Hello Seekers,

Arose this A M @ 3:30 after a fitful nights sleep to motor to the airport in San Diego, fly to Dallas for a 1 1/2 hour layover and then to Miami for a 3 hour layover, where we meet our friend Liz Bergman for dinner at the airport hotel. The highlight of the meal for me is the conch soup (pronounced conk.) After a too short visit with Liz it's an 8 hour flight to Madrid during which we watched "Truman" with Jim Carey. I spun the dial but no English so I listened on the headphones in Spanish. Afterwards Rosemary tells me hers was in English...so it goes...I once had the same experience on a flight to Costa Rica, listened in Spanish, my seat mate in English, as I said, so it goes...Arrive in Madrid @ 9:45 A M of the 22nd, plug our plastic in the ATM and bus to Plaza Colon and taxi to our hostal, the Hostal Residencia Valencia. A small but quiet room (tranquillo) on the 6th floor @ #44 Gran Via. R takes a quick nap and it's off to the Prado, one of the world's great museums.

Did I say one of the world's great museums? Well some think so... It does have a great collection of over 7500 pieces of which perhaps 25% are on display. Tons of Goya, Valesques, Titian, Rubens, a few of the grim side of Botticelli. Lots of major and minor lights of the Spanish Renaissance, but I'm sorry, I'm permanently lost in the 20th century, so for me the Prado was mainly about tired feet! I will admit that I did enjoy the works of El Greco. It is prescient of the art of modern times. Very fluid, slightly abstracted, colorful figures against dark grounds. Quite enjoyable. Looking at the work of El Greco, I can see a major influence of Thomas Hart Benton's, the American muralist of the early / middle 20th century who in turn was a mentor figure for Jackson Pollock, who he abandoned once he put America on the world art map with his (Pollock's) wildly abstracted drip paintings of the late forties and early fifties. But I digress, we, after all, are in Spain and I'm dissing the Prado... Hopefully you can forgive my insolence... I know I'll get over it if you don't however. At this point jet lag got us and we returned to our hotel to crash and burn.

the grateful dead of tapas bars

After a wonderful nap we arose and were on the street around 9 of the P M to begin our pub crawl of tapas bars. I love tapas. Originally, so it is said, a tapa, which means lid or cap, was a slice of bread put on top of a wine glass to keep out the flies. It has evolved over time to become a huge variety of appetizers from bread and a few olives to sausages, octopus, squid, soups, prawns, serrano ham etc. Our first stop was the "El Museau De Jamon," the ham museum, where we had some chorizo and some colla, which turned out to be munudo and good munudo it was. The first munudo I've really liked Actually. For those of you who don't know munudo or "colla" if you will, it is a rich soup made from tripe, cows stomach. One must cook it forever if it is to be more than rubber and at "El Museau de Jamon" they did. We accompanied this by swilling a caÒ a of beer and a glass of rioja, a fabulous, sharp, red wine somewhere between a zinfandel and a cabernet with a pleasantly zesty aftertaste.

Afterwards we ankled our way around the Puerta del Sol checking out other tapas bars, and through the Plaza Mayor, a vast, cobbled, traffic free hunk of 17th century Spain, surrounded on all sides by almost identical buildings, one of which had nudes painted like frescos between the balconies, coy, charming nudes. I doubt that these lovely ladies were dwelling on these walls during the Inquisition when people were tried and executed here in the presence of the Royals for thinking differently, and yet today, the facade of the edifice where the King and Queen had their apartment is now festooned with them. As the World turns.....

We continued on our pilgrimage getting as far as the Palicio Royal and returned by way of the Opera House, another tapas bar, this one serving a fermented cider beverage, quite good and passing back through the Puerta del SOL, which by the way is the geographical center of Spain that contains a marker for kilometer 0. Like Rome in Italy, in Spain, all roads lead to Madrid.

There our progress was arrested by a group of buscars (street musicians) from Peru or Equador or??? A 5 piece band, amplified and consisting of 2 pan pipers, wooden flautists, guitaristas and other stringed instruments. They were incredible and when they played "El Condor Pasa", you know this tune, Simon and Garfunkle put lyrics to it, "I'd rather be a hammer than a nail, yes I would, I truly wouldddddddddddd...." well when this began to reverberate off the adjacent buildings, both rosemary and I got quite choked up. Here we were in Spain, in Madrid, having an adventure.

