Venice

 Who hasn’t wanted to visit a city built on islands with canals for streets. I do. Well my time to do it has come. Venice is sinking as am I. Teresa and I kept talking about Italy until finally we heard about an eight day bus tour to the big three: Venice, Florence and Rome. 

  I’ve always been death on tours, wasting time waiting for a bunch of strangers while being bossed around by a tour guide. I tried to forget the negatives and look on the bright side. Someone else would take care of the stressful details and we'd meet some interesting people.

  We flew first to Amsterdam, another city of canals. We had always wanted to see Amsterdam so we spent three pleasant days there recovering from jet lag.  On the train to the airport to fly to Venice on November 15, Teresa discovered her suitcase handle wouldn’t go down. There was a convenient luggage shop at the airport and Teresa made the swap on the shop floor. The shop recycled her broken down suitcase. It's probably part of a homeless person's gear right now.

  After a ninety minute flight to Venice, we took a ferry to the Lido, a barrier island that forms the lagoon of Venice. The tour company had booked us here rather than in Venice itself. We had asked the company to book us two days early in the hotel our tour group would be staying in, which they did.  The Lido is a long narrow island. Its sandy beach makes it a summer tourist destination with plenty of hotels and restaurants. From the ferry pier it was a short walk to our hotel.  

   Our room was clean and roomy with all the amenities, hot water heater for tea, nice shower, but I thought it strange there was no TV. It was later lying in bed that I noticed the red dot in the corner of the ornate mirror.  What I thought was a remote for the AC was the TV remote.

  Next morning after the very good continental breakfast at the hotel, we bought ferry tickets to Venice. The ferries leave every few minutes and take about 15 minutes to get to Venice. There's a series of ferry stops around the island. We jumped off at the second one in the Castello area and joined the throng walking along the waterfront.

  Simplified map of  Venice: The island of Lido is off to the right. The airport is an hour to the north. We spent most of our time around San Marco. The blue line through the middle is the Grand Canal. Not shown are the 150 canals in the city.

  We ambled along the waterfront crossing humped bridges over the larger canals that lead into to the maze of little canals within the city. These bigger bridges along the waterfront had ramps for wheelchairs but the smaller bridges don't. We had just been in Amsterdam, another city of canals, but here there were no trams or speeding bikes to dodge. Just fellow tourists. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and even in the low season the place was busy.

Under the Bridge of Sighs. Bella

  The islands of Venice had been inhabited for hundreds of years before Christ, but people really started moving in after the fall of Rome in the sixth century. The islands were just poor enough to make them unappealing to the barbarians. Once the barbarians became civilized, Venice was in the perfect place to provide trade between the Christians in the west and the Moslems to the south and east. The Silk Road ended in Venice. The city grew rich enough to create an empire of its own.

  The empire of Venice collapsed in its turn and has been in decline for several centuries. But it's been a glorious decline and not all downhill. The government of Italy has been spending billions to keep Venice above sea level. Our guide says people who work in Venice can’t afford to live there but have take a bus in from the mainland. The barbarian Mussolini built the road in the 1930s. Our guide is in the tourism business but admits we tourists are killing the city.

  Until a solution is found, we tourists will continue to traipse around the maze, crossing the humped bridges, watching the gondolas; sometimes even paying to ride in a gondola. There are 400 gondolas in Venice. Many of them start from the waterfront, but every time you come to a wider place between the buildings, there'll be a cluster of gondolas waiting for riders. And they don't have to wait long. For a few euros more you can have a musician and a singer. At this point, why not.

O solo mio 🎵

  On Sunday we returned to Venice for mass. The church of San Guseppi was listed as having an eleven o'clock service.  But no one told Giuseppe that. The place was locked up tight. I checked my schedule and rolled the dice again and landed on Santi Giovanni e Paolo. There was supposedly an eleven there and we scurried through the alleyways and along the canals following the blue dot on google maps. The church was open for business. A sign by the door said tourist keep out during mass. We were worshipers not tourists, at least for the next hour.

