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Again, this is part of my attempt to chronicle our five years of living outside the USA (June 2001 - June 2006). I've already done our final year, which was South Africa (click on "Previous Entries" top left of this blog page and you can see other blog entries). Now I'm going back, looking through old journals and photos to put our adventures, one by one, into blog form.

FRANCE, SPAIN & PORTUGAL 2004

Originally Written May - June 2004


In May 2004, after two years in Germany we returned to the Netherlands for another year, but didn’t stay there long as we had planned a driving trip to France, Portugal and Spain.


After quickly settling into our new apartment, we drove south from the Netherlands through Belgium on a windy, cold day wearing all the clothes we had - this was supposed to be a SUMMER vacation! The coast of Belgium surprised us in that it is so built up - lots of high-rises, restaurants and shops. You can still see the wonderful older homes in prime locations, but the summer rental apartment blocks rise ominously behind them ruining the ambiance. The countryside, conversely, is breathtakingly beautiful - rolling hills, farms and lush forests.

FRANCE

Just over the border into France we stopped for the night at the seaside resort of Crotoy. The beach there is extremely deep. The people clamming looked like dots on the horizon, and we just hoped they knew the tide schedule and the dangers of mudflats.


We kept driving through beautiful countryside, past old farms, even older chateaux, through the town of Caen to Bayeux, France, which was the first town liberated by Allied forces after D-Day. What a great town, and for whatever fluky reason, not destroyed by the Allies or Nazis. There is a 900-year-old, approx. 200-foot long, woolen embroidered, linen tapestry, which tells the story of King William the Conqueror from the French view. In 1066 he invaded and conquered England - the last time that happened. The tapestry is perfectly preserved and amazing in its detail.


From Bayeux we visited the beaches of Normandy where here was a flurry of preparation going on for the upcoming 60th D-Day anniversary. The cemetery at Omaha Beach was powerful. We spent some time in the archives there trying to locate the gravesite of a friend’s father (Maureen Page) - they have an amazing database and were most helpful.


We also visited the other Normandy beach landing sites and museums - lots of activity and obvious security upgrading going on as the anniversary was only days away. With President Bush to be in attendance and anti-Americanism at a high over the Iraq War, I imagine the French were very concerned about security.


Mont St. Michel was our next stop. It is difficult not to be impressed by Mont St. Michel with its massive abbey atop the summit of a rocky island. Around the base are the ancient ramparts and a jumble of buildings that house the handful of people who live there. At low tide Mont St. Michel looks out over bare sand stretching into the distance. At high tide this huge expanse of sand is under water, though only the very highest tides cover the 3,000-foot causeway that connects the islet to the mainland. The high tides here rival Cook Inlet and the Bay of Fundy.


We did the tour of the Abbey - the views are spectacular - and stayed at a nearby bed & breakfast. After checking in we took a bottle of wine and our books to the garden to enjoy the mild evening. To our delight as we settled ourselves into our lounge chairs beside the barn (it was a working farm) we looked up to see a breath-taking view of Mont St. Michel rising from the sand flats.

SPAIN

Still traveling south and just over the French border into San Sebastian, which is in the Basque Country, was our next stop. San Sebastian is a great city, but NOT fun to drive in. The Basque language is totally different from Spanish, so we couldn’t even read the street signs. Once we found a hotel, ditched the car and headed out on foot, things were much better. It is an old town with narrow streets, dozens of churches, great shops and restaurants. San Sebastian is a surprisingly relaxed town, which curves around the beautiful Bahia de la Concha. A proud Basque community, it takes fierce care of its town, and makes sure that the streets are clean, drugless and prostitute-free.

From San Sebastian we drove west along the northern coast of Spain (Bay of Biscay) to the charming town of Santillana del Mar - one of our favorite medieval villages of the trip. The cobblestone streets were too narrow for cars. The ancient stone buildings were well-maintained. We found an apartment at the top of a 16th century house-turned-pension overlooking the Plaza Mayor and its 800-year-old bell tower. NOTE TO LADIES: St. Juliana, after whom this town was named, was martyred because she refused to surrender her virginity to her husband!(?) Go figure.

Santander was a day trip from Santillana - wonderful port town, still unspoiled with wonderful houses built into the cliffs overlooking long, wide, sandy beaches. We walked the entire length of all the beaches into the center of town and back as our host in Santillana had instructed us on what to see, and given us a recommendation for a good restaurant. So you see a nice long walk after a fabulous lunch was a necessity.

