Sorry You Couldn't Come Along – Page 8 – Out & About With Amanda & Jim

Canyons of the Southwest

Having enjoyed our National Parks trip (Yellowstone, Teton, etc.) 6 years ago, we signed up in January for a New York Times sponsored trip to the canyons of Utah and Arizona to take place in September. In April, Jim suffered from a debilitating physical condition that necessitated cancelling a May trip to China. In June, with the final payment date for the Canyon trip approaching, although much improved, it did not seem prudent for Jim to go on what the itinerary described as a strenuous trip. He graciously agreed to let me go and for son Ken to be his surrogate. Photos are courtesy of Ken.

Our trip started in Las Vegas. Here we are at the “Grand Canal” at The Venetian. Over a dinner of tapas, we met the other participants, the tour leaders and the New York Times Expert, Jim Robbins. Jim has written for the NYTimes for over 35 years, mostly on science and environmental issues. He also wrote for The Christian Science Monitor. In addition, he has done research on the polygamist groups of the Mormon Church. His commentary and lectures during the trip were informative and fascinating.

Through the Mojave Desert and on to Zion National Park.

We left the glitter of Las Vegas and traveled through the Mojave Desert with its Joshua Trees dotting the landscape. A stop in a park for lunch and introductions before we reached Zion. Zion became a national park in 1919. It is characterized by its sheer multicolored walls of sandstone narrow canyons and the Virgin River which runs through them. We hiked the Riverside Walk which follows the Virgin River to the narrows, a spot where the canyon walls come close enough to the river to necessitate continuing in the water, we turned back at this point. Along the way we saw hanging gardens, plants holding on to the sides of the canyon walls. Night in Springdale.

Zion Day 2

After breakfast at the Zion Lodge, we hiked the Emerald Pools Trail, a wooded hike that leads to a waterfall and the lower Emerald Pool. The path ended where it had been washed out by a flash flood in July of this year. Flash floods, occurring mostly during monsoon season (July and August) turn the calm Virgin River into a raging force.

On the way to Bryce.

We made our way to Bryce National Park passing through some spectacular scenery, saw Smokey and heard a lecture by Jim Robbins over lunch.

What’s a HooDoo?

Bryce Canyon is not a canyon, but rather a collection of natural amphitheaters. It became a National Park in 1928. The HooDoos are the geological structures that fill the amphitheaters. The towers of rocks were formed by years of wind and water erosion that carved away some of the rock. The word hoodoo may come from voodoo and the legend told by the Ancestral Puebloans that a powerful Coyote turned some evil people into stone. Either way, the resulting structures are spectacular. Bryce Canyon got its name from an early Mormon pioneer named Ebenezer Bryce who described the canyon as “a helluva place to loose a cow” Our hike down into the HooDoos included passing through “Wall Street” with its 200 foot tall cliffs and a sighting of “Queen Victoria.’

Sunrise Over the HooDoos.

We ventured out early, in the dark to catch the first glimpses of the sun as it lit up Bryce Canyon. Definitely worth braving the chilly morning air.

Grand Staircase-Ecalante National Monument.

Bill Clinton designated this area, nearly 1.9 million acres a national monument in 1996. In 2017, it was reduced to 1 million acres by presidential proclamation It was the last land to be mapped in the contiguous United States. It is a mostly undeveloped area of canyons, mesas, plateaus and river valleys. Another lecture along the way. Ken and I opted for the more challenging Lower Calf Creek Falls Hike through a canyon to a waterfall. We were rewarded for our efforts, trudging through sand, with the spectacular waterfall. Ken took a swim.

Glen Canyon Dam, Lake Powell and Antelope Canyon.

Leaving the HooDoos behind after another spectacular sunrise, we made our way to Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. Glen Canyon Dam was completed in 1966 and is named for the canyon flooded by the Lake Powell reservoir. Lake Powell is named for John Wesley Powell, who led the first boat expedition of the Grand Canyon in 1869. This was after he lost an arm to a cannonball in the Battle of Shiloh. Glen Canyon Dam was built to ensure equal water rights to the Upper Basin (Colorado, Wyoming, and most of New Mexico and Utah) and the Lower Basin (California, Nevada and most of Arizona). Unfortunately, with the prolonged drought in the area, there are concerns about the ability of the reservoir to meet the needs of agriculture and cities dependent on the Colorado River for water. The talk given by Jim Robbins at this stop gave a somewhat bleak outlook for the situation. Lake Powell, our evening destination is a popular recreation area, especially with boaters.

After lunch, we headed to the town of Page, Arizona where, after a brief visit to the Powell Museum, we took a tour of the Antelope Canyon on the Navajo Reservation. The Navajo name for the Canyon translates into “the place where water runs through rocks,” which is fitting since flash floods in the monsoon season carved away the sandstone in the slot canyon. To get to the Canyon you must take a tour organized by Native Americans. We climbed into the back of a pick-up truck fitted with bench seats holding 6 or 7 on a side. There were three seatbelts on each side which the driver explained was to keep the passengers from standing up and getting bounced out. Bounce was an understatement. We arrived at a clearing before an entrance to the Canyon (along with hundreds of other tourists). Our guide Nate set everyone’s phone or camera to the best setting to capture the beautiful colors. Supposedly, the highest price ever paid for a photograph, $6.5 million, was one taken in the Canyon in 2014.

A side note about time zones: Our hotel on Lake Powell was in Page, Arizona and was on Mountain Standard Time, the nearby Navajo Reservation was on Mountain Daylight Time, so our electronic devices, depending on which cell tower they were picking up, could display different times even when situated next to each other.

On our way to the Grand Canyon.

Our first stop was Horseshoe Bend in Glen Canyon, a widely photographed area where the Colorado River makes a sharp turn around a sandstone escarpment. I understand the railings were a recent addition – yikes! The view was spectacular.

We made a brief stop at Cameron Trading Post, open since 1916. A wide offering from trinkets to exquisite weaving, but nothing to tempt us.

Wow! It’s the first word that comes to mind when you see the Grand Canyon. I had visited the Grand Canyon in 1980 with my brother and I remembered that it was beautiful and that it snowed in May. The Grand Canyon was designated a National Monument in 1908 and a National Park in 1919 by an act of Congress. It is 277 river miles long, roughly 4,000 feet deep and on average, 10 miles across.

After lunch which included a serenade by one of the enormous ravens, we explored the south rim, where our hotel, The Thunderbird Lodge was located. Our group began a hike down the Bright Angel Trail, but many turned back deciding that the trail edge was too daunting. We explored the Kolb Studio, where there was an exhibit of plein air paintings created as a part of a special celebration of art event. Many of the buildings on the South Rim were designed by Mary Colter early in the 20th century.

