Notes of the Traveller
September 2000. Our journey finished in Spain. Spain is very peculiar country, very different from Germany and from France. Here we travelled around and visited several cities: Madrid, Alicante, Cartagena and Toledo. Each of them left certain impressions. All these cities are very different.
Spain
Spain… My last love. A far most southern country in Europe and almost the westernmost too, together with Portugal. A typical Latin country but quite different from France. Well, let’s consider it in more detail…
First town we arrived was Irun—a little place not far from the border where we had to change trains. A man in yellow uniform looked at us and said that it was Irun. He looked like Spanish. From Paris we rode a night train, with couches to sleep. I woke several times during that night. My last glimpse of France, I remember were those movie posters advertising a film with Woody Allen. “Ah, we are still in France them”. That is interesting and very exciting when you denote the country you are in by the language of plates.
But that was Irun. The train we took there for Madrid was not that nice as we rode from Germany. The seats were very inconvenient. It was impossible to sleep. But on the other hand they never checked for out passports there. As long as you go to Spain nobody cares. If you go there, you have money and that’s all you need. It was very nice because I don’t like bureaucracy. Viva España! One more thing: in Spanish trains they show you some video film during the journey and for that purpose give you tiny microphones. A worthy entertainment. Germans would never think about that.
Madrid
It was a long ride. But finally we arrived in Madrid, Chamartin train station. We were nicely surprised by the train station: it was very big and clean and equipped with everything you need. Here we first found the “hotel service”—a bureau where you can book a room in a hotel or a hostal. Hostals are the same hotels, but usually much cheaper and as a rule they are run by a family. During our stay we always stayed in different hostals. All these hostals are starred—but, like my friend Richard say, they give the stars to themselves, and by their number you can easily determine the degree of honesty of their owners: the less stars—the more honest is the owner. It is a general rule without exceptions. We’ve been in absolutely similar hotels situated on the same floor but one of them had one star, and the other two. The latter one, as we had a chance to assure, was run by a perfect scoundrel. Even French are not that impudent. But let us not be hard. Spain is a peculiar country.
Let’s begin with that Madrid didn’t welcome us heartily. The first hour we’ve been there we were robbed—and the puzzle is that we still don’t know how. Spaniards are known for thievery but of course there are honest people among them too.
We stayed near famous Gran Via—strange to see in Madrid an Italian name. But here in Madrid there is calle Mayor, which means the same: main street or, more exactly, great street.
Yet, Madrid is an interesting city, I liked it, especially when we’ve been there the first time. Quite different from Paris. There are many ancient buildings there too but the atmosphere is different.
Another moment: according to the map Paris has definite borders but on maps of Madrid you always see just a part of the city. So in France you can stay one foot in Paris and the other out of it. It’s impossible to do the same trick in Madrid.
To the contrary of the accepted stereotype Spaniards are not beautiful at all. People in the streets and in metro do not catch you eye. Compared to Parisian who are rather handsome than beautiful Spanish men and women are rather ordinary by appearance. Naturally now and then you see a beautiful person but not very often. Probably it is because they eat too much ham: there are museos de jamon all over the city—in fact they are just cafés. The ceiling there is all covered with huge smoked pieces of meat. In fact every café has at least two such calves and the bartender cuts the slices from them without even taking them off the hook. All this meat is pork. When you just pass these jamon places you can feel the particular smell. This is the peculiarity of the Spanish capital.
Many young people in the streets of Madrid. I remember that in German town you notice how many old folks there and the most surprising thing is that they all look alike.
Madrid is nice but not as interesting as Paris. Madrid metro is a copy of Parisian, only not that nice. Trains go to the opposite directions and very few seats in every cart. It is usually crowded. But there they announce stops (not always though): man and woman’s voices. There are automats selling drinks and chocolate in metro stations.
But there were two great things in Madrid. On the second day of our staying here we visited the famous Museo del Prado. It is a magnificent museum with collection of Spanish and other European artists. We came there and were excited to learn that it was free that day. In fact almost all museums in Madrid are free all Sunday and Saturday afternoon. Something that Parisians will never do, probably because of the huge number of tourists. In El Prado and later in Toledo we noticed some interesting things about restoration. We found out that copies are worse than originals. It was clear that the picture was spoilt: the paints were too bright and gaudy, and the general look was not quite what you expected. I saw paintings of Poussin on reproductions and they didn’t look like them in the museum. But the most sad thing happened to the famous Jardin de Plaisirs by Jeronimo Bosch. According to the photographs on the exposition, restoration is just a creating of a copy, a very good copy but still a copy. I want to say than no copy does look like an original. Some spirit is gone. But almost nothing left from the original picture and that’s the only way to preserve at least a content of a painting. The same thing we observed with El Greco.
