Madrid

We left Alicante by fast train and two hours twenty minutes later, we were trying to find our way to the Mayerling Hotel in Madrid. The train coach in which we rode had a status screen and I watched as the speed of the train hit 249 k/h (150 mph). Can you imagine a rail system in the states of equal speed? If we had a similar rail system, we could go to Chicago from Lansing in less than two hours!

The four of us walked in single file from the train station - somewhat for protection ("be careful about what you carry in your backpacks because the pick-pockets/street robbers are very skillful...") some to manage the numbers of people on the sidewalks.

Madrid is a marvelous, vibrant city. No ghosts of the Inquisition or the years of Franco (at least none that we saw). Madrid is exciting.

We stayed at a hotel recommended by a friend of MB. It was a lovely European-type hotel just three blocks from the Puerto del Sol - Madrid's most famous central square.  The rooms were neat and well maintained. The staff was the best feature of the hotel. They were very welcoming and friendly. They reminded us of the breakfast bar (included in the room rate) and informed us that the café/tea machine was ours to use 24 hours per day. The day clerk provided us with a map and good ideas of where to go to find tapas. When we checked out, the clerk told us that when we finished our touring/shopping and came back for our bags, we could use the facilities and have a café or tea. (We did both.)

Our hotel was pretty much at the top of the city; just blocks from the indoor city market and in the heart of a non-franchise shopping district, i.e., little shops selling everything from the new spring fashions to Spanish hams to shoes made in Spain.

Our first tapas bar visit turned out to be a bad choice. We picked a place with few customers (contrary to the advice of the hotel clerk) and two of us ended up suffering the consequences for most of the next 24 hours. (I sure hope it was not the fried eggplant drizzled with honey – I really liked that tapa!)

We walked around our neighborhood and discovered the indoor market with all of its offerings, the cathedral of La Almudena, the Royal Palace and the Royal Opera.

Cathedral de la Almudena

We visited the Prado (Velasquez, Goya), the Reina Sofia Museum (Dali, Picasso) and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (Dufy exhibit). Spain has a rich art history and we got to see some of the greats.

Following our first day food disaster, we found wonderful places to eat and drink. Tapas bars are everywhere and we enjoyed wonderful tapas, delicious paella and very nice wines. We drank mostly Rioja wines - from 2 euros a bottle! - always worth the price and usually excellent. The Spanish eat even later than the French! The restaurants don’t open for the evening until 8:00 pm and then hit their peak at 10:00 pm. (We missed out on the Wednesday “1 euro” tapas as suggested by MB’s friend – only discovering the shops on Thursday.)

The fearsome foursome at the Plaza of the Orient (between the Royal Palace and the Opera)

Our train was at 16h30. We agreed that two nights was not enough time to begin to discover Madrid. We plan to return.

Madrid Train Station

Alicante Wines

We had planned to visit Granada but it was closed. Actually, we discovered that the Alhambra palace was sold out. One cannot get tickets at the last minute. Seeing the Moorish palace will have to wait for another trip. Instead, we decided to taste some of the local wines in the Alicante wine region. We visited Novelda, Monòver and El Pinós.

All three towns are part of the wine region where the main red-wine grape is Monastrell (Mourvedre). In El Pinós, we thought we would have lunch, but like Alhambra, it was sold out. (The reason was that that Sunday was the last day of a week-long gastronomic festival in El Pinós and the restaurants were all booked.) We headed back toward Alicante with the idea of eating in Monòver but found no restaurants open there. The same was true in Novelda. We ended up having a nice home-made lunch back at the apartment. It seems that few establishments are open on Sunday in villages far from the tourist towns. A waitress in El Pinós told us that we would have little success in finding wineries open on Sunday; everything was closed on Sunday. (Luckily, we proved her wrong and had fun tasting wines at a wine cooperative near Monòver . She was right in that none of the vineyards were open. As I think about it, the wineries that we passed did not seem to have tasting rooms as the wineries in France have…)

In Novelda, we visited the Gaudi-inspired church Ste. Maria Magdalena at the site of the castle de la Mola.

The church was designed by José Sala Sala and finished in 1946. Novelda is known for its stone quarries and the organ loft is built with local marble.

One other thing that I have noted on this trip is that one can buy a whole leg of air-cured pork.  In the wine coop they were selling a leg of pork for 7.95€ per kilo. (In Madrid, the lowest price I saw was 13 € per kilo.) I am sure that I never saw a leg of air-dried pork for sale in the states…

Which is the ham?

Espagne

We left Vaison la Romaine and came to Spain to visit our neighbor and to spend a few days with friends in Alicante.

