually got food and drinks, free movies and pillows and blankets!

Our first day here was the hardest – we were so tired. After checking into our hotel we decided that the best thing we could do was to walk around in the sun and try to stay awake as long as we could. The weather was beautiful when we arrived, just like a sunny Southern California winter day. We walked up to the Plaza Mayor and sat outside to snack on some tapas. All of us were tired but David was the most tired and we had to keep poking him to keep him awake.

Slowly we adjusted to not just the time difference, but Spanish time. We are eating lunch at 3pm and having a snack at 9pm. We went out one night for tapeo – going from one tapas bar to another. The kids were not as excited about it as we were, but they tolerated it for the chorizo.

Tapas y vino

It has been a change from New Zealand, where it felt like we were going to see nature like mountains and beaches, we are now back in the big city and seeing cultural and history sight seeing. The Prado was spectacular, particularly the Goyas. David was not a fan Goya and in fact refused to look at or listen to the audio guide about “Saturn Devouring His Children” because it was too scary. Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” was also cool to see in person because you can appreciate all of the freaky detail. We actually found that all of the freaky stuff seemed a little less strange after we saw much of the other art depicting the judgment day from the same era such as people with animal heads and winged demon creatures. While the kids liked seeing all of the art, they really enjoyed visiting the Royal Palace and seeing the opulence of the 18^th century.

We also had the chance to see Picasso’s “Guernica” at the Reina Sofia Museum. It was incredible to see it in person – it is so huge – 11 feet high and nearly 26 feet long. There was a series of photographs that illustrated how Picasso developed the painting including features that were later replaced or removed in the final painting. The collection of Dali paintings were also amazing, not so much because they were his most famous, but because they reflected so many different periods in his work, not just his surrealist works.

One day we took the train out to Toledo. It was a great contrast to Madrid. While Madrid feels very European, it doesn’t’ feel particularly Spanish. It looks more like Paris, which is not surprising since it was built in the mid-1500s by kings originally hailing from France. Toledo, on the other hand, feels very Spanish with wrought iron, red tile roofs, and narrow, winding cobblestone streets. We had fun trying to navigate the streets and make our way to the cathedral and the Santo Tome chapel to see the El Greco.

We had been really looking forward to visiting the Alcazar in Toledo – a castle built on the site of a Roman fort. It had been heavily bombed in the Spanish civil war when it was under siege and had been recently restored (more like remodeled) and opened. At the entry were the excavated Roman remains, including a well, after this point, we were totally lost in the most

The best view of the Alcazar

tedious military museum ever. To be fair, we were still jet lagged as we were trying our best to find our way around, but it seemed to be a huge place filled with lots of nothing that had long confusing explanations. I think we enjoyed it the most viewing it from the city walls below!

After a few days in Madrid, the warmth of what we took to be an early spring quickly disappeared (we optimistically thought we had managed to avoid winter). While the sun was still mostly out, the temperature went back to normal – around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Even with all of our clothes on, we were still cold. We finally indulged in a winter shopping spree of more socks and sweaters. This was a big adjustment from months of shorts and flops.

After our week in Madrid, we are ready to go on to explore more Spain. We’re starting off with a few days in Segovia (North of Madrid) and then heading south to hopefully warmer Andalucía (Cordoba, Granada, Ronda, and Sevilla). After that, we haven’t decided anything yet, but are getting tempted to visit Portugal.

Camper Van New Zealand

Lots of people had told us that the best way to see NZ was via camper van (aka motorhome). We thought chilling in Devonport and sailing the Hauraki Gulf were not such bad ways either, but we wanted to see more of the south island and camper van seemed the best way. So we booked a 4 berth motorhome out of Christchurch, and flew down there from Auckland to pick it up. Campervanning is a high-class affair in NZ. The people from Kea picked us up at the airport, served us coffee on a silver platter at the office, gave us tons of helpful information and maps, and showed us around our home on wheels for the next 12 days. I was maybe as nervous taking the helm of that beast as I was of the sailboat - driving a giant motorhome through the cramped parking area, and out onto the wrong (left) side of the street - but I got the hang of it quickly and felt comfortable the rest of trip.