After dinner, Ken and I explored the trail leading to Hermits Rest.

Grand Canyon Day Two.

We started out the day with a guided walk on The Trail of Time, led by a geologist from the Grand Canyon Field Institute. The Trail of Time is an interpretive path representing one billion years of time and the corresponding geological timeline.

After we collected our hiker’s lunches, the group split up into the ambitious, less ambitious, and non-ambitious. Ken, of course, was in the ambitious group (2 plus guide) who went to walk part of the South Kaibab Trail. As the guide was leaving he asked if it was okay to take pictures of Ken doing dangerous things – what’s a mother to say? From the guidebook description “the trail travels on ridge lines with expansive views.” Ken descended 1 1/2 miles or 1,500 vertical feet, had lunch, did some dangerous stuff, and hiked back out. His pictures are below.

I opted for the less ambitious outing which included taking the bus to the Hermits Rest to enjoy the views and a short hike to one of the other lookout points. I then headed back to the hotel where I ran into Ken. We then headed out to the Abyss with our watercolors. The Abyss is a lookout point where the canyon walls drop 2,600 feet, once again providing a spectacular view.

Last Day.

We got up early and hiked down part of the Bright Angel Trail to view the sunrise, it did not disappoint. After breakfast we stopped by the History Room to see a fireplace made of rocks of the Grand Canyon in geological order.

Then into the vans for the trip to the airport in Phoenix with a stop at a Mexican restaurant in Sedona, the only Mexican food on our trip. We traveled through the Sonoran Desert, distinguished by the Saguaro Cactus. The trip ended with a red-eye flight back to Boston and we went from 100 degrees to 60.

Malta. Small, Not Simple.

Malta is the smallest member state in the European Union. It is also the fastest growing economically and, since the Arab Spring scared tourists away from North Africa, has recently doubled its tourism from around one million to two million per year. Not bad for a country with about 430,000 inhabitants.

Most people come for beach vacations (people sometimes swim even in January) or on cruise ships. We started thinking about Malta when we lived in Belgium, a wonderful place with consistently dreary weather. Having sampled Spain and Morocco for our sunshine fix, Malta seemed like a beach destination with an exotic twist, we didn’t know anyone who had been there and the lore of the Knights of Malta made it intriguing. In that 30 years, Malta has undoubtedly changed quite a lot, but so have we.

History buffs know Malta as the European bastion against the Ottoman Empire in the days when the Turks laid siege to Vienna (as well as Malta) and as the home of that Order of Knights of The Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (Knights Hospitaller), otherwise known as the Knights of Malta (phew).

Indeed, this weekly In Guardia performance in Fort St. Elmo draws a good crowd (almost everyone sat in the shade on our side of the parade ground, carting chairs over from the sunny side). It was close by the apartment we rented for a week in the heart of the 16th century capital of Valletta.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of Malta and of this fort – Fort Saint Angelo – to the discouragement of the Ottomans, for it was the redoubt that saved the Knights from complete disaster in1565 and put a dent in the Ottoman reputation for invincibility. But, it’s not in Valletta.

Sparing you too much detail, this painting in the Grand Master’s Palace in Valletta provides some idea of the lay of the strategic land figuring in that Great Siege. It depicts where the Ottoman forces were arrayed at some point in the siege. Valletta is at the tip of that peninsula separating two big harbors. It’s where the Knights should have built their fortress and where they did build it after their close call with the Ottomans. That harbor on the right is the Grand Harbor and it’s the biggest natural harbor in the Mediterranean.

Not all of the harbors in Malta are enormous. Some are really quaint and charming, like this one at Marsaxlokk, a fishing village of about 3,500 people. Your intrepid travelers got there by the local bus, which is the way we went everywhere on the main island of Malta (except across those enormous harbors in the painting).

We started our exploration in Mdina, the inland Maltese capital before the Knights arrived in 1530 after they were chased out of Rhodes.

As a medieval citadel it has quite a view over the land it commanded. In the distance is St. Paul’s Bay, as in where he had his famous shipwreck.

It’s quiet inside Mdina. Only about 500 people live there now and it’s popular with tourists.

St. Paul’s cathedral reminds us that it was here that Paul converted the Roman governor Publius and healed Publius’ father. Publius is supposed to be buried under the altar. The floor, of course, consists of the mosaic overlay over tombs filling the sanctuary, a common sight.

To find a bite to eat, we went outside the walls of Mdina to Rabat and followed GPS through a maze of streets. If “Rabat” seems like Arabic, it is. It’s the word for a suburb outside a citadel. The Maltese language is the only Semitic language written with a Roman alphabet. It has incorporated lots of Italian and a smattering of other languages.

From Mdina, we headed to the coast on the opposite side of the island from Valletta and deep back into time

To two Neolithic temple sites – Hagar Qim and Mnajdra – that overlook the sea.

Dating from 3600-3200 BC, Malta’s Neolithic temples are the world’s oldest freestanding stone structures, significantly older than places like Stonehenge or the Pyramids.

For us, this was one of those “who knew?” moments. The holes in the curved walls seem to have been for astronomical observation, something like Stonehenge.

This is a motif repeated frequently in the temple complexes

Along with the recurring theme of what they refer to as the “Fat Lady,” although that tends to minimize the achievements of these people who did not have metal tools, but relied on different stones and bones for the arsenal of tools to shape their world.

Meanwhile, back in Valletta to the Armoury at the Grand Master’s Palace and a time when metal was all the rage. Here we can see that the Ottoman troops at the time of the Great Siege were fairly lightly armored.

The Christian troops wore much heavier armor. This better protected them, but also made them less agile.

Clearly, the armor was for a lot more than protection. The decoration was really quite beautiful.

And then there were the innovations that never caught on, such as this 16th century German sword-gun.

The rapier is probably better known from swashbuckling tales than from military merit.

Visits are also permitted to some of the Palace rooms.

Although it’s somewhat limited because the Palace also houses the Office of the President of Malta, so parts may be off bounds for visitors that might normally be open.

Nearby (although Valletta is so small that everything is nearby) is the unassuming (on the outside) St. John’s Co-Cathedral, built in the 1570s.

Not wanting to be outdone in opulence by the Pope, the Knights decided to remodel in the 17th century

Resulting in the baroque-iest baroque interior we’ve ever seen.

After a while it becomes overwhelming.

A nice treat, however, were two magnificent Caravaggio paintings in the Oratory (no photos allowed). The Beheading of St. John the Baptist is considered to be one of his masterpieces. It’s a very large painting and the only one he actually signed. It is displayed in the space for which he painted it. Of course, Caravaggio ended up as a prisoner after he became involved in a deadly fight with a prominent Knight.

