Leaning in, Pisa-style

We have had one full day in Pisa, and we used it for just what you would expect - going to the Piazza dei Miracoli (aka Piazza del Duomo) and gaping at the Leaning Tower. Also, eating pizza. Also, walking about looking at other marvels, of which there are several.

It was fun, that's the first thing. We took a bus to the end of the line and there we were. The Piazza was full of people having a lovely time. They had the idea to right the tower. Hm. Some problems in performance...

Here's how to do it:

Obviously.

This tower is hopeless, however. It'll never straighten up. In fact, it's been slipping a little and there's been an effort to stabilize it further by pumping a new foundation underneath. You can see if you look closely that by the time it was 7 stories high, they realized it was tilting, and the little top layer is canted the other way in hopes of not making the problem worse. 

The Piazza has other buildings, all sheathed in limestone or marble. They are as white as if they never experienced air pollution. This may be true. Julianne thinks they sandblasted them, though. We didn't have the same opinion on this. I think the carvings are too crisp to have been sandblasted. Well, somebody knows this.

 

So much for the artifacts of bright pride. We walked into the city and ate pizza at Pizzeria Santa Maria, very charming. Walked toward the river, stopped in a bookstore, bought a book, got some ice cream, took more pictures. Nice day.

Transitions: Trains, boats and automobiles October 23-25, 2014

Transitions are part of travel.  Closing down one stage and opening another.  In between are trains, boats and automobiles.

As I think about saying good-bye to our kind host, Marta, in Tarragona as she took us to the train station I am reminded that I really like her and miss her.  This kind of travel in which we stay with folks opens a view of the world we enter in each place; then we turn our faces to the next place.  How much we have appreciated Gary and Jaap and Ananeke in previous locations.  This aspect of our journey has worked much better than we expected--a gift from the travel gods. (There must be such things.  Somewhere, maybe the Prado, was a great painting of St. Anthony.  Maybe he works on Air BnB too.)  We are meeting our friends, Jean and Cynthia, and my sister Kitty, in Florence on Monday.  Our small world will enlarge.  We are excited for the company--and this company in particular.  Yay!

But the time in between reminds that all travel is not peak experiences.

Train to Barcelona--beautiful views along the coast, crowded trains, our luggage taking up the aisle making others sidle around.  We packed light considering that we packed for a journey of a year or more.  It is not that light though.  Train trips are when we really notice it since we must get everything up and down train steps at least and maybe steps to platforms.  We are getting a relay routine down: train stops, we swing into action.  On the other hand, other passengers seem to help quite often. It is in their interest to get us out of the way too. Several willing hands at Barcelona Sants.

Hotel time in Barcelona.  We are spending down hotel points which I accrued on refugee circuit rides.  Six weeks here and there in chain hotels has added up even for me who was not that good at managing my points.  So a night in a Sheraton.  Halloween pumpkins for décor.  Business center.  City bus to the Ramblas for dinner. We are getting to be quite good on city transport systems. After superb paella along the coast, we really wanted--a hamburger!  Found it too in a Viennese cafe.  

On Friday--a ferry to Italy.

I have been known to drive 200 miles out of my way to take a ferry.  I was so excited to find that 8 different ferries go to Italy from Barcelona.  They go other places too.  During our first stay in Barcelona, we were looking down on the ferry dock.  Our tickets were Barcelona to Genoa. Be still, my heart!

The Friday morning reality was more stark.  The ferries are in the freight dock.  We were the only walk on passengers.  The relatively few other passengers drove on.  Our boat seemed to be transporting mainly new cars for sale. No one much knew what to do with us--police check point, unmanned.  We finally found someone.  A bus from the police point to the ferry--30 yards, only us.  Couldn’t get on yet--where can we wait?  Much back and forth--ask that person; no, that one.  No one spoke Spanish or English.  Eventually we entered.

Tickets for Pullman sleepers on the Sky deck, Rossini room; map showing restaurants, piano bar, swimming pool.  Sounds great. It is to laugh!

The Pullman sleepers are chairs that recline--a little.  We were in the Puccini room with about 30 men and 2 women who had gotten on in Morocco, the origin of our boat.  As far as I could make out, they are workers going together on some type of work contract.  They all had the same blankets, same food bowls and spoons. I am reminded of my flight from Jogyakarta to Kuala Lumpur on the bargain flight--me and 200 Indonesian men who work in Malaysia.

The piano bar was as much like a Middle Eastern coffee shop as anything I have experienced--men, women and children settled in for the long haul with tiny cups of coffee.  The piano was a climbing gym for the kids.  Most restaurants closed by the time we entered and got settled; some clearly never open, these days.

The swimming pool had no water, big net.  All the deck area around the pool was a shisha bar with several hookahs and tables of Moroccan men playing cards.

