Author: marionvermazen

I am a traveler, hiker, avid reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, Spanish and French language student, knitter and genealogist. I am retired after working for almost 30 years in the Computer Industry. I live in Reno, Nevada with my husband Duke.

El Saler to Tarragona

Before we left El Saler this morning we went for a walk on the beach. It was beautiful and we found several pieces of what looked like pottery.

On the beach at El Saler
The first piece of pottery I found

Then we drove for about three hours north along the Mediterranean to Tarragona. The parents of some good friends of my daughter’s family live in Tarragona. We met up with them and they showed us around Tarragona.

On Las Ramblas in Tarragona

We saw so much with them and learned so much about Tarragona. It was wonderful. And then, to make it even better, today as a part of the Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebrations there was a big procession through the street from the Church of Saint John the Baptist. We had a perfect place to watch near the beginning.

One of the Misterios (floats). This one was pushed but the rest were each carried by at least 20 people.
The beginning of the parade. There at least 3 groups of Roman soldiers with very authentic costumes.
There were hundreds and hundreds of participants

Then we had wonderful tapas for dinner at a restaurant right next to the Cathedral.

Dinner at Casa Balcells

One other really interesting thing we learned is that Tarragona is well known for its human towers (Castellas).

This is a picture from a poster on a building. The towers can be 8 or nine levels high!

We had such a good time in Tarragona. It makes me want to come back again.

The view from the window of the hotel where we are staying (the H10). There are a lot of Roman ruins in Tarragona (walls, an amphitheater, a circus and other stuff too)

Monasterio de Piedra to El Saler

This morning before we left the Monasterio de Piedra we took a Monastery tour. It was in Spanish so I didn’t learn a lot but it was still imteresting.

The former church has collapsed
They used alabaster for the windows when they built the church in the 13th century

I said yesterday that the building had recently become a hotel, but I learned that actually it was in 1835 that the monastic community ended. The buildings were converted to a hotel in the mid 1800s.

This is the former monastery kitchen. The roof is black because of the smoke from the cooking fires. According to the signs this is the first place in Europe that cacao was processed!

We finished the tour, checked out and around noon headed southeast about three hours to the Parador de El Saler, our 94th Parador!! We are now on the Mediterranean for the first time on this trip. The parador is also associated with a golf course.

The view of the Mediterranean from the hall outside our room.
The view of the golf course from our room.

We ate dinner in the Parador bar. We shared seafood paella.

Dinner

Alcalá de Henares to Monasterio de Piedra

This morning before we left Alcalá we went out for a walk so we could see the town without thousands of people. There were still people out and about but things were much quieter. It is a beautiful town!

Plaza de Cervantes

We drove the two and a half hours to Monasterio de Piedra partly on motorway and partly on back roads.

On the backroads

The Monastery we are staying in was fairly recently turned into a hotel and a big nature park.

Outside our room

After we checked in and rested for a while we took a hike in the park. The monastery is on the edge of a gorge that has a river running through it. The grounds have been landscaped and the two and a half mile hike was wonderful.

A view of the monastery from our hike.
Waterfall on the hike
Former trout farm ponds in the canyon below the monastery
The walls of the gorge almost look like southern Utah

Madrid to Alcalá de Henares

First thing this morning we saw Brian and Jo Ann off to fly home.

Brian and Jo Ann leaving at 7:30 this morning.

Then Duke and I headed to a laundromat to do our laundry.

Doing laundry

While the washing machines were running we went to the Churreria across the street and had breakfast.

You can see them making the churros here.

We checked out of the hotel about 11:30 and went to the National Rent-a-Car office. There was a long line and we waited an hour but we were on the road out of Madrid at about 12:45.

Waiting in the rental car line

The drive to Alcalá de Henares took less than an hour. This Parador is one we haven’t been to before. We had our welcome drinks, rested a bit, then went out exploring. We were very lucky because the Palm Sunday parade was going on. Each float was carried by about 35 people underneath. We didn’t understand everything that was happening but it appeared that the floats and accompanying bands and marchers were stopping at each of the churches and monasteries and convents in town.

The beginning of the parade
One of the floats
You can see the feet of the people carrying one of the floats

For dinner we went to a nearby Mexican Restaurant. La Chelinda.

Dinner

Madrid day 2

Today we wanted to get a relatively early start so we could have breakfast and then arrive at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum soon after they opened at 10.

Breakfast at Oskar Cafetería

The Thyssen Museum was wonderful. It took us about two and a half hours to walk through their collection and we moved fairly quickly. I took a lot of pictures. These are just a few of them.

This painting, by Henry Lewis, painted in 1847 is of the falls of Saint Anthony on the Upper Mississippi. We looked the falls up and they are in Minneapolis and look nothing like this now.
For many years this portrait was identified as George Washington’s cook and was attributed to Gilbert Stuart. Recent studies point to the painter being of the circle of Sir Joshua Reynolds and the subject being a man from Dominica.
A Renoir painting called Wheatfield painted in 1879

From the museum we walked back to the hotel with a stop for coffee on the way. Back at the hotel we played a few more rounds of cards and rested for a bit.

On the way to dinner we walked through the Mercado de San Míguel.

Mercado de San Míguel

We ate dinner at a restaurant called Las Cuevas de Luis Candelas. The restaurant is in the cellars under the Plaza Mayor. It’s been there since 1949. We each had roasted suckling pig with rice. It was delicious. We had a great conversation with the people at the table next to us. It was a man from Texas, a woman and her son from Belgium and an older woman from Morelia, Mexico.

Dinner
Cochinillo

Brian and JoAnn fly home tomorrow morning. So this ends a phase of our trip. We have had so much fun traveling with them. We are already strategizing about our next trip together.

As I sit in our room writing this, the moon is coming up over Madrid and we have great view of it from our window.

Moon over Madrid

!