The Knights weren’t those fellows with the pikes or crossbows. They were from the aristocracy across Europe and as a religious order had tremendous wealth at their disposal.

So, with the labor of 5,000 Turkish slaves, they hurriedly built Valletta (named after the Grand Master at the time of the Siege) on the high ground of the peninsula overlooking both harbors, creating the only city we know where walking to any destination within the city is uphill and returning is even more uphill.

But, time for another bus ride. This one is out to the Tarxien Temples, four Neolithic temples in close proximity under a big protective tent. Again, they date from 3600 to 3000 BC. One of the mysteries of these temples is that all trace of whoever made them disappears at around 2500 BC. The Bronze Age people who show up next in the pre-historical record are unrelated.

That artifacts such as these temple sites should have survived is, to us, remarkable.

Even more remarkable is a nearby site from the same epoch. Rather than being constructed of stone slabs hewn from the earth, it was carved from the rock itself as an underworld realm for the dead. It is the Hal-Saflieni Hypogeum, Hypogeum being derived from Greek for “underground.”

Dating from 3300 to 3000 BC, it is a re-creation of the above ground temples we’d already seen. It has convinced archeologists that, for instance, the Neolithic temples had roofs. The difference is that the placement of door openings allowed for a significant depth of human bones to accumulate within each room of the Hypogeum as the builders gradually worked their way to ever deeper levels to accommodate their dead.

The survival within this protected environment of some decorative elements using ochre also provides some insight into how the above ground temples might have been decorated. As it is, all that remains for us are elements made of stone. All else is gone.

Steeped in enough prehistory to last for a while, we boarded a ferry and sailed past the tiny island of Comino

To the sister island of Gozo, where the Maltese go to relax and enjoy a slower pace of life and lots of tourists go for the beach.

Before picking up our rental car, we headed up to the citadel in Victoria (also known as Rabat, naturally) to get the lay of the land of this Manhattan-sized island that’s less than 9 miles across in its largest dimension.

It’s significantly more rural than Malta Island with lots of small tractors on the roads running between fields.

It’s where people from the larger island come to relax, away from the hustle, bustle, and overcrowding of the main island.

And the location for some film work. The famous Azure Window, an enormous natural rock window and the backdrop for the wedding scene of Daenerys to the Dothraki warlord Khal Drogo in the first episode of Game of Thrones, has unfortunately tumbled into the sea after a severe storm in March 2017.

Still with us since Roman times are the salt pans

Used by local residents to process sea salt.

In this wildly primal setting

Just outside Marsalforn, the island’s largest beach resort, where we took a swim on a warm late October day.

(Maybe you’ve noticed the marsa in Marsaxlokk and Marsalforn and, indeed, Marseille, Arabic for “harbor.”)

While you hold that thought, Gozo is also the site of more of those Stone Age temples.

The Ggigantija Temples were the most famous of the temple sites and were on the grand tour for many in the 18th and early 19th centuries and were depicted in a number of paintings. Unfortunately, they were destroyed by thoughtlessness by 1840 and archeologists have had to use those paintings to reconstruct what the Temples looked like.

However, Ggigantija has a wonderful museum with a treasure trove of Neolithic art from the site and nearby ones.

We were impressed with the artistry and skill of the craftsmen working in stone and clay

And cow toe bones (these are really very small).

Having held that thought about harbors, you’ll recall that Valletta is on a peninsula between two natural harbors (very large ones), the Grand Harbor and Marsamxett.

Across the Marsamxett is the resort town of Sliema and all of the outfits happy to take you out for a cruise in the waters around Malta.

Across the Grand Harbor

Are lots of history

And ship building, ship repair, and waterways clogged with every manner of ship.

But, as everywhere, it’s the people now living in a place that make it unique and give you a lasting impression. The shop assistant drawn to work in Valletta by the opportunity of work, but missing her home in Catania, Sicily. The retired banker on his way home after a break from hectic and stressful Malta on Gozo. The Gozo man who loves his life there but also relies on the ferry to see his doctor. And, the sobering reminder in the car bomb murder of a Maltese journalist that the world we value is a fragile one and that it takes courage to resist the temptation to acquiesce in the silence that protects greed and corruption. That’s also the lesson earlier related to us by someone in Sicily who told us of his change of heart in deciding not to leave Sicily after all when the people determined to take the streets back from the mafia. The world is a tumultuous place. We can only hope to find more beauty than not in it and to contribute a bit of that beauty ourselves.

Food. What Else?

There isn’t much that people care more about than food. It helps define them and is filled with significance, for family and the memories of childhood and of good times with friends. To an outsider, of course, people’s attachment to a particular food can seem puzzling. We stopped by a grocer and butcher on the way to Etna to pick up some outstanding sandwiches. While we were waiting, the butcher insisted on sharing one of his (and the region’s) specialities.

Outside on the sidewalk, a fire continuously simmered the pork for frittole (pronounced like the snack food brand).

To us, it would best be described as a pork fat sandwich.

Or, a great moment with our guide Davide and a welcoming butcher. In fact, throughout Sicily, we found people to be – with few exceptions – very open and warm. It was not unusual for someone to go out of his or her way to be helpful and friendly.

A note on street food: Yes, glorious street food. That’s what frittole is and Sicily has plenty of it. Some other ones we tried were arancina (filled and fried rice balls), panelle (chickpea fritters), crocché (potato croquets) and gelato con brioche (see below). We didn’t try the spleen sandwiches, thanks just the same!

One of our most memorable meals was in Selinunte, at a place called Boomerang (for some obscure reason).

Sorry for the half-eaten plate. We decided a little late to document the meal.

It’s a place with a fixed menu. Everyone gets the same thing, whatever the owner brought in that day on his fishing boat

The fish just kept coming, with a quick identification.

All of it was perfectly prepared and delicious,

As were the very good cannoli that topped it off. [Our all time favorite cannoli (after substantial sampling across Sicily) remain the ones from Cipolli Cannoli in Collingswood, NJ, where the cannoli kits are created fresh before your eyes in their tiny operation.]

Of course, cannoli aren’t the only canonical sweet treat in Sicily. The thing to eat in Palermo is gelato on a brioche. But, gelato all over Sicily is hard to beat, and we seldom resisted.

The gelato in Valletta on Malta (spoiler alert) may be more artistically refined, but the quality in Sicily is unsurpassed.

Etna, Alcantara, & the Vendicari Nature Reserve

Mount Etna in some senses helps to define Sicily. It dominates the landscape over a vast terrain. It doesn’t have that iconic volcano profile like Mount Fuji, but has currently six active volcanic craters within it and a range of other craters and vents over a substantial area.

