History reminds me that as hard as we feel today is, it has always been horrific. A painting in the Seville Cathedral intrigued me, two women, carrying oversize teacups looking up to the heavens with a lion licking the toes of the one on the right. 

The painting is by Goya, the famous Spanish artist from the 1700s and the legend of these two sisters, Justa and Rufina, quite horrifying. They were potters in 287 when some pagans came through town wanting a sacrifice to their goddess and the sisters refused to worship their Venus, being loyal Christian dames. A fight ensued where the Venus worshippers broke all the girls pottery and in the tussle a statue of the goddess, carried by the bad guys, broke. The sisters were thrown into prison, stretched on the rack and their flesh torn with iron claws (I don’t really want to know) and forced to run barefoot over sharp rocks. When this did not overturn their faith, they were starved. One sister died and the next one was thrown to the lions who became tame as kittens, thus the licking of the feet. Exasperated that the lions would not cooperate, the pagans broke her neck. This all happened in Seville where they are now venerated as saints. Life can suck. My consolation is imagining Rufina snuggling with the lions before her martyrdom. Welcome to Seville! 

The cathedral is quite ornate and golden…

We take a break from the torture and beauty to go to the vegan place recommended by the Seattleites yesterday at the laundromat. It doesn’t disappoint and provides a reminder of home with food I love. I take my açai bowl to our rooftop hotel and enjoy the sun and write until our timed entry at Alcazar de Seville, home of kings! 

This place is STUNNING and still used by the King and Queen today, though they have so many options I can’t imagine they are lounging around the castle with all these tourists poking about. 

The inside is stunning but it was the gardens that brought true delight to my soul. Peacocks, a maze, fountains, it was a non-Disney wonderland.

Traveling in February does mean that the flowers are not as prolific as I have heard they can be in Seville. I do imagine in the warmer months it is stunning. 

This evening we force our tired bodies out the door to an Italian dinner house, San Marco Santa Cruz where we are entertained by a guitar player and the rudeness of other diners. In Spain the pace at meals is leisurely. The serving staff does not hop to your every need but they get to you when they can, especially when it comes to paying the bill. You need to ask for the check to be brought and until then they leave you alone (some might say ignored). Tonight a foreign tourist behind us stuck his arm rudely high in the air with a Hitler salute and snapped his fingers twice at the server across the room while loudly saying, “La quenta,” as the gentle guitar music plucked along. I sat there, my mouth gaping in shock, as the server gave him a withering glare, waggled his pointer finger back and forth shamingly, with a “No. No.” proceeding to turn his back and leave the room. It was so satisfying to see the rude finger-snapper put in his place and we left the server a very good tip. 

We leave for Arco de la Frontera tomorrow but not before we stop at a tiny shop for custard tarts. That is all they sell, I love that —specialize in one thing and do it extraordinarily!

We leave Barcelona on a fast AVE train to Madrid. Nice to see some of the countryside from the train window after being in two large cities. I am a country girl at heart.

Train travel tip: Use the lavatory on the train or you will pay one euro to get into the station bathroom in Madrid, which is not a big deal unless, like me, you have no euros smaller than a 20, which then means you have to go buy something at a café (for me a bottle of water) in order to break the 20 and get a euro coin. So really it cost me 3 to 4 euros and extra wasted time. Just use the facilities on the train well before you arrive as they lock the doors as soon as you get there. Lesson learned.

We we walked and walked to the rental car pick up, which all worked smoothly even if time consuming. I was very excited to get behind the wheel of a black Citroen and we arrived in Toledo without a hitch. I was pretty proud of our virgin voyage. Susanna is the master navigator, along with the rental car that can access gps through my Apple car play. We are set, the road trip section of our trip begins!

We booked a few government established historic accommodations along the way called Paradores. They are in historical and cultural places of interest like remodeled castles or monasteries. We check into our first one late this afternoon, Parador de Toledo. 

The view from my room is to die for, not in the old town of Toledo but looking at it over a canyon. Gorgeous! The desk staff was friendly, but the wait staff in the dining room not so pleasant but I suppose I wouldnt be either having to deal with clueless tourists all day long.

We venture into the UNESCO world heritage site of Toledo, an ancient city that dates back to 59 BC and looks like it jumped from the pages of a medieval fairytale. There’s nothing like it that I’ve seen in our young United States.

But being so historical the streets are not friendly to vehicles, so we park in a garage at the edge of town and hike around the quaint streets until our reservation for the 9pm light event at the Toledo Cathedral.

We walk through the Jewish quarter but most things were closed. We have not gotten into the swing of eating the Spanish way, dinner at 9 PM, but we can’t resist the El Cafe de la Monjas (Nun Cafe) and we have dessert for dinner, the best cheesecake I have ever eaten, and Susanna had the local delicacy of churros which are dipped in warm chocolate. 

