New England

We escaped the heat and crowds of July in Europe by visiting friends, family, and favorite places in New England. 

We began in the suburbs of Boston staying with one of Pat's business school classmates Marci & husband Gary. Along with the conversation we enjoyed dining (Fiorellas, Newtonville), shopping, mini-golf & a nice quiet walk around a small lake.

Looking ahead to our next adventure in Africa we made arrangements to get the necessary inoculations on our way to Cape Cod. In addition to the necessary yellow fever vaccinations, we got boosters for 4 others.

We honeymooned in Cape Cod back in 1968, part of "our" first venture outside of Maine. and it holds a soft spot in our hearts. The Ship's Knees B&B in Orleans, at the elbow of the cape, was our home for this part of our trip.

We spent time exploring, shopping and dining in Chatham, Provincetown, Hyannis, Orleans. P-town is always on our list because it's a happening place, festivals, shopping, and dining. They were celebrating their Portuguese roots while also having the Blessing of the Fleet.

We enjjoyed dining at the Impudent Oyster in Chatham, at Pepe's restaurant in P-Town and the BlackCat Tavern in Barnstable. 

Add a little mini-golf and a very nice meal at the Black Cat Tavern (stuffed mushroom caps, lobster, scallops and a bottle of Roero Arneis) and we were happy travelers. 

We returned to the Boston suburbs to visit Ken & Pat. We brought Champagne to help celebrate their 48th anniversary eve at home and dined with them at Wemmy's in Marlborough on the big day.  

We moved on to Portsmouth New Hampshire for a few days. Our activities included shopping around old town, crossing the border into Maine with lots of visits to the Kittery Trading Post (shopping for safari gear), dining along the Portsmouth waterfront and taking a stroll on Pierce Island, a favorite with dog walkers.

We stayed in Veazie (near Bangor) with one of our nieces this trip. We dined with brothers, cousins, nieces, nephews, grand nieces & nephews, and in-laws. We just missed the memorial service for niece Alyce's husband.The patriotic lady & son were relaximg in Garland (Pat's home town) Square.

Taylar, teenage grandsaughter of Pat's brother Frank gave us a tour of her animal farm where we focused on the horses. Tay is a very accomplished horsewoman! Later we had a cross-family visit at the Farmer's Table in Corinna with Bill's cousin Charlie and wife Barbara (owners of a farm stand and corn maze) plus Pat's brother Frank and wife Nita alond with their son Paul and wife Jen. Frank & Paul are partners in a vegetable farm (supplying Hannaford Brothers Supermarket chain with fresh vegetables from Thomas Farms.)

We enjoyed a lunch with Bill's cousin Mary & Steve at Anglers in Newport;  We had some fine pizza with Alyce our host (in Veazie) at Mason's Brewing Company. We had dinner at Timber Kitchen & Bar in Bangor with Elaine, another sister-in-law and her daughter Karen, husband Taylor and their twin daughter's Callista and Fiona and our host Alyce.

We also went to the University of Maine Campus and with the help of Karen Kemble from the Alumni office got a tour of what's new on campus including the new Ferland Engineering Education and Design Center (EEDC) a place where multi-discipline teams can experience prototyping and manufacturing of products. We also learned about the Green Engineering and Materials (GEM) building which will house the Factory of the Future research center focused on advancing bio-based manufacturing, robotics, and artificial intelligence. We arepretty prod of our Alma Mater!

The wedding of a grand niece was an unexpected addition to our usual Bar Harbor experience of shopping, dining, and wandering Acadia National Park. We also added mini-golf to the activities on this trip...and won a free round!

Thunder Hole, one of the stars of Acadia National Park was fairly quiet won Saturday yet it had quite a crowd visiting. When we went back during the week it was more active but had few visitors.  We missed its real performance in late May. Check out https://www.facebook.com/reel/1258095229224048

One day we shopped around Bar Harbor (They have 2 ! outfitter stores), had lunch at Blaze and picked up a few wines at House Wine

Another day we played Mini-golf at Pirates Cove (easy course), had lunch in Hulls Cove at The Chart Room, and a hike at Beech Mountain. We were super impressed with the wine list at the Chart Room. 