It has frequent eruptions and flows of lava, although they are much slower moving than some other volcanos so that it is a less dangerous volcano than many. Here is an area of lava flow from 2002. The depth of the lava at this point is about 10 to 15 meters. What looks like snow stakes are, in fact, snow stakes. There is a ski resort nearby. It was destroyed by the lava flow and has been rebuilt.

As can be seen in the middle distance, lava will flow around higher terrain, leaving swaths of untouched land. Of course, the edges of the untouched land are scorched by the tremendous heat causing vegetation to die off.

There are different kinds of tubes within lava. Here’s one that was formed by a tree trunk.

Two older, dormant craters are in the distance.

The “ash” put out by a volcano consists of various sizes, weights and densities of material, ranging from dust to “lava bombs” (near right) that make quite a dent when they land.

As we descended to a lower altitude, the vegetation changed from pines to birch and broom (the Italian term meaning “rock breaker”). The birch is a species unique to the Etna area. It was nice to have a former Park Ranger as our guide for a better understanding of what we were seeing.

Donning helmets to explore a lava tube turned out to be a good idea.

The tubes were formed when a hotter stream of lava flowed through lava starting to cool.

The particular tube we explored was used to store snow over the summer and the steps were carved into the lava to make this easier in the 1770s.

Not far from Etna is a river gorge famous for rafting. Our guide had found a remote spot that offered a quiet way to enjoy the Alcantara Gorge.

The bored hole appears to be a post hole for a bridge from Ottoman times.

In winter, the gorge is full to the brim with its swift flowing river. If the day was any warmer, we would have stopped to go in the water.

Back in Taormina, taking the cable car down to the beach, Ken took advantage of the Mediterranean.

With a farewell to Taormina, we headed down the coast

To Vendicari Nature Preserve

For a walk

A chance to admire herons and flamingos and some spoonbills scurrying through the water chasing their lunch

And our own downtime on the beach.

The Greek and Roman Worlds (and More) in Sicily

Greek civilization was a culture, not a geography, and Sicily was where much of that culture was found, although the Greeks typically displaced non-Greek people who were already there. Today, there is a lot to see that has been unearthed from those times and from when Sicily was the granary of the Roman Empire, as well as a tremendous wealth of architecture from medieval times.

SEGESTA

Here’s an amphitheater in Segesta, originally a city founded by the non-Greek Elymian people but taken over by Greeks. We enjoyed the impromptu serenade by a group of school children.

And, the temple was just down the hill, actually really far down the hill. We gave ourselves the luxury of taking the shuttle bus up the hill and then down again. (This photo was taken with our biggest telephoto lens.)

Yes, indeed, those ancient Mediterranean civilizations tended to build in the most inaccessible locations. They were generally well out of harms way on the top of mountains so as to defend from attack. Those were tough times! Fortunately, we can now take things like cable cars to make the climb less arduous. This one goes from the resort town of Trapani up to the town of Erice. The watery fields by the sea are for processing sea salt.

ERICE

One amazing place after another.

This Norman Castle was built on the location of the Temple of Venus reputedly founded by Aeneas and where animals simply walked up to be sacrificed. (That last one may be a stretch.)

This 3rd to 4th century BC wall at the Temple of Venus site is said by tradition to have been built by Dedalus, the builder of the labyrinth on Crete to contain the Minotaur. We’re not sure how to fact check that one either.

Founded by the Elymians, then settled by the Phoenicians and then the Greeks, Erice is now mostly a Medieval town. It also has a little pastry shop the B&B owner from Palermo sent us to where they make a Genovese filled with creme fraisch after a recipe from the nuns and only sold there. It was worth the search. Delicious.

SELINUNTE

This is the largest archeological site in Europe. Selinunte was a Greek colony founded in the late 7th century BC according to Thucydides.

What’s remarkable are the piles upon piles – vast areas – of what looks like rubble and is what has been unearthed in recent centuries, only for archeologists to work out what it was and to reassemble portions of it for us to admire and wonder at the scope and scale of the structures that once stood on the landscape and formed cities for these peoples to live in.

Selinunte had been a relatively large city of about 30,000 free people, plus slaves. There were five temples centered on an Acropolis.

They were in constant conflict with the Elymians of Segesta until Selinunte was sacked by Carthage in the 4th century BC when they didn’t choose sides wisely.

And, never regained their stature or strength.

AGRIGENTO

Agrigento was another large Greek city of around 100,000 to 200,000 people founded in 580 BC that tried to stay out of the conflict between Athens and Syracuse. However, they didn’t avoid sack by Carthage in 406 BC or getting the worst of it when Carthage and Rome went at it in the First Punic War when Rome enslaved all the inhabitants around 260 BC. (Then, back to Carthage, then Rome, until their citizens were given Roman citizenship after the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. Phew, too much history!)

The reassembled temples were truly monumental.

And, again, the piles of rubble spoke to the archeological work still to be done.

Meanwhile, in the Archeological Museum in Agrigento there is an impressive collection of artifact with ample English language signage. Here’s a 7th Century BC ceramic piece notable for both for being in a style established on Rhodes and for the central motif. It’s the triquetra or triskeles, a symbol evoking Sicily because the island is essentially triangular in shape with three substantial capes.

A few segments of one of these enormous human figures is laying on the ground at the archeological park, difficult to decipher in the field.

With an imposing head.

All of which becomes a lot clearer when you see the model helpfully provided by the museum.

PIAZZA ARMERINA

Fast forward to the Middle Ages. 11th Century. There are a lot of medieval towns in Sicily, most of them with a certain charm, after you navigate impossible roads and wait for the sheep to be safely crossed by the very alert and attentive sheepdogs. This little cathedral was the reward as seen from the balcony to our room on the cathedral square.

Down here someplace was the restaurant people liked on TripAdvisor.

A terrific place for an overnight and an early start the next day.

VILLA ROMANA DEL CASALE

Nothing quite prepares you for the Villa Romana del Casale. Thanks to a mudslide long ago, the villa of a very important Roman figure has been remarkably well preserved. It’s what Vesuvius did for Pompeii, but Pompeii was a city with ordinary people and a few wealthy ones. The villa exudes power and position. We don’t know who owned it, but this appears to be the reception room where he received people when exercising that power.

The courtyard is imposing.

But, it’s the mosaics,

The mosaics on every theme

Decorating every room that most impress.

This one of women athletes being rewarded for their prowess is very unique and popular.

The subject matters go on and on.

Even the utilitarian servant’s areas are decorated, although “only” in beautiful geometric patterns.

In large rooms and small.

Then there is what is beneath. Here are the works for the heated baths.

And, finally, a nicely decorated lavatory for the master’s family.

