So my last day in Cuenca was meant to be about nothing – a quiet one and then I got a small two hour job to do – my fault I did say I’d pick up emails if urgent. So the morning passed and it wasn’t quite hot enough to go to the pool so given the verbiage was flowing I knocked out a short story for a collection I’ve planned alongside “the novel”. I’d written off the new town of Cuenca down the hill after driving through a few times but thought while I’m here I’d better walk down through the old town and see how it all pans out. It took about half an hour – all down – from the parador to the main shopping/drinking street. I had dinner planned so didn’t want much lunch so a beer and the freeby olives, nuts and crisps sufficed at a couple of bars and it was after four by now. The lower town does not have much to recommend it I’m afraid except for an enthusiastic balcony display commemorating Cuenca’s sunflowers and a little later the lovely strains from the practice rooms of the music academy with its lively (again) Corten steel sculpture.
The northern river Jucar had a bit more water than the Huecar on the parador side and there was a pleasant park and another incredibly modern church the cross of which probably doubles as a cellphone mast, impressive university buildings and a likely looking theatre.
Do I walk back up or get a cab? Seems daft to not walk but it does prove quite steep and there’s more to come later. However the legs make it up beside the Huecar with its little weirs gurgling encouragement to the ancient limbs and I do get a different angle on the hanging houses and the bridge which on my way down I’d heard someone refusing to cross – I guess if you have a height phobia it would be very scary.
Back at the parador I shower and prepare for dinner at Cuenca’s one Michelin starred restaurant Raff San Pedro. Of course it’s up in the old town so the bones creak a bit but the menu makes pain soon forgotten. I explain that with old age I really only need a small amount so the patron suggests the Menu Gastro which has three small starters, a main fish or meat and ice cream. I go for that – and forgive me some have accused earlier blogs of being too full of food but this has to be told. First comes a small golf ball of ajo arriero cod and garlic mixed with potato and with a truffled exterior. Delicate notes of truffle and garlic very well balanced. Next is a wine glass of foamed yogurt with migas the local croutons and jellied extract of artichoke. The third is a wonderfully smooth salmorejo gazpacho’s thicker sister with cucumber and quail’s egg. The main was an old favourite carilleras pig’s cheeks where the meat is so tender because of lying against that great expanse of bone. Accompanied by a local Tempranillo my last day in Cuenca was a huge success and Spain beat Croatia 6-0 so there was happiness in the plaza as I wended my way back down to the parador.
Breakfast, pack and on to Madrid with an easy drive until the last section where the SatNav could not put me outside my hotel despite telling me I’d reached my destination. I had to go into a giant parking garage under Plaza de Independencia and find the hotel on foot with Google maps and then go and retrieve the car and park it in the hotel’s garage. It’s a modern boutique number quite unlike the rest of my trip but very pleasant and in Salamanca an area of the city I didn’t know much before. I do now. It’s very posh (of course) with lots of international and local specialist clothes, shoe and jewellery shops. What I did find was a Galician taberna for lunch which had steamed clams fresh in from A Coruna this morning – and they and the crisp Rias Baixas wine reminded me of our trip two years ago along the north and west coast starting in San Sebastian and ending up in Baiona. Fortified I wandered, keeping to the shady side of the street as it reached 36 degrees today – pleasing the locals as it had been over 40. I walked through areas unfamiliar and familiar, finding another local market on the way and ending up on the far west of the city by the Royal Palace. I sat in front of the Opera thinking one day it would be good to come here during the season and catch a performance. Likewise the Liceu in Barcelona.
I had of course to go through Sol the very heart of Madrid and our favourite plaza Santa Ana before heading through the Retiro Gardens and back to the hotel on Alcala. My feet said enough and there’s a Mexican-Spanish fusion group playing live on the roof terrace tonight so it would be rude not to attend. Besides as I entered my room after an urgent beer in the bar I found this. Salud!
I’ve never been into to the FitBit step thing but today I did think it would be nice to know just how many steps – all as they say andando a pie.
Well on this stretch there had been a rock fall within the last couple of days given the freshness of the markings on the road. There were still yellow road works signs for the guys clearing the rocks off the road.
I drove through the gorge of the river Jucar passing literally gorgeous scenery (sorry) and an extensive reservoir.
Finally after a section marked as ‘Mountain road – no markings’ – great fun and only one vehicle to negotiate in 20 km – the road emerged in the village of Cañete which had some staggering Moorish walls, a market and a bar/restaurant that looked good for lunch. I sat with a beer and some local very strong manchego cheese and homemade chorizo when the heavens opened and the town came rushing in.