Actually the same thing I saw in a book about restoration of old pictures. Not much left on them and all the restoration can do is to put paint in places where it is supposed to be. It is a very difficult work, requires a lot of skill, study and yet it’s impossible to reproduce all the slight touches, nuances, subtle transitions of colours.
But still there are many interesting paintings in El Prado and the most interesting of them belong to the brush of Spanish artists.
We saw many wonderful pictures. El Prado is much smaller of course than Louvre, not as many people but lots of wonderful pictures. We especially enjoyed El Greco, Velasquez, Ribera and Goya. Speaking about Goya, this genious, it was obvious that he drew many things by commission and it was so obvious, he didn’t put much soul in them. Great artist can do that too! They should feel inspiration!
Unfortunately the hall with Goya’s drawings was closed. Too bad…
El Greco is unique. Velasquez is amazing. Their portraits are so dramatic. Spanish painters are so different from Italians and French. There is some rigorous spirit in the faces, something that you will so rarely see in Italian pictures. And there are some beautiful sculptures there too. For example I saw a couple of statures of Venus that was not like the usual kind. The figures were slim, the fact that nicely surprised me because usually they make the body of this goddess not really beautiful. But here the usual stereotype was changed. Spanish are great.
I especially was impressed by one canvas depicting St. Augustine in the moment of enlightment. Do you know the story? This saint at the beginning of his career led not a saint life. While dedicating himself to profligacy and orgies he prayed: "Oh, God, give me faith but not right now. What worse to wait a little bit more?" The painter managed exactly to transfer the feeling on his face: a mixture of fear, excite and amazement: so it did happen! Beautiful and inspiring picture.
In front of the museum one can see the sculpture of Velasquez sitting and near another entrance a stature of Goya standing. Spanish are proud in their artists.
The other thing in Madrid that became our ultimate pleasure was a little café El Valle. Even in Paris we haven’t found anything like that. Four or five men in blue shirts and black butterfly ties worked there, all the excellent fellows. One of them, like Richard said, looked like a movie star and indeed he was quite handsome. We used to go there to drink our cafe con leche y tostadas in the mornings but we often called there during the day too. It was opened from the early morning till late at night. They had excellent beer there, in fact I don’t remember to drink such tasty beer anywhere else.
A typical Spanish food we got acquainted there was tortilla—something like a potato pie or omelette. Can be very tasty but it depends much on who and how cooks it.
Prices were reasonable too. Though they vary greatly there, it depends very much on location of the place and in what kind of building it is situated. Like in the shopping centre El Corte Inglés the prices are higher than in the little café situated somewhere on the side or back street.
We were fond of that place. We tried tasty sandwiches with tuna and pollo (chicken), patatas fritas with fried eggs and red wine (vino rojo). It was just excellent! Only the portions were rather small but I would rather have small portions than big ones.
Once we were entrapped here. We came, as usual to order two sandwiches and tea or something like that. The fellow ushered us to the back room where we’ve never been before. But just as we entered we understood that something was wrong there: all the tables were covered with white tablecloths (usually if you order a dinner they cover it with a paper cloth). Suspecting bad we followed the waiter and here: there were about ten tables there more elegant than in the first room, all covered. We sat at one of them and had to order an expensive dinner. That was ok though since we had not eaten normal food for a while and were quite satisfied. But still it was entrapment and we fell there like a game.
Here I discovered that it is not actually necessary to learn the language to visit the country. Of course it is very helpful if you know some words but it’s possible to do without any of them too. Just point. But the best way is still to learn the most common words and then you can go wherever you want.
We often visited various bookstores and were surprised to find the same book all over Europe, just in different languages. Even the covers are the same. In the bookstores there they have all kinds of books; from the wide spread junk just to spend time in trains to good novels. In Spain they also promote Spanish authors and I like that. For example in Madrid we bought a book by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. This author is very popular now and each of his books becomes best-seller. These novels have both an interesting story and are written in a good limpid style, easy contemporary language.