We drove west out of Christchurch and quickly headed up into the mountains, straight into the heart of Rohan and Gondor. We skirted Eisengard and made quickly for the safety of Helms Deep, with Aragon and Legolas serving as forward scouts...

It felt that way anyways, especially when we put Zep 4 on and listened to the Battle of Evermore and the Misty Mountain Hop. The scenery was instantly spectacular: grassy plains dotted with rocky spires, crisscrossed by granite strewn river beds, gushing with turquoise green water, and huge mountains rising up above everything. We stopped for a quick hike and found a limestone cave with a stream that runs for a good 1/2 mile underground. We weren't exactly equipped for that, but we did thoroughly explore the first 10 yards or so. 

We camped at Arthurs Pass that night, beside a river, surrounded by huge mountains. It was cold at night and the wind picked up and blew the motorhome back and forth, but we were snug in our beds. Earlier, before the wind had picked up, we had a visit from a large, greenish parrot-like bird called a Kea, the name sake of our camper van rental company. Keas are extremely intelligent and curious, and this one came right up to us, inspected various socks and things we had laid out, and generally hung around waiting for us to give him food, which we knew better than to do.

Day 2, after a late start, brought us to the beautifully-named Greymouth, on the west coast. We stayed at a holiday park on a beautiful beach. We had to share it with lots of other campers, unlike the night before when we had our riverside spot all to ourselves, and we learned that the benefits of power, playgrounds, and showers are outweighed by the benefits of having a beautiful spot all to yourself. 

Day 3 we drove down the coast to near the Franz Joseph glacier, and before we knew it we were climbing into a small helicopter for an up-close tour of the glaciers. Outside of Antarctica, this is the only place glaciers are found so near to the coast and at such low elevation. It's striking setting out from a lush, tropical, fern-covered area, and minutes later being up in the icy, rocky, barren mountaintops. It was my first helicopter ride, which was cool enough in itself, but flying over the glaciers and yet more LOTR settings was incredible. The glaciers were striated and cracked in places, and the pilot told us that some of the crevasses were 100 meters deep. I won't try to describe them any more - the pictures will do them more justice.

Rather than continue down to Queenstown and the Fiordland we decided to turn around and spend the rest of our time exploring the north part of the south island. We had already seen the fiords from the cruiseship, and we wanted to have some time explore the north, do some kayaking, etc. We stayed at a nice lakeside campground that night, and we headed north. We spent the next night in Westport, again at a beautiful stretch of beach, and after stopping to see the seal colony the next morning, and the pancake rocks, we turned inland to cut across to the north coast. We made it to Old Macdonalds Farm, a nice campground on the edge of the Abel Tasman national park, and we settled in for 3 nights there. Most of the park can only be accessed on foot or via boat. We opted for a little of each: we took a water taxi to one beach, hiked a couple hours across to another beach, and spent the afternoon lounging before getting picked up again by the water taxi. The tide was so extreme that the boat had to be towed out about half a mile by a tractor to reach the water when we left, but when we returned that afternoon the water had come all the way back in, and the boat pulled right up to the dock. The next day we took a beautiful kayak ride with our friendly Kiwi guide Brett (who pronounced his name Brit, and I was not sure all day whether it was actually Brit or Brett until I finally asked). We saw the split apple rock and had gourmet coffee freshly prepared on the beach by Brit, I mean Brett. Later he took the kids spelunking and showed us some creepy giant bugs that live inside the caves. Again we slept well that night.

