Wander(lust)

Europe on the Cheap: Barcelona

Just in time for summer and fall, the New York Times' Sunday travel section has culled together money-saving tips on eating and lodging in 16 European cities, from Athens to Oslo and all points in between. Well, bless your heart, as we say in the South. Just have time now to give it a quick perusal, but their tips on Barcelona are spot on. La Boqueria, the amazing food market smack dab on the Rambla, is a must-see attraction in itself in addition to being a great place to cobble together a meal. Try to snare a seat at Pinotxo (Catalan for Pinocchio), where owner Juanito Bayén and his family dish up fantastic food---this is no humble market stall. And the Times' hotel tip is also perfect on any budget for those who like their accommodations stylish: the Hotel Banys Oriental. I'm going to savor the other 15 destinations and add some of my own tips for favorite cities, including Venice, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, and Lisbon. More to come.

Istanbul Unveiled

Soon to come: the long-lost travelogue of my mid-March trip to Istanbul, where I first stepped foot in Asia. Incidentally, although I wanted to, I didn't buy a rug---a combination of factors that has to be a first in the annals of travel to Turkey.

The mysterious circumstances that led to this occurrence will be revealed, along with hotel and restaurant recommendations, a list of favorite sites and experiences, and ruminations on raki.

Death and Resurrection in Andalucia

Of course I can’t pinpoint the exact moment the land, the tierra, of Andalucia claimed me as one of its own. Perhaps it was when we rounded the monumental gate and entered the grounds of Granada’s miraculous Alhambra for the first time. Or later that day when we sat on the Mirador de San Nicolas and watched the sun set over the Al Qal’a al-Hamra and the Sierra Nevada mountains? Or was it in Cordoba, where I wandered aimlessly, happily around the Mezquita and first experienced flamenco and its dualistic longing and exuberance? Or the time we spent four lazy days in Ronda, criss-crossing the stupendous gorge and feeling our faith in humanity restored by the “Paz” banners hanging from every window in the town square?

No, I suspect it goes much further back, before I ever traveled there, when I first heard the Clash’s song “Spanish Bombs,” in 1982:

Spanish songs in Andalucia
The shooting sites in the days of '39
Oh, please, leave the ventana open
Federico Lorca is dead and gone

The Clash were the coolest, and Joe Strummer shouted out those lyrics from his corazón in a way that made me know that this Federico García Lorca must be cool as well. Over the years, I read some about Lorca, the leftist poet and dramatist who was murdered in August 1936 in Víznar, a village outside Granada, at the outset of the Spanish Civil on the order of one of Franco’s generals. His bullet-riddled body was dumped unceremoniously into a unmarked grave, but, in death, Lorca triumphed as an enduring symbol of all Spanish victims of political oppression.

Although Lorca was born in the nearby farming village of Fuente Vaqueros, it was Granada that exerted its pull on him. The city and the poet had a troubled relationship, with each repudiating, yet unable to deny, the other. The city was late in granting Lorca his due, finally converting one of his family’s properties in Granada into a museum and memorial park. The poet also had a complex attitude toward the city and its history. He credited it with making him a poet and wrote some beautifully evocative descriptions of it. Yet, in an interview in the Madrid newspaper El Sol, published a scant two months before his death, Lorca lamented Granada’s expulsion of its Muslim (and Jewish) population in the last years of the 15th century and lambasted its current citizenry: "It was a disastrous event, even though they say the opposite in the schools. An admirable civilization, and a poetry, architecture and delicacy unique in the world----all were lost, to give way to an impoverished, cowed town, a wasteland populated by the worst bourgeoisie in Spain."

Granada’s Moorish past is most strongly felt in the Albaicín, the old Muslim quarter that is a steep maze of whitewashed, mostly modest homes. Some guidebooks warn visitors about theft by drug addicts and other dire circumstances that may befall them in the quarter, but it’s never frightened me. On our most recent visit, in May 2003, the Albaicín hummed with teahouses, restaurants, new boutique hotels crafted from old buildings, and a luxury complex of Arab baths, or hammams. Most significantly, Granada’s new mosque was nearing completion; the mosque has adopted an “open door” policy that allows school groups, tourists, and others to visit it, helping to dispel opposition to it on the part of some city residents. Finally, we were cheered to see T-shirts sold on the street that extolled the virtues of Christians, Jews, and Muslims living side by side in Andalucía. There seems to be a renaissance of tolerance and cooperation in Granada and elsewhere in the region; perhaps the ghosts of the expelled Moors have been put to rest, at least for the time being.

For an analysis of the historical precedent of this phenomenon, I highly recommend María Rosa Menocal's The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. And for an elegant depiction of Al-Andalus from an Arab perspective, I offer Andalucia's Journey, an article by the late Edward Said that appeared in Travel + Leisure in December 2002.

Quintessential Paris

Hands down, my favorite city in the world. If you love Paris, devour Edmund White's Le Flâneur and George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London if you haven't already had the pleasure. With immense gratitude to Monsieurs White and Orwell and countless others, my quintessential Paris experiences:

 

L’as du Fallafel, on rue des Rosiers in the Marais for the best falafel sandwiches, preferably with eggplant and eaten in the nearby park

The Musée Picasso for the world's best and most manageable collection of his paintings and the lovely wrought-iron railings, light fixtures, and benches by Diego Giacometti

Touristy, yes, but obligatory nonetheless: a boat ride along the Seine on one of the Bateaux-Mouches at night when Notre Dame and other buildings are illuminated

A trek out to Père-Lachaise Cemetery to ponder what has been deposited lately on the graves of Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison, and to pay homage to Chopin, Isadora Duncan, Richard Wright, the Communards, and others

Mint tea at the Mosquée de Paris

The fish-eye view of the Seine from Square du Vert-Galant

The Musée Rodin for its incredible collection, sculpture gardens, and Rilke connections

Sainte Chapelle, particularly for its upper chapel's virtual walls of 13th-century stained glass---the largest such surface in the world---with its incomparable winey reds and cobalt blues (photo at right)

Rue de la Seine for its art galleries, Cosi (yes, the original one, which is nothing like its siblings) for lunch, Fish for dinner, and other assorted charms

The Musée de Cluny for its medieval architecture and the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries

A concert at the small, squat Romanesque church of Saint-Julien le Pauvre

The stark, evocative Mémorial des Martyrs Français de la Déportation de 1945 at the far end of the Ile de la Cité

The Musée d'Orsay for its train-station setting, enormous clock, and collection of masterpieces by the Impressionists, Fauves, and others

Berthillon ice cream, ideally taken from its flagship store on the Ile St.-Louis and eaten al fresco 

Wandering and shopping on the tiny Ile St.-Louis, particularly at dusk

Dinner at 404, 69 rue des Gravilliers in the 3eme, for its sumptuous tagines, exotic Moroccan decor, and hip Arabic grooves

The Arènes de Lutéce, an often-overlooked Roman amphitheater that now hosts the soccer games of kids from the surrounding neighborhood

The symmetry and calm of the Place des Vosges, followed by meandering in the Marais

The Cathédrale de Notre-Dame from its many angles and in as many lights and moods as possible