cotton at bat

In Cartagena, I searched for Hannibal.  And struck out.

In Valencia, I searched for El Cid.  And struck out.

In Barcelona, I decided to wise up and go someplace I knew existed.  The Picasso Museum.

You may think you know where this is going.  But don’t get ahead of me.

Barcelona is another of those cities that were finalists on my “Places to Retire” list.  Based on my prior visits.

The city has every urban amenity that appeals to me.  Crowds.  Noise.  Vibrancy.  And enough culture to choke Picasso’s Guernica horse.

And culture it was going to be on this trip.

I knew the general location of the museum.  So, I trudged off into the narrow alleys of the “Gothic Quarter” in search of one of my favorite artists.

Getting lost in those streets is part of the adventure.  It gives the tourist an excuse to stop by the shabbily chic shops.  Where you can buy a pair of shoes that will set you back one or two weeks worth of salary.

But I was not looking for shoes.  I needed an acrylic fix.

And there it was.  Around a blind corner.  The Picasso Museum,  But I could not find an entrance.

For good reason.  The sign says it all.  It was Monday.

Closed.  Cerrado.  Strike three.  There may be no joy in Mudville.  But I am not Casey.

Picasso was not to be.  But Barcelona was.

You know from my prior posts that I am very fond of quirky Spanish architecture.  Barcelona is full of it.

The king of quirky in Barcelona, of course, is Antoni Gaudi.  And his Sagrada Familia church is his masterpiece.  But I have already visited it several times.

There are plenty of other eccentric architects in town.

Do you want umbrellas and fans on the side of your building?  Done.

How about a cascade of large black and white balls to decorate a façade?  Here you go.

Even churches have jumped on the “skewed, but interesting” wagon.

But one of Barcelona’s more flamboyant buildings is Lluís Domènech i Montaner’s Palau de la Música Catalana.  The Palace of Music.  An extraordinary building that blends modernist and rococo elements into a thing of beauty.

I almost filed the storage card in my camera.  Barcelona is as photogenic as as Donatello’s Mary Magdalene.

But let me leave you with this shot.  I may have not found Picasso.  But I found the life he portrayed.

day 24 – aqaba, jordan

Most of us probably know Aqaba as the port city Lawrence and his Arab army attacked from the desert -- opening the port to supply Allenby's march on Jerusalem.

For me, the invasion will come the other way.  I am heading inland to feed another of my juvenile dreams -- Petra.  The fifth grader who first saw it as a plate in a reference book is waiting to be amazed by reality. 

wheeling through valencia

Pop quiz.  Books under your chairs.  Take out a pencil and a piece of paper.

Name two Spanish heroic figures. 

Time up.

My best guess is that Don Quixote tops your list.  And El Cid is probably your second choice.  At least, that is how I would answer the question.

Most of us probably know of El Cid because of the 1960s Charlton Heston – Sophia Loren movie.  I loved it.  Probably because I thought Sophia Loren would be the perfect date.

I had forgotten that medieval Valencia was the area El Cid liberated from the Moors.  Well, “liberated” in the sense that he captured it to create his own lordly province.

And, if legend can be believed, it is the city where his wife strapped his corpse on his horse to lead an attack against a Moorish siege.

But, once again, my boy dreams were not realized.  Even though he died here, he is not buried in the city.  And there are no monuments to one of the men the rest of the world considers the emblem of liberated Spain.

I did not head out on another quixotic quest.  Instead, I decided to do a bike tour of Valencia.  It was a good choice because it turned into two tours in one.

Before we were dropped at the bike shop, our driver took us through the historic section of Valencia.  I think I have seen most of them before.

The medieval silk market (La Lonja).  The Victorian central market with its early Sunday morning shoppers.  The cathedral with its former minarets truncated into Catholic bell towers.  The art nouveau train station.  And the two reconstructed towers of the old city walls -- one formerly a women’s prison, the other formerly for locking up nobles.

The van tour was a nice gesture.  Even though we sped by far too fast to get any good photographs, we saw things we would otherwise miss during our biking  trip.

The Turia River once ran through the center of Valencia.  And flooded often enough that after the 1957 flood (and resulting deaths), the river was diverted, and the river bed was turned into a park cinching the two parts of the city together.