Continuing west along the northern coast of Spain we reached Santiago de Compostela, near the Atlantic coast. This is one of the biggest pilgrimage cities in the Catholic world. The bones of St. James are supposedly buried here and, naturally, miracles have been attributed to them. Pilgrims must walk 100 kilometers, and/or bike or ride on horseback 200 km., getting certification at particular convents, monasteries and churches along the way. They then present this passbook to the Pilgrimage Headquarters in Santiago de Compostela for their certification of completion (suitable for framing). We happened by when a group of pilgrims complete with walking sticks adorned with shells (symbol of the local cathedral), gourds and the cross of St. James were celebrating receiving their certificates. Lots of jumping and hugging. Needless to say, the pilgrims were in full force in and around the cathedral.


We had seen these modern-day pilgrims with backpacks, water bottles, and clutching the symbolic and ever-present walking sticks on the road leading into Santiago de Compostela. We also saw several biking groups. In fact Santiago de Compostela was PACKED - by far the busiest town we’d encountered. We almost didn’t stay as we went to about seven hotels/hostals/pensions before finding a room. We were glad we’d turned down the tiny attic room, 5th floor with no elevator and a single bed, for 30 Euros (1 € = $1.25) because next door we found a wonderful room (for 40 €) and didn’t have to share a tiny bed.


Santiago De Compostela itself is an amazingly well-preserved ancient city. The cathedral is stupendous; there are great plazas and marvelous seafood restaurants. It is such a tourist town that all menus are in English, German, French, and Portuguese. Actually, the dialect, Galician, here next to the Portuguese border was interesting - more Portuguese than Spanish. All plaques were in the local dialect, as well as Castellano/Spanish. Plaza for example, is Praza in the local dialect; instead of “calle” for street, it is “rua.”

PORTUGAL

Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, built into the hills and beside the Rio Tejo, has imposing monuments in wide plazas and at major intersections/roundabouts. The tile-covered houses and buildings of diverse architectural styles are appealing. In the old part of the city, which is the center physically and emotionally, the neighborhood streets are narrow and cobble-stoned, with the inevitable church on almost every corner. There is an Eiffel elevator in the steep part of the city (takes you up several street levels) - the views from which are stupendous. You get a super view of the Moorish castle on the highest hill in the middle of town. The castle is a ruin now, but it has been made into a park and several restaurants grace the beautiful gardens surrounding the walls and turrets. The views from the castle are expansive and it is a popular spot for locals - lots of kids running around under the shade trees. This was actually one of the coolest places in a very hot, smoggy city.


Our overall memory is of a bright, bright city. Everything is white. They evidently subscribe to the Henry Ford way of thinking: You can have any color house you want, as long as it is white.




An ancient aqueduct runs through the city. Palaces, parks and more castles surround the area. It is a great town, but we were exhausted by the heat, traffic and pollution at the end of the day. This was early June and it was already muggy.


Nearby Sintra is also in the hills and sits in a huge expanse of forest, surrounded by more Moorish ruins and palaces, and was much more to our liking. It is only 20 minutes by tram from central Lisbon, but because of the elevation, trees and less concrete, was much cooler. We wished we had based there instead of Lisbon.


One of our Argentine daughters, Vicky, who is living in Ibiza, Spain, was in the extreme western part of Spain (near Mèrida) at the time we were in Lisbon. We tried to arrange to get together, but because of plane tickets not being changeable, her having to return to Ibiza, us needing to hurry through Portugal because of the European football (soccer) championships, it didn’t happen. We did have several nice long phone chats, and on one of those occasions it was her birthday, so that was nice. Not for her, however, being by herself in a strange town on her birthday. I know she was going to call her twin Marcela in Florida right after talking to us, and I can imagine that was one loooooong conversation!


Approximately two hours east of Lisbon, still in Portugal but heading toward Spain now, is the medieval town of Evora. The crowning glory of Evora is a restored Roman temple to Diana at its heart. These small towns are charming, but driving through them is nerve-racking. We stopped at the first hotel we saw hoping to get settled and abandon the car ASAP. After viewing a room and ascertaining that they indeed had parking, we hauled in our luggage. Then we were informed that the parking was in a different area. It took us THREE trips around, out and back through the walled city to find the parking and then our hotel again!! We were cursing ourselves for leaving our luggage as we'd lost all hope of ever finding the place again. We finally, by pure chance and deduction - yes, we’ve been down that street twice, so let’s take this street now - made our hot and sweaty way to the parking area and eventually back to the hotel. Did I mention that the temperature was around 100 F/40 C and our car is NOT air-conditioned?


