## Metadata * Author: [[James Michener]] * ASIN: B00DACZ97O * ISBN: 0449207331 * Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DACZ97O ## Highlights My first view of Burriana? It wasn’t a view. It was a smell, for the offshore breeze carried to our dirty little freighter the odor of orange blossoms, heavy and pungent and inescapably the odor of Spain. — location: [238](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=238) ^ref-43794 --- I once hired a car and took a Badajoz family for a picnic. I provided the wine, the cheese and the anchovies. They brought the bread, the meat, the cake, the utensils and the blankets. We were in high spirits and the countryside was beautiful. This was bound to be a great picnic in a land where picnics are a way of life. We drove first toward the Portuguese border and I saw several spots that were, to my thinking, ideal for an outing, but the wife, who was by no means the head of this family and who usually kept silent, said firmly each time, “No hay ambiente,” which meant that the spot I was suggesting had no ambiance. Well, with the aid of the driver I uncovered some half-dozen other spots, but in the opinion of the woman none had ambiente, so we turned around, retraced our route and headed south, where a series of equally desirable spots unfolded, each to be dismissed with that scornful “No hay ambiente.” Finally we came to an old farm beside a stream, with large olive trees, a grassy meadow, ducks on the water and cattle in the opposite field. Immediately we saw this spot, so gracious in the midday sun, with shade for all and room to move about in, we realized that our critical woman had been right. The other spots had not had the proper ambiente for a picnic. This one did. It longed for people to enter into it and spread their blankets beside its stream and upon its flowers. — location: [1074](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1074) ^ref-17333 --- The entire city of Sevilla has ambiente and is loved therefor. Madrid is too young to have achieved ambiente yet, but since it has power it is respected. — location: [1086](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1086) ^ref-37553 --- taurobolium, the ritual in which soldiers banded together to purchase a pristine bull, then huddled beneath a grating on which the bull was ceremoniously slaughtered so that the hot blood of the animal could run down over them, conferring invincibility in battle. — location: [1287](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1287) ^ref-13507 --- Whatever the reason, if you want good reading on Spain, read the English. Richard Ford’s classic account remains unsurpassed. — location: [1517](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1517) ^ref-32491 --- For a short, highly condensed view of Spain one can do no better than V. S. Pritchett’s The Spanish Temper (1954). — location: [1537](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1537) ^ref-36741 --- Finally, since the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939 was a major historical event of the first half of the twentieth century and since I am not going to belabor it, I recommend two books: for the background, Gerald Brenan’s The Spanish Labyrinth (1943), and for the war itself, Hugh Thomas’ The Spanish Civil War (1961). — location: [1557](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1557) ^ref-16671 --- Foreigners came to see the cathedral and the El Grecos; Spaniards came to pay silent homage at their national shrine, the Alcázar, — location: [1832](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1832) ^ref-63352 --- As a traveler I work on the principle which I commend to others: No man should ever protest two abuses in a row. — location: [1878](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1878) ^ref-12713 --- “May I, sir?” I tasted the partridge and it was exactly the way it should have been by Toledo standards. Gamy. Tasty. A little like a very strong cheese. Special taste produced by hanging the bird without refrigeration and much admired by Spanish hunters and countrymen. “It’s as it should be,” I concluded. — location: [1896](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1896) ^ref-2787 --- I doubt if there is any country in Europe which has the unremitting noise quotient of Spain, — location: [1916](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1916) ^ref-1064 --- Prehistoric Iberians Early Historic Celtiberians 192 B.C. Romans A.D. 411 Wandering Germanic Tribes A.D. 453 Visigoths A.D. 712 Muslims A.D. 1085 Spaniards — location: [1940](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1940) ^ref-25836 --- The Visigoths also introduced a codified law, a sensible tax system, a centralized government and an element of strength in the Spanish character. — location: [1953](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1953) ^ref-57127 --- Santa Cruz Museum, a few steps east of the Zocodover, where a few Visigothic remains are on display. — location: [1958](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1958) ^ref-47266 --- the conviction grows that the Visigoths were ungracious men; the capitals they used to top their columns are crude and the columns are