SYRACUSE

Cicero referred to Syracuse as the greatest and most beautiful of the Greek cities. It was certainly one of the most powerful cities of the Mediterranean world, along with Athens and Carthage, and was the equal of Athens in size. It was the home of Archimedes.

Its amphitheater was not built into a hillside, but carved, and would allow 16,000 people to enjoy performances. It’s where Aeschylus sat to enjoy the last of his plays.

Dionysius kept prisoners here in a cave now known as the “Dionysius Nose” where he could eavesdrop on their conversations through a small opening at the top.

When the Romans took over, they constructed an arena for their entertainment.

When Christians came to power and wanted a cathedral, it was natural to simply take over a temple and remodel it to current standards. (Notice the columns)

Inside.

And out. Actually, having visited countless cathedrals over the years, the Syracuse cathedral is now our favorite for its intimacy, beauty and human warmth. We respected the “no photos” admonition in the most beautiful side chapel. Notice the Virgin Mary in the center looking over the plaza, placed where Athena stood when it was her temple. We also enjoyed the atmosphere of the old part of the city and the wonderful gelato just across from the cathedral.

TAORMINA

The entrance to our hotel in Taormina gives some idea of where the town is situated – the town, that is. Of course, our hotel was also a challenge. We asked the hotel staff to drive the car back up the ramp when we departed.

At least we didn’t have a big climb to get to the ruins. Not only is the Taormina amphitheater the second largest in Sicily (after Syracuse), performances still take place there. You may remember that they recently hosted the G7, although that must have been a logistical and transportation nightmare.

It is, however, a beautiful view.

And a charming, although really expensive, town.

With a rather quirky cathedral square.

Palermo. Welcome to Sicily.

For a city that’s 2700 years old, any beginning seems arbitrary. So we begin with a less popular site, one that goes unmentioned in the leading guidebook for Sicily. Zisa Castle or el Aziz, was a summer hunting retreat built in the 12th century by the Norman kings.

Begun by William I and completed by his son William II, it had fountains in the main hall on the ground floor as well as in the castle gardens and was fashioned by Arab artisans.

The restoration reveals original details and surviving caches of amphorae, but the comparatively minor status of the site made it rather difficult to find the entrance, as we wandered the neighborhood.

We dropped by the archeology museum to be reminded just how deep history goes here, from Neolithic times to the Mycenaeans to the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, and so forth. Legend has it that this is where the refugees from Troy came. Here we have a tomb from 3000 BC.

A nice slipper shaped bath tub.

Poor old Actaeon being torn apart by dogs for having seen Artemis, the goddess of hunting, naked (450 BC).

And a procession of Amazons on a sarcophagus (170 AD).

The al-Qasr (now the Royal Palace or Palace of the Normans) was started by the Emir of Palermo in the 9th century. It was then enlarged and transformed by the Norman Kings following their conquest of Sicily in 1072.

Most of the interior of the Royal Palace was completed by Roger II, the father of William I. This room is known as the Roger II Hall.

The Royal Palace is the oldest royal palace in Europe. The Swabian emperors continued to use the palace, although it was only an administrative palace under the Angevin and Aragonese Kings until it became once again a royal residence under the Bourbon royal family when Leopold of Bourbon commissioned this Pompeian room.

The most sublime achievement of King Roger II was the Palatine Chapel built in 1132 on the second floor of the Royal Palace. The mosaics are so stunning, we forget to look down.

The chapel combines Byzantine, Latin, and Islamic styles in a way peculiar to Sicily.

Arab craftsmen built a wooden ceiling typical of Arab architecture, a muqarnas ceiling.

There is a Christ Pantocrator in both the dome and central apse.

With biblical stories arrayed on the walls and ceiling in gold mosaic, the effect is a magnificent space that is still used today. In fact, we carefully planned our visit to avoid a closure due to a wedding. And, yes, we did catch a glimpse of the bride.

It’s said that Pope Gregory I founded a Byzantine church here in the 6th Century. Now known as the Cathederal of Palermo. When the Saracens took over in the 9th century it became a mosque until the cathedral was founded around 1185 in the reign of William I.

The crypt contains tombs and sarcophagae from Roman, Byzantine, and Norman times. The oldest we noticed was from the 11th century.

The highlight was the roof.

It’s good Jim didn’t realize that the access consists of a narrow, two-way walkway on the crest of the roof.

The views are, however, spectacular.

From high above the city, we go deep beneath another neighborhood to the Capuchin Catacombs where the monks and many, many, many other people were from the 18th through the early years of the 20th centuries propped up and even posed as a celebration of death.

Not particularly our cup of tea, although our B&B hostess has taken her 3 year old daughter there a half dozen times and finds it inspiring. It was hard to relate to that. (No photos allowed, these are courtesy of the tourist brochure)

We preferred the market.

Wherever we go, they’re hard to resist.

They are full of interesting people.

And inspiring food.

Teatro Massimo was conceived as a way to promote Palermo as the second largest city in southern Italy just after the unification of Italy in 1861. It was finally completed in 1897.

With a reputation for perfect acoustics, it’s the third largest opera house in Europe (after Paris and Vienna).

We understand it’s also renowned for a dramatic death on the front steps in the third Godfather movie.

But, there’s much more about Palermo to recommend it.

From quirky fountains.

To a weekend street scene packed with people of all ages out walking and enjoying their city.

Just outside the city perched in the hills is the small town of Monreale where the Bishop of Palermo fled upon the 9th century takeover of Palermo by the Arabs. Following the Norman return of the island to Christianity, Monreale remained important and William II started construction on a cathedral in 1174 and the pope designated it as a metropolitan cathedral in 1182.

The interior is, like the Palatine Chapel, entirely decorated with exquisite mosaics, one layer featuring stories from the Old Testament and the other featuring stories from the New Testament.

The effect is dazzling.

Adjoining the cathedral is the cloisters, built in 1200 as part of the Abbey. There are 108 pairs of marble columns, each with both a unique mosaic decoration and a unique floral capital.

The Big Easy. Easy to Love.

Not far from the street musicians in front of the Cathedral (well, everywhere, really),

there are the lush streets that are never entirely emptied with their posh shops and galleries,

and then the other Vieux Carre, or French Quarter that

offers surprising oases of calm that seem far away from the brash chaos of the lower reaches of Bourbon Street. That was our retreat, just across the street from the French Quarter on the edge of one of the oldest black neighborhoods in America, the Treme, where from time to time we could hear snatches of music from a Second Line drifting through the neighborhood.

Even the neighborhoods for the dead are interesting in New Orleans, and are, of course, where the idea of the Second Line originated – the joyous music leaving the cemetery. Now, people hire a Second Line to celebrate almost anything.