The Moroccans must have embarked in Tangier and must have been on the boat for at least one night.  Everywhere in the boat were little camps where folks had set up their blanket and food and clothes packets.  Reserved seats meant nothing--just as well as we got nice ones by the window instead of odd seats in the middle of the room. TV full of Arabic soap operas of family conflicts and love gone wrong, French language news, a long clerical lecture, and Bugs Bunny cartoons, also Popeye.

All our fellow passengers seemed wholesome, kindly people.  We had to get by with smiles as I have only 2 words of Arabic (oh why didn’t I pay more attention!). They seemed to have no words of Spanish or English.

There are cabins--why was I unable to get one?  Why did I think “Pullman” meant beds?  What was I doing when booking?  How could I do better?  If there is a next time, I will figure it out, I hope.

Beautiful sunny day out on the decks.  My hopes for seabirds of the open ocean came to naught as we hugged the coast of Spain going north.  Good views of the Pyrenees and coastal towns.  About 30 yellow legged gulls--no other birds.  3 fishing boats. 2 sail boats.  A container ship off in the distance.  An oil tanker off in the distance.  

Sunset over Spain.  After all there was a peak experience.

More sleep in the sleeping chairs than expected.  A line of 100 people for coffee.  Firm announcements that various categories of passengers must assemble in their assigned location by 6:30.  We who are “a pie” should be in the 7th floor lobby.  We are.  Everyone else has tickets for car deck C.  People tenderly stroking pets who have been in the pet accommodation. Where are the Moroccans who were in our sleeping room?  Surely they are “a pie” too.

Restful waiting.  Finally coffee.  And in one sip--”Presto, presto.  A pie.  Al assensor!!!”  Gulp, gulp.  And down and out to Italy.

Sunrise in Genoa--another peak experience.

Good thing as we had a long walk to the actual passport control and exit.  

Oh, a taxi to train station?  You have to call the taxi company.  Although there are few passengers on our ship, there is another ferry and a cruise ship--surely there could be a need for taxis?  Guess not.  Finally, we spy a Holiday Inn.  Their kindly call resulted in a taxi, short trip to the train station.  Time spent getting a “silver pass” for Nancy to get a train discount.  Tickets to Pisa and onward tickets to Firenze as we are learning to call it.  

The train and luggage thing again.  No elevators or escalators.  Very tall train with steep steps. Our relay system in action and kindly other passengers.  Our luggage in the aisle again.  Suitcase with 4 rolling wheels zooming down the aisle when the train moves--us chasing.  Continuing patient other passengers.

Stunning journey.  One of those unplanned good luck journeys.  The train hugs the coast as the terrain is very steep.  Lovely towns.  Where are the tacky parts of town that huddle along train tracks in the US?

Mediterranean to the right of us; mountains to the left.  Wow!  Look at those mountains.  Sharp peaks, way up there.  White tops on some.  Yikes--this it the area of Carrara marble and we see mountains of it being quarried, stacked, worked and ready to be shipped.  There are miles of these mountains--the world will not run out of Carrara marble in case you were worried.

Pisa Centrale.  Luggage and stairs thing again.  No elevator.  Relay.  Kindly other passengers stepping in from time to time.  Really, we are willing to pay porters if there were such a thing.  There is no such thing.  The few other travellers with much luggage, and in some cases children in tow, are doing the same as us--relay.  A strong guy with family and much luggage just added us to his relay routine.  (We carried one of the baby carriers. Laden mother is herding small children.)

Another points hotel--this time Marriott AC.  We zoom past the old city walls, 18th C. buildings to suburbia.  Hotel among suburban apartment blocks; mall a block away.  We were starving and so glad to see a mall.  Good food in a cafeteria.  Major suburban grocery store.  Delighted to get into our standard hotel room--soft beds, shower.  Good internet to take care of business.

Tonight we veg.  We might be getting a little old for the all-night-in-seats approach.  The train luggage relay is already old.  Tomorrow we will have time to find the historic center, leaning tower.  Back to peak experiences and soon--friends.

Tarragona, the Beautiful City -- October 2014

Mainly written by Julianne with photos from Nancy following the text

Stunning. 

Amazing.

We are wandering around goggle-eyed.

How has this place remained so beautiful?

Tarragona has been our home for nearly 2 weeks.  We are south of Barcelona about an hour by train, along the Mediterranean coast.  I chose this place with little knowledge because there are Roman ruins and good bird-watching near by. As with much of what we are doing, we make the basic arrangements and find out what it is like after arrival. We had NO idea how great this would be.