It was clear that I was occupying a difficult spot for la padrona to accommodate everyone so I moved to great thanks from the incoming group. As you do, I became involved in conversation thereafter and enquired as to what their tee shirts signified. The women were wearing tops with the slogan ‘La peña de pantocha’. I knew that peña meant an association, society or interest group but I had to enquire what the word pantocha meant – should have learnt more slang in my youth. The ladies burst into laughter and indicated that it was a part of the feminine anatomy where as they put it ‘Entran las pollas, salen los niños’. My conclusion that in English they’d be called the C*** Club had them in complete hysterics with gleeful delight in the matched alliteration. The menfolk were all bearing tee shirts with the legend WILLYS with which I was familiar from a souvenir/craft shop in Palamos a while ago where as a winter gift they had a series of beautifully knitted ‘willy warmers’ ranging from thimble size to truncheon – you decide which to take home. I tried to explain that grammatically their slogans were wrong in that they should either be WILLY’S if they were celebrating one particular member or WILLIES if they were all involved. I spared them the Wilis in Giselle. We were deep into dangerous territory here as I couldn’t accept the free-flowing booze with my car parked opposite under the walls. It transpired that while the fiesta always had a religious element, a few years ago some of them had decided to sex it up a bit with some gender related fun and games so they had a number of contests between the sexes. I hate to think how the evening would have finished – it was quite rowdy when I left at 4.30. But my new friends did pose for a photo as I left. Spike in June babies in Cañete?
What I hadn’t checked was that Belmonte was celebrating its fiesta patronal which involved a lots of singing, dancing and drinking on Saturday and on Sunday a procession for the Virgin of Grace. So I watched England beaten by Spain to the delight of the locals – I had to admit Spain were the better team although ‘we was robbed’ at the end. I then joined the revellers at the local brass band’s recital and then at a series of sets by a band I can only describe as Latino heavy rock. They were fun, people dressed up and danced but they did go on until 04:30.
I had retired by then but not to much sleep! On the way east the weather had changed and once the music stopped I was woken by thunder. It rumbled around but produced no rain which is good as two days ago in a town near Toledo I saw on the news cars being swept down the street in flash floods. It was called Cebolla = Onion Town.
It has some very impressive examples: Chillida, Tapies, Miro among them and some fine works by artists I didn’t know. Being inside the building was great too as some of the original features remain and the view from the balconies is vertiginous.
I might not have fetched up where I did in a previous visit (!) but found a bar in the main square near the cathedral with some local craft beer I thought I’d try – the bottle came and it was 7%, serious beer, but as so often with high alcohol content too sweet for my tooth so I stuck at the one there and had a more refreshing Alhambra on the way back to check in.
However this wasn’t going to be a stay in the hotel all day stay so no real problem. On arrival after my Don Quixote day I walked the twenty minutes into the centre. To be fair it’s a fairly dull town with a few good buildings – theatre very deco, church one very modern and some very ancient as well as a good plaza.
However this part of the trip was for swimming (tick), writing (tick) chilling (semi-tick) and exploring the local ecology, archeology and oenology (two and a half ticks).
It provided a good lunch stop in the shade as the temperature reached 41 Celsius.
The town has a fine plaza and church, a ducal palace now the town hall, a cinema themed bar and is famous for growing saffron without which no paella would be complete.
It also has an octagonal library – complete with youngster on the net – and a little way away a famous 18th century casa de postas which from its original use as a place for message carriers to stay has been a barracks, a hostel and is noted as a building of interest. But as you can see it’s all a facade.
Made me think again about spending money restoring old things, funding prestigious projects that no one really needs and using scarce resources on real need and halting the slide into poverty of so many. It’s a hard one as heritage is important. How come Spain already has a brilliant high speed train network AVE that connects all the major cities at more than 300 Kph? Crossrail, HS2 really? Are the amazing infrastructure projects what took Spain into the dodgy PIGS group a few years back?
It’s enough to make a nag like Dulcinea sweat going up all those hills and forgetting that you can drive to the top! Since we were there one of the mills has been restored to function on a few days a week actually grinding grains to make flour – but not today. We had visited here from the parador at Almagro a bit to the south so I thought a nostalgic trip there was in order.
We had seen its galleried plaza mayor with Christmas lights and a tree. It brought back very happy memories but the square where we had lunched and shopped was exhibiting end of seasonitis today – it was midweek and school’s just gone back. In one restaurant the chef had presented us with a book about the aubergine (eggplant, berenjena) for which the town is famous.
So I had to have one for lunch. It was delicious and Almagro remains an attractive town and I couldn’t help thinking that Dee should have been with me as I passed this bar.