As we crossed the border into Spain, it became clear that the border was not only a political boundary; it was also an architectural boundary. I don’t think that I can pinpoint the differences but the buildings in Spain are different. (It is like driving to Toronto from MI. As soon as you get across the bridge, you start noting that the houses and buildings are different. Different colors, different bric-a-brac…)

Even though the Romans spent a lot of time in Spain and all places Mediterranean, it is clear that the Moors had a huge influence on what has become Spain. On our way here, we stayed at a hotel in Tortosa that was originally built by the Romans. At the fall of the Roman empire, it became/was rebuilt as a Moor castle and then the Crusades changed all of that ending the four hundred years of Moslem rule and bringing Christian rule to that area of Spain. The castle is now a “Parador” hotel – a very nice hotel – but no religious overtones to it.

We ate at the hotel restaurant and had wonderful meals. The entrées and main courses were beautifully presented and perfectly prepared. The wait staff was very attentive but never intrusive. (This is starting to sound like a TripAdvisor review.) The wine I chose – a “Muga” Rioja reserve – was excellent. Rioja wines are usually a blend of tempranillo and Grenache grapes. I did not know this wine. I chose it because it was from the 2010 vintage which was rated very well. (I can hear my friend John commenting on me tripping into the outhouse and coming out with a new suit… or similar expressions to underscore my luck in choosing wine.)

Last night we arrived at our destination. We will be in Alicante for about two weeks. The sun, the sand: we could get used to this. Tomorrow our friend from Chicago arrives. I plan to make Cioppino and take advantage of all of the fresh fish one can get in the fishing village just north of Alicante. – and serve the Cioppino with some good Rioja wine…

Now I need to learn how to say “Life is good” in Spanish.

Greetings and Salutations

I am struck by the number of ways the French greet each other and the equally numerous ways in which they offer departing words.

Bon or bonne (good) figures in many of the phrases. There are the usual expressions that we have heard:

·         Bonjour (hello – not to be confused with ‘bonne journée’ which is more closely aligned with our  ‘have a nice day’. One would say for instance,  ‘bonjour’ on entering a shop and bonne journée when leaving the shop.)

·         Bon après-midi (good afternoon)

·         Bon soir (good evening – there is also bonne soirée – similar to bonne journée in inference. )

·         Bonne nuit (good night)

·         Bon voyage

There are also:

·         Bon anniversaire (happy birthday, happy anniversary)

·         Bon appétit (enjoy your meal – literally ‘good appetite’ [I know that, according to the lexicographers, ‘literally’ no longer means only ‘literally’ but can also be used when figuratively is the correct word – but that is another topic])

·         Bonne chance (good luck)

·         Bonne année (happy new year)

·         Bon weekend (yes, the French use ‘weekend’ as part of everyday parlance.)

I also hear: bonne continuation (happy rest of the day).

This week, it snowed. On Wednesday, we woke to about 10-12 cm of snow on the ground. Snow is rare in Vaison. I think that this snowstorm was the third time in the seven years that we have been coming here that there was enough snow to close the schools and many of the shops. Throughout the day, I heard people saying: “bon courage” (hang in there, take heart, good luck) as encouragement.

I wish all of you: Bonne journée! Bonne continuation and, for sure, bon courage.

Alphonse Daudet

At our French class a few weeks ago, I talked about going to see the windmill of French nineteenth century author Alphonse Daudet in Fontvieille. We had gone there with Daniel and Irène after our wonderful Christmas dinner.

Our French instructor then suggested that we ought to read more of Daudet’s stories as they are not long and are well-written. Ellen and I had already read “Les trois messes basses” (The three low masses) which I described in this blog in December. Our French instructor asked us to read other stories from his book Lettres de Mon Moulin (Letters from my Windmill). Last week, we read La Chèvre de Monsieur Seguin (Mr. Seguin’s goat). The story – told to his friend – indirectly poses the question:  freedom at what cost? 

The Billy-goat weather vane

Alphonse Daudet is a well-known French author. Daniel told us that most of the school children in France read his stories. I guess we would call his stories ‘fables’ or at least ‘moral stories’. The tales are humorous and always about the people of Provence. Daudet’s descriptions of the people of Provence and the land itself make his stories worth reading.

Daudet was from Provence. He was born and grew up in Nîmes, taught in Alès and then worked at Le Figaro as a journalist in Paris. He was close friends with Emile Zola and Guy de Maupassant. He apparently never lived at the windmill – writing most of the stories on the train (according to Frederick Davies who translated Lettres de Mon Moulin for Penguin books).  Alphonse Daudet has been called “the French Dickens”.

The film director Marcel Pagnol, also from Provence (Marseille), made short movies of Daudet’s tales in the 1950s. (You can watch several of these movies on “YouTube”.)