 Reading the Wikipedia article about the church I discovered it was named for two obscure fourth century saints and not for John and Paul in the Bible  I also learned that the foot of St Catherine of Sienna was at a side altar, visible in an illuminated jar. I lit a candle at the altar for a sick friend.

After a post-mass pastry and coffee our goal was the iconic Santa Maria della Salute. This church is under the immense dome seen in all views of the Venice skyline. Artists have been loving Santa Maria since it was finished in 1687. It was built to give thanks for deliverance from the plague. Salute means health.

The Grand Canal

  Like most famous buildings in Italy, Santa Maria was under repair. These places are like old people who don't let a little major surgery prevent them from inviting you in for coffee. We took our pics, lit a candle at St Anthony's altar and headed back to the Lido. It was time to meet our new friends.

  We were to meet the other 15 tour members at supper that evening. But first we had a chance to meet Sabra, our very nice Italian tour director. Sabra told us that by a fluke in her family genome she had had red hair as a child and everyone called her Irish. She had no idea what that meant and resolved to visit Ireland. She liked Ireland so well she lived there for a while and went to school. So we got off to a good start with Sabra.

  At the communal supper we met the rest of the gang. These fifteen were self-selected to want to enjoy a trip to Italy, but it's only natural that some folks you would like right off while the rest would have to grow on you gradually. Wine is a good social lubricant.

  Next morning the group traveled over to the very photogenic Piazza San Marco for our tour of the Basilica of San Marco. The company always hired local guides in whichever city we were in. Rita led us into the congested basilica and up to the altar where the remains of the evangelist rest. We had headphones and Rita told the story of how St Mark's body had been stolen from the Muslims in Egypt and buried in Venice where it belonged. "You believe or you don't believe," Rita said. We heard that expression a lot visiting the churches of Italy. I tend to believe myself.

  After St Mark's we walked to the Murano Glass store. Venice is famous for glass but the glassmakers kept burning down the neighborhood so the factory was moved over to the nearby island of Murano.  At the store we were given a glass blowing demo and the chance to buy a beautiful glass piece for the price of many gondola rides.

  On the way to the store Sabra had pointed out a cafe. "Best pizza in Venice." At my funeral my fans will talk about my pizza so I'm always looking for a chance to kick up my pie. Sei bravo solo quanto la tua ultima pizza, as they say in Naples. You're only as good as your last pizza.

  The Neapolitan pizza at Rossopomodoro was fantastic. As I mulled over in my mind if I could replicate it at home, a pigeon flew in the open door, swooped past the dome of the wood fired oven and flew out the other door. The cook smiled and shrugged. Signs and wonders. They happen all the time in Venice.

There will be pizza

Holland

 Last year's trip was to Spain; this year it's Italy.  We started our overseas travels several years ago with a trip around Ireland, to pay respects to my ancestors. The big discovery was our residence in North America has changed us out of recognition to the locals. 

    We went to both Sweden and Scotland to do the same for Teresa's antecedents. We added France, Greece, and England. It was good to have the patches from those places sewn onto our backpacks. 

  But what was the reason for traveling after all? To have adventures. I want to share my adventures but people back home can only listen to so much. I appreciate that. Therefore my travels become fodder for this blog. 

People would always ask if we'd been to Italy and we'd have to say, sadly, no. Last year our son Matt's wife Heather took their son Luke on a tour of Venice, Florence, and Rome for his graduation trip. Heather said this would be a good way for us to see a chunk of Italy everyone had heard of.

  We signed up for a mid-November tour and decided to tack on Amsterdam before the Italy tour. We had always wanted to visit the Netherlands. I admired the Dutch for their tolerance for those with unorthodox views back when the rest of Europe was burning dissenters at the stake.

  The flight to Europe reminded me why I'm done going to Europe. Flights to Europe always take place in the evening when I'm normally getting ready for bed. Only my feet are able to fall asleep. My poor brain enters a dantesque coma in which a stream of demons slam the doors of purgatorial toilets.

  A few days before our trip we read about violent protests in Amsterdam having to do with a Palestinian flag being torn down, Israeli football fans getting beat up, and a taxi set on fire. It seems history is to blame. The only sign of the disruption when we got there was a movie marquee that read "Where's the peace and understanding?"