From San Tome to the high gothic Game of Thrones-worthy cathedral was not too bad but it was another steep schlepp up to the Alcazar, that huge fortress at the eastern end of the city. Worth it though as each facade is different, the views down to the Tajo are excellent and there are bars nearby.
I concluded that unlike many cities it has no real centre but a number of quite small areas where shops and restaurants congregate. It’s quite hard to get a grip of which is probably why there were so many raised umbrellas escorting tour groups. Maybe I should have done the city tour bus. Beer and tapas downed I walked blissfully down to retrieve the car and go back to the parador for a swim and a read.
They of course were open but I persevered and found a little local bar where I thought I’d take a tapa before finding a restaurant. There was a quarter of a tortilla left and a big dish of wild mushrooms after which I made a joke that actually worked in Spanish along the lines of ‘I asked for a snack and got a meal’. Great hilarity and a glass of wine on the house as we watched the US Open tennis on the TV – a change from the very popular bullfight channel that plays in most bars – and had a bit of a conversation about the effects of Brexit – hard to avoid when you say you come from the UK. In one bar someone did actually say ‘If you don’t like us why are you here?’ My remain vote sort of placated him but there’s a degree of rancour. A copa in another bar and a walk back, up of course, to Zocodover to find a cab and complete Toledo Day 2.
Outside the museum was a Corten steel sculpture of the apostles that El Greco was so famous for. As a Richard Serra fan I was quite taken by this work by Paco Rojas and by the steel letters dotted around the museum itself. There was also a well placed restaurant with a 12 euro menu so why not? On the menu were carcamusas which I’d never encountered despite extensive travels in Spain. It’s a dish of lean pork fillet with tomatoes, garlic, pimiento and wine, I think, anyway it was good. Next was a trip to another synagogue, mosque cum church in this eminently three faith city: San Juan de Los Reyes which had a great cloister, fabulous ceilings and bizarre stone work.
It was fine but I felt I’d never really got to grips with Toledo, It’s this odd mix of reverance for the three religions history and an attempt to become a tourist destination. The parador and its inviting skinny dipping pool was great, the city did not add itself to my must rush back list.
The Fullerton is converted out of one of Singapore’s historic buildings the Post Office which also at times housed the Ministry of Finance. It’s a fabulous neo-classical structure with extensive lounges and eateries on the lobby floor. It was again stressed to me that I’d be paying the rate agreed which when I reached my room looked like a real bargain. I’ve been fortunate enough to stay in some very good hotels over the years but this room was amazing. OK the view was down into the internal courtyard not out over the Singapore River but it probably had the same floor area as my house. A bathroom with a massive bath and a separate drench shower were to my left, fitted wardrobes to the right and then in the main room a massive bed, easy seating area and a desk. The yukata I’d become accustomed to was replaced by a long towelling robe and a fully-stocked minbar and snack counter completed the picture. As it was late and wet I decided to grab food in the hotel and to make a swift move as everything closed at 10 pm. The fifth floor bar with a view stayed open longer and to look out over Marina Bay with its manic lighting displays. We’d seen the Hong Kong waterfront light show but this goes on all the time.
There were some good colonial and vernacular buildings hidden among the glass palaces of commercialism with all the usual suspect brand names abounding – I think there were three Lois Vuitton and four Chanel shops in a mile. One outlet that did take me by surprise was a Crate and Barrel an old Heal’s style favourite from Boston that I’ve not seen overseas before.
However I had work to do in sorting out packing for tomorrow’s trip home for which I need to leave the hotel a 06:30. So I pop into 7Eleven for a couple of cans to ease the sorting of clean and dirty clothes and cramming them into suitcases. Mission complete I set off for Duxton Hill an area of eateries recommended by my son. It’s pleasant area with about twenty eating options in a short space. Seduced by a real Spanish leg of bellota ham on the counter I entered a tapas bar and my first glass of wine for ages = it’s been beer and sake all the way.
Then suddenly in another room were grotesque succumbs-like figures engaged in scenes of bloody torture and horror such that I even checked with an attendant that they were by the same artist.
I think even Bosch and Brueghel would have been shocked. I guess too many pretty children with their favourite toys can only go so far and your inner vision of hell needs an outlet. I can’t say I was moved to bring any prints home but I was glad I’d been. As I left a large school party was being lined up to enter the aquarium. Health and safety here has kids wearing hard hats.
I was quite glad I hadn’t elected to stay at the Camel Hotel – wonder if they paid to rip off the cigarette logo – it might be OK in the season but it looked rather down at heel now.
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