Actually their talking never seemed to us very interesting. Spanish speak a lot, smoke a lot. In the café they like to throw trash right on the floor, to show that they are rich (it means that your servants clear the trash after you but there are no servants nowadays so it’s just a theatre for them). They don’t realise that they turn the place into the pigsty by that behaviour. But nobody seems to care about that so we also won’t…
The typical feature of Spanish cafés is that in every one you will surely see the game automate: you drop coins there and turn levels. If you are lucky in a few minutes you’ll get a heap of coins. Men seem to be fascinated by them, usually when you are in, something is standing near the game machine. Women never play at them, at least I’ve never seen one.
Many churches are closed in Madrid and this is very strange for a Catholic country. I remember one right beside El Prado: we tried twice. We just wanted to see interior but what if a person suddenly feels an urgent call for pray? We visited one cathedral that was very beautiful. All over Europe they give musical concerts there in churches, especially works on religious theme.
The first week we’ve been there we had to take care of the business that I won’t describe here. But our idea was to go to some town on the Mediterranean coast to swim in the sea. We studied the map carefully and decided to go to Alicante.
Alicante
Alicante is not a very big town, in spite of the beautiful name there is not really much as a place. It is a big industrial city with a beautiful yacht harbour, three beaches and ruins of old castles. Actually it is all you can see there.
There we wandered into a little village that looked exactly like some Greek or Arab village: houses are situated at the edge of the hill, there are tiny toy patios, curtains instead of doors—charming view. This Greek village was situated near Castillo de Santa Barbara where we climbed in spite of the very hot day (so is the life of the traveller). What can I say about that? First of all, it is more like a fortress than a real castle, at least according to my notion of the castle. But as a fortress it is just right. There were cannons behind the sick walls. Lots of empty space and a few trees and bushes on a desert earth. The whole scene looks like a Southern landscape. This fortress was kept by Englishmen for several years. It’s interior was not opened for the public but I don’t think you can find there anything interesting.
In general some streets look like medieval, narrow cobbled street with houses without windows. The main street that runs along the sea looks effective, paved with marble. In Alicante we saw palm trees for the first time. They grow there right along the sea. The harbour, as I mentioned is really nice, on one side of it there is a 4 star hotel for rich tourists and on the other a big shopping moll for poor citizens. We’ve been in this moll several times, there was a good book store there, a wonderful selection on all the subject and prices were relatively low. But the most peculiar feature of that moll was incredible noise that reigned there all the time. It is difficult to imagine, it can be compared with a bee nestle: looks quiet from afar but as soon as you come closer you cannot get rid of it. The process is out of any control. There are many not very cheap restaurants there and different boutiques where you can buy various trinkets.
We’ve been near hotel too, only we didn’t come inside. This part is characterized by expensive restaurants and gambling places (with automats as usual)—as you see, not really different from the moll. Isn’t interesting that the essence of thing is the same, it is just the exterior decorum that is different.
In Alicante we put up at a nice hotel, they gave us the biggest room there as to honourable guests. The master of this hotel was very friendly, he seemed always glad to see us and we talked several times.
But there are not really any places of interest in this city. We went to the beach on the other side of the hotel. We swam in the Mediterranean sea.
The city is quite ordinary though. The part along the harbour perhaps is the best part of the town. We saw some very unpleasant views, trash and graffiti on the walls. We had not find a single café there that would be really nice. Though one was not too bad, run by a young boy. During our stay in Alicante they reported news on Olympic games on TV.
In fact out real purpose of going to Alicante was to proceed some miles to the north or south and stay in some little village right on the sea coast, perhaps to live in a cottage. Well, in fact our perceptions about little villages were of the same category as poor artists on Montparnasse. There are not any. We made a bus trip to the south as far as to Cartagena.
Visit to Cartagena
It began with a search of the proper village. Studying the map we decided to go to a certain place (I really do not want to name it here, this place do not deserve even a negative advertisement, that’s why I denote it like ***). Passing through Santa Pola and Torrevieja we saw that they were big industrial ugly towns and were not inspired to stay there. Finally our destination: ***. But it did not look promising, so we decided to continue right to Cartagena. Well, soon we came there.
Cartagena… the city of dream—if you want a perfect oxymoron, here it is. Because Cartagena is the worst city we visited. Even Alicante was nice compared to this pathetic place. We found a pension to spend a night and then walked a little along the streets of Cartagena. The main place of interest there are Roman ruins “discovered by accident in 1947”. By the way they persistently underline their Roman connections (Cartagena is a Spanish variant of Carthage, famous by personality of Hannibal). Julius Caesar, Hannibal and other famous historical persons. In some place we discovered a plate on the wall with a brief history of the city. It contained the most famous dates and event that happened here. But we were not impressed. We also saw another local sightseeing: a submarine without illuminators and a fountain underneath.
