Monday, October 14, 2013

Greetings from SPAIN! Posting 1

Hello and Hola!

It´s been almost a week since I landed in Spain. Presently, I am in Cordoba - having already left Madrid. I had a wonderful stay with my hosts in Madrid. The location was just great for transportation, markets, and quiet. The only fly in the ointment was that I arrived in Madrid with a sore throat, which matured into a full head cold.

In spite of that, I managed to make it to the Prado and the special exhibit of Velasquez as well as two of his successors as court painters. Funny enough, Velasquez´ style of painting the faces realistically but the clothes in keeping with Impressionism got me thinking of John Singer Sargeant. Maybe it´s true that there´s nothing new under the sun.

Cordoba personifies the southern Spain experience. It is a wonderful old city that has ruins dating back to year 1 CE! In the taxi from the train to the hotel where I´m staying, I could see the old Roman columns. Cordoba certainly shows the blend of so many historic times.

Today, I boarded an open-air bus for a tour of the city. I´m hoping to share the photos on this posting.

I´m sufficiently recuperated to go to Madinat al Zahra tomorrow. I wrote my final paper about the ruins in an art history class. What a thrill to actually see it!

For now, I´m going to try and post a few images.

Here´s the courtyard in the hotel in Cordoba:


For all the Northwesterners, here´s what a clear blue sky looks like:
This is a typical Street in the old section of Cordoba:
 
It´s not many images, but it´s a really clunky process trying to post them on this computer. This is just a taste of more to come. Hasta pronto! R.

No comments:

Post a Comment