Category: Toledo

Paella and Sangria

Paella and sangria seem to be the main food and drink associated with Spain. In Barcelona, the Ramblas is probably the most touristy place in all of Spain. A big wide boulevard with cafes, stalls, human statues, etc. You walk down and every place offers paella on these signs that are all the same. You see people sitting at the cafes with large goblets of sangria.

I guess I am a bit of a tourist snob because I continue to be amazed that people would sit at a cafe along the Ramblas and order sangria and paella. You know they are going to be overpriced and of dubious quality.

We did, ourselves, order sangria at a tapas cafe in Toledo and it was pretty good actually. In another tapas bar ordered English cider. I don’t know where that places me.

In Cadaques we got some cheap sangria at a supermarket, which, by the way, are not that big in Spanish cities. A bit outside the cities they have supermarkets like we are used to. Anyway, we bought some oranges and plums and cut them up into little pieces and made sangria in our room a couple of nights and it was very nice.

We finally had some paella in the market in Madrid. We are less interested in rice dishes these days so that was an issue. We were sitting at the market and this young English couple was sitting across from us having paella and we got to talking. They said it was good so we had it the next night. It was pretty good, not great.

This English couple were very nice, we chatted a while. There were from outside London and in Madrid for four days. I think they said the round trip air fare was about 40 pounds (about $65 I think). They came for some nice weather. It was clear but pretty cold yesterday in Madrid so they were a bit disappointed.

The coffee in Spain

Post by Wynette:  If you’ve read our blogs from trips to Italy you know we were always raving about the coffee. To our surprise, we like the coffee in Spain even more.  It’s been fantastic.  We always order cafe con leche (coffee with hot milk) which is pretty much like a cappuccino except the milk is not as foamy.  So it’s really like  coffee latte in the States except in a cappuccino-sized cup.  And the coffee tastes a lot better than any coffee I’ve ever had in the States. It’s rich and full bodied but never bitter or harsh.  We liked the coffee in Toledo (where we spent the first 5 days) and we find we like the coffee in Catalonia (NE Spain) even more.

A few times, when we would leave a bar, we’d tell the person behind the counter how much we liked the coffee.  Their face would light up.  They really seemed to appreciate that we told them that.

I wanted to include this picture because it’s only one of a couple we have of us together so far. The  nice woman behind the bar asked us if we’d like a picture when she saw us taking pictures of each other.  Wouldn’t you know, this happens to be an Italian coffee bar (Illy) that we stopped into while waiting for a train in Madrid, on the way to Barcelona. (You can see our suitcase handles there behind us.)

People in Spain

We like to take pictures of the people we encounter. People love it when you ask to take their picture. Here is Hannah from our hotel in Toledo. She cleaned the rooms, made breakfast and checked us out when we left, she does it all.

Here is the woman running a coffee bar in the Madrid train station:

Here are the two chefs at the place in the Barcelona market where we ate twice because it was so good:

And our hard-working waitress, from the back unfortunately, she never stopped moving long enough so that we could ask her to pose for a picture:

 

Processions in Toledo

Post by Wynette: In addition to the Palm Sunday procession that Charlie wrote about earlier, we saw two other semana santa (holy week) processions.  For all 3, we more or less just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

For the first, below, we were sitting on the main plaza having coffee and noticed lots of people and said “wow, people sure like to hang out on this plaza”.  Then we heard a band and saw a float with Jesus riding the donkey into Jerusalem.

Following the float was a marching band.  They were good.  Incredible trumpet playing.  Even though the songs weren’t exactly spanish songs, they sounded so spanish with the trumpet.  I was quite moved by it.

Then, our last night inToledo (April 2), as we were heading back from the restaurant to our hotel, we saw crowds lining up along one of the main streets, so we found a spot and waited for another procession.  Another float with Jesus, and, I think, the same wonderful band we heard before. That’s the top of Toledo’s stunning cathedral behind the float.