  Walking out of the Amsterdam airport terminal leads directly into the train station to downtown Amsterdam. Buying tickets was easy. No one checks your ticket. You scan it as you walk to your platform. If an inspector checks your ticket, it better show that it was scanned. 

  From the central station we took a tram to our hotel. In addition to the driver there's someone in the center of the two-car tram to sell tickets and give information. There's lots of trams running around and many more bicycles. I felt like the bikes were more dangerous to pedestrians, plus bikes have the right of way. We managed to stay alert and avoid close calls, but you can’t daydream as you walk around like you can in Roseau. 

  Museums have lost their charm for me. I'm like a soaked sponge and can't absorb any more, but we became Van Gogh junkies while traveling around Provence a few years ago and felt we owed it to our man to visit his Mother Church in Amsterdam. 

  The guide book advised getting in early before the tour busses arrive. I'd also advise starting on the middle floor where Van Gogh’s most famous paintings are located.  The lower floors feature artists who influenced Van Gogh. By the time we got to the sunflowers the crowds had caught up with us. 

  The gift shop is my favorite part of any museum. It's a synopsis of the whole place. The thrill won't be any greater standing on my tiptoes for a peek of a masterpiece over the heads of the other gawkers.

  The day before, we had toured the canals for an hour in a long, glass roofed boat. That was entertaining. Next day we took the train a few miles north to the windmill village.  That was also a good time killer. 

  The food in Amsterdam was hearty, at least at the places where we ate.  It's a great city for walking around in and seeing things you won't see at home, e.g. coffee shops that sell marijuana rather than coffee. 

  After three days in Amsterdam we took a short flight to Venice to start our official tour of Italy. Ciao for now. 

On the Road

  Originally published in the Wannaskan Almanac, November 7, 2024

  It's fall, a good time to travel. We've never been to Italy. The Romans built roads that lead there so we hopped on a modern extension of one of them. We started from home in northwest Minnesota and headed south and east. Our first stop would be in Delaware where Teresa's niece Abigail lives. We would also spend time in Annapolis, Maryland where Teresa's sister Cindy lives.

  Cindy owns two art galleries and it's time she cuts back. She's also thinking about selling her house.  We offered to give Cindy's daughter Abigail a couple of day's work to help. Abigail makes her living as an artist, but for the past year she's been helping her mother exclusively.

  Abigail accepted our offer. She said we could help clean out Cindy's garage and the upstairs of one of the galleries. Not knowing what she was asking for, Abigail assigned me some carpentry on the gallery counters. Both of them. 

  Our first work day was in Cindy's garage. She has one of those garages that hasn’t seen a car in twenty years. The climate in Maryland is mild and Cindy's Volvo is tough. As she passes from the driveway to the house, the garage is the perfect place to drop anything she doesn't want in the house. Over twenty years this has led to layers of stuff that would make any archeologist reach for their pick.

  The garage was originally built for two cars. The first door opens easily because Cindy uses it every day. We needed to open the other door to make a frontal attack on the pile of stuff. The bottom of the door had absorbed moisture and seemed glued to the ground. The handle for lifting the door started pulling away as Abigail lifted on it.

  Teresa and I were able to squeeze between the back side of the door and the mountain of stuff. Why was the door so heavy and why wouldn't it stay up? Ah, the cable attaching the door to the overhead spring had come off its wheel. We'll fix that later. For now a block of wood would hold the door up

  Just inside the door by the wall were four large chunks of concrete from Maryland's ancient Liberty Tree. As this famous tree started to decay over the centuries, concrete was poured into the center of the trunk to hold it up. When the tree finally went down, Abigail's father, Gardner, had these four pieces of concrete hauled to his garage as potentially valuable historical artifacts. 

  Abigail decided the artifacts would be safe in the woody ravine behind the house. We roped the first chunk onto a dolly and Abigail's boys, Max (15) and Roman (13), carefully transported it to the ravine. I said what we needed was a wheelbarrow. Teresa could see the tip of a wheelbarrow in the middle of the pile. After some digging we had our wheelbarrow.

