SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23
CHLOE’S COMMITMENT
We eventually made it to the walking tour but first we indulged Chloe’s committed to working out every day in preparation for Milan. And then we were running late. We rushed to Madrid but didn’t make it until after 2:00pm and the tour had begun, much to our disappointment, but not our surprise.
KILLING TIME BEFORE THE TOUR
We’d need to kill two hours until the next tour began and did so by walking around the neighborhoods near Gran Via, shopping at Primart (Chloe picked up a skirt and Hazel a swimming suit and top) and grabbing a snack at very busy Starbucks. The square where the tour began was wrong …oops. Off we sprinted, literally, to the correct plaza, crammed with people and many tours, and though five minutes late, we spotted our Sandman tour, our guide Daniel, and a group of 20 others, a large group, by far the largest we’d joined in Europe so far. But it was Christmas in Madrid. Tourists abounded. Families were united here in the capital city to celebrate the holiday.
THE TOUR: 1- FOOD
“To understand a place, you need to eat the food, listen to the music and learn the history,” said Daniel in front of B Otins, the oldest restaurant in Europe. We learned the Christmas feast involves a day to roast a pig; beer, in an authentic Spanish restaurant, is accompanied by complimentary tapas…it’s tradition; and the best tapas bars are those with floors littered with toothpicks and paper, and filled with older patrons. Also, the best tapas restaurants in Madrid are never any nearer the city center than ten or fifteen minutes out.
2: MUSIC
Daniel took us through narrow, quiet streets, into the Latina area, which has more restaurants (and the best) than anywhere else in Madrid, through a plaza with buskers, a rush of skateboarders and a constant flow a people to the red brick Tabla building, so called because of a raised table that flamenco dancers use to create an echoing sound when dancing. Flamenco. Flamenco is the music of Spain that came from the south. After the Christians exiled the Moors and Jews from northern Spain, they hid out in the rural south where flamenco was born, a combination of songs sung by the very poor working the fields, and the music of the Roma and Moorish people. Until quite recently the people of Madrid considered flamenco dancing and music an art of the lower classes.
3: HISTORY – MOORISH INFLUENCE
In the Latina district, there is a mural depicting Madrid as a city built atop water with a fire burning. These images reference Madrid’s Moorish history. The culture in Madrid is intimately linked to its Moorish past; the food, Arabic words mixed into local Spanish, architecture, and perhaps most importantly the engineering and construction of the underwater viaducts. Near the Royal Palace of Madrid, which used to be Madrid’s centre, is a small, often overlooked park with a stone wall that is said to date back to the 9th C. The wall surrounding part of the park is believed to be remains of the Moorish city which burned. The park also has a fountain shaped like the Star of David. Both Moors and Jews were expelled by the Christians. A small park with significant historical references.
A thorough historian though only 25, Daniel, presented a graph of Spanish history and proceeded to outline all major historic events. No anecdotes in his repertoire, but I loved his loquaciousness, his grasp of gab, his deep reserve of information and also appreciated his organization and rehearsed presentation. He was extremely bright, as I suppose all our guides have been, but more academic, and less personal, than some others.
EARLY HISTORY
Daniel ran through the early history like a radio announcer whose voice is accelerated in speed, very different than our guide in Barcelona who took his time to tell stories, wrapping history around personality, alliances, royal intrigue and dramatic tension (particularly when it came to Charles the Ugly). The first people of Spain were the Celts, then came the Greeks, Phoenicians, Iberians, Romans (200-400AD), Visigoths (the builders of Toledo, conquered in 711), Arabs and Christians (in a divided Spain until 1492), and Christians only (the Inquisition pushed out, killed or converted Moors and Jews). In the square where we stood, there were examples of various architectures – a small, square, brick building which was Moorish, an Islamic archway shaped like a horseshoe, the home of the Ciserscos, the wealthiest Christians in Spain, and a pointed, Austrian-style roof from the Hapsburgs that would only be functional (the angle design for ridding it of snow) maybe once a year. The Hapsburgs ruled Spain until 1714 when the Bourbons took power.
Next, we visited a triangle created by the meeting of three streets where people stood to watch the walk of shame when non-Christians were forced to walk through crowds to their execution during the Inquisition. In the 1970s, this same spot was where Basque separatists bombed…and now, it’s a great place to find a meal.
THROUGH THE PRESENT
Standing beside a fountain with a sculpture of Phillip on horseback facing toward the Opera/Theatre building, we could imagine Franco speaking to a crowd, Nuremberg style, from a balcony draped with a red flag. Daniel rounded up the tour with more recent events; the Bourbon monarchy reined in Spain, with the full force of the military behind it, until 1931 when Republicans, Republic lovers not US Republicans, took power for five years and Spain experienced a Democratic, open society. Women had rights, though at what level I wonder, and people voted. But the 30s were, of course, a time of change in Europe as fascism and Nazism were on the rise. In 1936, the Conservatives under Franco began the Spanish Civil War to take the government from the Republicans, a war that drew lit the imagination of many democratic idealists from around the world. George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway. Were among those who came to fight the war.
The Civil War claimed half a million lives, in battle and executions after the war. Franco took power in 1939. The Civil War had international implications and when World War Two started and allies lined up in support of different regimes, Franco supported the Nazis.
After 1945, Franco and the Spain were shunned from the international community because of their alliance with Hitler. Not accepted by other European nations, Spain became very poor and some Spaniards were forced to travel to other countries as guest workers and others to migrate to South America, particularly Argentina and Venezuela.
With the rise of the Cold War, Franco rejected an alliance with Russia and Spain was again welcomed back into the fold. Money flowed back into the country, followed by tourists and some prosperity. After 40 years as dictator, Franco died in 1978. Before his death, he handed power back to the Bourbons. The Bourbons ruled as a constitutional monarchy the first years after Franco’s death, and Spaniards experienced freedom and free expression. Spain remains a constitutional monarchy.
SUN SETS IN FOG AND MUSHROOM SOUP
The tour ended in an elevated park, with a view across Madrid, across one street from the firewall/Star of David fountain park and the other from the Royal Palace of Madrid, designed to look like Versailles, but even larger! Unfortunately, our sunset view was clouded by thick fog, but we were able to hear buskers singing Hallelujah and at least five minutes of the cathedral bells signalling the day before Christmas Eve.
Freezing, we scurried to the nearest subway and headed back to Coslada, our temporary apartment and some of Chloe’s amazing mushroom, potato and lentil soup.