We set off the next day for Nelson, and after spending a good part of the day taking care of business (taxes!) at an Internet cafe we found a funky little campground in the Maitai valley with a great little swimming hole. Unfortunately we couldn't spend too much time there because of the awful little biting flies (a problem to varying degrees throughout NZ). We moved on the next day to Picton, found a nice campground, and spent the next day on a beautiful hike out to "the snout" of a little peninsula that jutted into the Queen Charlotte Sound. This is within the Marlborough Sounds area, a beautiful corner of NZ known especially for it's wine. The view from our hike was spectacular, with bright green islets and peninsulas everywhere jutting into the turquoise water. The landscape is all thick green tropical vegetation, with millions of deafening crickets. David occupied himself by cricket-spotting, and stopped when he got to 60! 

We headed down the spectacular northeast coast of the south island, with seals everywhere. I kept spotting them for miles from the car and finally pulled over at a random spot on the side of the road, got out, and sure enough there were 15 or 20 of them sprawled on the rocks just 20 or so feet below us. After a while we turned inland and made our way to Hanmer Springs. This was more touristy and developed than we had been expecting, and arriving on the weekend didn't help, but we all enjoyed the water slides at the hot springs park, and mommy and daddy had a nice stinky soak in a sulfery pool while the kids did even more water sliding. We made our way back to Christchurch for the last night, dropped the motorhome off early the next morning (with no new dents!) and caught a flight back to Auckland. 

We picked up our rental car and drove out to the Coromandel Peninsula, and we reached the hot water beach at the perfect low tide time. There is thermal activity under the beach, and at low tide you can dig your own hole (or take over someone else's after they've left - my recommended strategy) and soak in your own hot tub on the beach! The thermal activity is extreme, and in parts the sand is actually too hot to sit on, so you have to get it just right. Next to us was a small hole that someone had obviously started digging but gave up on because it was too hot, and every few minutes someone would walk by and step in it and let out a quick painful "Youch!" before jumping out and moving on.

We stayed at a friendly B&B nearby for our last 2 nights in NZ. The next day we ran some errands and had some lunch, and then found out that Christchurch, where we had been only 24 hours earlier, had been hit by yet another earthquake. They had had a 7.1, I think, about 6 months prior, and luckily no loss of life in that one, though still fairly extensive damage. But this one was quickly proving to be a different story, and as the details emerged we were shocked and saddened by the destruction and loss of life. And at the same time we were grateful that we had left when we did, though I couldn't help but think how LA is overdue for another major quake, and wonder whether we are any better prepared than Christchurch was.

We enjoyed our time in NZ immensely and were sad to leave, though excited to begin the final, European phase of our year of traveling, and especially excited to begin it in Spain!

Sydney Sights and Manly

We arrived in Sydney after sleeping about an hour on the red-eye from Perth. The sun was just rising over the clouds as we began our descent into the airport. We got all of our stuff and got a cab to take us to our apartment in Manly, a town across the harbor from Sydney. On our way we drove straight through the city – past the Opera House and across theSydney Bridge – and got our sightseeing in for the day.

It is different than Western Australia. It is humid and more lush and tropical. There are people everywhere – we were getting used to towns of 200 and Perth wasn’t even that big. I guess it isn’t surprising when the whole population of Sydney (about 4.3 million) is nearly double that of the whole state of Western Australia.

When we arrived in Manly, we still had a few hours to kill before we could get into the apartment. We decided the best way to stay awake would be to hunt for nearby geocaches. Our first wasn’t too difficult but it was on a pier in a pretty busy place so we just had to keep looking out for muggles (non-geocachers). The second was more challenging. Dylan’s phone died so we couldn’t use the GPS anymore and just knew that it was near a bench on this little peninsula….that went on with tons of benches for about a half-mile. We searched in trees, under rocks and in dead logs but had no luck. I was a little freaked out because we noticed that there were spiders everywhere. After reading Bill Bryson’s book, In a Sunburnt Country, I was pretty sure that every living creature in Australia was poisonous and wanted to kill me. A few days later we found out that in our sleep-deprived state we had actually been looking on the wrong peninsula all together!