Lafayette Cemetery #1 in the Garden District houses the remains of the Americans (who pushed their way into New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase) and is, of course, an active cemetery. It’s the second oldest “garden cemetery” in the country (the oldest being Mount Auburn outside of Boston), although it’s difficult to fit in much garden when burial is almost always above ground (due, among other reasons, to the high water table). Our guide Naïf explained how hundreds of people can be entombed in the above ground vaults (hint: not a lot of embalming fluid). For much of the city’s history, it seems like burial practices were one of the few things on which the Americans and the Creoles (pre-Louisiana Purchase inhabitants who were born in America, irrespective of race or origin). They lived in separate neighborhoods with Canal Street as their DMZ. The Cajuns are, of course, the descendents of the Acadians who, during the French and Indian War, were expelled from Atlantic Canada as a security threat. You might recall our posting from Cape Breton in 2014 in which we quoted the opening lines of Longfellow’s Evangeline, his lament of the human suffering from Le Grand Derangement (“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks . . ..”). The Cajuns now live all over southern Louisiana and keep a lot of their culture alive.

In addition to family vaults, people also bought into burial societies through which families purchased perpetual rights to each of the mini-vaults, above. As always, people looked for a way to belong.

The same practices apply in above ground, in ground, burial. Pillows for the remains of those making way for the newcomers, but at least they get to stay.

Of course, there was some stubborn New Englander who decided he had to have a New England cemetery plot in the middle of New Orleans. Shh, we’re just from out of town. If we make it back to New Orleans, maybe we’ll visit St. Louis Cemetery #1. That’s the even older one in the French Quarter where Nicholas Cage has purchased a plot and built a pyramid for himself.

Back among the living in the Garden District, we discovered why it is so popular with celebrities.

Here’s one Nicholas Cage owned for a while because of its reputation for being haunted.

But, there are better reasons for living here. Gorgeous houses.

Your intrepid photographer naturally failed to snap the required photos to show where Sandra Bullock or John Goodman lives, although we learned that Goodman is a friendly guy who waves to people when he picks up his newspaper (no surprise, really)

What!? How can we go on about cemeteries and Nicholas Cage, ignoring the red hot reason people go to New Orleans in the first place? It’s bands like the up-and-coming Brass-a-holics. Jim and Ken had seen the Rebirth Brass Band down in D.C., so it was time for something different. These guys offered up a sort of fusion brass band sound, mixing in everything from traditional sounds to hip hop, heavy on the electronics. They were great.

A couple of doors away at Bamboulas on Frenchmen Street the Sunshine Brass Band were playing a much more traditional sound and standards. Good listening.

There was a really well attended free concert at the cathedral featuring Sunpie, the zydeco musician. Unfortunately, the acoustics were terrible and the Christmas concert was so entirely down tempo that we moved on to see what was happening in the Quarter.

For a line like this, you know it’s Preservation Hall.

It’s a substantial wait, a tiny room and we ended up in standing room, but it’s also a stellar performance, as they have a stable of the best musicians in town (in a town where music is the life blood). Worth the journey.

Back on Frenchmen Street, we caught blues man Walter (“Wolfman”) Washington and the Roadmasters.

His friend Rooster of Rooster and the Chickenhawks ventured over from Bourbon Street for a couple of numbers. Loved it.

Grammy winner John Cleary (best regional roots album) is a kind of swamp music Elton John, stomping along with a really playful style. Really enjoyed him. Oddly enough, he’s originally from England, but discovered where he’s supposed to be.

We wandered into Vaso in between our planned visits to the d.b.a. to see Cleary and the 10:00 show. Ed Wills and Blues4Sale was a real treat with a great voice and guitar style for a classic blues delivery.

Then, back for the 10:00 show with the Luke Winslow-King Trio. Like a lot of the bands, hard to pigeonhole, but Ken bought one of their albums on our way out.

With no photo to show for it, our very first outing was to the Column Hotel in the Garden District to catch David Doucet, the legendary Cajun musician of Beausoleil fame. Despite starting the gig about 45 minutes later than advertised, he was, well, David Doucet and well worth the listen. After that, we started taking the camera. Lots of music for a 4 day visit.

And, what visit to New Orleans would be complete without a visit to the bayou?

An airboat is noisy, but it gets you out there quickly and the ear protectors are pretty effective.

It was too cold for the gators and when we got up to speed we understood why the guide wore a parka.

But, it was fun to explore and see things like the cedar knees that help the tree breathe.

One evening we went over to Lafayette Square for the Luna Fete, a visual arts festival with vendors. The light show was first rate, as the old bank’s facade was continuously transformed, with the illusion of action taking place behind the columns and of the entire building pulsing with breath.

One artist came with a trailer for projecting series of images with which you could interact by tweeting your own images into the program.

Ken tweeted the bird (on left)

and the eye graphic (on right).

Colorful lasers lay over top

helping to link the installations together

for a luminous experience.

Young Life (1994).

Ken was familiar with Bo Bartlett, whose Young Life hangs prominently in the entry to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. He included a small insect and dandelion seed under the paint and a deer tail in the frame. Andrew Wyeth was a mentor early in his career.

The Rookery (2007).

This painting is enormous and completely immersive. It’s creator, Simon Gunning, was on his way from Australia to England to go to art school in the 1970s when he stopped by New Orleans.

Crossroads (2013).

He was so captivated by the city and southern Louisiana that he returned in 1981 to make it his home.

The Canal in Lavender and Blue #2 (2015).

In addition to its substantial holdings, the Ogden had a special exhibit of Gunning’s landscapes, each one captivating.

Mourners (1962).

The big break for Georgia painter Benny Andrews came when he could study art at the Art Institute in Chicago under the GI bill.

Death of the Crow (1965).

Teacher (1965).

He also became well known for his pioneering work in art programs in prisons. It was interesting that most of these artists spent time at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where Amanda took a course in drawing.

World of the Happy and the Free (1986).

The Rev. Howard Finster was a self-taught Visionary artist who began creating art after God appeared to him on his thumb and said, “Make sacred art.”

Man of Vision (1981).

One of the things that makes Visionary art interesting, as well as Outsider art and other ways we choose to think of art made by self-taught artists, is that it isn’t part of the dialogue that naturally occurs within the realm of contemporary artists conscious of what has come before them.

Elvis at 3 (1984).

There is a wonderful intensity to it that is at once bewildering and fascinating.

Mississippi (no date).

Will Henry Stevens grew up in Indiana, but studied and worked in Ohio, New York, and Kentucky before winding up teaching at Newcomb College in New Orleans from 1921 through 1948.

Untitled (1945).

He was a naturalist, mainly drawing and painting in the outdoors, and so adapted his media away from studio easel painting, including developing his own pastels (having the benefit of growing up with a chemist father).