We spent another day around Southwest Harbor (Bass Harbor Light, Ship Harbor Trail) and had lunch at the Upper Deck, On the way home we made  a quick stop at Charlotte Rhoades Butterfly Garden. Gorgeous.

We enjoyed a French dinner at Brasserie Le Brun recommended by our waitress at the Upper Deck and related to the Chart Room in Hulls Cove.

On our way to Northeast Harbor we again took the Park Loop Road. It was a memorable warm, sunny day (and Thunder Hole was thundering).

After a visit to Thuya Garden (also gorgeous), we hit Northeast Harbor for some shopping and lunch at The Colonel's ..yummy lobster quesadilla. Before we left, we bought chocolate donuts at the bakery. We love chocolate donuts and these are particularly great.

To finish the day we returned for our free round of mini-golf at Pirate's Cove (on the challenging course).

Summer flowers in New England are magnificent. We will never tire of visiting them.

Moving on to Rockland we made a short stop in Camden and had lunch at Ports of Italy between the two towns. Our room at 250 Main Street is on the 5th floor looking over the harbor. We enjoyed seeing the sloops moored in the harbor visiting for the annual Friendship sloop days. We visited our U of Maine classmate, Brian first at his home and then dined with him at Primo.

 Next stop, Boothbay Harbor, one of our favorite stops with it's picturesque harbor, shops, and dining. Enroute we stopped in Damariscotta to check out the shops.

In Boothbay Harbor we dined at the Boathouse Bistro and Ports of Italy, (a companion to the one in Camden) and visit the Coastal Maine Botanic Garden. Our room at the Tugboat Inn was at the end of the pier with a great view of the harbor.

As usual we spent half a day at the Coastal Maine Botanic Garden. Lovely. 

On our way to Portland we stopped for a quick visit over coffee with another U of Maine classmate, Denny, in Bowdoinham .

In Portland we had an apartment in Old Port near the shops and restaurants, We were on the 5th floor with a view over the Fore River to South Portland. 

Susan, a friend from San Miguel visited us for lunch from her lakeside "camp" near Portland. She only recognized the building where we staying at the last minute but it was home to her officeof her former business for years.

We enjoyed our conversation and sandwiches (lobster and chicken salad) with Sandy (yet another U of Maine classmate) & husband Ed at their home in Kennebunk, This was our first chance to visit since their wedding 56 years ago. 

On the way back we meet with Sadie, our niece, in Biddeford.

The next day we were on our way home to San Miguel

Arunjuez, Toledo Wedding, and Back to Madrid

On our way to the wedding we (Pat, Bill, and Stacy) visited the Royal Palace and Gardens in Arunjuez. The structure is impressive, the decor on the interior elaborate, (including a number of clocks), ...

but the highlight was the Chinese Porcelain room, a lot over the top.

We arrived in Toledo, a lovely hilltop city, enhanced at the time by the extensive decorations for Corpus Christi, a major religious festival here.The buildings were draped with banners We connected with Kim (mother of the bride) and explored town in our spare time,

Pat caught Bill and the girls (Michelle-the bride, Kristin & Hanna = Michelle's twin sisters) at the wedding welcome dinner the night before. The wedding itself was stunning with all the fancy dress and a outstanding gourmet dinner for 200! Notice that the bottom right photo below was taken at 9:15 and it's still daylight.

After a very late night (early morning... we left the wedding around 2:30am, others stayed til 5am or later) we headed back to Madrid around noon with Stacy, Kim & Hanna (sister of the bride) for a last night out. We dined and wined before they headed for home. 

Pat & Bill had an extra day and used it for another visit to Casa Lucas Tapas Bar where we had dined in 2001 and 2002 with our friends Peter & Peggi. It still has great small plates and fine wine.

Next morning we were on our flight to Boston to visit friends and family around New England.

Cuenca & Madrid

On our way to Madrid we stopped in Cuenca to see the "Hanging Houses" and to visit the Enchanted City, an area with impressive large stone formations.