Picasso's Guernica

The following day we went to the Museau de la Reina Sophia. The museum where Picasso's Guernica is housed. It is Picasso's contribution to the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 World's Fair. Franco was in the midst of overthrowing the democratically elected government and had given his ally Hitler permission to try out his air force on a town of no strategic importance and Guernica became the victim of the world's first saturation bombing. In his painting Picasso displays for all to see the horrors of war by depicting the result. Through this painting Picasso comments not only on the destruction of Guernica but makes a commentary on all wars and created perhaps the strongest anti war painting ever!

Picasso would not allow this work to be displayed in Spain during Franco's lifetime and until Franco's death it hung in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

We were whelmed. It is a very powerful work and because of it, I for one will never rape, plunder or kill again, and it's my hope that no one else will either.

Also housed in the Reina Sophia is a wonderful collection of 20th century Spanish Art including many sculptures by Edwardo Chilleda, an artist who I always thought was Chilean as he works there and his name just says Chile, but it turns out he was born in San Sibastian, a city on the northern coast of Spain in the heart of the Basque country.

After dodging gypsies selling carnations and hoping to dip their snaky little paws in our pockets whilst we were occupied, off we went for our siesta, only to wake for another pub crawl, macking out on tapas, the best of which was raw mussels smothered in diced onions, bell pepper, garlic, tomatoes, the lot marinated in olive oil and lime juice. Drinks were imbibed in, no flamenco was found but we were serenaded by a group of chaps in 14th to 16th century period costume. Black puffed sleeves and pantaloons, capes covered with medallions, hats worthy of Cyrano de Bergerac, playing guitars and mandolin.

Six Weeks Later:

We had spent six weeks in Spain and Portugal. Starting in Madrid when we flew in, we now returned before flying onward to England. In the interest of continuity, I put this bit of journaling here.

Back to Madrid, the end of our circular tour through the western half of the Iberian peninsular. It feels more comfortable being here this time as we know our war around a bit and we decide to lodge near the Plaza Santa Ana at the Hotel Santander and were glad we did after we checked in as it was much lovelier than our last accommodations in this city.

We soon hurried off to the Thyssen Bornemisza Museu. Purchased by the Spanish state, the collection of over 700 paintings, spanning from the Renaissance to the 20th century contemporary, is considered to be of the largest and best assembled by a private party, second only to that of the Queen Elizabeth of England.

We had also wanted to visit the Sorolla Museum while in Madrid but as it was closed on the following day, Monday and as we were to leave this capital city on Tuesday, we discovered we would be unable to do so.

But, Ahaaa, fate was with us once again. A large show of Joaquin Sorolla (1863 - 1923) work was being staged at the Thyssen B. Tre kewl !Oddly enough the largest of his finished works were displayed in the ante-room to the show and the show itself was of portraits of the movers and shakers of his day and of very large studies done in gouache and oils on brown paper. Done very rapidly and therefore having more duende, chi, soul, than the finished pieces and yes, these were our favorites. It was a joy to observe the brilliant use of color and the facile ease of his painterly flowing strokes that created these figurative works.

The San Diego Museum of Art has some of his work including the beautiful "Lady in the White Dress" which was it's first major acquisition, but back to Madrid.

one tough biker kind o dude a.k.a. raymundo

The following day was our last full day in Spain and we sought out and discovered the Harley Davidson de Madrid shop. My brother, the infamous Curly La Jolla, had been bugging me for sometime to get for him a Harley T shirt from the most far away place we went. These T's are, least you should not know, collected from all over the globe and dearly coveted by Harley freaks. It is in the highest of fashion and elitism to wear these humble garments proudly to biker events, also world wide. As I stated, we found the shop in Madrid, which would have the T with the most cachet, way more than the more visited and common Londons or Parises of this planet, let alone N.Y.C. or Akron, and went thus and got the man a T with a scooter on front and the H. D. Logo on the back with the inscription in bold type "Harley Davidson, Madrid - Espania." Striking a macho pose, I had Rosemary take my picture in front of the shop and oh, by the way, not to be outdone, I too Acquired a T shirt from Harley - Madrid.