poorly carved, as if a shaggy bear had done the job with his claws. — location: [1963](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1963) ^ref-23294 --- I came upon a piece of stone, number 196, which was positively superb, and having seen it, I had a new appreciation of the Visigoths. I commend it as one of the best things in Spain. — location: [1965](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1965) ^ref-22578 --- The heart of Toledo is the Gothic cathedral, begun in 1227 and finished more than two hundred and fifty years later. — location: [1988](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=1988) ^ref-43355 --- Matamoros (Moor-slayer), — location: [2016](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2016) ^ref-55026 --- Order of Santiago, — location: [2019](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2019) ^ref-7097 --- Conde de Luna — location: [2029](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2029) ^ref-37318 --- misericords, those half-seats which can be quietly propped up when the service is long — location: [2043](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2043) ^ref-58627 --- The battle scenes by Rodrigo the German are an extraordinary production insofar as magnitude is concerned, for each of the panels is large and contains dozens and sometimes scores of separate figures. Since they were carved shortly after the Conquest of Granada the observation of armies and weaponry is of historic value. — location: [2052](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2052) ^ref-51415 --- Since they were carved shortly after the Conquest of Granada the observation of armies and weaponry is of historic value. — location: [2054](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2054) ^ref-10058 --- This endless line of Biblical figures, carved in the darkest wood, is probably the most important Renaissance work in Spain, and was completed between 1539 and 1543 — location: [2065](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2065) ^ref-43725 --- Before leaving the choir you should look at the rare marble statue of the standing Virgin and Child which graces the altar. She wears a white robe and is known as the White Virgin. (Legend says she was the gift of St. Louis, King of France, some time in the thirteenth century, but most art historians are satisfied that she was carved no earlier than the fourteenth, which knocks that legend in the head.) — location: [2081](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2081) ^ref-12021 --- it is interesting to study the second portrait of Peter, one of the finest of its size El Greco ever did, for it shows Peter weeping and reminds one that the artist must have had a special fondness for him. He always painted him with such love. — location: [2154](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2154) ^ref-32695 --- In the Goya, on the other hand, I see the earthiness of Spain, the robust animal-like characteristic of the soil and the men who work it. — location: [2179](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2179) ^ref-9231 --- They are the two fiery cardinals, Mendoza and Cisneros, who had large roles in governing Spain, Mendoza from 1482 till 1495, Cisneros from 1495 till 1517. — location: [2187](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2187) ^ref-61675 --- Taking his religious vows lightly, he sought Rome’s forgiveness for having sired illegitimate children, but being prudent as well as lecherous he made his appeals in group lots. — location: [2192](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2192) ^ref-4775 Mendoza --- it was sardonic that the Mozárabes, having been allowed to practice their form of Mass by the Arabs, should now be in danger of losing it to Catholics. — location: [2238](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2238) ^ref-49865 --- Today only one hundred and fifty families still follow the Mozárabe rite, and they remember Cisneros with affection. — location: [2243](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2243) ^ref-35941 --- I read Spanish fluently, understand it partially and speak it poorly, but I have memorized some twoscore old-style phrases of considerable gentility and these I can rattle off, so my speaking consists of something like this: “My esteemed señor, would you do me the favor of seeing …” I begin rapidly, thus creating the impression that I know what I’m taking about, but I end like this: “if … you have … one … beer … cold … very?” — location: [2291](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2291) ^ref-46925 --- “You from América del Norte? Must be a great place.” I asked him why he thought so, and he said, “Our newspapers say so many bad things about it.” — location: [2302](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2302) ^ref-63616 --- On my way to inspect the damascene factory I had noticed, at Calle de Santo Tomé, 6, an attractive restaurant whose main dining room was the patio of an old convent. — location: [2367](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2367) ^ref-64128 --- Almonds cost about eighty-five cents a pound and sugar about ten cents a pound, so you can see that there’s a great temptation