Tarragona was the capital of Roman Hispania for several hundred years.  The people here were actual citizens of Rome--we are finally IN the empire rather than touching the edges as in England and Holland.  Rome struggled against and finally subdued the Carthagenians who headquartered in Cartegena further down the coast.  Augustus, one of my favorite emperors, based his campaign to control the interior in this very city, and wintered here in 25 BC.  (Nancy reminds me that all the Roman emperors were blood-thirsty brutes and none can be a favorite. Good point.)  After Rome had full control, this remained one of their major ports and their administrative capital for Hispania. The population over time rose to about 40,000 people, showing one of the benefits of the Pax Romana. And here we are to enjoy what is left behind.

Our darling apartment is inside the Roman wall close to the Portal del Roser, an entry through the wall used from Roman times to the present.  The gate and wall are quite complete and still standing much restored by UNESCO recently.  The wall continues in a deep horseshoe northeast up and around the end of the city, then southwest to another portal and a tower close to the cliffy step-down to the sea.  Roman arches, stairs, other bits are all over the place.  Several quite complete buildings--forum, racetrack, amphitheatre. UNESCO has done a good job for us all by assisting in preservation and restoration since 2000. Lucky us--the place is both old and fixed up to modern standards.  There are other tourists but not that many since it is October.

Other than the Roman Empire, my other great historical love is the Middle Ages. This area was strong-ish at that time, too, as a headquarters for the church of the area.  The Roman buildings were re-purposed for churches, schools and convents with a fine cathedral built over the Roman temple area.  The cathedral has some excellent medieval statuary including altarpieces and statuary from the general diocesan area from as early as the 11th C.  I loved that section of the Prado but this rivals it in quality.  The church was built beginning in the 1100’s after the Arabs were defeated in this area and shows the early Romanesque arches and the later Gothic additions.  Construction and refinement came to a screeching halt with the Black Death when the population fell from 8000 to 2000.  

Now, how did it happen that all the Roman and Medieval touches have remained relatively intact?  In several locations there are the original water fountains which served as the city water supply from those eras.  Much of the housing and other buildings have remained more or less as they were when built in the Middle Ages, with adaptations as needed.  Here in the Part Alta (Old Town) buildings like our home have retained their early structures with modern plumbing and electricity added.  

Somehow Tarragona retained its Roman and Medieval nature, while many other places (London and Paris come to mind) have been have been built over, torn down, and built over again so that few traces of the past emerge to view. The history websites do not explain this but I am fascinated.

There is a modern Tarragona too, of course.  This is a city of 100,000 with industry, a busy port and modern housing developments spreading out all around.  But the old structures and spaces I am enjoying so much have continued to be used without being destroyed.  Our good luck.  Our further good luck was finding this darling apartment, thanks to Air BnB.

So I am mulling this over.  When the barbarians reached this area as the Empire fell apart, Visigoths took control of Tarragona.  They destroyed much but were not as destructive as the Vandals who leveled Carthage, for example.  They ran a fairly peaceful and stable administration here for several hundred years and had become Christian, as had Rome by then. They were not big builders but probably used the existing buildings. Under the Arabs, Al Andulus, the centers of activity were elsewhere, such as Cadiz and Grenada.  So I imagine this as a nice provincial town under both regimes. There is little visible from either group--one Arab-style arch is displayed in the cathedral museum noting that it was imported to Tarragona from further south during the Arab period.

Tarragona, with the rest of Catalan, was conquered from the Arabs by Charlemagne quite early and was held by him and later Holy Roman emperors as a buffer zone between Christians and Arabs. Although Tarragona gained status as an archdiocese, the civil administration was in Barcelona, which developed and became the important city of the area. Ports, military, civil administration--all passed Tarragona by. Only the church put much effort into the town and that is reflected in the cathedral, former convents and seminaries. Some of the very early medieval statues in the cathedral museum are from the 11 century as Christians tried to re-establish their religion in the area.

There we are--a backwater, provincial town. Important enough to maintain as a city but not so important that everything needed to be built over, knocked down and built again in the High Middle Ages, Renaissance or even later. Sitting here, just waiting for UNESCO, the current Spanish government’s interest in tourism and the current era of appreciation for the art and architecture of earlier times.  We do not find such circumstances everywhere and it is our good luck to have landed here.  

Now, we are wrapping up a delightful stay here and getting ready to take a ferry to Italy.  I had some good birdwatching in the Ebro and Llobregat Deltas and El Garraf National Park. Nancy had enough time to paint and draw. We are rested and ready for the next step--a ferry ride to Italy.

And from Nancy:

Below, a few of the hundreds of photos of Tarragona that I couldn't stop myself from taking. Where do you start, trying to pick one picture to represent Tarragona? Not possible. These first few are from our initial walkabout, when we could hardly believe our eyes.

 Col Civaderia

 View from Via Augusta, with Roman Amphitheater below

 Col Jueu, the medieval entry to the Jewish quarter

 Col Civaderia

Col L'Enra Jolat

The Roman Wall. 