Evora is a typical Spanish/Moorish/Roman town - the Spanish built churches over mosques and made towers out of minarets. The Moors/Islamists built the mosques over Roman Temples. And of course the Romans probably built their temples over “pagan” holy sites.


Evora, being a smallish town, has been able to preserve its ancient monuments, including a good portion of the city walls - started by the Romans, added onto by the Moors, expanded by the Christians . . .


[b[Sagres. Since it was our anniversary, or close enough, we treated ourselves to a “pousada.” These are historical and/or scenic properties run by the Portuguese government as five star hotels. The one in Sagres sat on a bluff overlooking a stretch of high cliffs (complete with lighthouse at the tip), a fine-sand beach below, and blue seas as far as the eye could see. A dramatic setting and we enjoyed the view from beside the pool because on our trip to the beach we discovered that the Atlantic here was FREEZING! Now that isn’t to say that the Germans, Dutch and other Northern Europeans weren’t swimming, just that there was no way more than our toes were going into the water - yes, we were total weenies.


Actually one of the reasons this area was one of our favorites was because there were so few tourists. At one stupendous stretch of powder sand beach surrounded by colorful cliffs, there were exactly two other people enjoying the solitude. Alas Portugal is destined to be “discovered” as Spain has long since been.


Just northwest of Sagres is Cabo St. Vicente, which is the western-most tip of continental Europe - complete with bluff-top ancient fort and lighthouse overlooking dramatic seas. It is a day-trip from Sagres and there were great tile (you name it, they make it) shops along the way. Also bought sweaters there, yes, sweaters - because of the geography, where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean, the wind is always whipped up and cool along this coast. We figured why not, the price was good and we could always use them in the Netherlands.


Our next stop was Monte Gordo, which is a beach town right on the Spanish/Portuguese border. We only stayed here so we could drive in early the following morning to Seville (2 ½ hrs.) and not be too tired while trying to get our bearings.


Turns out that Monte Gordo had a fabulous wide, deep and long beach, and that day was completely occupied with Harley-Davidson folk. There was a congregation (I’m sure they have a different name for the gathering) happening and expensive “Hogs” were all over town, as were their leather-clad owners. Of course the average age was probably 50, and it seemed to be a rule that the men had to have huge stomachs, and the either overweight or emaciated women must wear fringed jackets and tight leather pants - this was NOT a good thing.


We went to sleep and woke up to the deep rumble of Harley-Davidson engines, and that WAS a very good thing.

SPAIN, CON’T

Seville - the jewel of Spain. There are so many fabulous monuments, great museums, large and small churches, and shady parks you could spend weeks exploring. Having only a few days, we started with the Cathedral - the largest Gothic church in the world (but we’ve heard that claim elsewhere), and on the same scale as St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London. We did an audio tour, didn’t “do” all the chapels, and it still took us 2 hours on the inside. Christopher Columbus’s sarcophagus is in the Cathedral, being held up by four larger- than-life-size statutes on each corner - very impressive. Now, there is a question as to what is in the sarcophagus because Columbus was said to have died in the Caribbean, but it is believed that some of his bones made it back to Spain.


The other landmark monument in Seville is Alcazar Palace founded probably in the 11th century. It was, and still is, the monarch’s official residence in Seville, and was expanded by King Peter the First 1364 - 66. It is a marvel of Múdejar architecture - a mixture of Moorish/Islamic and Christian motifs. It definitely looks Arabic and indeed has Arabic script running through the motifs. It is a tribute to when Christians and Moors/Muhammadens/Islamics were tolerant of, and even admired each other’s religions and cultures.


In the rooms of Alcazar the plans for Columbus’s expedition were discussed and analyzed as Ferdinand and Isabella used Alcazar as their residence in Seville. This is a bit surprising as Ferdinand and Isabella were known as “the Catholic Kings” because they hated all things not Catholic and indeed vanquished the Moors from Spain the same year Columbus sailed for “India.”


This time we were smart and stayed outside Seville at Italica, an archeological site of a Roman ruin dating to 205 B.C. Its highlight is a coliseum that held 20,000 people! The bullring in Seville is the largest in the world and only holds 14,000. How many people were in this area in 205 B.C. anyway? Our hotel was right across from this site (and very near a bus stop where we hopped a local to and from Seville), so we got to wander around the site at our leisure - some really great floor mosaics are in excellent condition. NOTE: Bernard with his Irish passport got into this site free while I had to pay - this happened a lot.