to put in a lot of sugar and a little almond, but that makes wretched mazapán. Watch out for the man who puts in less than half almonds. — location: [2417](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2417) ^ref-63689 --- a Christian altar, for this was the famous Santa María la Blanca church and its origin was one of the compelling stories of Toledo. — location: [2463](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2463) ^ref-4042 --- All that was required, in those crucial years when the future of the world was being determined, was that Spain evolve some kind of government and economic system which would enable her to retain what she had and to build on it at a rate of growth comparable to that at which England, France and Germany would build. If Spain had maintained only that normal rate of progress, she would have remained the world’s dominant power for two or three more centuries and we might now be speaking Spanish. — location: [2718](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2718) ^ref-23343 --- The central problem of Spanish history is why Carlos V and Felipe II failed to discover the system of government and the patterns of growth required to sustain their nation. — location: [2721](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2721) ^ref-12698 --- professors at the University of Salamanca were warning him that if a nation brought in so much gold from Mexico and Peru it might go bankrupt because of the ensuing rise in the cost of living, — location: [2733](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2733) ^ref-46994 --- Fire tries gold; misery tries brave men. — location: [2872](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2872) ^ref-59834 --- Human affairs are not so happily arranged that the best things please the most men. It is the proof of a bad cause when it is applauded by the mob. — location: [2883](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2883) ^ref-30649 --- A large library is apt to distract rather than to instruct the learner; it is much better to confine yourself to a few authors than to wander at random over many. — location: [2885](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2885) ^ref-7277 --- From the time that money began to be regarded with honor, the real value of things was forgotten. — location: [2888](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2888) ^ref-18792 --- If one wants to savor medieval thought at its best, I recommend Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed, in which he takes a bewildered applicant step by step through the religious process, providing rational explanations for the existence of God and for lesser theological problems. — location: [2949](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=2949) ^ref-32293 --- Castilian Andalusian mismo meemo madre mare bueno wayno Jaime Ostos Aim O-o el matador er matao los amigos lo jarmigo cuidado cuiao — location: [3262](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3262) ^ref-9587 --- El Ultimo Suspiro del Moro (The Last Sigh of the Moor), where Boabdil is supposed to have paused, as he abandoned Granada to the Christians, for one last look at his noble city. — location: [3303](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3303) ^ref-58530 --- Turning a corner on one of the upper floors, I came upon the plain notice: “In these quarters Washington Irving wrote his Tales of the Alhambra in the year 1829.” It was easy to visualize the bachelor lawyer, embassy official and future ambassador to Spain ensconced in these rooms with their cloistered balcony of marble columns overlooking the hills and caves of Granada. — location: [3346](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3346) ^ref-53292 --- one could not read Irving, especially his more substantial Conquest of Granada, without becoming an advocate of Islam and a mourner over its expulsion. — location: [3353](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3353) ^ref-43068 --- a carmen being a rustic house and garden, — location: [3476](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3476) ^ref-34233 --- I had first heard “Torre Bermeja” (Bright Reddish Tower) as a student attending a concert in London, — location: [3522](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3522) ^ref-8867 --- I was sitting one day at a café in the Plaza José Antonio, studying a road map and trying to decide how to get to the marshes lying south of Sevilla, I saw a name which had played a major role in the Romantic Movement: Hornachuelos. — location: [3552](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3552) ^ref-6291 --- This was Hornachuelos, the epitome of Andalusian villages, as clean and hard as the skeleton of an ox whitening in the sun. — location: [3575](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3575) ^ref-969 --- At the end of the Triana bridge in Sevilla a group of townspeople are discussing yesterday’s bullfight, and here begins the description of the hero, whom we have not yet seen. — location: [3588](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3588) ^ref-29374 --- I had not realized that Spain included so large an area of primitive land, a retreat given over