  We loaded the second chunk of concrete into the wheelbarrow, but it was no go. Flat tire. We transferred the chunk into a small wagon. Even though the rubber tire was coming off one of the wheels, the wagon was better than the dolly. Now I wished we had a tire pump. Presto! A brand new pump appeared, still in the box. The wheelbarrow tire held air and off the third chunk went to the ravine. The pile had the magic power to produce anything we might need to get rid of the pile itself

  The final chunk weighed close to 200 pounds. We were relieved when Cindy suggested we turn the chunk into a Liberty Tree lawn ornament. Several of us dragged the chunk out onto the garage apron and tipped it down a short drop-off where it may sit another couple of hundred years.

Give me liberty!

  Now it was time to tackle the garage's toxic waste site. A large bag of garden fertilizer along the wall had tipped over and the contents had eaten through the base of an antique fire extinguisher and several paint cans. The contents had oozed out, creating a replica of a science fiction movie creature. We put the dripping cans into plastic bags, then into totes in our vehicles. Roman found a hammer and chisel and removed the Blob from the floor.

  Our plan was to haul the stuff in the garage out onto the lawn into two piles: good stuff for the estate sale and junk for the landfill. There ended up being a third pile of boating equipment: sails, lines, cushions, barometers, etc. Gardner owned a sailboat with a friend. The boat's location was vague. The boat's other owner was elderly and had supposedly given his interest to Gardner. Abigail didn't care about the boat. She just wanted the garage empty. Gardner was busy on a long-term project in Canada and had authorized Abigail to take care of business.

  The pile of boat stuff grew larger than the estate sale and junk piles together. By the time both vehicles were loaded with junk, Abigail discovered that the local landfills would be closed before we could reach them. Our option was to haul the junk to the gallery twenty minutes away that had a dumpster. It was a small dumpster with a monthly pick up. The extra junk could go behind the gallery, and Abigail would deliver the toxic waste to the landfill another day.

  Meanwhile I was sent to cut into the shelf under the front counter in the gallery. When staff sat at the computer, they couldn't get their legs under the counter and they didn't like it. Before our trip I had consulted with my brother, a competent carpenter. Of course reality never matches the ideal. I made a tentative cut into the plywood shelf. Sarah, the employee, suggested I cut out more and remove that support post she hit her knees on. With Abigail's ok I cut out the post and more of the shelf.

  Finally Abigail unleashed me for a deep squarish cut. The sawdust flew and blue smoke drifted up as my jig saw turned the corners. "Smells good in here," Abigail said. Abigail is such a positive person. That's the reason we love working for her.

  It was getting dark by now. Abigail called back to Cindy's and asked the crew there to put the good stuff back in the garage. When we arrived it looked like we had barely made a dent in the pile. This would be a job of many days. But it was satisfying to know that the legacy of the Liberty Tree was safe, the former toxic waste site was clean, and the  gallery workers’s backs would no longer be twisted.

Ergonomically correct 

Real Madrid

 

  After our hike along the northwest coast of Spain and after our week in Barcelona, we should have gone home, but for some reason we had tacked on a shapeless week in a small town in Andalusia, after which we had four days left over before our flight back to Boston from Madrid. 

  Madrid is an interesting place, but we had by now absorbed all the interesting things we could and were ready to go home. It didn't help that I had put off looking for a place too long and the hotels in Madrid were crazy expensive and all the Airbnbs seemed to be owned by the same guy. All his reviews were lumped together and you couldn't tell which places were great and which were dungeons.

  After much looking we settled on a place two miles north of the center of tourism. It cost much more than any other place we had stayed, but it had good reviews and the room photos looked good. The hotel appeared to be in a decent neighborhood based on Google street view. 

  "Should we be worried if he's never heard of our hotel?" Teresa wondered as we rode in a cab from the airport. The driver followed his GPS down a narrow street, craning his neck to spot Number 6. There was a sign that said Hotel Las Vegas, but it didn't look like there was a hotel behind the locked front door. With the cab gone, I felt like I was in one those dreams in which I'm trying to get somewhere but can't, and no one around me seems to care. 