A gloomy man brought us a tortilla where there were too much potatoes. He behaved like we inflicted him some deep offence—well, we just didn’t like his place. There was not any decent place there.
But it was in Cartagena where we found an excellent edition of Unamuno. We bought this one and another book of this writer. My Spanish was becoming better every day. Strange but we never saw this book in Madrid. Pocket editions that we’ve seen there contained other works of the writer.
By the way the write I mentioned above, Arturo Pérez -Reverte was born in Cartagena. Sic! (only in the Cartagena, which is in Columbia...)
Another thing that I should mention that there was a couple of streets in Cartagena paved with marble or something like that, they are really smooth. These streets are only for pedestrians, cars cannot drive there.
Anyway we had enough of it. The following morning we took the earliest bus to ***. We decided to investigate the place more carefully.
The first thing that strikes you when you take off the bus is unpleasant smell, it would be more correct to call it a stink. It is a kind of village or a very small town with one and two storey houses. We wanted to find a hotel but fortunately there were no rooms available there. By that time the smell was becoming worse. It soon became clear that it came from the sea. But that was the reason we came here. So after that we took the nearest bus to Alicante and we know that we would not have a wish to return here or Cartagena. So we came back to Alicante that looked kind of nice compared to that horror. We spend there a week in the same hotel.
In Alicante we visited a university and were nicely impressed. The campus is very pleasant, little buildings, all new are situated in a kind of park. There are trees there but all newly planted. It is obviously that the whole place was rebuilt of late.
Indeed, it was, as we found out later. Inside one of the building there were machines selling hot coffee, cacao and freshly squeezed orange juice. The price was lower than in cafés. In café fresh orange juice costs more than a beer. We also tried food in a university café and it was not bad.
Near the university campus there was a museum of modern art and it was quite unusual. The whole building (of course it looked like a museum of modern art can look: just a huge box without windows) was surrounded by a shallow pond. At first we didn’t notice the entrance so we walked around the building on the edge of the pond. After such a promising beginning I expected that there would be a kind of rising bridge there or better that you had to swim the pond in order to get to the museum. Or, at least that you had to jump from stone to stone in the pond trying to escape alligators. But nothing of the kind. The usual entrance, just hidden from the main road.
We entered and looked at the exposition. It was interesting. Even the modern section was not typical. A man we met there was very glad to meet foreigners; he explained us everything and was obviously glad to talk. It is possible though that we were the only visitors that day (and maybe the other days too) and the reason he talked to us was that he just wanted to practice his English since our castellano was not what you call a perfect Spanish.
We were glad that we visited this unusual museum: it is always nice to meet enthusiasts, the museum was free and they renewed their exhibitions quite often. So it left a pleasant impression.
Another interesting thing that we discovered in Alicante gave a rise to a splendid theory of conquest. We found out that every scripture like names of the places written on plates was doubled in some other language that we supposed to be Portugal. So Spain and Portugal decided to unite, we thought. And they began with the language. Perhaps it is just the beginning and then everything will be in Spanish. Spain will calmly eat Portugal and two different countries will become one. Ha-ha.
As it is usually happens the reality roughly deceived our expectations. Our friend porter, when asked this question, explained that it was not Portugal but just a Valencia dialect. It is also taught in schools. So though the official language is castellano but Valencian dialect is an official language as well and that’s why all the papers are written in both of these languages. Note that in Spain they never call its language Spanish. This tern is used only outside the country. The right name for the language spoken in Spain is castellano and in its narrow sense it means just the language the province Castilla La Mancha (not to be confused with the village of La Mancha from which the famous Don Quijote was) from which it borrowed the name.
But that was the only really nice thing. We spent a week in Alicante and that was enough. Time came to go back to Madrid. By the way here in Madrid there is a stature of Servantes and in front of it the sculptures of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza.
Yet, this experiment was not wasted. In a way it was as fruitful and educational as visit to Weimar. Now we know that there are no little villages in Spain. Even if there are, they must be far off the beaten track where we had no chance to go for a while. But all these places were exploited by tourists, the only villages we saw were congregations of tourists cottages, all exactly alike. Speaking about this I cannot help telling another interesting fact. Being already in Alicante I bought a magazine to look through. There was an article there in which they advertised a “villa near Alicante”. Some woman, evidently hired talked that this villa was a paradise. It was very close to the beach and just several miles by car and you see “authenticated fishing villages”. Mierda de toro! Perdon esta palabra pero no tengo otros para describir eso. Well at least another stable myth est découronné.