primarily to wildlife, where birds from all parts of Europe and Africa came in stupendous numbers to breed; this swamp, lying so close to Sevilla, was as wild as the seacoast of Iceland, as lonely as the steppes of Russia. — location: [3747](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3747) ^ref-40064 --- It was while wandering in this fashion in Las Marismas that I became aware of the Spanish seasons—the rain and the drought, the cold and the heat, the flowering and the harvest— — location: [3794](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3794) ^ref-10165 --- Spain! It hangs like a drying ox hide outside the southern door of Europe proper. — location: [3800](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3800) ^ref-60848 --- On the thirteenth day of January each year, in obedience to one of those unfathomable rules that govern birds, storks fly north from Africa to their chimneys of Holland and Germany and continue to do so for some weeks, so that the Spanish have a saying which could be translated as: At the day of St. Blas The storks do pass. — location: [3837](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3837) ^ref-57076 --- The resident bird which dominates the scene in winter is the cattle egret, a snowy-white bird with yellow legs, a long yellowish bill and a silhouette much like a heron’s or a small stork’s. They get their name from their habit of feeding not only with cattle but on them, so that if you are wandering through Las Marismas it is not unlikely that you will see a sleek and coiffured little egret riding like a debutante between the horns of some massive fighting bull as he grazes in the swampland, — location: [3851](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3851) ^ref-25057 --- They came, as usual, from Sanlúcar, one of my favorite towns in Spain, a sun-baked, miserable dump of a place that looks much as it did in the days of Columbus and Magellan, who knew it well, a most authentic remnant of old Spain. — location: [3877](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3877) ^ref-27399 --- Las Marismas, which in midsummer seems as hot as tropical Africa, stands at about the same latitude as San Francisco (Sevilla 37°, 27′ N; San Francisco 37°, 40′; Richmond 37°, 30′; Wichita 37°, 48′). — location: [3978](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=3978) ^ref-29779 --- For human beings in the region the autumn is as exciting as it is for the birds and animals, because this is the season of the vendimia (vintage) when the first fruit of the vine is pressed to the accompaniment of week-long celebrations. — location: [4010](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=4010) ^ref-41246 --- In the heart of the swampland there was a building which I scarcely expected to find in such a place, a stone church which served as a shrine for a dramatic cult centering upon a wooden statue of the Virgin, known formally as Nuestra Señora del Rocío and popularly as la Paloma Blanca (the White Dove). Around the church has grown up an extraordinary village of some six or eight tree-lined streets with cottages on each side, so that the place looks almost as much English as it does Spanish. — location: [4073](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=4073) ^ref-7275 --- If Spain has a taste, it would be either that of El Rocío honey, or a dark red wine from Rioja, or a fish zarzuela from Badajoz or the anchovies of Barcelona or perhaps the incredibly good bread of Arévalo, — location: [4210](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=4210) ^ref-9721 --- The Mesta existed as a mobile feudal kingdom, ravaging the best land and inhibiting its proper utilization. By the time the Mesta declined, an irreparable damage of two kinds had been done: the land was depleted and the ordinary agricultural processes which English, French and German farmers had mastered through the centuries were not known. — location: [4254](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=4254) ^ref-47966 --- Maranchón lives in my memory as a permanent symbol of Spain, even more lasting than the depopulated villages of Extremadura, because it was more beautiful and in its day had known a more complete life. How really lovely that main street was! If it could be transported bodily to California it would be one of the treasures of the United States and artists would fight for the privilege of renting the rooms that stand behind its plain, perfect façades. — location: [4290](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=4290) ^ref-63794 --- ONE OF THE TOP EXPERIENCES A TRAVELER CAN HAVE IN SPAIN is to visit Sevilla for Holy Week, which ends at Easter, and the feria that follows. I suppose there is nothing in the world to surpass this, not Mardi Gras at New Orleans nor the Palio in Siena when the exuberance of the Renaissance is re-created. — location: [4643](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=4643) ^ref-31583 --- “The three finest pleasures a man can know are to be young, to be in Sevilla, and to stand in Sierpes at dusk when the girls are passing.” I would add a fourth: “And to stand in Sierpes during Holy Week when La Macarena is passing.” — location: [4878](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=4878) ^ref-5802 --- The woman had been chanting a saeta (arrow; in plural, ecstatic religious outcries), which would be heard throughout the city on this day. My Spanish friends tried to tell me that such songs were spontaneous outbursts of persons overcome by religious experience, — location: [4903](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=4903) ^ref-35659 --- At one corner rises a graceful Moorish tower which once belonged to a mosque that was torn down to make way for the cathedral. — location: [4925](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=4925) ^ref-44077 Re: Sevilla’s cathedral --- In 1847 my great-grandfather, the Conde de Ybarra, was serving as mayor of Sevilla. He loved horses, had a bull ranch of his own and one day got the idea of having an old-style fair. So in its present form it dates only from 1847.” — location: [4958](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=4958) ^ref-14380 Sevilla Féria --- In the afternoon we ate at a small restaurant called El Mesón (The Inn), where substantial food was served at reasonable prices in an atmosphere of bullfight posters and butchered pigs hanging from the ceiling. — location: [5050](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5050) ^ref-28212 --- If you ever travel in Spain and come upon a restaurant that serves gazpacho, take it, because no other dish in the country will you remember with such affection. — location: [5056](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5056) ^ref-14375 --- membrillo is a grainy gelatin-like dessert made of quince. It is both sweet and acid and has a delicious chewy quality. Burnt orange in color, it is served in generous slabs as if it were a cheese, and at the Mesón was extra good, brought in from a small town near Córdoba which specializes in its manufacture; — location: [5074](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5074) ^ref-3394 --- The quiet young fellow with well-fitted suits and conservative haircut was Robert Vavra, from California, a nature photographer. He had been working for some years on a book of text and pictures describing in detail the life and death of the fighting bull, and from the first moment I saw his work in sequence I was convinced that here was a man who could photograph the movement and sense of animals; — location: [5130](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5130) ^ref-36341 --- One night I took a friend from America to the middle of the carnival area, and he stood in admiration at the frenzy around him. “The Spaniards are to be congratulated,” he said. “They’ve discovered noise incarnate.” — location: [5169](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5169) ^ref-22038 --- It is in these casetas that the well-to-do people of Sevilla will spend most of their time during the fair, — location: [5188](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5188) ^ref-39392 --- In addition to the small family casetas, at which no stranger is welcomed unless specifically invited, so that many Americans spend an entire week at the fair without ever being inside one, most companies doing business in Sevilla operate their own large casetas, and some of these are public. By paying a small fee one can sit at a table, listen to professional flamenco and drink beer or champagne. — location: [5209](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5209) ^ref-23854 --- Among these large casetas stands one with special importance. It belongs to the Aero Club and its membership is so highly restricted that it constitutes, during the season of the fair, the focus of Spanish society. — location: [5212](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5212) ^ref-28936 --- No other nobility in the world compares in power and wealth with Spain’s, and as one watches it in operation the only parallel he can find is the operation of the Hungarian nobility in the late 1700s. — location: [5279](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5279) ^ref-48120 --- No nation in Europe, except possibly Hungary and Rumania, has been so badly served by its upper classes as Spain. — location: [5286](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5286) ^ref-7289 --- If Flemish not Spanish was spoken at the court in Toledo, so German not English was spoken in London; but the English upper classes would not permit their German kings to import outside ministers; — location: [5301](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5301) ^ref-51711 --- What you are interested in is the art whereby a man using no tricks reduces a raging bull to his dimensions, and this means that the relationship between the two must always be maintained and even highlighted. — location: [5345](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5345) ^ref-9727 Bullfighting --- Spaniards profess to be irritated by the attention given Carmen throughout the rest of the world and claim that it damages the image of Spain, but I have noticed that whenever a Spanish impresario needs a full house, he puts on Carmen. — location: [5360](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5360) ^ref-25905 --- It is not a city of contrasts; it