    Fortunately the woman in the money transfer office at Number 8 made me understand that I needed to go to Number 12 to register. The door at Number 12 was also locked but the clerk buzzed me in. She didn't speak English, but found my penciled name in her spiral notebook. She gave me a key and a smile. Room 47, my birth year. This has to be good.

  The key was of no use getting into Number 6. Luckily two gentleman also going in indicated I needed to hold the little blue fob on the keychain up to a little 🔵 on the wall next to the door. Open sesame! We hauled our luggage up the steep steps to another locked door with a blue dot. It was reassuring to see that security here was top notch.

  We got in the elevator to the fourth floor. The two gentleman sensibly declined to join us since a sign said in Spanish and English "More than four people and you will be trapped". The elevator opened, rather weirdly I thought, onto a tiny roofless area with a chair and a potted plant. This must be the patio/smoking area. A doorway led to a hallway with our room and one other. Teresa was aghast when I opened the door.  Aesthetics are important to Teresa.

  I must give credit to the photographer who made this very ugly room look like something we would book. It was good that the room's ugliness was confined to such a small space. We had been spoiled by the roominess of our previous accommodations. The apartment in Barcelona had been strange, but this place outdid it. 

  The usual trim that cover pipes and wires had been left off which must have made maintenance a breeze. The window was tiny which was fine because the view was of a courtyard and many other tiny windows, which meant our room was blessedly quiet. The room was also clean. My three criteria for a room are cheap, clean, and quiet, so two out of three wasn't bad. And on the plus side there were excellent reading lamps. Yes, the lighting was good though what the lights revealed was bad.

The soccer pitch in front of No. 6, the Hotel Las Vegas.

  You don't hang around in a room like this. You get out and enjoy the sights of the beautiful capital of Spain.  The rain had other ideas. It rained heavily all the next day.  We walked a mile towards the tourist center which we would surely have had to ourselves had we made it that far. We had our raincoats on and Teresa had a little umbrella. I tried to buy a little umbrella for myself as we passed the many shops, but no luck. The next day I would see little umbrellas abandoned in the gutter.

  I had unwisely worn a pair of moisture absorbing pants and my sneakers were fairly soaked.  After a mile of this I called a halt. "Let's go into that cafe and have a nice cup of tea." Teresa gave the thumbs up. The great thing about Spanish restaurants is that you can sit over your cup of tea or coffee for hours on end. No Spanish restaurant would ever bring your check before you asked for it. That would be insulting. 

  We decided to order a late breakfast. We would share the Breakfast Americano. The huevos revueltos were not revolting eggs, but scrambled. The tortilla was a pancake with no syrup. The bacon was bacon. The fried potatoes were French fried potatoes. When dining in a foreign country, something is always lost in translation.

  We enjoyed the restaurant's Wi-Fi and after a couple of hours we split a late lunch. By three pm the rain had let up a bit and we walked back to our room. It may have been depressing but at least it was warm and dry. Wait a minute! Where's the Wi-Fi? As I headed over to Number 12 to complain, I noticed the Wi-Fi worked on the lower floors. I could not get that fact across to the clerk in reception. She kept pointing to the sign behind her with the password. "Take picture!" was her only English. I would have used the translation app on my phone, but Number 12 had a different password than Number 6. 

  When I told Teresa this she asked me to go down to floor three and download something for her to read. While there, I used the translation app to compose notes in Spanish describing the Wi-Fi problem. "Might as well complain about the mold spots near the ceiling too," Teresa suggested.

  Next morning there was a kindly old man at reception. He carefully read my phone note a couple of times then looked at me. I nodded and pointed at my note. He wrote my concern in his notebook. Then I showed him the note about the mold. He looked confused. I had used the Spanish word for the kind of mold you make jello in. Luckily a woman came in who knew English and supplied the right word. The clerk wrote the word moho in his notebook.

  The next two days were sunny and cool and we spent them down in the tourist district. We even went to the Prado Art Museum, not because we wanted to, but because two of our sons had gone there many years before during their season in Europe and it would have been shameful for us to blow it off.  We kept returning to branches of the restaurant that had sheltered us during the rainy day. The Wi-Fi clicked in automatically and we had their menu in English on our phones.

