How We Really Kept Olivia and Eliot Happy in Spain

The secret of our success in coaxing our offspring from one cultural moment to the next - rip off rides, playgrounds, ice cream, and let us not forget the old "play with a rotten orange in a public fountain" trick.

Grazalema

A few photos from Grazalema. This seemed to be one of the more prosperous "White Villages" we visited. At least it seemed in a slightly better state of upkeep and it was the one mountain town we found other tourists in. All of us sat around in the plaza and waited out the day's siesta.

Walking the Roman Road

We were hoping to visit Ocuri, the site of a Roman town, but when we got there we found our way blocked by a huge gate, tall chain link fences and barbed wire. The combination of insufficient funding and vandalism had closed it down. We settled instead for a walk down a Roman road between Benaocaz and Ubrique. We wanted to do something specifically Roman since Olivia had studied the Romans this past term in her history class. Eliot found a good walking stick which entertained him, and both of them enjoyed scrambling among the rocks in the pasture on either side of the road--probably more than walking this historical road itself. The pasture was much easier on the feet than the actual Roman road, which is cobbled and tricky footing now. Still, I think it's the oldest road I've ever been on.

The White Villages of Andalucia

My favorite part of our stay in Andalucia were the days we drove east towards the mountains and visited various 'pueblos blancos'. Most of these towns were founded by the Moors, some built on Roman foundations. Most of the buildings are painted white in order to deflect the summer heat. The towns are striking from a distance because you spot them as you round the corner of a mountain road or dip down into a valley and they show up looking like foaming water cascading down the mountain sides.

Our general approach was to park on the outside of the town we were visiting, thus avoiding the narrow, steep streets and unexpected one-way signs, and walk into the towns. After wandering around for a bit soaking up the sun and that town's particular atmosphere, we would rest in the main plaza, bribe our children with ice cream before going on to the next town. We spent time in 5 different towns over the course of 2 days - El Bosque, Grazalema, Zahara, Ubrique, and Benaocaz. The 2 pictures above are from Zahara and the Moorish tower there that we climbed up the hill and peeked into.

Sun and Spain

Andalucia is the southernmost part of Spain. Parts of it get 320 days of sun a year. And having survived a couple of month’s worth of English winter—which isn’t harsh, just very, very, grey—we decided we needed some sun. Europe is full of these wonderful discount airlines that will whisk you anywhere for just a couple of pounds; the one we flew, called Ryan Air, is typical in that there’s no assigned seating—everybody just piles on board and sorts it out. When you’re flying with a family of four, and you want to sit together or at least within shouting distance, it can be a bit stressful—but we managed to secure seats near each other, and last Monday we flew to Jerez (pronounced “Hereth”) a moderately-sized city near the coast known for sherry (“sherry” is actually an Anglicization of “Jerez,” and the English have historically imported tons of the stuff), flamenco dancing, and horses. We didn’t get much experience of the first two—in fact, I don’t really like sherry, and flamenco dancing usually happens after midnight—but we got the third, in the form of the Andalucian School of Equestrian Arts. This doesn’t mean pictures of horses, but rather the art of getting horses to do things they don’t naturally want to do, like arch their necks in a particular way and dance on their hind legs. We watched them training some of the horses. We knew Olivia would love it, and she did. It’s all very beautiful, and stylized, and, well, Spanish.


This the part of the Spain that was under the control of various Islamic dynasties from about 750 to 1350, so there’s an amazing blend of architectural styles and cultural traditions still visible. In fact, Andalucia is probably one of the few places on earth were Christian, Jewish, and Muslim peoples lived together in relative peace. Jerez has a modest—though still impressive—complex called the Alcazar (a much smaller version of the famous Alhambra in Granada), which contains a Moorish castle and baths, a mosque, and a beautiful garden that’s been restored to what they think it looked like a thousand or so years ago. On our last day we spent a peaceful afternoon there, basking in the sun and absorbing the feel of the place. It’s striking to be reminded that while the Islamic dynasties in southern Spain were installing running water and heated floors in Cordoba, creating extraordinary works of art, and reading Aristotle, the rest of Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, basically grunting at each other and eating with their hands. Certainly Eliot was impressed when I told him all this.

Snow in Cambridge

Last week it snowed, and everybody freaked out. London pretty much shut down; Colin's parents, who were staying in London at the time, reported that they couldn't get any food, the buses and the tube shut down, and all the shows in the West End canceled. Well, it was the biggest snowfall in 18 years, all five inches of it. Colin walked in to town on Monday and came back shaking his head: our bank was closed, and the sign in the window said: "Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to open the bank today." Given the current financial meltdown here, Colin said he thought maybe the bank had run out of money. But he looked around and nobody was rioting. Just a few inches of snow, and a few kids throwing snowballs.