is a city of contradictions, enticing but withdrawn, alluring but arrogant, modern in appearance but eighteenth century in attitude. In Madrid or Barcelona the stranger has some hope of forming friendships which will uncover something of the workings of Spanish life, but in Sevilla this happens so infrequently as to constitute a miracle when it does. — location: [5548](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5548) ^ref-49667 --- Sevilla is a feminine city, as compared to masculine Madrid and Barcelona, but if one finds here the ingratiating femininity of grillwork on balconies and grace in small public squares, one finds also the forbidding femininity of a testy old dowager set in her preferences and self-satisfied in her behavior. It is not by accident that Sevilla has always been most loyal to movements that in the rest of Spain are in decline. — location: [5553](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5553) ^ref-64171 --- the symbol of Sevilla is the rubric NO-8-DO, in which what looks to be an 8 is really a skein (madeja), so that the whole reads: “No madejado” (She has not abandoned me), — location: [5559](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5559) ^ref-51237 --- nearly two thousand years older than Madrid. — location: [5563](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5563) ^ref-23455 --- near its present site stand the excavated ruins of a considerable city named Itálica. — location: [5564](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5564) ^ref-22164 --- Of all the cities involved in the Spanish Civil War, Sevilla was modified least by the experience; — location: [5570](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5570) ^ref-57098 --- Sevilla does not have ambiente; it is ambiente, — location: [5585](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5585) ^ref-29227 --- no traveler can feel like a real Madrileño unless he can announce at dinner or when entertaining friends, “You must see the wonderful purchase I made in the Rastro last Sunday.” — location: [5709](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5709) ^ref-28530 --- When I had saved a few pesetas I followed the advice of a gentleman I had met at the Hotel París and took my meals in either of those two fine restaurants that lie just off the Plaza Mayor, Botín’s dating back to 1725 and The Caves of Luis Candelas, a rambling affair named in honor of Spain’s Robin Hood, who was a great favorite in Madrid. — location: [5717](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5717) ^ref-60388 --- no visitor can ever be adequately prepared to judge a foreign city, let alone an entire nation; the best he can do is to observe with sympathy. — location: [5724](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5724) ^ref-46332 --- I found Spain to be the Japan of Europe, — location: [5730](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5730) ^ref-25908 --- It is known simply as Room XII and has no equal in other museums. Many travelers who schedule their trips so as to see the Prado come only to see this room. — location: [5962](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=5962) ^ref-42461 --- The most famous of the Goyas are those showing the brutality of life, and none excels “The Third of May,” in which soldiers are shooting down unarmed citizens against a leaden sky showing the spires of a nearby town. — location: [6017](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=6017) ^ref-50312 --- Concerning the black Goyas, I am embarrassed. On my first visit to the Prado, years ago, I was repelled by this series of fourteen gloomy works in which dark paint predominates. I had not heard of them before and was unprepared for their power. On my second and third visits I also failed to appreciate them, but then I read an essay by Dr. Sánchez Cantón — location: [6019](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=6019) ^ref-61049 --- a beautiful work in grays and blues depicting the young French woman who used to deliver milk to his home when he was living at Bordeaux. It was painted, the signature states, when Goya was eighty-one, — location: [6030](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=6030) ^ref-37235 --- I end each visit to the Prado by going to a remote room on the ground floor which houses a mysterious statue. It shows a young woman, handsome rather than beautiful, wearing a curious headdress, and was found in 1897 buried on a farm near Elche in eastern Spain. — location: [6036](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=6036) ^ref-28270 --- One beautiful moonlit night I went out to Madrid’s Estadio Bernabéu to see what this madness was about, and long before I reached the approaches to the stadium I could see that a fair portion of Madrid’s population was converging on that spot, for I was trapped in traffic that no longer moved. I finally had to leave my cab and walk about one mile, but it was worth it, because the stadium was one of those new affairs which one enters at street level to find himself halfway up the side of a long graceful bowl set deep into the earth. The playing field was thus three flights below street level and the topmost seats about three