  When we returned to our room, the Wi-Fi was working and though we didn't expect this, the moho had been removed.  They tried at the Vegas, they really did.  No matter, we were up early Sunday morning, our suitcase wheels clicking over the quiet streets. We had figured out the mystery of the subway card system and spent a few stress-free hours at the airport awaiting our flight. I had my best meal of our entire month in Spain in the airport. Perhaps knowing Number 3 son would be waiting to pick us up at Logan had something to do with it.

Don Quixote was always in hot water because he lacked the sense to stay home.

  

Farewell España

  

  Why travel? To see what’s over the next hill. To see how they do things over there. It becomes an obsession until the traveler either dies or learns to stay home. 

  We wanted to find out what the thousand year old pilgrimage along the northern plains of Spain was all about. Why would people walk 500 miles for a month, sleeping in dormitories, eating rough food all for the reward of a scallop shell? 

  We would learn why they did it by going to Spain, not that we were going to walk with the pilgrims. Their way sounded grim. But we could go to Santiago where the walk ended and maybe do a few days of walking ourselves. 

  We talked to pilgrims in Santiago who had completed the route. They couldn’t put into words what the walk had meant to them but they did have a joyous glow about them. 

  We had found a hike along the Atlantic coast sixty miles west of Santiago. We saw practically no other hikers during our four days in this remote region called Galicia. We were on more of a tourist route though we saw very few tourists. We did see farmers driving their tractors out onto the mudflats of the deep bays at low tide to collect seaweed for their fields. We saw men nearby digging shellfish. Along the sandy beaches we saw Germans bobbing like seals in the water waiting for a good wave, their camper vans parked along dead end roads.  

  Our hike was a combination of beautiful views and anxiety that we might be on the wrong path.  Now there's something to meditate about.  We experienced language isolation because the local people didn't speak English and we didn't know their language. We couldn't get upset about it because we were in their country. Press two for English. Whenever we came across Dutch hikers or someone from the UK we had a nice chat.  We only met a handful of Americans in the month we were in Spain.

  After the hike we had no good reason to stay in Spain other than to see the church of the Sagrada Familia, that fantasy in stone by the architect Gaudi.  Sagrada Familia is supposed to be a church and it is a church. The cornerstone was laid in 1882, but the first mass was not said there until 2010 and the place  is still not done. What is going on? To be fair, it took 182 years to build Norte Dame in Paris. On the third hand, the much larger St. Peter's in Rome only took 126 years. 

  Sagrada Familia is in Barcelona on the Mediterranean, 700 miles east of Santiago. Cheap airfares save a lot of time, but getting to the airport and through security adds a lot of trepidation. Barcelona is a beautiful place if viewed through the lenses of the carefree traveler. We were warned off a certain area where the homeless lived. Could it be any worse than in our Portland?

  We could have gone home after Barcelona but then we would have missed the Alhambra, the fabulous Islamic fortress and palace outside Granada in the south. So we hopped on a flight to the south. Once we got set up in our hilltop lodging surrounded by groves of olive trees, we discovered the Alhambra was fully booked till after our flight home. Oh well, we didn't really want to see the Alhambra anyway.  We'd go to Córdoba instead and see the combination mosque and cathedral there.

  We had acquired a rental car by this time.  The roads in Spain are as good as at home and they drive on the right side of the road. But driving in the ancient towns is nerve wracking, so we took a ninety minute bus ride to Córdoba.  It was a twenty-five minute walk to the mosque from the bus station. That gave us an excuse to stop at a cafe for pastry.

  The Grand Mosque of Córdoba was gigantic. Córdoba had been the capital of Muslim Spain and North Africa. Its mosque was the second largest after Baghdad. We entered through the entrance to the mosque or former mosque. When the Christian's took over Córdoba in 1236, they converted the mosque into a church.  They covered over the Koranic texts and installed altars and statues, but left the basic structure of the mosque alone.  

  But no one ever lets well enough alone. In 1523 the bishop of Córdoba wanted to build a gothic cathedral in the middle of the mosque.  The city council said no way. The bishop appealed to the king who said way. After the cathedral was built the king was invited to mass there. He's reputed to have said, "Ouch."