This standard sculpture of Romulus and Remus, a copy of which probably would have stood somewhere in the city when it was Roman. This one actually is a recent gift of Italy to Spain, and stands on the Roman wall close to our apartment.

Above, a shot of the reconstituted Roman Wall, showing how it snugs up to the medieval cathedral, which was built on the spot of the earlier Roman temple, which it seems was dedicated to deifying Augustus

Here is a map of the area currently enclosed by the old Roman Wall, which is only part of the original Roman wall that used to extend down to the waterfront some distance from this rendering. Portal del Roser is at #1. Red is for current streets and public squares, blue is the built areas, and white shows the Roman temple and forum area, with the bottom irregular oval being the circus race-course. Except for the cathedral and religious buildings, the built-up areas are probably 15th century or later. My finger is pointing to the location of our apartment.

Here's our home in Tarragona:

Here, the unfinished facade of Tarragona Cathedral, with no towers and no decoration above the rose window. This was a Fair day in the church plaza, note flags etc.

Below: signs of wealth in the carvings in the Tarragona Cathedral

made between the 11th and14th centuries

 

And, signs of the old history of Tarragona writ in stone:

 Roman fountain still in use, with "new" taps I think

 Early wall with arches filled in to make it solid

See these 12th century Gothic arches built within an earlier Romanesque arch.

Here now are some pictures that I just like for the visuals. Ah, Tarragona!

Roman method of making arches - build a wooden form, pour concrete and rubble over it, remove the form. These arches are original, though the floors are new

I could go on and on and on, but I'll spare you my garrulous desire to show you more and more pictures, as well as all the intricate details that go along with each picture. Coming to Tarragona isn't hard, in fact it's easy and less expensive than many places in Europe. So I'm hoping you're encouraged to add it to your bucket list, and swing by.

by Nancy

Two Days in Barcelona

Barcelona divides easily into 3 aspects over the two days we were there. Maybe such a division is obvious specifically because we had such a short time.

First, we were forced (forced!) by a kerfuffle in our hotel reservation, to stay in the only place that had space where Julianne had points to use. So first, a few pictures of our surprising miracle, W.

Oh, the view from the 10th floor, right on the beach. Looking inland at night, the harbor and beyond it the hill with a fort on top that we didn't get to. A busy harbor, boats coming and going at all hours, including big cruise ships and ferries heading all over the Mediterranean, and in the early morning, fishing boats coming back from their night of labor.

 Who could resist the reflections? This is late at night, looking at the same view as above.

The view from our breakfast place, looking north (the pictures at top look south). I don't know those people - but I put them in for a sense of scale. This beach used to be all industrial, but some years ago Barcelona hosted the Olympic Games, and then they completely redid the bedraggled waterfront into a major recreation and beach area. It's got restaurants, bike shops, surf shops, an actual carnival, buses, and a harbor that hosts fishing and commercial boats. The development lasted and succeeded.

Oh, the early morning mist, oh the sailing boat. Out of sight to the right are a whole lot of barges and tankers, but never mind the actual economic backbone of Barcelona's harbor... just concentrate on the romance of the sea and the beauty of the pre-dawn light.

Second focus of our short visit, the Gaudi masterpiece, Sagrada Familia basilica. This church isn't finished yet, but it's farther along than it was in 1982 when I was there last. Then, the city seemed trashy and old, with actual bugs in our beds and so much noise, unbelievable. A city of motorbike maniacs, I thought then.

Julianne proposes that one reason for the evident poverty and lack of energy at that time (for instance there was only one stonecutter tap-tapping at Sagrada Familia, which was still open to the sky) was that the Catalonia region was anti-Franco, never supported him, and therefore didn't share in any of the rewards of the dictatorship. Could be, very like. I certainly wasn't looking at political economy in those days. These days Barcelona is booming, its economy the strongest in Spain. Sagrada Familia has been declared a World Heritage site, and I will say they have a handle on how to generate income from tourists.

The facade of main entry to the basilica is called Nativity, and here's the iconic carved scene. The entire face of the church is intricate with carvings of animals and plants. For instance, a barnyard of chickens:

On the other side of the church is the Passion. This carving moved me, with its rougher style, which is typical of the carvings on this side:

There's still a lot of work going on over on this side, where it's noisy and maybe a little dusty. The noise penetrates inside, but constant quiet music reduces its impact. The emphasis inside is on the light, which is beautifully managed by the stained glass and the shapes of the columns. Further, the ceiling, the organic shaping, the carvings. Ah!            

                           

Well, it could be that that's long enough for this posting, and a high  note to end on. Next posting, item three in our experience of Barcelona, the city itself. For now, enough.

by Nancy