flights above. It was huge, with something like a hundred and ten thousand seats. During the pregame period it was illuminated by the moon and a group of soft lights, which converted the grassy area into a kind of silver, but as game time approached, four rows of lights around the stadium flashed on, and daylight enveloped the field and the grass turned green. It was the most beautiful stadium I had ever seen. — location: [6284](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=6284) ^ref-56957 --- tertulia — location: [6356](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=6356) ^ref-44397 --- El Escorial is Extremadura carved in rock, the barren plains of Castilla set in order by an architect. — location: [6486](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=6486) ^ref-52799 --- When I visit a site I want to see three or four things at most and am never loath to ignore others that might have little interest for me. — location: [6525](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=6525) ^ref-30485 --- Alcalá de Henares, the ancient city known to the Romans as Complutum, where Cardinal Cisneros had built his famous university. — location: [6673](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=6673) ^ref-20697 --- his memorial existed not in printed books but in ideas. — location: [6703](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=6703) ^ref-51798 --- Spaniards are utter bastards to govern. We are Texans cubed.” — location: [6915](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=6915) ^ref-14902 --- SALAMANCA’S PLAZA MAYOR IS THE FINEST IN SPAIN AND ONE of the four best in the world. St. Mark’s in Venice has a richer variety of architecture; the Zócalo in Mexico City is larger in expanse; and the barbaric Asian splendor of the Registan in Samarkand is without equal. — location: [7140](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=7140) ^ref-41715 --- Bologna, Paris and Oxford, all founded in the twelfth century, were the only schools that could compete with it, and during its early life—it was founded about 1230–1243—it tended to be more liberal and introspective than the others. — location: [7227](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=7227) ^ref-23304 --- Madrigal de las Altas Torres (Madrigal of the High Towers), could there be a more poetic name for a town, — location: [7361](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=7361) ^ref-26470 --- Today Arévalo is renowned for two accomplishments. It makes the best bread in Spain and the best roast pig. Of the bread I can say only that I ate it as if it were cake. Served in crusty small loaves, it seems to be made of honey, cream, rock salt and coarse grain which has lost none of its goodness through milling. — location: [7451](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=7451) ^ref-34008 --- For me, the apex of the series was the third picture on the left-hand wall; it showed Zurbarán at his best. It was a portrait of Father Illescas, a political priest who ruled Guadalupe and later Córdoba. — location: [7778](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=7778) ^ref-36481 --- From Guadalupe I went north over the Gredos Mountains to the walled city of Avila, judged by most people to be the finest medieval remnant in Spain. — location: [7795](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=7795) ^ref-51805 --- I have never since tired of listening to The Mass of Pope Marcellus, — location: [7865](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=7865) ^ref-51174 --- I found that the second side had been filled out with a short composition by another Italian composer, Tommaso Lodovico da Vittoria, of whom I had not heard. It was an “Ave Maria” of such exquisite construction that I found myself playing it eight times for every once that I played Palestrina. — location: [7867](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=7867) ^ref-45133 --- I acquired recordings of his Officium Defunctorum (Mass for the Dead, 1603), which critics usually select as his masterpiece, his motets and especially his Responsories for Tenebrae (1585), those deeply moving evening prayers. — location: [7874](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=7874) ^ref-48342 --- There could be no better approach than a recording of his majestic Christmas responsory “O Magnum Mysterium” (O Great Mystery, 1572), — location: [7885](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=7885) ^ref-2741 --- Happy the humble state    of the wise man who retires from this nefarious world,    and with meager table and house in the pleasant countryside    passes his life alone; he serves only God,    neither envied nor envious. — location: [8073](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=8073) ^ref-5991 --- wanted to picnic once more in the enchanted Pass of Roncesvalles. — location: [8453](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=8453) ^ref-19225 --- the Caves of Altamira, where in 1869 the world’s first concentration of prehistoric art was discovered by accident. — location: [9219](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=9219) ^ref-40617 --- I was profoundly affected by Santillana: the houses