  After our time in the south we had four days left over so we spent them in Madrid. This post was supposed to be a wrap. Perhaps I'll treat Spain to a Minnesota goodby.

Church meets mosque. Church sits on mosque.

 

Andalusia

  

   The world's first surrealist movie is called The Andalusian Dog. It was released in 1921. It’s a series of unrelated scenes, supposedly inspired by the director's dreams. Salvador Dali was somehow mixed up in it.

  Our week in Andalusia was a little like that. To fill in the time after our week in Barcelona and our flight home, we hooked up with a company that booked us in a hill town in Andalusia in the south. 

  We flew from Barcelona to Málaga on the Mediterranean coast and picked up the car that came with our “tour”. We got out of town fairly easily but it was weird for Google maps assistant to say “Take Massachusetts 21.” The assistant was interpreting the MA21 of Málaga province as a US state. It was a nice touch of home though.

  The jumbled hills north of Málaga looked exactly like Arizona. After half an hour the hills evened out and were covered with olive trees. Old olive trees, little olive saplings, and between-size trees all in neat rows on a beige soil. Only the most rugged hill tops were free of olive trees. Spain produces half the olive oil in the world and this is its most productive region.

  Our contact, Pablo, met us at a restaurant a few miles from Priego de Córdoba where we would be staying. That was good because we never would have found our lodging on our own.  The highways and secondary roads are just like the roads at home, but driving in the ancient towns is mind boggling.  The streets are narrow and twisting and you're never quite sure if you're going the wrong way on a one way street. Even Google maps is pretty useless in the towns.

  Ivan, our host directed me into his cramped underground garage and once I got in place I lost all desire to ever take the car out again, especially after Ivan told me I needed to do something to prevent the overhead door from coming down on the roof of our car as we drove out. Ivan's English was good but not good enough to make clear what that special thing was.

  Our apartment had a fantastic view of the olive tree covered hills and the mountains beyond. Ivan's place was one of a connected row of buildings perched on a high cliff. Our apartment was a good size with a sink, refrigerator and microwave. There was a common area kitchen with stove and oven. This was good because getting what we wanted in a Spanish restaurant was problematic. First there was the language barrier, and then you never knew if their hambueger corresponded to our hamburger until it was set before us. When we had the chance to cook, we bought pasta and sauce along with the excellent bread. A cop-out but a satisfying one.

Olives of Andalusia 

  Priego has a population of 22,000. It has a big baroque cathedral and many smaller churches. It has a big castle preserved from the Moor fighting days of several centuries ago.  There's a pretty walkway along the high cliff which leads to those narrow twisting streets which are fun to wander on foot. 

  Pablo took us to lunch the next day. We had been disappointed to find the grocery stores closed that morning. Pablo told us it was Spain's National Day (also Columbus Day) and everything was closed except the restaurants. It was good to have Pablo to help us order something we were sure to like. Also present was a woman using the same tour company. Carol had been traveling alone in Europe since April. We admired her stamina.  She had declined the rental car and taken the bus to Priego. If only we had known you could do that.

  The theory of having a car was that after seeing all of Priego, you could drive a couple of hours to see the sights in Granada, or Córdoba, or Sevilla. We stretched out the delights of Priego and finally decided to give driving a chance. We chose Sunday figuring traffic would be light. Ivan conveniently did that thing needed to prevent the door from coming down on the roof and we carefully picked our way out of town.

  There was a town a few miles away with Roman ruins. We drove right past the ruins and into the heart of the quiet town. We parked in front of the church and walked back to the ruins. There was just enough English on the plaques to let us know this was the villa of an olive growing estate 2,000 years ago. It was still quiet in town when we got back to the car. Google tried to get us out of town an a long narrow street that ended in a set of stairs. Was I in donkey mode?

  Back on the highway Teresa thumbed through the booklet the company had given us suggesting towns in the area.  Zagrilla Baja sounded inoculous, but once we got into its coils we just wanted to get out. We put Zagrilla Alta into Google. We were in Córdoba province and the assistant kept telling us to turn on Colorado such and such. Not funny anymore. Google took us on a narrow gravel road with olive branches brushing against the car.