The rock formations of the Enchanted City are made of karst (limestone and dolomite). Rain falling on the original limestone plateau wore down the porous limestone, leaving behind the more resistant dolomite. Because the dolomite was not distributed evenly in the original rock, the result was the eroded named shapes.  Below, clockwise from top left:

Los Barcos / the ships, La cara del hombre / The man's face, another  barco / ship, and Tormo Alto / High Tormo (sorry, I have no idea what that really means).

A tunnel, Puente / Bridge, La foca / The seal, El mar de piedra / The stone sea, and Convento ('Convent')

We also wanted to compare the "Hanging Houses" (houses built down the clifside) here with those we had seen in Cuenca, Ecuador. We would give a big plus to the Canyon in Spain but found the Houses in Ecuador more interesting,

Before continuing to Madrid we had an excellent lunch at Grotte del Huécar, artichoke, foie disguised as an orange mushroom, and a superb whole fish. 

Our plan had us stopping in Madrid to take another look at the big 3 art museums, the Prado, Thyssen & Reina Sofia.

Thyssen is our favorite of the three museums. Some of the pieces we enjoyed there are: (Clockwise from top left): 

• New York City (unfinished) - Piet Mondrian
• The Grey House - Marc Chagall
• Plaza San Marco - Canaletto
• Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain - Camille Pissarro

• The Massacre of the Innocents - Lucas van Valckenborch I (probably)
• Young Knight in a Landscape - Camille Pissarro
• Les Vessenots in Auvers 1890 - Vincent van Gogh
• Swaying Dancer (Dancer in Green) - Edgar Degas

We enjoyed works at the Prado, but unfortunately no photos are allowed. Pat especially enjoyed Hieronymus Bosch's surrealist "The Garden of Earthly Delights Triptych". Check out the preceding link or better yet search out a YouTube video. I listened to one that explains in wonderful detail what's going on in the 3 pieces of the Triptych and how they progress from the innocence of the Garden of Eden, through humanity succumbing to earthly temptations, and finally to the torments of Hell.

Our Reina Sofia visit started in the courtyard with pieces by Calder and Miró. (top 2 photos below)

Inside we checked notable works including:

• Guernica by Pablo Picasso. Created in 1937 it was commissioned to depict the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. (We visited Guernica earlier. For more detais, see Spain 2025: Getxo
• The Grand Masturbator - a surrealist piece by Dalí. It's a. complicated story. We leave it to you to research further if interested.
• Some rather large contemporary installations.

We connected with Stacy (another wedding attendee) at our hotel. We decided to take a walk through the neighborhood and have tapas at La Castaña where we also enjoyed enjoyed a nice Ribera del Duero.

Next we are off to Toledo and the wedding!!!

Valencia

We arrived in Valencia on the non-stop early morning flight and left our luggage inside the entryway to our apartment building. We took a short stroll around the neighborhood before our guided tour of the old town. 

The architecture is quite impressive including the church that took more than two centuries to complete. ... 

• Top left. La Llotgeta, originally the Municipal Market Administration Office, now a cultural center.
• La Lonja de la Seda de Valencia, aka the Silk Exchange: Being at the western end of European Silk Roads, silk was a big business in Valencia.
• Bottom right. The Royal Basilica of Our Lady of the Forsaken (left) and the Cathedral (right)
• Bottom left. El Miguelete - Valencian Gothic-style bell tower of the Cathedral. It is 50.85 metres high and was built between 1381 and 1424.

We concluded the tour with a stop at the City of Arts and Sciences. Note: We were concerned about the 2024 flooding damage, but the press coverage was misleading. The flooding was severe, but not in the urban center due  to the earlier successful drainage and rerouting of the Tura River. The drained river bed now forms a long and picturesque sunken park that culminates the City of Arts & Sciences, a cultural and architectural complex. Notable buildings and structures of the complex include:

• L'Umbracle – an open structure enveloping a landscaped walk with plant species indigenous to Valencia.
• Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía – an opera house and performing arts center
• Museu de les Ciències – an interactive museum of science that resembles the skeleton of a whale. 
• L'Hemisfèric – an IMAX Cinema, planetarium and laserium. The building is meant to resemble a giant eye,
• L'Oceanogràfic – an open-air oceanographic park, the largest oceanographic aquarium in Europe (not shown)

Along the way we enjoyed an eye catching ceramic sculpture sitting in the shade provided by a bougainvila shrouded arbor. 

