Putting on the Steps

 Sunday August 20, 2023

We had a Jewish walking tour scheduled for today, and it began at 9:30, so of course we were up and done with breakfast by 7:15. We took advantage of the free time (and cool morning temps - remember, the sun was just rising) to take our first steps of the day. We walked a few blocks past the Prado and into Parque de El Retiro. Because it was Sunday, and so early, there were very few people there (runners, primarily)....even the fountains were not yet turned on! We were also reminded from our last visit that the skies here (and in Portugal) are the bluest blue we've ever seen.

This park is 2.5 times as large as Central Park in NY.

Each of the main paths in the park is named for a land that Spain once held. Lots of different places!

Along one path is a garden in the middle flanked by statues, about 20 feet apart, on each side. Here are a few (and we did not know who 90% of them were).

Note the head he is standing on.

A really old guy!

The city was so lovely and peaceful...but it was time to head back to the hotel. At 9:30 Pepe, from ToursByLocals, showed up to take us and 4 new friends on a Jewish walking tour. As he introduced himself, he told us that he is the first Spanish-born (Jew) in his family in 500 years.

Pepe told us we’d be walking and talking history of the Jews in a broader context of Madrid’s history and occupiers. At key moments in the walk, he would pull us into the shade (it was an "excessive heat warning" kind of day) and share historical overviews. He divided his narrative into 5 chapters: 1) the Roman empire in Spain and the Jewish migration here, 2) the roles of Jews in Madrid during the Roman occupation, 3) the Muslim invasion and occupation and roles of Jews in Madrid during that occupation, plus the Crusades and the early days for Jews under Christian rule 4) the Inquisition and 5) life for Jews after the Inquisition (diaspora, WWII, etc). 

One of the first things he told us is that in the last few years the Ministry of Culture has decided there are 5 subject areas that should not be taught in school and that tour guides should not discuss. These are: the Inquisition, Muslims / Islam, the royalty, Franco, and the Civil War. The reason he said they do this is to be more inclusive to more people. So ignoring or pretending your real history did not happen is a selling point? This sounds a lot like what is happening in some areas of the good old USofA. Oddly, though, here the government is very liberal (left wing), whereas by us it is the conservatives who are doing this. As an aside, Pepe's explanation of this Ministry of Culture dictum shed some light on why our guide on Saturday insisted that there was no Spanish Inquisition. 

We walked along and he began telling us about the particular area we were in while at the same time talking about how it was that the Sephardic Jews came to Spain in the first place. In short, it was because the Roman Empire expanded into what is now modern-day Israel (where the Jews lived) and, not for the first time, Jews were told to a) convert to polytheism (nope), b) become slaves (been there, done that) or c) leave. They chose door number 3 and headed west across northern Africa.  The story continues later. 

So we walked along until we came to the Roman Gate. (internet photo below as the Gate is being restored now--first time since the Spanish Civil War - primarily to remove the bullet holes! - so no live photos possible).

This was originally built as part of the wall that surrounded the city. In those days it was really true that "all roads lead to Rome". When a travelling merchant came to this gate he had to pay part of his wares as a tax to the Empire. 

We also learned another interesting tidbit: unlike many old cities, and certainly almost all capital cities, Madrid is NOT built on a river! (remember: it was chosen to be the capital, as opposed to becoming one due to economic or strategic reasons.) It is, however, built over a huge aquifer, which supplies the city's water needs.

Walking on a little farther, we came to....Retiro Park! This time we were at the western end, whereas we had entered from the middle gate on our morning jaunt. The sun was higher now, but in the shade the temps were still pretty mild. Here are more pix from that area.

This is one of many lions throughout the park. We learned that they were all made from melted-down bronze canons from the last three Spanish wars: the Spanish-American War (!), the Moroccan War (who knew), and the Civil War. 