  Once back on the relatively straight highway I noticed that following the convoluted map was killing the phone battery. Our car was so bare bones it lacked a USB port to charge my phone.  We got our bearings for our next destination then shut off the phone.  Of course we quickly got lost and were soon heading towards Màlaga on the freeway. If we could stay here a few months and learn Spanish, maybe life would be easy.  But I'm like an olive tree. Not much growth happens in a week.

  It was the bat cave that did me in. Teresa found a bat cave up in the hills. Sure. Who doesn't like a nice bat cave? I checked their website. Closed 1:30 to 4:30 for siesta. The saints be praised I said. It had just turned 1:30.  Teresa suggested driving up there just to see what the outside looked like. We made our way to Colorado 1362, very much a tertiary road, just wide enough for two cars to pass each other. As we wound our way into the hills and over steep crevasses, Zuheros came into view. That was where you got tickets for the cave. Surely there must be a road into the place but we settled for pictures since we weren’t going to the cave.

Zuheros: no go zone. 

   We had enough battery life on the phone to get us home. Ivan was out. As I drove into the garage Teresa said the door was coming down so I quickly backed out.  After experimenting, we found if Teresa stood in a certain spot, the door would stay up. I locked the car keys in the safe.

  A couple of days later we took the bus down to Córdoba to look at the famous old mosque. It had been the biggest mosque in the Muslim world west of Baghdad. The mosque was interesting, but it was annoying to see how the Christians, once they had pushed the Muslims out, had plopped their cathedral into one end of the mosque just because they could. 

  We had some New York Slice pizza behind the mosque and walked the half hour back to the bus station. By riding the bus we had no car troubles, but the bus presented its own problems. The bus driver told us our bus was not going to Priego even though the front of the bus said Priego.  A fellow passenger used her phone translator to explain where we'd have to changes busses.

  The afternoon bus was a local so we got to see the backside of several towns which is always interesting. I was content knowing we were on our way home where a big bowl of pasta would be cooked, Americano style.

Sagrada Familia

  

   When people asked Antoni Gaudi why his church was taking so long to build, he would say, "My client is not in a hurry." As a longterm student at Catholic schools, I too was kind of a client. The nuns would give us updates on progress on this weird building of curved spires and gaunt statues. Sister Eubestrabius told us the word gaudy came from the architect's name, but it really comes from an obsolete English word meaning joke, which in turn came from the French and Latin words for rejoice, so it all works out.

  Ground was broken for the church way back in 1882. The original architect quit after a year and the young Gaudi was put in charge. Gaudi had been playing with organic designs at a housing development for the rich and he started incorporating his ideas into the plain-vanilla gothic church that was just getting under way. 

Dem bones. The Bible in stone: the crucifixion, the empty tomb, and Christ ascending. Worth the trip.

  Gaudi developed an organic style inspired by natural forms. Rather than draw plans, he made models which continually evolved as time went on. He came up with structural innovations that did away with the flying buttresses of older churches. He wanted lots of light inside. He was devoted to his work and never married though he was close to his family and friends.

  Gaudi worked on the church for 43 years. At the time of his death in 1926, the building was less than one quarter complete. His disciples have tried to remain faithful to Gaudi's vision. In 1936 during the Spanish Civil War, anarchists damaged the church and destroyed some of Gaudi's original plans. Work on the church started again after the war in 1939

    The builders hope to have the church completed by 2026, the centennial of Gaudi’s death, but Covid halted then slowed construction for awhile. There is one more facade to complete and a few more towers including the Jesus tower which at 566.9 feet, will make Sagrada Familia the tallest church in the world.

  Gaudi was 73 when he died. He was on his way to mass when he was hit by a tram. He wore shabby clothes so people thought he was a tramp and it was a while before he got decent treatment. By the time he was recognized it was too late. There was a massive funeral and he was laid to rest in the crypt under the main altar of Sagrada Familia. Observers say it's unlikely the church will be complete in time for Gaudi's centennial. But what does it matter? Neither Gaudi nor his client is in a hurry. 

Let there be light. 

Photos by Teresa