To tell the truth it is not surprising. Norman Lewis described in detail degradation of a Spanish villages of fishermen. And he wrote his novels in the beginning of the XX century. But we still cling to the old perceptions and stereotypes and do not want to look at facts that are obvious. In Madrid we saw an advertisement praising the advantages of spending vacation in Torrevieja. And there must be people who actually go there! But look at facts. Torrevieja is an ugly city, it is bigger than you can expect. How can you spend a good time in a city? Just because it is far from the place you live? Well, one might as well go to Cartagena.
It so happened that we’ve been to Alicante and to Madrid twice. Well, the Alicante experiment certainly was not wasted. I discovered a curious law: if you want to enjoy the place properly, go to the worse place and then come back. That’t how we appreciated Alicante. Cannot say that we became fond of this city but at least we understood that there are much worse places.
Unfortunately we didn’t have time to visit Sevilla, Malaga and other famous cities in the south. We were running out of time. That’s why our last place to go became Toledo. We retuned to Madrid not without adventures (we could hardly get tickets). When we came back there it happened to be some kind of fair so we could hardly find a place to spend a night (it was the smallest room we stayed in our journey). The next day we took a train to Toledo.
Toledo
Toledo is the ancient capital of the country, the town where the kings spent their time. It was the town where El Greco spent last years of his life and where he died. We saw his tomb or more exactly a glassed overture in the floor below which his tomb was supposed to be.
Toledo is an interesting town. It consists of two different parts: the so-called old city with medieval atmosphere, old houses, historical streets, churches, cathedrals and museums, and modern part that looks like a normal modern town with brick buildings, stadiums and remnants of the Roman circus. The old part is intended for tourists, they charge even to enter the church that were turned into museums (not the whole church, but just a small part of it where they exhibited some junk to charge for looking). They even restored the ancient walls. One can access to the upper part by escalator or by foot on another road. According to these walls the old Toledo was a small town. The streets are so medieval that it is difficult to wish more. They are so narrow that sometimes a car can hardly drive along it and passers-by should press to the walls of the houses not to be smashed. The houses are old too, with tiny windows. By the way I noticed that tiny windows are peculiar feature of Spanish houses. They hide inside from the bright sun. I don’t quite understand it since you have to turn electricity on during the daytime and I don’t like it. But it must be historic reasons when in the old days people spent all their time out and came home only to sleep.
And they really work hard in order to preserve the city in perfect condition. Like Richard said, it’s not easy to keep medieval city medieval.
Among museums the most interesting is the Casa del Greco. This painter spent his last years and died in this town and this museum contains his last works. Very impressive, this artist could work in different styles. He also liked to experiment: you can see two portraits with the same image but made in very different styles, his typical style and the standard linear Renaissance style. In another two samples the difference was even more subtle. His portraits are stunning. They are really wonderful. I enjoyed them very much.
Some of the museums there are situated in churches and convents what is rather unusual. I remember in one of them (they are all very small, just a few exhibits), the same one where we’ve seen a tomb of El Greco (by the way why is it situated in the convent?) a nun almost forced us to buy a box of marzipan. Spain is famous by marzipan. In Toledo you can buy it in every little shop. It is a sweet mass, something between dough and candy. Not really a savour to enjoy but not very disgusting either.
There is a cathedral in Toledo that was opened for free only once or twice a year (!), the so-called X-day. Sounds mysteriously, doesn’t it? Well, we could not find out exactly what it was, some celebration connected with Christ. Richard saw a procession. We were lucky to be there just at that time. Well, the cathedral is huge but not really impressive, though the tickets are very expensive. By the way some part of it was opened only for tickets anyway and X-day didn’t mean anything for them. Oh, greedy creatures!
I also liked a little museum with ancient artefacts, stones, pieces of old columns, etc. That was interesting.
If you stroll along the narrow streets of Toledo for a long time, without taking any definite direction, there is a possibility for you to find a cats’ place. About a fifty of cats there of all sizes and colours (mostly sizes). They are afraid of people, we failed to catch any of them. But it was obvious that somebody fed those cats, as there were bowls with whiskas in them. We passed the cats’ place twice but on the third time all animals suddenly disappeared. Probably it was the sleeping hour as we noticed only three of them behind the door in the wall. Nevertheless it gives you a depressing feeling to see so many homeless cats.