with their arrogant shields, the good smell of cattle, the beautiful Romanesque church, the timeless bulls wandering across the roof-land meadows, and the seashell palette with its dried-up paints. — location: [9281](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=9281) ^ref-40815 --- Picnics are the apex of sensible living and the traveler who does not so explore the land through which he travels ought better to stay at home. — location: [9313](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=9313) ^ref-8698 --- To be accepted in Sevilla … the phrase is a misnomer. One is never accepted in Sevilla. — location: [9513](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=9513) ^ref-7006 --- Colón, which is Catalan for pigeon; — location: [9877](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=9877) ^ref-56770 --- have seen only two concursos, the classic one held each year in Jerez de la Frontera — location: [11198](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=11198) ^ref-23718 --- A really complete single fight would consist of six components, each performed with art, as follows: one, after the bull enters the ring and has been tested by the peons, the matador must initiate his part of the fight with a series of delicate and artistic passes with his large cape; two, the bull must then three times attack with resolute bravery the picador and horse, and the picador must handle his lance properly; three, after each pic the three matadors in proper turn must lead the bull away from the horse and execute artistic and sometimes intricate passes with their large capes; four, three separate pairs of banderillas must be placed correctly and with art; five, the matador with his muleta must build an artistic faena consisting of a series of linked passes that make sense; six, the matador must kill proudly and honorably, going in over the horn and finishing the bull with one thrust. — location: [11292](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=11292) ^ref-23318 --- For the uninitiated foreigner, especially one who loves animals, a corrida is usually an unrewarding experience; — location: [11308](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=11308) ^ref-23578 --- Anyone interested in the purely seamy side should read Luis Spota’s The Wounds of Hunger, which has been translated into English by Barnaby Conrad. It is based on the saying that for a bullfighter the wounds of hunger are more terrifying than the wounds of the horn. — location: [11351](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=11351) ^ref-50605 --- Lee never fought in Spain but he gave commendable performances throughout Mexico and seems to have been a thoroughly engaging human being. His life has been favorably summarized in Knight in the Sun, by Marshall Hail, published in 1962. — location: [11498](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=11498) ^ref-60153 --- I studied my map again and concluded that the village ahead could only be Castielfabib, a settlement I had not heard of. — location: [11933](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=11933) ^ref-40752 --- I had known many Communists and had found them ill-informed on politics, corrupt in personal judgment and ruthless in their attempts to force others into their orbit. — location: [12188](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=12188) ^ref-54025 --- I came to the conclusion that each nation, at the end of a cycle of about twenty-five years, starts anew. — location: [12399](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=12399) ^ref-51627 --- those criminals who were told by their judges, “Five years in jail or pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James, whichever.” These criminals, if it is proper to term them such, for many of their offenses were petty, are required to get a certificate at Compostela proving that they have completed the pilgrimage, and in Spanish border cities like Pamplona a lively trade operates in these “Compostelas,” for venturesome businessmen make the journey frequently, collect their certificates and sell them to those who do not wish to undergo the hazards of western Spain. The criminal, having laid out good money for the “Compostela,” stuffs it in his pocket, has a high time in Spanish inns and returns seven months later to submit his proof to the sentencing judge. — location: [12492](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=12492) ^ref-38765 --- in 1130 what is generally held to be the world’s first travel guide was written, describing the glories and hardships of this route. — location: [12521](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=12521) ^ref-57721 --- the pattern for future travel writers: things near at home he praised, those farther away he questioned, while those distant he condemned. — location: [12523](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=12523) ^ref-40500 --- small town of Frómista, where the serene little church of San Martín, built in 1066, is considered by many to be the finest complete piece of Romanesque architecture on the route. — location: [12815](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00DACZ97O&location=12815) ^ref-11248 ---