Untitled (no date).

He was interested in the Sung painting of the 12th century, in particular because of its philosophy of the artist as an extension of nature.

Pyramid (1995).

Over at the New Orleans Museum of Art we wanted to catch the special show featuring George Dunbar, New Orleans born and bred (art school at the Tyler School in Philadelphia), and his massive highly structured pieces. Being a land developer as a second day job, Dunbar is fascinated with land forms, bridges, canals and the like.

Marsh grass XXVI (2007).

Exploring the tension between order and chaos, Dunbar buried coils of red canvas in brown clay with red gold overlaid and then filed patterns into the surface to expose some of the underlying material.

Coin du Lestin XXXVI (1997).

In this earlier work Dunbar had also created a base of clay overlaid with gold that has been incised or filed off.

Glad to be outside again, we wandered the Sculpture Garden at the NOMA

We Stand Together (2005).

George Rodrigue’s iconic Blue Dog image is also found in a gallery on Royal Street (as well as galleries in Lafayette, LA, and Carmel, CA). That dog sure showed up in a lot of ways. He is, of course, a native son.

Back downtown, close to the cathedral, we visited the Cabildo, the old seat of the colonial government and now a state historical museum. Among its holdings is this death mask of Napoleon, the man who wheedled the former French possessions out of the Spanish with a promise to not sell them to the Americans and who, naturally, turned around and cut the famous deal with Jefferson.

In a private antiques gallery nearby we found the desk at which Napoleon wrote his memoirs while imprisoned on St. Helena (and that’s his footbath). It seems conditions weren’t overly harsh for him.

Back at the Cabildo, Jim was tempted by new career options,

while Ken wasn’t sure that was such a good idea.

We think of New Orleans as a city built by the French and Spanish, but in reality there was also very significant immigration from Germany (which is easy to see in the cemeteries). Much to our surprise, it was the German immigrants who introduced the accordion to the culture, providing some vindication for Jim’s side of the family.

The museum at the Cabildo provides a very clear-eyed overview of the history of Louisiana, including the successful effort to overturn Reconstruction and reestablish white rule after the Civil War. Artifacts like a New Orleans slave auction block from around 1850 make it tangible and remind us that all of this occurred not long ago. Jim, for example, remembers his great grandfather Billy who, as a young boy, hid under the porch as Confederate troops made their way to Gettysburg.

It was, however, the World War II museum that was the big surprise of our visit to New Orleans. We are all quite well versed in that war, thank you. But, everywhere we turned we were advised by locals that it was an outstanding museum, that everyone raved about it, that it is consistently rated as one of the best museums in the world, and that at least 4 to 6 hours are needed for a visit, if not more. They were right.

The exhibit spaces are filled with documentary footage on the walls, compelling and carefully explained artifacts, oral history recordings running continuously as you move through the spaces, and fascinating detail on all of the more minor missions, engagements and battles you actually haven’t learned about before.

It’s a museum experience taken to new heights (actually, Jim had a tough time on the catwalk way up here!).

Finally, you can’t think of New Orleans without thinking about food. Wonderful food. Muffuletta. Po-boys. Jambalaya. Gumbo. Sausages. Lots of pork. Here, Amanda enjoys a beignet at the Cafe du Monde. From very upscale eateries to absolute dives there are plenty of great places to grab a delicious bite to eat, including delis with smokers in the back. People are proud of their food heritage and, don’t forget, if there’s tomatoes in there it’s not Cajun, it’s Creole.

There you have it. Four days. The Big Easy. Hard to forget.

San Sebastián. Life is good, and the food even better.

Here, twelve miles from the French border, you are in the real heart of Basque Country, and it is entrancing.

People have been living in the area for around 25,000 years and the city was chartered in the 12th century, but a catastrophic fire following the breach of the town’s walls and the fall of the city in 1813 to an Anglo-Portuguese force has given it a 19th century look.

It’s a town that makes its living largely from tourism and international festivals and as a cultural magnet for the people of the region. Tourism improved dramatically when separatist violence from the ETA ended.

Where it’s easy to kick off your shoes and enjoy yourself, even on an overcast day in late October.

A stroll along either side of the river

Or in the old city

Will bring you to places like Constitution Square (where the numbers over the apartment doors harken back to when owners were forced to rent balcony space to their betters to watch the bullfights in the square)

Or a sunset over the Atlantic.

But, what has really put San Sebastián (Donostia, in Basque) on the map is food.

In what turned out to be a stroke of genius, we hired a guide to take us around to a few bars in the city for pintxos. Although we could have survived with a bit of pointing and taken advantage of the reasonable amount of English and the substantial amount of friendliness found in the Donostiarra who live here, our guide enriched our experience immeasurably.

Donostia is a city obsessed with food and gastronomy. Especially on Thursdays, people go out with friends and family to a series of bars offering both cold and hot pintxos. They order a couple, together with a drink they never finish, enjoy them and move on to the next establishment. People almost always stand, as this is a snack, not a meal. Kids are typically in tow.

Our first pintxo was a Gilda. Olives (yes, but only-available-in-Spain really good ones), anchovies (a revelation), and peppers (one in ten is hot). Eaten in one bite & it was extraordinary. The Gilda was apparently named after Rita Hayworth’s 1946 movie of the same name. Franco banned it. Reason enough.

Within sight of this first pintxo bar were three gastronomical societies, of which the city of barely more than 180,000 people is reported to have around 140. We were told that in their matrilineal society, Basque men value a place of their own, especially one in which they can cook and can claim the kitchen as exclusively theirs. Men may belong to 2 or 3 of the societies, maintaining connections to childhood friends, work colleagues, and so forth. The city has an embarrassment of riches in terms of food. Of Spain’s five restaurants with 3 Michelin stars (the highest rating), three are in San Sebastián. But, back to the food.

At our next stop, we had squid in its own ink, as well as beef cheeks.

One of the pintxos at our third stop was Brie coated in poppy seeds and lightly fried. By the third stop it was raining a bit, so we huddled close under the umbrellas as we stood at the tables, but the eating was enough of a distraction that it really didn’t bother us.

As befits a pilgrimage to San Sebastián, we reported for our course in Basque cooking.

Our instructor Augus (holding the bag) took us through the paces.

Proper cleaning and deboning means you don’t over handle the fish

But carefully remove both the skin and the inner membrane which otherwise will cause the cooked fish to curl.

Oh, and don’t forget the cheek, the real delicacy.

The fish is cooked gently by swirling the pan (for hours, if you don’t know the chef’s shortcut).

The peppers must be correctly sautéed. And, yes, Adrianne from Miami was recording pretty much every technique.