We stopped here and learned more about the Jewish experience in Spain. One important fact was that Jews were (mostly) literate, and that they were also skilled in working with numbers. So they were often given the important job of "accountant" (!), to make sure that all taxes were accurately collected and then passed on to the appropriate authorities. Pepe went on to remind us about how the concept of sin was eventually defined by the Catholic church (handling money being a sin---which provides more context for why it was "appropriate" for the Jews to be money handlers--and shunned later).  

Then we came to the Crystal Palace. 

  

With our friends from South Africa, Australia,
and San Diego

The Crystal Palace was built in 1887 for the Philippine Islands Exposition, and is based on the one in London (1851). After the exposition it was used as a greenhouse (mostly for orchids) for many years, but is now only used for occasional music performances.

Walking on, we passed a food stall. Always gotta take a picture of a local menu stand, especially when it offers "pieces of squids"! (which is a very popular dish here.)

We also saw this:

Yes....a parrot! They were originally imported from South America and were all the rage in the 1800s. Guess some of them escaped and are still breeding today.

We left the park and walked through some quiet neighborhoods, all the while learning more history.

Wendy had asked about finding a donut shop on our route (and had noticed from her internet search that many were permanently closed) and Pepe said he would take us to something even better: freshly-made churros with hot chocolate dipping sauce.

These are not the fat sticks that we get at home. They were dainty and crispy. 

There were several varieties, but we limited ourselves to just this one.. And it delivered!  This ended up being our lunch! 

We all enjoyed the snacks and cold drinks and a chance to sit for a while.

But then up and off again as the stroll / history lesson continued. We went down some now familiar streets and came to Plaza Mayor (do all roads lead here?). Around the perimeter are a number of circular benches. On these, in bas relief, are metallic scenes of Spanish history. They are easy to overlook as just "decorations". But Pepe pointed out the one which clearly showed an execution on a torture machine. Pepe was much more explicit about the actual types of torture deployed and how some led up to the Auto da Fe and some didn't.  But, we will spare you those gruesome details.  Suffice to say, the Spanish Inquisition was a real thing. 

Down a few more streets until we came to a Holocaust Memorial, which was erected only in 2021 (although there appears to be another one elsewhere in Madrid which is from 2005). This has the names of all the Spanish people who were sent to the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland.

The structure in the back symbolizes a one-way gate......they went out and never returned.

Which, in a different way, is reflective of the expulsion of the Jews during the Inquisition. Many who left Spain (which is called "Sepharad" in Hebrew; hence, Sephardic Jews!), went south to Morocco, but a large number went east and north to Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Russia and became Ashkenazy (some say, named after someone in the Bible). A fuller explanation can be found here.

More meandering through the neighborhoods. Along the way Pepe repeated the story of how pork was added to many dishes to force people to eat it or expose their Judaism. But he also mentioned that this is why chicken is so rarely served in Spain; it was considered a Jewish food!  (We had been wondering why it wasn't showing up as a regular menu item up to this point.) We then came to the quarter where a large number of Jews lived. One block beyond that, we were once again standing on a high street looking down at the Royal Palace. If you remember the pix from the previous post, directly opposite the palace is the Almudena Cathedral.  

The original building (it has been added to and redesigned over the years) was a 10th century mosque. After the Moors were driven out, it may have been a synagogue before eventually becoming a church.

As we walked past the palace, we came to a park across the street. Here, Pepe told us, he had a creepy story. When the Jews lived here, this was their cemetery. Once the Jews were gone, the gravestones were dug up and repurposed as building blocks. But, as a former cemetery, no one wanted to live there. So over time it was turned into a beautiful park--built on top of what was the cemetery oh so many centuries ago. 

That was the end of our tour (it lasted over 4 hours). 

Since our next activity was not until 8 pm, we had time to begin packing before heading out to a late-afternoon dinner: tapas again! Pepe had pointed out one of his favorite places, Taberna La Fraguna Vulcano, so we walked there from our hotel. 