Granada, last Spanish holdout of the Moors. The anniversary of the day in 1492 when Ferdinand and Isabella entered the city behind their vanquishing army, carrying the banner of Catholicism is a huge city holiday. We were visiting on another holiday, Corpus Christi (yes, they used the “h”). One of those obscure holidays even Bernard couldn’t sufficiently explain to me. From what I observed, it was a time for all young women and particularly little girls, to dress in Flamenco dance dresses, for watching parades, meeting friends, eating tapas, drinking and visiting. In other words, loads of fun. There were stages set up around town and we saw some fabulous Flamenco dancing.

The parade route was of particular interest. It wound through the main streets (beginning at the Calle Reyes Catolicos - naturally), and the avenues were lined with seats. But the amazing thing was that they had rigged awnings over the entire parade route creating shade for the participants and audience. What an undertaking! But what a delight. It made a world of difference on a 94 F/34 C day. Thankfully Granada is perched in the Sierra Nevada mountains (hills?) and blessed generally with breezes and low humidity.


The gem of Granada is the Alhambra Palace. Again, Múdejar style - more Moorish than Christian to our eyes. This collection of palaces, a fortress and gardens sits over-looking the valley on a hill in the middle of town (15 min. walk from center). The irrigation for a myriad of fountains, baths, gardens and pools is fascinating and all these beautiful water features create a sensation of calm serenity through sight and sound.


Toledo was our last major tourist stop in Spain. We made many stops in small villages and visited still more Moorish castles, but we’ll spare you the details.


The history of Toledo stretches back to pre-Roman days. It was the main city of Muslim central Spain, the peninsula’s leading center of learning and arts in the 11th century. The Christians wrested control in 1085 and Toledo soon became the headquarters of the Spanish church. For centuries it was one of the most important of Spain’s numerous early capitals. Until 1492 Christians, Jews and Muslims co-existed peaceably.


El Greco lived in Toledo from 1577 to 1614 and many of his works are still in the city. We saw what is considered his masterpiece (El Entiero del Conde de Orgaz/The Burial of Count Orgaz) in an unimposing little church where it held the place of honor and you could get really close to it.


With a population of only 70,000, Toledo had a nice feel. Its meandering narrow streets, made narrower by window boxes of cascading flowers, were less hectic than Seville or Granada.


From Toledo we back-tracked through France and Belgium spending one night along the way, memorable only for the fantastic dinner we had. Turned out the hotel we stumbled upon (in the cute little French town we had also just happened upon) had a first-class restaurant in which we were thrilled to partake of the four-course dinner being offered. Our waiter must have thought we were crazy as we laughed every time a dish was presented. We were just so delighted with each and every course, it made us giddy. Yes, France is without question the best “food” destination in the world.

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Photos

Crotoy, France
We spent our first night in this charming town

Bayeux, France
A portion of the 200-foot long tapestry Bayeux is famous for

Normandy, France
There are many war cemeteries in Normandy, and they are beautifully kept and well documented

Mont St. Michel, France
View from our hotel - kinda super

San Sebastian, Spain
We also visited Bilbao in this Basque region

Santillana del Mar, Spain
There was a great museum of the Cuevas de Altamire with a full-scale replica of the cave and the art within - 14,000 year-old Stone Age animal paintings. The cave itself is open to the public but the waiting list is years long!

Santander, Spain
Also had great beaches, but I like lighthouses

Santiago de Compostela
Inside the magnificent cathedral

Lisbon, Portugal
Thank goodness for the colorful roofs as all the buildings are white or off-white - somewhat blinding

Sintra, Portugal
A portion of the medieval wall which we walked in its entirety - great day!

Evora, Portugal
Kathy in front of the ruins of the Roman temple to Diana, the huntress

Sagres, Portugal
Kathy on beach below our hotel. Beautiful beach, but the water was FREEZING

Cabo St. Vicente
Western-most tip of continental Europe

Seville, Spain
Inside Alcazar Palace, 11th Century

Italica, Spain
Roman mosaic floors dating to 205 B.C.

Granada, Spain
One of the magnificent plazas inside the Alhambra Palace

Toledo, Spain
Became the Spanish Catholic Church's headquarters in 1085

Toledo, Spain
El Greco's painting The Burial of Count Orgaz

Santillana del Mar, Spain
Our pension - we had the whole top floor, so great views

Comments

[Barbara Chew]

Thanks
Hi Kathy: Thanks so much for sharing such a wonderfully composed blog, with great photos and your comments! If I'm lucky, I'll be able to do bits and pieces of travel to all the areas that you've covered. Many thanks. Barbara Chew