Frank, the Basque-American whose mother witnessed the attack on Guernica, tries his hand at one of the chef’s secrets. Whisking with a colander.

The team begins to assemble one of the dishes.

This one.

Truly delicious.

And reason enough for a visit to Donostia (San Sebastián).

On egin! (Bon appetit!)

Being so close . . .

When planning our trip to northern Spain, it occurred to us to wonder how far off the beaten path we would find the famous Paleolithic cave paintings. As it turned out, not far. From Bilbao, we rented another car and headed west towards the mountains, making for Altamira, El Castillo, and La Moneda.

El Castillo (the Castle) and La Moneda (the Money) are minutes away from each other along a mountain path. La Moneda is mostly interesting for its rock formations, but El Castillo contains the oldest known cave art in Europe (at over 40,000 years old). They are discs and stencils of hands made by blowing pigment onto the rock surfaces. There’s also representational art in the cave, although it is a little more recent (but, not much). We were impressed with the skillfulness of the execution and how the artists incorporated the naturally occurring contours of the rock surface into the compositions. The back or stomach or haunch of the animal wouldn’t actually be drawn, for example, but the artist would enhance the animal form one might see in the rock contours by using pigment to fill in the “missing” elements of the design.

The most (justifiably) famous Spanish cave is Altamira. It is open only to a few visitors who are chosen by lottery in order to conserve the artwork. In fact, we met two young men during our visit of El Castillo, one of whom had been fortunate enough to have been chosen to go into the cave. His friend showed us a video showing how visitors are suited up in what look like hazmat suits for their tours. However, a “Neocave” has been built that is a faithful, life-size replica of the cave and the paintings, visits to which are controlled with timed tickets. There’s also a sizable display covering cave art and other early human topics that could take most of a day to thoroughly consume.

Altamira’s art was produced at different eras ranging from 36,000 years ago to 13,000 years ago. It was the areas further into the cave (rather than closer to the entrance) that were used for the paintings. To Jim’s question why the cave walls and ceiling weren’t smudged with soot from the fires or torches used to see inside the caves, the guide at El Castillo explained that animal fats were used for lighting because they burned much cleaner than wood and didn’t produce that kind of smoke. To make the paintings, the artists used charcoal and ochre (iron oxide). They are very cleanly and precisely rendered, so that it’s clear that the painters must have practiced extensively elsewhere before committing their art to the cave walls and ceilings.

Being already in Cantabria, how could we not visit one of the small towns in the hills?

We chose the one Sartre called the prettiest town in Spain in one of his novels (it’s amazing the research promotional people do), Santillana del Mar.

We even managed to have a nice lunch, after once again confirming that we couldn’t find anywhere to eat lunch that opened earlier than 1:00 (we must confess to never fully adapting to Spanish dining hours).

And we visited the town’s Romanesque church and (no longer functioning) monastery before making our way to our house in the countryside.

A house along a lane in a tiny farming village

In the midst of fields with the pungent smells of country life

A house we couldn’t find without first rendezvousing with our host at the bar along the “main” road and following her along a narrow lane to the edge of the village.

Where Amanda put together a meal for us with ingredients purchased in the nearest town, including hake cut to her order by the fish monger in the supermarket, and fresh figs just pulled from the tree in the garden.

Knowing of our interest in food and plan to next visit San Sebastián, our host pushed us to drive into the city of Santander for lunch, as she maintained that the food was just as good and cost half of what we would pay in San Sebastián.

So, we took the plunge and had a great meal

At a restaurant that hands out a little dictionary with the names of foods in eight languages. We think we’ll keep it!

Bilbao and the Beginning of the Basque Country

Let’s face it, most people come to Bilbao to see the Frank Gehry designed Guggenheim Museum.

And to groan at the huge flower covered dog

Created by (it’s not hard to guess) Jeff Koons.

That was certainly the case when we planned the trip with our friends Philip and Catherine.

After all, it is a beautiful thing to behold.

And provides oodles of visual interest along the river in the heart of the city.

It has also done a remarkably effective job in spurring the revitalization of this mountain-wrapped, industrial port city (founded in 1300) that is the gateway to Basque Country.

The recently spruced up market, further along the river by the old part of the city, is also a great place to feast on tapas or pintxos (in Basque). Sitting in a common area, you check out the wares at the different vendors and try different plates of extravagant compositions. There are lots of anchovies.

Wandering the city has its own visual rewards. This last imposing looking palace was, in fact, a palace. Philip and Jim walked in and talked with the guard who explained that the building houses the official presence of Spain in the city. Hmmm. We understand that both the Basque territory (comprised in a few different provinces) and Catalonia have more autonomy than other provinces.

We also visited the Basque museum where this iconic representation of Basque identity is given pride of place. Looks kind of like a . . . some kind of a . . . boar (?) with a disc. It’s known as the Mikeldi and is from the Iron Age.

The museum features displays on the seafaring and shepherding life of the Basque (who curiously have a cultural center in Boise, Idaho where many Basque seem to wind up). This wolf trap was easier to understand in a museum with signage only in Basque and Spanish. It was also grimly interesting.

But, back to that art theme suggested by the Guggenheim – don’t expect a lot of art inside Mr. Gehry’s sculptural tour-de-force. For one thing, the design doesn’t allow much interior exhibit space (although there are some interesting installations that make a visit worthwhile). To see art in Bilbao, all you need to do is go next door to the art museum where the collection is varied and of a very high quality. We enjoyed it quite a bit, especially because we saw artists with whom we weren’t as familiar, such as Joaquin Sorolla (the scene of Granada in the last photo).

The ceramicist Francisco Durrio

Dario de Regoyas

And some interesting pieces from the 15th and 16th centuries. Something for everyone. By the way, the enormous painting of the matador by Ignatio Zuloaga is on loan from the Hispanic Society of America. Interesting.

No, Picasso’s Guernica is not in Bilbao. Having lived its own life in exile until it was reluctantly returned by the MoMA to Spain under the terms of Picasso’s will, it is now installed in its own gallery in Madrid. However, the art museum in Bilbao (not far from the town of Guernica, “Gernika” in Basque) maintains a fascinating exhibit of a number of Picasso’s sketches for the work, as well as other anti-war art, including some pieces inspired by Picasso’s work.

These included an untitled painting by Jackson Pollack from 1951 in a size (roughly 12″x15″) we weren’t used to seeing from him.

In yet another proof of the theory of “six degrees of separation,” we later met an American (Frank, or “Patxo”) in a cooking class in San Sebastián (or “Donostia” in Basque) whose mother hid in an orchard during the attack on Guernica by Italian Fascist and Nazi German warplanes (at the request of Franco and the Spanish Nationalists).