Everything here feels very Catholic, though it is dubbed a city of Christians, Muslims and Jews.

The light show at the cathedral was cool. We entered the dark cathedral with only a small group of people after hours. It was all in Spanish, neither of us speak the language, but we could guess what was going on by the projections onto the statues and walls. Very creative, very religious and beautiful to see.

We find the car and make our way back to the Parador with only one wrong turn. It’s been a long day of travel and we are exhausted. We are only here one night and will sleep in tomorrow to catch up on some rest.

Every morning that I wake up in Barcelona, I look out at my landmark view…

…and there is a lone seagull perched on the head of the statue of a naked man seated on a strange bird. The seagull sits there for a time gazing out to sea meditating on his life perhaps. I do the same from my room, writing to understand my life as I gaze upon my blank page

I am so fortunate to be having this time in Spain. So fortunate to be away from the chaos that is the USA at this moment. So fortunate for a reprieve to fill my artistic self with beauty every day. So many times a day I sigh, or gawk with jaw dropping shakes of my head and say how lucky I am, how blessed, how extraordinary my life is.

Today the taxis are back in service so we head up to Montjuïc Castle, a fortress on the mountain overlooking the Balearic Sea and Barcelona. It started out as a lookout tower in 1641 and then was built into a military fortress complete with a moat. 

The Catalans have an independent spirit and wanted to be free of Spanish rule back in the 1700s but Spain was having none of that and did atrocious things to subjugate the Catalans of Barcelona. We read of executions and tortures that took place in the beautiful castle overlooking the turquoise sea and of the moat that ran red with the blood of rebels. It was a sobering, if informative, couple of hours and provided some of the best views of the trip so far.

We could see out to the Iberian waters and 360° to the hills and city of Barcelona. Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia dominates the landscape wherever you look and I use it to get my bearings.

We take a cable car down to the Joan Miro museum to experience Miro’s artwork on a large scale. He was born here in Barcelona and I loved seeing his sculptural pieces.

We found another cable car that took us out over the mountain and to the coast and beach. How could we not stop to have another sangria at our beach bar? It is an assured way to find a bathroom as well.

Susanna had booked us tickets to a historic circus (without any abused animals) in a tent beside old caravans with painted sides. We saw beautiful trapeze artists, contortionists, amusing clowns and three motorcyclists riding in circles around each other inside a small metal ball. Craziness! One small miscalculation and it would have been carnage.  A fantastic way to spend an evening with cotton candy and popcorn.

We leave tomorrow so it is time to pack the suitcase again and head to Madrid by fast speed train. It will be sad to go, but my feet will welcome the break, if my heart won’t. I will return to Barcelona, I can feel it.

Antoni Gaudi is a famous Catalan architect that I dream could have created sites in every town or at least mine. His swirling, colorful, unique buildings remind me of mythical dragons and the stuff of fairytales. 

After an outrageous breakfast at an instagram-worthy cafe (Eat my trip) we headed off to Gaudi’s most famous cathedral, that he worked on for 43 years before he was killed in a tram accident. Sagrada Família stunned me with beauty. Gaudi was a lover of nature as I am and claimed she was his muse. 

The main floor soared to crazy heights and looked like a forest with tree trunks holding up the ceiling with branches and colorful stained glass that mimic the leaves and sky. 

We took an elevator up into one of the spires to spectacular views and some close up scenes of the exterior design with more nature inspired clumps of grapes and berries cascading or perched on impossibly tall spires. We walked down a bunch of steps inside a spiral resembling a shell. 

The place was breathtaking. We stayed a few hours before tearing ourselves away to catch a taxi to Park Guell.

Gaudi was designing this 30 acre garden as a ritzy housing development when World War I broke out so it did not get finished. Only two homes out of sixty were finished. His work is so playful, it made me laugh out loud with beautiful mosaic benches, animal heads poking out unexpectedly, and fairytale buildings and views out to the sea. And bonus…I finally saw the wild parakeets that fly around Barcelona.

We walked and walked creating blisters on my feet. But we high-tailed it back to the hostal for a quick rest before an evening piano concert at another amazing building. 

We had tickets to see Alexandre Tharaud at Palau de la Musica concert hall. He played Bach and Ravel in an atmosphere so magical that I just had to keep remarking how lucky I am. The hall was full of imagination, flying horses, mosaics, a stained glass ceiling that changed color, and figures protruding from the stage walls like ghosts. This was not Gaudi’s work but could have been. And the pianist was flawless. His hands moved so quickly and gracefully through cascading waterfalls up and down the keys that it made me teary. 

It’s been quite the day. I’m exhausted and humbled by humans that create such beauty and even more so because I am getting to partake of it.