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.

Basque Country / San Sebastian

We moved to San Sebastian via Pamplona. We missed the "Running of the Bulls" by a few weeks but we got a feel for things from this sculpture and paintings by a popular local artist.

Our walking tour also took in the Cathedral (a wedding complete with organ music, the cloisters, a king & queen at rest with their pets, and a dozen views of the Madonna and Child over the ages).

A pinxto lunch at a Hemingway haunt complee with mariarchis (what?!). Capped off with ice cream.

A new day. A new spin on basque country. This time French, including:

•  Bayonne (nice cathedral, reflections, red & white timbered homes)

• Biarritz (cliffs, lighthouse, a local palace, and colorful berets)

• Saint Jean de Luz (lunch of octupus and hake, visit to a jamon (ham) shop, and another cathedral. Saint Jean de Luz is where the "wedding of the century" took place on June 9,1660 when the French king Louis XIV married the Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain.

Our San Sebastian explorations started with a walk through the "old town" noting the many options for wine & snacks, fruit & vegetable, bakery goods, and pinxtos (the basque version of tapas).  The local market has been moved undeground. and now combines the traditional market with a modern shopping center. Along the way we saw a statue of a traditional Basque woman and "Lumière" from Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

Then onto Rekondo for lunch. We first ate at Rekondo in 2002 with Peter & Peggi. We all, especially Peter, fell in love with the extensive, fairly priced wine list. That wine collection has become renowned and the 347 page wine list spans collection dates from 1880 to 2025. And the really cool this is, their pricing reflects the purchase price rather than today's pricing for its wines. Okay, okay. We didn't have time to peruse the whole wine list and left it to the sommelier to guide us.

Dinner included:

• Amuse bouche of croquettes, 1 with red pepper filling, 1 with the traditional jamon & cheese)
• Foie Micuit, brioche and pears in Grand Marnier sauce. This came served with a dried pear slice, 2 wedges of foie, grand marnier relish (execllent), corn muffin, crunchy corn kernel crumbs with a dried tiny fruit that looked like pear, had the texture of pear but how could a pear be so small?
• Artichokes stuffed with hollandaise, grilled foie. A bunch of small artichokes with grilled foie, truffle and covered with a cheese net

And not pictured: 

• Grilled venison with potato mille fueille--the waiter advised Bill that medium rare might be somewhat bloody. Not really. 
• Roast suckling pig. pineapple and date confiture - a dried slice of pineapple, crispy skin, gravy, juicy meat, pineapple relish.
• Hot apple cake with vanilla ice cream--no flour, just sliced apples sauteed in butter with a bit of nutmeg. with a crispy base. light and delightful
• Along with a fruity dessert wine for Bill and a tawny port style wine from Argentina for Pat.

After dinner we strolled along the beach where there were artists making hige sand "paintings".

We spent a day wandering and shopping around town and had lunch at Gandarias. The waitress flamboyantly poured the local sparkling wine (Txakoli) with a flourish. The grilled artichokes were amazing. We shared a fine grilled besugo / sea bream. 

After lunch we went to San Telmo Museum of Basque life. 

Another day, more food and wine to taste. We tasted Txakoli at another small winery. They also make both traditional white and sparkling brut. The wine was complemented with pinxtos of olives, pickled peppers and anchovies. A fine combination.

We later explored nearby Hondarribia/ We checked out the walls, the outdoor escalators, the oldest house, a nice fishing boat and a sidewalk display of vegetables. It is a delightful town.

For lunch we enjoyed meat ravioli, foie, and calamari. Bill enjoyed the after dinner drink Eskartxa...a traditional Navarrese liqueur handcrafted with sloe gin, water, anise, and sugar.

Now for a lesson in cheese making in the Basque region. First the cheese making staff - guard dog & cat, two tourists, and feeding the sheep.

As for the cheese making process, start with an eye dropper of bacteria derived from 4th stomach of lamb, add hot milk, stir to cool mixture, pour into mold, and wait a few minutes. We also saw some old tools of the trade, and an alternative warming method using hot stones added to the mixture and the strained out.

That's a wrap on San Sebastian and area. Tomorrow we head to Getxo near Bilbao.