Yet, but all these medieval streets become boring sooner or later. Maps are not really helpful there. Tourists attend only one part of the old city, the rest of the place is empty. It is very easy to get lost here. The town is situated among the hills. There is one very beautiful view there with Rio Tajo and the old stone bridge. We even saw the point from which El Greco painted his famous View of Toledo. But the picture is in New York now.
The modern part is not bad. This city is very hilly, there are about 10 number of buses going there. Once we took a bus that by logically made decision should have gone to the train station. Yet, when we got into it made a big loop before it got us there. Luckily we got on train on time.
There are two supermarkets in Toledo, in Spanish they are called supermercados. The choice there depends very much on location, the closer to the centre and main street the better is the choice.
Among the main sightseeing in Toledo one would mention Alcasar. It was a kind of war fortress founded by Arabs then it was conquered by English or Spanish, I don’t remember. It is a war museum now, something like Invalides in Paris. Suits of armour, swords, war history, cannons, etc. There is even a record how Alcazar was not surrendered to the enemy—very curious, in four different languages. On the other side of Alcazar there is a library but you can go there only with a pass.
Toledo has very abrupt borders. The city just suddenly stops and all you see are hills covered with rare trees and bushes. The city of seven hills, like a prospect says. Its writers must have confused it with Rome.
We saw the university but it didn’t impress us. Well, it’s difficult to compete with the university of Alicante. And there is an Internet place there situated in a dark bar without any people. It is called Al otro lado—on the other side. As we understood later they sold there marihuana and other drugs. Al otro lado indeed. That’s why there were no people and crazy goofy music in that bar.
One should mention numerous antique shops there where they try to sell you something. By the way Spanish craft is really good, we saw some things of excellent quality. Each of those boutiques has “ancient” sword, gilded bracelets and some peculiar cosas like music boxes, little models of musical instruments, clocks and some of them have even a knight’s suit of real size. Just a right decoration for your mansion. No one will have anything like that.
In a word it’s not a place where I would like to live. There is something provincial in this little town, which once was an ancient capital of the country. But on the other hand it is a natural process. You cannot expect nowadays to see a Toledo of Felipe II or whatever king lived there. So it is a peculiar Spanish town, interesting, its citizens are proud in its history but all its glory is just history…
We had plans in Spain to visit other cities but we had not more time. So we decided to spend the last week we had in Madrid. We found a place to stay and it was not bad. The best of all was El Valle of course because I’m sure there are no places like this little café. And this is good. Makes it unique. But I hope I will find some day something like it by atmosphere. Spanish spirit is still strong. I remember once we came into a café in Toledo and the bartender smiled at me. That was pleasant.
Madrid is a beautiful city. There are many ancient buildings there too but it’s not like Paris. The mixture of different architectural styles produces a chaotic impression. The best of all was a central part where we lived. We walked around the city of course but didn’t notice anything peculiar. We visited a museum of natural history—it was pathetic. We saw the river that flows through Madrid. But it lacks something in the atmosphere. Maybe the streets are too narrow, too many cars. There was “a day without cars” (we were in Toledo that day) action proposed on the local newspaper but as one can suppose there was usual number of cars in the streets that day.
One thing in Madrid is really nice: parks. Parque del Retiro is in the centre of the city: it is huge, with a lake in the middle and boats in the lake. There are two little museums (palacios) right in the park with exhibitions of modern art—rather unusual by the way. The Spanish perversity is shown even in the modern art. Not Dali and Bosch for sure, the usual modern trash but there was something peculiar in it. In Madrid we also visited a big museum of modern art—a building with two glass elevators outside. That was rather inversing. We saw paintings of Dali there.
There are many other little parks and squares in Madrid. Of course the roads in all of them are covered with sand and it produces some smell but they decorate the trees in a nice way. In some aspect this city is more natural than Paris, on the other hand something is missing and I don’t know what exactly.
