Cuenca, Part 4: Partying Parador-Style

This was our last night at the parador and we knew it was our last hurrah in Spain as we were headed for a Madrid airport hotel the next day. So we treated ourselves to a tasting menu at the hotel. You'd think a kid ordered this ridiculous dessert--nope, it was me! But I gave each kid his own cone.

The next day Ben fed the lion postbox one last time. We had a beautiful drive out of Cuenca and back to Madrid, with all those sunflowers facing us (ok, and the sun too).

Our last hotel doesn't really merit much attention other than to say that it was called the High Tech Hotel and we had no air-conditioning for 8 hours of the afternoon/night. And when Ed went to complain that it was 30 degrees Celsius in our room, the front desk guy said to him, "it is not 30 degrees, it is 30.5 degrees Celsius!" That would be about 90 degrees Fahrenheit in a tiny, tiny room. He had the gall to suggest we go to the pool. Uh, yeah.

The plane to Portugal, which we dreaded because of the kids' motion sickness, was uneventful but sadly the plane from Porto to Newark was really rough for the last couple hours. Ben, Nate and I were very sick. Plus the plane dropped like a stone at one point. Nate and several other people on the plane threw up; Ben and I just turned a wicked shade of green. Even the taxi'ing was awful (jerky, endless, etc.) I think the pilots were pretty lame. As one of my colleagues said back in June when I said we were flying TAP Air, "Buckle Up!" Even kind, sweet Ben told me not to thank the pilot.

Finally, we made it to the car rental place and Ed drove the 3 hours to Camp Hill, PA to see my parents. So very tired.

I have a couple more posts in me and then we'll put the blog to bed!

Cuenca, Part 1

Success! Cuenca parador had the promised pool and it was awesome (despite some biting flies). And check out the amazing rock formations lining the pool. The parador served up internet just fine in our room though I was worried when the bar only served up wine and nuts and no connection. But the photo summed up so many blog moments in the trip.

Cuenca is built around a deep, deep gorge. Our parador hotel was built on one side and the old town is on the other side. And a long, scary pedestrian bridge lies between. You can sort of see it here--just imagine that it's 60 meters above the river. And here are Ed and the boys crossing it. Because land is at a premium Cuenca began to build houses literally over the gorge. But more on that in future posts...

Leon, Part 3: Lions and Tombs and Cloisters Oh My

St. Isidoro is a much smaller church in Leon but significantly it has 23 kings entombed. Their tombs sit in an amazing arched chapel decorated with Romanesque murals in astonishing shape. The down side is that you can only enter with a rather severe tour guide (spanish-speaking only) which meant that our boys had to sit quietly (oops--once on an actual ancient tomb--sorry again) for an hour. I whispered a LOT of Where's Waldo questions ("who can find the heart with arrows piercing it? who can find the sword? etc etc) to keep them respectful while everyone else who did speak spanish got a great lesson in the tombs and art. Yet another reminder that I should have taken that intensive spanish-language class before the sabbatical.

The other photos here were of the parador's very peaceful cloister with its diving swallows and cool promenade. Peaceful, I think, because no one was really meant to be in it on the weekend but once I broke the rules and snuck inside a crowd of other hotel guests followed.

The paradors had lion mailboxes so we "fed" the lion our hands (and the very few postcards we sent!) each time we passed by.

That's Our Hotel?

What a difference a day makes. This gorgeous building (which at 100 metres was actually too big to fit the frame from anywhere I stood) is the Leon parador hotel. Originally a monastery, it sheltered pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. And because that pilgrimage (part religious effort, part hike) is still quite popular and because this year is a special year when a particular door is opened at Santiago de Compostela, there were a lot of pilgrim hikers with the traditional scallop shell hanging off their backpacks. In some recent years, there have been nearly 100,000 of them, on foot, bike or horse/donkey. There are many paths across Europe but all follow the yellow arrows and shell signs meant to guide them to the endpoint: the remains of St. James in Santiago de Compostela.

We saw pilgrims in a lot of places in northern Spain, but Leon is a particularly important stop for them. Here's the statue of a pilgrim outside the parador; note his shoes are off and can you blame him after 500 miles? Thank you, Nate, for using the fidelity hand symbol (learned in one museum early on); let's take it as youthful enthusiasm as opposed to some sort of sacrilegious gang symbol. The hotel inside is beautiful though we'd arrived on a weekend when the parador/monastery's museum were completely closed so we know less about it than usual.

We couldn't figure out why these musicians were in the courtyard of the parador, tuning their instruments and straightening their costumes but not actually playing. Turns out we found them later that evening, playing for at least one of the three weddings we ran into. A fancy place, Leon. Like seemingly everywhere in Spain, it was founded by the Romans. But then it was a Kingdom for a long, long time and while it's not large, it still has a kind of importance and pride to it that could have been off-putting but wasn't. We liked Leon though didn't do that much for those two days. I'd admit the significant improvement in our lodgings may have played a part in rating it as highly as we did...

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Our last 8 days since we left Barcelona have been good but the internet access has been abysmal so even if we can get on the web, uploading photos has been very difficult. (I'm never sure what's going to work so my apologies for poor picture quality.) I hope to catch up eventually but here's the short version run-down as our days slide by... First, we went to Cadaques for 3 days (just gorgeous and the kids have voted that hotel's pool a trip highlight--go figure), then Figueres (day trip to see Dali Museum), Zaragoza (so hot we couldn't see straight), north to San Sebastian (even 2 days of solid rain at this fantastic beach and delightful town couldn't dampen our enthusiasm though it did limit our sand time!), Llanes (horrible hotel, overhyped beach town overcrowded with pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela), and now in regal Leon, where we're staying at a beautiful parador hotel--this one a remarkable 12th century monastery turned hospital then prison and now luxury hotel.

The city's main attractions and museums have been closed a lot this weekend and internet service is slow so it's forcing us to relax--always for the best. While I got a great rate from the hotel, their laundry charges were appalling and we had a LOT of dirty clothes. With no laundromat in town, we had to do all our laundry in the tub and sink yesterday, which we're sure the hotel would loathe (ah well, stinky Stacklers would be worse than sneaky/gauche Stacklers). We had an excellent regional/Leon tasting dinner at the parador last night from 9 til midnight so today we're taking it a bit easier.

Leon is an interesting city. The Castilian they speak is so pure and whispery that Ed can barely understand it. And there's a feeling of sophistication here that seems a little out of place as it's a pretty sleepy town from what we can tell. But people are dressed to the nines. We saw three weddings here and every guest (literally everyone in town?) had on a full-length gown or three-piece suit. A Bentley ushered in one bride and groom, and fireworks ushered out another. I realized today how nice it was that there were far fewer motorcycles and scooters in this walkable city which makes it both safer and quieter. The down side is that at 3 p.m. today Leon was a total ghost town, and I felt a little odd walking home alone from a 2nd attempt to see the cathedral's amazing stained glass windows (so extensive that the exterior weight is supported entirely by flying buttresses, an achievement that Frommers considers it a precursor to Mies Van Der Rohe's work).

Tomorrow we drive 6 or so hours to Cuenca, another city rich in history plus "hanging houses" over a gorge. We got yet another great deal at a parador and this one has a pool so there are extremely high expectations....

We've only just begun talking about the things we miss that we'll do when we get home. Which I think is an excellent sign after nearly 7 weeks on the road. The boys especially are tired of jamon and queso and bread and tortilla espaniola and olives and even Fanta. But still they're curious and good sports.