Christmas dinner in St. Remy de Provence

On Christmas day, the four of us went to a restaurant called “Le Mas de l’Amarine”. “Mas” means ‘Provencal farmhouse’ but Le Mas de l’Amarine had been converted into a gorgeous restaurant and gîte. I don’t know how Daniel chooses the restaurants where we eat but he is 2/2 on the ‘excellent restaurant rating scale’. Last year, we ate at “Le Vivier” in L’Isle sur la Sorgue and I thought that it couldn’t get much better than that. ‘Au contraire, Mark!’

The sun was bright making the day warm enough that we had our “Amuse bouche” (hors d’oeuvres) outside on the veranda. The service was perfect: the staff was engaging and informative and always appropriate. They clearly enjoyed their work and enjoyed making us feel welcome.

As we made our decisions about Entrées (first course) and Plats (main course), Daniel decided that a Burgundy-style wine would work for the four of us, two of whom had ordered fish; two had ordered meat. The woman with whom Daniel consulted on the wine was a knowledgeable sommelier. Daniel chose a pinot noir from Domaine St. Nicolas. Daniel knew of the winery and their wines and recommended them highly as did the sommelier. I thought that Christmas was the perfect day to drink a wine that came from St. Nicolas.

The Amuse-bouche included oysters, shrimp in phyllo and bread sticks wrapped with prosciutto.

The server came and announced that she could begin serving the entrées as soon as we were ready to follow her to our table. We were seated at our table and next to a family celebrating their Christmas with the family matriarch – who was 104 years old. (We later learned that the matriarch had been a French teacher in England. A relative told us that she loved to speak English and she clearly enjoyed our in-English Christmas wishes.)

Among the four of us, we had chosen three different entrées. I wished that Ellen’s habit of sharing bites of each plate had ruled because the presentations were so beautiful and inviting, I wanted to try everything. The dishes were prepared so that every bite was filled with the flavors that the chef had melded so well. The wine worked well as a complement to the dishes we had chosen.

Ellen and Irène had ordered the langoustine roasted with ginger. Daniel had the scallops with beet salad and I ordered the duck broth with truffles and foie gras. Wow!

Langoustines

Scallops with beet salad

Duck broth with truffles and foie gras

As one might guess, the plats were just as beautiful and inviting as the entrées. For the main course, Ellen chose “loup sauvage” (sea-bass), Irène chose turbot, Daniel had chicken that was roasted on the spit in the main fireplace and I chose the T-Bone – which was a substitution for the boeuf on the menu. I know I am repeating myself but the melding of flavors was accomplished so perfectly.

Sea Bass

Turbot

Spit-roasted chicken

T-Bone

The main course was followed by cheese and then dessert and café/tea. When they served the tea/café, they also brought a tray of sweets – chocolate truffles and a variety of sweet pastries.

After the meal, Daniel told me that he had called the restaurant to ask for the menu for Christmas several weeks ago. They transferred the call to the chef who said the menu was not ready but he gave Daniel an idea of what he was planning/thinking he might do. Daniel said that when he heard the chef’s ideas, he knew that we were in for a real treat. – He was SO right.

In France, we rarely encounter a bad meal. The cafés offer nice bistro foods and the restaurants compete for your return visit. Eating at Le Mas de l'Amarine was a wonderful and different from normal experience. I can still taste (or wish I could still taste) the wonderful flavors that we enjoyed.

Christmas Eve in St. Remy de Provence

We joined our French friends again this year for Christmas. They had chosen St. Remy de Provence as our destination, so we were happy to go to the village famous because Van Gogh had admitted himself to an asylum in the village and stayed there for a year near the end of the 19^th century.

We stayed at a lovely “gîte” (vacation apartment) in a renovated old home at the edge of the town where one could see Mt. Ventoux as well as “les Alpilles” – a part of the Luberon mountain range.

On Christmas Eve, we went to the cathedral in St. Remy for the midnight mass service. The service began before 11:00 PM when women and men wearing traditional costumes handed out candles to all who had assembled at the church. 

Once the candles were lit, there was a procession through the old part of the town ending inside the cathedral where the mass was held.

(There is a humorous story about Christmas midnight mass written by Alphonse Daudet called “Les Trois Messes Basses” (the three low masses) about a priest who was so much more interested in the meal at the end of the service that he raced through the liturgy so that he could enjoy the wonderful meal planned for the end of the service. In doing so, he committed the sin of gluttony – le péché de gourmandise.)

The mass we attended was no parallel. The service was reverent and included singing and a procession around the interior of the cathedral with live sheep (The sheep were provided by the son of the owner of the “gîte” where we stayed.) At the end of the mass, a child dressed in traditional garb took the baby Jesus figurine from its stand in front of the altar and placed it in the stable (crèche).