The last time we were in Madrid (a few years ago) we also went for tapas, but made the mistake of ordering waaaaaaaaaay too much food for the two of us. So you would think that we would be smarter this time. Well....we were...we only ordered waaaaay too much. We think of tapas as "small plates", but these plates still have a lot of food. 

They first gave us (though not sure if there was a charge) a plate with chorizo slices, cheese cubes, and little "Goldfish" crackers. We picked at those. This would have been enough for Wayne!

One of the specialties here are the veal meatballs in sauce (albondigas de ternera en salsa casera), so that was an easy choice. At the same time we (well...Wendy) also ordered tomato salad with Ventresca tuna (ensalada de tomate con ventresca--the tomatos here in Spain and Portugal are so fresh!), and cod croquettes with panko (croquetas de bacalao con panko). On the last one, the menu included "6 pieces", but we didn't even notice that. This is what came:

OK...we expected meatballs (there were 6) but not the huge amount of fries!

Golf ball sized!

The food was really excellent, but when we were done the waitress asked if we wanted take away (that's "to go" in Europe). Alas....we could not.

It was only 5:15 and one of us convinced the other we should go back to the awesome gelato place from Friday night (was that just two nights ago?). We took a circuitous route to get there on Friday and were a tad concerned (given the heat) that the route might be unreasonable. That said, the direction-oriented traveler between us discovered it was right around the corner!  Again, quite delicious and, at this juncture, who's counting calories anyway?  

At this point, it was only 5:45, so still lots of time to kill. We headed back to the hotel, but on the way remembered that the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum is located just across the street. We were not so much interested in the art there, but several people had told us that they had a great gift shop! How could we not go!?!!?!? And it was indeed a very good one. When we travel, we always like to get some sort of art piece from that country. We had not had any opportunities to do so in Portugal, and though we made inquiries in Madrid, since it is August, all were closed for holiday. But we were able to find a print of a beautiful painting of a Portuguese woman! Sold!

Another rest at the hotel and then it was finally time to go see "Aladdin" (we say "uh-LAD-din". Here it is pronounced "Alla-DEEN").  On previous trips we have done movies (in Beijing and Mumbai), opera in Vienna, a live show in Beijing, and the ballet in Prague. There is a vibrant theatre scene in Madrid and we chose Aladdin because of the city’s Moorish roots and because we’d seen it in Chicago in 2017 (and, of course, we’d seen the movie in the day).

There was a photo op at this oversized magic lantern. Hundreds of people were patiently standing in line. We just went to the other side (no line and identical profile) and snuck in our picture.

There were a lot of families with small children, so the lines for food (huge souvenir tubs of multi-colored popcorn) and swag were very long.

Quite an experience. The house was packed! As mentioned, for an 8:00 pm show, there were many many small children in the audience (but this is a late night culture after all). The audience would start boisterously clapping at certain song points (including the overture). The set design seemed way brighter and bolder than we recalled.  We paid half of what we pay in Chicago for orchestra seats. We speak only 4-5 words of Spanish so we weren’t following the plot points precisely, but one of us got the general idea and the musicality was great— even with an Aladdin understudy. 

The theater was way too far for us to walk back to our hotel, even if we had wanted to and even if it still wasn't in the upper 90s and even if our legs weren't telling us "Enough!". So after a short wait, we were able to flag down a taxi (unlike our Beijing tuk-tuk highway experience).

By the time we had dragged ourselves back into our rom for the last time, the total steps for the day were over 22,000 .......9+ miles!

We are so grateful our traveling days are back. We had a truly magical time in Portugal and Spain, and we hope you enjoyed coming along.  The people (and weather) were warm, the scenery spectacular, the food plentiful, the history fascinating (despite the varying accounts), our guides were terrific, the accommodations lovely, and we were blessed with new friendships to treasure. No departures are confirmed yet for 2024 (our 50th anniversary year) but watch this space.

Again gracias and abrigado/abrigada for coming along. 

Adios and adeus and for now. 

Love, 
w&w