During the tour were introduced to Spanish horchata, a drink made from tiger nuts and the requisite long round pastry (farton) to accompany it (dipping then eating). Later we visited the touristy central market where we noted the fine food and wine seleselection. After the tour we had paella at a restaurant recommended by our guide.

The next morning we returned to the central market and bought snacks, pastries, and wine.

We then wandered across the former Turia River (now a park as previously mentioned) to a shopping center where we had lunch (1st of 2 non-Spanish meals). On our return to the apartment we visited a botanic garden.

Our paella class was a hit. We had a small class, 3 young women from Montreal and a group of 4 from Sydney (a group of 10 failed to show up). Everyone got to participate in the preparation and enjoy the results, Spanish tortilla, paella and dessert.

Las Fallas, a celebration of Saint Joseph and the arrival of spring, is a colorful and unique festival held annually in Valencia from March 15th to 19th. It culminates in the burning of large, satirical monuments called "fallas". Each year one or more  fallas are pardoned and not burned.These are then displayed in the Fallas Museum. Below, clockwise from top left: 

• 2024: Starts with 0. place where no one should be dropped (sorry, I have no idea what that means)
• 2024: Horchatería "the old one". Note: Horchata is the local hot drink we mentioned earlier.
• 1956: Indian Tourist Family. Motto: Tourism at full speed. First pardon of a caricature as a genuinely Falla form of expression The failure humorously reflected the incipient tourist exploitation of the country.
• 1962: Milk Brothers. Reflects the social reality of the rapid growth of cities compared to rural life in which people are itegrated into the environment, both with animals and nature.

More fallas continue:

• 1980: On the tightrope / The Circus. Three elderly people make a thousand balances to avoid falling from the rope that holds them, a situation that the artist equates to the balances they must make each month to be able to survive with the miserable retirement pension they receive.
• 2005: Unconditional love / Love on all fours.  Guide dog, who has put on his rain boots and has taken his owner in his arms to prevent him from getting his feet wet, the man, grateful for the animal's attention, covers him with the umbrella to avoid getting wet. The scene is of great tenderness, while criticizing the flooding that occurs in the streets of Valencia as soon as it rains.
• 2023: The pyrotechnics. This group pays tribute to a profession closely linked to the Fallas festival: pyrotechnics. In the scene, two sisters are forced to contemplate the castle from home, since the little girl has caught an untimely cold in the middle of the Fallas.
• 2013: Classics never die. The public pardoned this group made up of a retired cabinetmaker and his granddaughter who is distracted a toy Trojan Horse while her grandpa tells her the classic story. 
• 2014: A tribute to the writer Miguel de Cervantes.

The Ceramic Museum is in a mansion that was as interesting as the many ceramic pieces that were on display.

For lunch we had our second non-Spanish meal, Turkish, at Dede in the Rusafa district (Borek-a bread, Dede fries, and Donner Kabab with beef and chicken).

The Silk Museum gave the history of silk in Valencia as well as examples of the fabrics.

One day we visited Alcalá, a 1.5 hour drive outside Valencia. It sits on a hillside above the Jucár River. Once an important location it has fallen in population and now is primarily a tourist site. The castle is not impressive but the houses built on and in the hillside all have caves that were used for storage and additional rooms. Today several have caves that pass through the hillside and offer tours and drinks overlooking the river. Before returning to Valencia we dined on huevos rotos (broken eggs over fried or roasted potato) and pork cheeks accompanied by red wines, Bobal and Monastrell. 

We move onto Madrid with a stop in Cuenca.

Basque Country / Getxo & Bilbao

 We stayed at El Embarcadero Hotel in Getxo, a coastal town near Bilbao. We had a spacious room with a water front view of the nearby cliffs.