We have been spending most of our time at the beach. Manly is located on a narrow peninsula, one side of which faces the Sydney harbor and the other side faces the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately the ocean side has been plagued with blue bottle jellyfish pretty much since we arrived so not much surfing, but the harbor side is great for swimming. There are clear, blobby jellyfish on the harbor side too, but they are apparently harmless ones (according to the aquarium). You end up paddling right through them when you are out swimming – SO squishy. I still jump every time I touch one. It also kind of distracts you from the prospect of sharks.

There is also lots of hiking and open space nearby. We have hiked and searched for geocaches on the whole North Point peninsula, winding through arid eucalyptus and lush tropical palms and vine. It is beautiful and the thought of all of the deadly snakes, spiders, and lizards keeps you on your toes. We saw several huge monitor lizards both in the bush and right along the sidewalk!

We have gone over to Sydney a few times on the ferry. It takes about a half-hour and is a beautiful tour of the harbor, going right by the opera house and just in front of the Sydney Bridge. We have visited all of the places necessary

to highlight the deadly creatures of Australia – the aquarium and the wild animal center.

At the aquarium they had a huge exhibit on jellyfish. They are a pretty big deal here. The most notorious (and deadly) one is the box jellyfish. They are found up north of here, around the Great Barrier Reef. Summer is the big season for them and they are the main reason we are not venturing north. They also had a huge shark exhibit that included a gigantic tank filled with sharks, fish, rays and turtles with clear tunnels running underneath so you could feel submerged with them. The sharks would glide just a foot over your head!

The other dangerous animal in the north is the saltwater crocodile. There are only about 1-2 attacks per year here but I think it is the stealthy, speedy, deadly nature of the attacks that are so scary. There was one at the wild animal center. It didn’t move anything but it’s eyes as we watched it and it was still scary. The one we saw was only about 15 feet long but he was considered a small one.

The kids were especially excited to see the kangaroos and the koalas. We were lucky to see a koala actually moving! Koalas apparently have very small brains – partly as a result of eating very toxic plants and needing to use all their energy to process these plants. There were five or six other koalas in the enclosure and none of them moved at all.

We had planned to go to the zoo but it started raining as we pulled into Sydney so we opted for the Maritime museum which was right at the pier. It ended up being a great detour. We got to tour a naval battleship, a naval submarine and a replica of Captain Cook’s boat, the Endeavour. Both the battleship and the submarine have been maintained as they were while they were in use so each was like a time warp back to the 1960s. The submarine was especially interesting as my cousin had been on one when he was in the navy. I can’t imagine how he did it – weeks at a time in that small space underwater. I get claustrophobic on Captain Nemo’s Submarine – that deathtrap they call a ride – at Disneyland.

Since we will soon be heading off to New Zealand and are both starting to read a book about Captain Cook, the tour of the Endeavour was especially interesting. Like the naval ship and sub, they had all of the original furnishings on the boat. We got to see the galley, the hammocks where the crew slept, the officers’ quarters, and the rooms where Joseph Banks (the rich naturalist) and his entourage stayed. They had volunteers in each section of the boat to explain the details, which was especially great for the kiddies. The boat is still taken out for special excursions, with one starting in April to circumnavigate Australia for a year (www.endeavourvoyages.com.au). You live and work on the boat, performing the tasks of crew. We are already scheming how to get back!

A big part of our time in Manly has also been getting our next travel plans in order. Researching and booking our next move always ends up taking up more time than one might think. It is a good problem to have but just not something that we had quite anticipated at the outset of the trip. Until now, the longest trip we’ve had to book was for two weeks and that was all in one place! After a few more days here, we’ll head off on a cruise to New Zealand that will take us through Melbourne, Tasmania, the Fjordlands (in NZ), Dunedin, Christchurch, Tauranga and finally, Auckland.

New Year's resolutions

Words of wisdom from the Harvey Dickson Country Music Center in Boyup Brook, Western Australia.