There's a general sense of having survived a traumatic event, like living through the blitz. The normally emotionally reserved British got all emotive about things, too, especially on the radio. The local BBC radio station turned into a massive self-help exercise, with the announcers pleading with people to "tell us your story." How were they all managing? Where were the trouble spots? Had they gotten to work? We deeply needed to know.

No one owns a snow shovel in this town. In fact, I took an informal survey of my British friends and none of them had ever even seen a snow shovel for sale - anywhere. I had to describe it: "It's a shovel with a wide squared edge, used for shoveling large amounts of snow. No, not a garden shovel. These have a flat edge. No, not a spade, much larger, with a flat edge. No, not a trowel. You want to pick up the snow with it, not weed with it." You get the picture. The end result of the snow shovel shortage was that all the side walks became slushy and then froze, becoming absolutely impossible to navigate, especially when holding a 3 year olds' mittened hand. Especially when your 3 year old thinks sliding on the ice is really what walking is all about. We did manage to get Eliot to and from nursery without any major mishaps, just slogged through the slush and slid through the icey bits, and put our boots under the radiator to dry out when we got home. We were both wishing we had wellies!

What's interesting though is that people just accept this mess of slush and ice. None of the walks are cleared and so people will have to walk on ice for weeks, but instead of doing anything about it people just carry on. The circumstances are just beyond their control, I guess. On my way to yoga class last Tuesday night, I almost fell a couple of times on some black ice along the sidewalk behind the church. When I left my class an hour later, I decided to walk on the crunchy snow so as not to fall. Ahead of me, 3 British women walked single file, carefully placing each foot on the ice-covered walk. Crunch, Crunch, Crunch! I walked confidently by, stepping on the snow covered lawn. As I passed them one of them said, "Why didn't we think of that?" And I said (and thought later I really shouldn't have), "Because you are all well trained British women and when the signs say 'Keep off the Grass' it's hard to change."

Ely with Olivia - A Perfect Day Trip from Cambridge

Last week Olivia and I took the bus to the cathedral town of Ely. The history of the cathedral is particularly interesting to us because the original monastic community there was begun by a woman, a Saxon princess named Etheldreda . 1400 years ago Etheldreda married to a local prince and was given the Isle of Ely as a dowry. At that time, Ely was surrounded by marshes and accessible only by boat. Etheldreda’s first husband died and she married another prince, Egfrid. Seven years later Etheldreda had a vision and wished to become a nun. Egfrid released her from the bonds of marriage and she joined a monastery, but before long, Egfrid changed his mind and came to collect her. Etheldreda fled to the Isle of Ely and took refuge there. She founded a double monastery for monks and nuns in 673, but died six years later of a throat tumor brought on by the bubonic plague. When her wooden coffin was reopened in 695, her body had been preserved and the tumor healed. Thus the already revered woman became saintly. For 200 years the monastery flourished, but in 869 the Danes came and burned and pillaged everything.

In 970 the ruined monastery was reopened and in 1081 the work on the cathedral began. Many of the materials used in building the cathedral were brought to the site by boat. The cathedral is a wonderful mix of architecture from Norman all the way through to Victorian. Two unique features are the Lady Chapel completed in 1349 and the largest of its kind and the wooden octagonal lantern.

The Lady Chapel would have originally been brightly painted with beautifully colored stained glass and adorned with statues of saints. All this was destroyed in 1541 after the dissolution of the monasteries. Now, it is completely white with an striking statue of Mary in a bright blue gown, arms reaching towards the heavens, responding to God’s call. We both like the statue very much, but some people have criticized it for not being reverent enough.

The octagonal, wooden lantern was constructed after the central Norman tower fell in 1322. Instead of rebuilding a square tower a monk named Alan de Walsingham had the idea of opening the space up even more and created an eight-sided tower topped with a striking combination of 200 tons of wood and lead.

As we walked through the chapel pointing out scenes to each other in the stained glass windows, we both whispered. It does fill you with awe and wonder to be in such a place, marked and visited for more than a thousand years. As we left, we walked down the street and through the old porta, the huge stone gatehouse that you would have entered to get to the monastery originally. In a pasture on what used to be the site of the medieval vineyard, we watched 3 shaggy ponies munching on parsnips .