Because the river bed is below the surrounding city, it was difficult to photograph the older sights.  But they were all there.  Including the Serrano Towers -- once the main entry to the city.  Until the late 1800s, this was the tower that felonious nobles called home.

The five of us who took this excursion were amazed at how the Spaniards are able to use the path through the park with no conflict.

 
Walkers.  Runners.  Skaters.  Bikers.  Dogs.  All in one accord.

When we rode through the city on the bike paths, cars willingly gave way to us.  Courtliness.  That’s the word.  And it is a trait I long ago associated with the Spanish.  A trait that has been inherited -- to one degree or other -- in the Mexican culture.

Our major stop in the park was the City of Arts and Sciences (Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències – in the Valencian dialect).  It is one of those architectural wonders that makes a viewer wonder why such a marvelous place was built.

The usual answer would be for a world’s fair or some other exposition.  Not so for these buildings.   They were built to meet the civic needs of the people of Valencia.  Well – and to vacuum money out of the pockets of awe-struck tourists.

The “City” includes an aviary (or “bird jail,” as our tour guide called it).  An oceanic park.  A planetarium/IMAX theater.  An opera house.  A science museum.  And assorted buildings and walkways.

But that is their function. The whimsical Spanish architects Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela designed their buildings to be futuristic.  Forward-looking.  And they certainly are after two decades.

But I often wonder about in-your-face architecture of this style.  What they will look like in another fifty years?

Architecture goes in and out of style.  For example, most of Portland, Oregon’s art nouveau buildings were leveled during “urban renewal” projects because they were outdated.  In their place, developers erected Freudian glass towers often with the character of the occupants they housed.

If history is any guide, they will be preserved along with the other architectural bric-a-brac Valencia has preserved.  But it is hard not to marvel at the mosaic of shapes that are almost everywhere in this city.

The bike portion of our trip was far too short.  I could have easily spent a couple of hours riding through the park.  And stopping for some studied photographs – rather than the snapshots I took on this tour.

If the cost of living in Spain was not so high, this is another city that would go on the “live here a year before you die” list. 

day 23 – suez canal

When I was in the sixth grade, I learned about the Panama Canal.  It inflamed my boy mind.  And I wanted to see it.

It took me four decades to get there.  In 2000.  And it was everything I expected as a boy.

The Suez Canal, of course, played a supporting role in that story.  The sea level model of Suez was the first attempt for a canal across the isthmus of Panama.  By the same engineer who built the Suez Canal.  A man feted for Suez, and ruined by Panama.

I intend to spend the day in the 14th deck observation lounge.  Just as I did in Panama.  The biggest difference, of course, is this canal is lock-less.

   

sittin’ on the dock of the bay

In my quest for boyhood heroes, Alexandria should top the list.  Alexander the Great was what every boy should aspire to be.  At least, this boy.

But all that remains of Alexander’s founding of this city 2300 years ago is his name.  But everything else that made Alexandria great -- its lighthouse, its library, its palaces -- has vanished.  Just like the Ptolemys who once ruled here.  And died out with Cleopatra.

Alexandria is one of those muscular sea coat cities -- like Marseilles or Tacoma -- with a sole purpose of existence.  Commerce.  Import-export commerce, to be exact.

And it looks like your Uncle Hiram.  The relative who works far too hard and has little time to worry about how he dresses.

In Alexandria’s case, its appearance has not been helped by the fact that garbage collection halted with the revolution.  And that was a year ago.  The city now looks like New York City -- during a garbage strike.

Well, it looks a bit more run-down that that.  At least, the part I saw on my walk on Saturday.

That was our second day in Alexandria.  The first day we went to Cairo to see the pyramids and the sphinx.  But I will write about that later.

I have become a bit tired of tracking down the bits of historical residue that time, tomb raiders, and Islam Arab invaders have not destroyed.  So, I decided to head off into one of the neighborhoods near the harbor.

Port neighborhoods in third world countries are almost universally poor.  And this one was no exception.

Most were small decaying apartment buildings.  Better than most buildings I saw in Havana, but far worse than similar housing in Mexican cities.

My fellow cruisers were a bit concerned that I was heading off into uncharted territory on my own.  But my street sense is rather good.  It turned out that I needed it.  Or, at least, I used it.