All the “antiques” you can buy in Toledo in little boutiques you can buy in Madrid too and the irony is that they sell the same stuff in greatest supermarket called El Corte Inglés. (This is translated like the English Style though I was tempted to translate this like the English Court. The difference is in the articles: in the latter case it would be La Corte Inglés). Perhaps it is not right to call it supermarket as this notion usually means all kinds of groceries. But in this store you can buy anything you want or almost anything: beginning from food and finishing with HF devices. There is a café on the last storey of the big ones. Some of the shops of this brand specialize on clothes, some on books and CDs—there are all kinds of them. They are usually concentrated in one area so you don’t have to go far to buy what you want but the prices are rather high there. Richard calls it the museum of modern life and it is an exact term. Anyway we visited this store several times: it is amazing. We’ve never seen anything like that in Germany and even in Paris. We’ve seen the same brand of shops in Alicante too and we even bought some things there.
Perhaps the main difference between French and Spanish lies in the climate. It’s too hot in Spain, I’ve already mentioned that the widows there are small and frosted and don’t let sunshine in. And of course geographical position: Spain is more isolated. French established cultural contacts with all the world, including Russia and Africa. France is much more opened. That is why Spain preserved some of natural charm but Paris is more vigorous. It would be interesting to learn about other French cities though too. Next time we’re going to visit Toulouse and perhaps some day the notes about Toulouse will appear on the web page.
Staying in Madrid we visited El Escorial. Once a royal residence built by Felipe II it was turned into the monastery of San Lorenzo by now. We were puzzled a little bit by that fact. I though El Escorial was a museum (it was) but in fact part of it was a monastery. We haven’t seen a single monk though but strange, you never see monks. You can see nun often enough but never monks. Who knows why? That is a mystery that is waiting for solution.
Well, this palace is still impressive. There is some grandeur in it. It has simple architecture but strong structure too. Halls are decorated with paintings of famous artists. You can see there some subjects of use and pieces of furniture but not many. The best of all was the famous library with old books: they looked like authenticated. Then the crypt: it is magnificent. And we saw a bed on which Felipe died. They say it is exactly the same bed with the same linen (how I happened though that it haven’t got rotten, I don’t know). The palace is surrounded by park but it was closed for the public, you can only admire it from the narrow grinded windows. The whole palace is situated in a big patch of earth surrounded by hills. On the hot day looking at the landscape burnt by sun you can imagine listening to Verdi’s tunes and understand the despair of the king. Though I’ve read somewhere that the story of Don Carlos is no more than a legend. Spanish still like their kings but the present king does not live in the royal palace now. And the royal palace is not El Escorial, it is situated in Madrid, at the end of the calle Mayor. Though even this is not the royal palace either. Chicos de amarillo (that’s how they call the information guides because of the yellow shirts they wear) told us evasively that the king lives “somewhere in the country”. Well, he obviously does not want to be bothered so we won’t disturb him Interesting though. There are two kingdoms in Europe (we won’t count tiny countries) and they both take pride in their kings as national symbols but the king is not the actual ruler. What is the joy to be a king now then?
Anyway it is time to finish now. I enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoyed reading these notes of the traveller. Certainly it’s impossible to write about everything but this is enough for one journey.
Riding to Escorial these verse appeared in my mind:
Fresco verde de arboles
Al fondo de hiebra amarilla
Y montes ardedos por sol.
In Place of Conclusion
I didn’t want to write this but I decided to tell the truth in these notes. This brief segment describes the bitter feeling of return. And it is not a pleasant memory. It began right at the morning in Madrid hotel room when we were to leave: the light was turned off. It is so typical for Russia. Then at the airport I saw my friend Richard for the last time. Then there was the long corridor, the very long way to go and the music that tore the heart. Why this depressing music? Then the long waiting at the terminal, the plane was late as usual. Then return to Moscow… that was a shock. I almost forgot how the things are different in Russia. Then I tried to call Richard from the central telegraph and I could not learn a code of Ventura from them. Three terrible days in Moscow and then a flight to the town where I live now and where I wrote these notes. It is terrible if you don’t have a place to go. I mean a real place. That was my second return from Moscow when I went there full of bright expectations and returned with a feeling of defeat.
I was going to write more, to express all the anger and despair about it but then I thought: why? Who will be interested? So due to my thoughtfulness you won’t have to read speculations that would be more suitable on the pages of the horror story or some psychological folder. I made this very short.
But the journey was good. Due to the journey I finally began to write again and I enjoy writing. The worse thing in that is that the life in your town slowly and gradually sucks you in and it takes inhuman resolve to oppose to it.
But we still have time. I won’t give up.
Well, that’s all.
See you later. Bis Bald. A bientôt. Hasta luego.
November 2000