Notice that several people, in hoods, are carrying this one.  The first one, of Jesus on the donkey, was on a wagon that was pulled along by a single man.  We were amazed he could do that.

 

Paella

Post by Wynette: Well, we haven’t had any paella yet.  We are holding out for a place that comes with a good recommendation.  Do you think we should have tried any of these places in Toledo?

I think the person who decided on the following brand name didn’t quite understand nuances around the word “ok”.

We met a couple waiting outside a restaurant, he was from New Jersey but had lived in Spain for 20 years.  She was Spanish.  He said his theory was that a company manufactured these and froze them and the bars all around sold them.  Because we saw LOTS of signs like the 3 above.

Or, how about something we saw in the market, what Charlie calls “shake and bake Paella”:

Charlie and Wynette go to Palm Sunday Mass

My Catholic boyhood is coming in handy. We got up, in Toledo, on Palm Sunday and I was saying to Wynette on Palm Sunday back in Duluth MN we would get these palm leaves and we would parade (process?) around the the church holding the palms. I guessed that since the Spanish seem to favor religious processions they would do that on Palm Sunday too.

We lucked out and got down to the big cathedral just as they were gathering outside. We waited along the street (a very small street) and about 10 minutes later they were parading past us. First the young boys, singing:

then the choir

then the older guys.

Holy cow! It’s the Archbishop of Toledo! They’re bringing out the big guns (or canons).

And how about those palm fronds? Back in Minnesota we had these little wimpy things but there we were far from where palms grow. I never thought about it but I guess the church had to order them months in advance and there are companies that supply palm fronds to churches all around the US.

Next came the guys with the really cools outfits:

Mixed with what seems to be people from the congregation:

including 4 or 5 women in black outfits and with small black clutch purses (which we didn’t get a photo of).

Okay, it’s over so we just fell in behind. No need to be shy. We didn’t have palms but we had some olive branches that they had provided for the crowd (you can see the bystanders holding them in the above photo). We marched right around and into the church and the service continued. There was a choir in one end of the church that was singing as we came in and then the “real” choir in the fancy choir section that we had seen the day before on the church tour. Then I never even gave a thought that a real choir might be in there singing.

The choir area is opposite the high alter which in pretty fancy:

They had a bunch of large monitors around so you could see what was happening. There must have been 4 or 5 cameras, maybe more, since they showed the high alter, the choir, both from a couple of angles and other views also. So there must have been a director somewhere in a control room deciding which camera feed to show at any time, “Cut to the choir”, “Now the congregation”, “Now the high alter”, “Zoom in on the chalice”, etc.

The video shows the priest who is reading the pulpit, and here’s the archbishop on video:

And then the part I remember so well from my boyhood, where the communion is over and you know there is only five or ten minutes to go and you are ready for it to be over. This little girls needed to move around a little during that time:

The choirs and the organ were magnificent. The acoustics in the church was very, very good. It was a bit long, as it always is, but we enjoyed it.

 

Electric candles

Am I the only one fascinated by the concept of electric candles? I have never seen them in the US. As you know in Catholic churches (and maybe other ones too, I don’t know) you have places where you can light candles to remember people or whatever. They have these little candles and matches to light them. In Italy and here in Spain you don’t see real candles much, just the electric kind. In Italy there was a switch on each candle as I remember. Here in Spain you just drop your money in and some electric bulb lights up. They have them in front of the side chapels in large churches. I noticed that on some lots of “candles” (lights) were lit and some not so many. this was for some unpopular saint I guess.

Politics

Hey, we’re not supposed to talk about that right? I guess we all know the Europe is a bit to the left of the US. You don’t see graphitti like this in the US:

This was, by the way also by the river around Toledo. Here is one more by the river:

Twisty little passages all the same

Post by Charlie: Like lots of cities in Europe, Toledo has an old town which is mainly the domain of the tourists and the people who serve them and which has lots of narrow streets and quaint old buildings. Around the old town there is usually a modern town where the locals live and work. Our hotel is a on little lane where cars cannot go. This is looking down from the door.