My usual routine is to walk through neighborhoods as if I belonged there.  Moving with purpose.  Making occasional eye contact.  Nodding.  But that is a terrible routine for photographs.

I started to feel a bit uneasy when the men on  the street stopped nodding back and greeting me.  After receiving half a dozen icy stares, I decided to take a side street hoping to get back to a main thoroughfare.

I know better than to do that.  Side streets in these maze neighborhoods often lead nowhere.  And that was exactly the choice I had made.

I stopped for a moment to take this photograph.  While shooting, two boys came out of an open door behind me and tried to convince me to enter their building.

I was holding my own with them when a well-dressed Egyptian, probably in his twenties, gestured with his head for me to move on.  Quickly.

When I paused, he said, in rather good  English: “Come with me.  It is not good you stay here.”

I now believe he was one of the large group of unemployed men who tries to make a pound by squiring tourists through Alexandria.  But I did not know that at the time.

I simply decided that jumping out of the frying pan into the fire was not a good option.  So, off I went.  In the opposite direction he was heading.  Retracing my steps.  Passing up enough photographic opportunities to fill a week of blogs.

Even though I initially feared the main streets would be devoid of character, I was wrong.  Egypt is currently slogging through a presidential campaign.  I may not be able to read Arabic, but I am willing to bet, this guy represents the old political establishment.  I think he was once president of the Arab League.

And these guys (who disconcertingly look like faces Americans have seen in the recent past) do not.  They represent a different type of orthodoxy.

Those posters say plenty.  Just like some other signs.  Knowing the lingua franca is not required.  Anyone could figure out what is on offer in this building.

When I got back to the dock, a small bazaar had been set up outside of the cruise ship building.  The usual trinkets were on offer.  Refrigerator magnets.  Jewelry.  Hats.  Scarves.  Statues.  A cornucopia of cheap mementoes of a visit to Egypt.

This Chinese couple had been monopolizing the vendor for at least the ten minutes I was there.  Having met them earlier, I had marveled at their bargaining technique.  They used time to erode prices in the same way politicians use fear to raise taxes.

And they are about to win.  The vendor’s glance at his watch is telling.

But he will also have the last laugh on them.  The “Egyptian” head dress for which the wife is bargaining is as Egyptian as she is.  It was made in China.  As was this magnet.

And as are most of the trinkets sold in Mexico.  It is getting rather difficult to buy travel souvenirs that are any different from the import plaza in your local town.

We are once again on our wait to our next port -- Aqaba.  By the time you read this, I will be sailing through the Suez Canal.

day 22 – alexandria, egypt

Today I intend to walk around this city bearing Alexander the Great’s name and associated with Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and Mark Antony.  Not to mention, the burning of its great library.

marking my space

One additional note about Cartagena.  I saw more graffiti on its walls than I have seen anywhere.  With the possible exception of Mexico City.

Some obviously sanctioned.  Some free-lance.  Some that could fall into either camp.  In the latter category is the first set  I encountered -- illustrated at the top of this post.  A pair of jaunty Rubik's cubes.

I know we bloggers have kicked around the notion whether graffiti can be art.  I think it can -- even when it verges on vandalism.

For instance, this.  It is pure mindless ego-tagging.

The largest example I saw is painted on the back of a multi-story building.  It meets all of the formalistic expectations of art.  Not to mention its wit.

This is a detail.  Where the graffiti has become the victim of a little political graffiti.  Either that, or the pigeon is a German adviser left over from the Civil War.

The painting would obviously qualify as a mural.  And it was probably my favorite of the lot.  Even though this piece painted near the Roman theater had its own historic appeal.

Some were quite complex.

Others were whimsically simple.

Or even simpler.

Some attempted to complement the architecture -- not too successfully.  Even thiough, I had to wonder about the artist's acrobatic abilities.

Others worked better, creating their own eerie commentary on the wall where it was painted.

But not as well as this piece that appears to be one with the staircase.

And then there is the artist who seems to have an inherent sense for rhyming shapes and colors with his work.

This would have been a good post for a poll.  But internet time is precious at the moment.

However, I would appreciate your comments on graffiti in general.  Or these pieces, in particular.