Along the way from San Sebastian we stopped in Getxrix (Getaria) home of John Sebastian Elkano (who sailed with Magellan). The local church congregation seating is on a slope rising from back to front (a bit unusual). We felt right at home there with our Mexico Saint Guadalupe looking over us. This is a fishing village and along the local streets there are grills for fish. At lunch time these get very busy. The Elkano restaurant is highly regarded but we didn't have time to check it out.

This is also where the fashion designer Balenciaga grew up and is home to the Balenciaga Museum. Early on in the tour was the following graphic with designs by his contemporaries. 

There were many displays of his works, along with a fabric catalog sample with tiny pieces of fabrics. He is known for some fine designs and some not so flattering dedigns such as the Sack Dress, as well as the Balloon Jackets and Skirts.

We also visited Gernika, a town that tragically gained fame in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. During this conflict, Franco, the dictator of Spain, offered the village of Gernika, home to non-supporters of his regime, as a target for his buddies Hitler and Mussolini to use for testing their new carpet bombing technique. The event was memorialized in a painting by Picasso (the original is in the Reina Sofia in Madrid). See top left below.

In the square, there is a statue of Jose Maria Iparraguirre, a Spanish poet and Basque language musician. He composed "Gernikako Arbola" which quickly became the Basque anthem. In the Casa de Juntas museum, a map shows the extent of the French and Spanish  Basque Area with all 7 states marked. There is also a painting showing what a typical Basque town meeting would have looked like in the past. with the area representatives gathered under an special oak tree.  There is an impressive stained glass ceiling in the Casa de Juntas was quite impressive.

We stopped for lunch in the town of Mundaka. The selection included chorizo, sautéed peppers (similar to padrons, a small chilli with minimal heat), calamari, potato pancake with sweet red peppers, and scallops in the half-shell. The potato pancake is a variant of Tortilla Espanola but this restaurant makes a selection of flavors. It was very moist and tasty.

We made a short photo stop looking over the village of Bermeo with mountains and fields in the background.

After reaching Getxo we wandered toward the center to see the "Hanging Ferry". The first photo show the ferry being loaded. The second shows it transporting people and vehicles across the river. Note cables keeping the ferrry just above the river.

Getxo is a former fishing village and is a seaside resort in the city of Bilbao. We visited Bilbao by metro and took a tram around the city stopping at the Guggenheim Miseum. We visited it in 2002 and found the outside much more impressive than the collections. So we took photos of Gehry's architecture and Jeff Koons large Flower Dog and walked along the river seeing the curved bridge by Calatrava and the sculpture by Dora Salazar with figures featuring women who hauled ships along the river.

 capturing a couple shot of srchitecture and sculpture, including a Sunflower, the symbol of the Basque coutry.  ... the Basque term "eguzkilore" translates to "sunflower" (or more accurately, "flower of the sun"), it refers to a specific thistle plant, Carlina acanthifolia, which is considered a symbol of protection in Basque mythology and culture,

The next day we had a tour of Santillana and the Altamira Cave Museum. The Cave Museum that recreates the local cave system that were closed to the public to protect the caves. The museum is an "exact" replica showing bison in red and black dating back 18,500 years. There are also older carvings depicted. Even the crevices and bulges in the rock are reporduced as they are often key to the paintings.

Santillana is a small village with the requisite church and monasteries, some touristy shops, several restaurants and paradores.  Many of the buildings show family crests from the past.

We enjoyed lunch at the Parador Gil Blas in Santillana del Mar.

• Seasonal braised vegetables with white garlic sauce
• Grilled scallops with chives garlic sauce
• Veal loin

Next day we wandered toward the old fishing village and cliffs near the hotel. The architecture and enclaves are impressive.

Making our way up the cliffs we discovered some sandstone formations, shaped by geological and weather conditions.

We took the metro back to the hotel for lunch. It was quite a pleasing combination of dishes including more foie, fish and dessert.

Next we flew to Valencia for some exploring of the city and surrounds and a lesson in Paella preparation.