10/16/2010: Went yest by bus to Granada, which meant a hasty breakfast (amazing buffet) and walking fast through the dark to the bus station where we were ½ hr early. 2.5 hrs by bus to Granada – only garden tickets were available by the time we got there & S didn’t want those.
We were able to get into the Carlos V palace for free, starting 2 PM (S kept pressing me to ask the guard in Spanish, and he was right), so we did, & saw an exhib on Matisse at the Alhambre, also lots of Spanish Baroque religious art, which was hard to look at. S did not want to go to the Capilla Real, which had Isabella & Ferdinand’s body, also Joanna the Mad, who took the body of her husband, Felipe the Handsome, with her wherever she went, and opened the coffin each night to kiss his embalmed face. Can you IMAGINE???
Then , we went down a steep path & up a steeper street (hill of Albaizin), until we got to St. Nicholas’ square, which had beautiful views.
Some confusion at the bus station over which bus went to Cordoba, and the bus driver wasn’t so great – stopped v suddenly at one pt to avoid a car stopped for a red light. It seemed like a long way home. But we got to Cordoba & had (I thought) a nice supper at the hotel (S trying not to be cross because it was expensive) [vg lamb shoulder] & went to bed & slept & slept.
Biggest bed I’d ever seen – somewhere beyond king. You could sleep utterly unconscious of the other person. In fact, you needed to travel a vast expanse to find the other person.
Today, we slept late, ate vast amts of breakfast, went to the Alcazar, Roman Bridge & Museo de Bellas Artes (I’ve pretty much had it w/ Spanish Baroque painting, and kept projecting onto the scenes the animus I’ve been feeling toward the Inquisition & Ferd & Is). But certainly the people we’ve met have been delightful & obliging, and it has been ½ a millennium since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. England expelled its Jews, too, and I feel no special animus against them.
We stopped for lunch at an outdoor café—the recommended restaurant being full. S happy because it was tasty & cheap. We called a restaurant in Madrid & I made a resv all by myself in Spanish – I was quite proud. Didn’t succeed in doing much of anything after lunch – the museum we tried was closed. Walked around. S naviagated to the Christa de los Faroles (Christ of the lanterns) in the Plaza de los Dolores, which is (according to Fodors) where you feel most deeply the city’s languid pace, but, quoth S, how can you feel the city’s languid pace in a square with noplace to sit??
We took the train back to Madrid & here we are, in a 2 story suite w/ 2 bathrooms (one w/ a jazuzzi) and 4, count them, 4 sinks. Also 2 genuine Roman mosaics. All for the princely sum of €175. Went to a local Italian rest & had a nice dinner (lots of veggies), but the people around us were smoking. Headed to the airport & home the next day, and here we are.
Read Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors and a terrible, implausible mystery by John Dunning (the Bookman's Promise).
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