Avila, Storks, Snails!

Storks. Spain has lots of them. (You have to lock yourself inside your homes between 12:00 and 4:00 AM on Friday the 13th - on that dark and evil day, storks soar through quiet Spanish streets and reap the flesh of the innocent.)

We woke up early and loaded up the car - we were on our way to Ávila, Spain's most famous walled city. A UNESCO World Heritage Site (like 88% of things in Spain,) Avila boasts the best preserved mediaeval walls in the country, constructed of brown granite around 1090. The city also has a tremendous Gothic cathedral, various churches and monasteries, and a profusion of bakeries selling locally-themed cookies. Avila's other claim to fame is its status as the residence of St. Teresa of Avila, a mystic, nun, writer of the Reformation, and general holy heavy-hitter. It is very much worth a visit.

The drive took us up past Madrid and into the jurisdiction of Castile and Leon, an autonomous community produced from old Castile - the seat of the Spanish empire. Extremely dry and dusty, it's an arid and scrubby land with impressive rock formations, canyons and a completely insane number of castles. Castile and Leon possesses such a ridiculous quantity of castles for strategic reasons: when the Christians and the Moors hotly contested the land during the Crusades and the Reconquista, castles provided handy places to hunker down and efficiently protect their turf. Another fun fact: Castile and Leon used to be covered in a serviceable scrub forest, which was almost completely wiped out due to the cattle-raising customs of the Middle Ages. The land hasn't really recovered since. If only they had Al Gore.

We stopped in one of the many dusty and non-descript towns that line the highway from Madrid to Avila. Spain's two-bit roadside towns look almost exactly like those found in our desert Southwest, down to tumbleweeds, sweaty migrant laborers, and poorly air conditioned bars. Difference: even the most crumbly no-account-miserable town in Spain has a bullring (plaza de toros) and an extremely large cathedral. This particular town did possess a castle, which is probably written into the Castile and Leon constitution as a requirement for incorporation.

We wandered around trying not to die of heat stroke and walked into a place that billed itself as a rotisserie chicken emporium. Whoops: they were out of chicken. Out of other stuff too. Feeling too lazy to go elsewhere, we decided to stay put. Small, informal Spanish restaurants tend to pre-prepare their dishes and keep them up front, where you can point at them (a great thing for those of us whose Spanish is at the level of a 5th grade ignoramus). My dad and I managed to inadvertently order half the menu (which we didn't want) due to our lamentable Spanish, but, hey, at least it was cheap. Microwaving pre-prepared dishes is standard practice - at this place, the husband (who ran the front of the house) passed the food up via dumbwaiter to his wife, who heated it up and added the finishing touches. The food was perfectly acceptable, and primarily interesting for its Spanishness.


A variation on carcamusas, pork stew with tomato and paprika. This pork stew seems to be a favorite across Spain, and for good reason: it's very simple but quite good if the meat is cooked for a nice long time.


Green beans cooked with shrimp, mushrooms, and what seemed to be some egg. Another unusual dish but a pretty tasty one. This could have been a curious Spanish attempt at Chinese food as I look back on it. I did not try Chinese food in Spain's small towns but suspect they would find a way to work paprika into the Egg Foo Young. Spanish people love paprika.


Now here's Spanish soul food - caracoles (snails) in a bacon-paprika-red pepper sauce. These are little suckers treated rusticly, unlike those high-minded escargots most of us are used to. They're fairly tasty if you open your mind to them, though - they must be dug out of their shells with a toothpick. The extracted snail looks almost exactly like a plug of ear wax with antenna stuck on. Ignore the appearance and pop it in your mouth: the flavor is about the same as that of a clam. Further, they were cooked in bacon, and bacon has the ability to make pretty much anything edible.


Chicken in onion sauce. A pretty good and nicely fatty onion sauce - would like to figure out how to make this. Roast chicken in some sort of sauce seems to comprise a very large portion of the Spanish diet. Fine by me as roast chicken is one of God's perfect foods.



Square in downtown Avila. Was filled with about 50 bored looking American kids on on some sort of ghastly package tour when we arrived, but they cleared out. Thank St Jessup Jerome of the Oozing Pustule for that.

We arrived in Avila about when we were supposed to. Our hotel, Las Leyendas, was built directly below the castle walls and offered convenient access to the old town - a good thing, since you'd have to be criminally insane to want to drive there. It's a clean, modern, and fairly basic place, and it suited our purposes well (although they forgot to give me towels one day which is not cool.) As we were slightly bushed from the drive, we took a siesta like all sane organisms then reconvened to look around town and grab some tapas.


The iconic main entry of Avila's old city.

Avila really is beautiful - atmospheric, resolutely medieval, and pleasantly free of roving packs of tourists. The walls are singular and unusual, and especially amazing when approached from the freeway - it's easy to imagine yourself as some 11th century besieger, thumping up on a horse, seeing the walls, and thinking, "Oh fuck, we have to besiege that?"


A battlement. One needed battlements back in the day. I like to imagine boiling oil being poured off this thing upon some invaders. Does my heart good.

The walls are entirely intact and incredibly thick , and the residents have kept them up with some fierceness over the centuries - simply building their modern city around the perimeters of the ancient city. It is not as visually arresting as Toledo within the city walls, at least initially, but the ambience of the place quickly grows on you - tapas bars, wide open Baroque squares full of grandmas and bored teenagers, flights of swallows that nest in the city walls.


A perturbed looking (and old) statue of a pig near Avila's main gates. A pig statue was considered an essential and lucky accessory for one's medieval castle in these parts. My mom thinks we should start manufacturing yard-size versions of these for today's ancestral fortresses/McMansions. I am inclined to agree.


The walls of Avila at night.

We headed to a place called 3 Caracoles for early drinks and tapas (8:30 is early bird special time in Spain). Located right across from the fortress like Avila cathedral, it was a nice place to watch the sun go down. We were also treated to the sight of what appeared to be a mattress and kitchen appliance give-away for the elderly of Avila, who were brandishing walkers and congregating around a truck. Maybe they'd sat through a time-share pitch down South for the benefit of receiving bed-sore preventative mattresses - who knows. Old folks in Spain share with old folks in other Countries with Issues the assurance that they have been through things worse then you can ever imagine and survived. They must be treated with extreme respect. Or they will destroy you.



I ordered some mussels. I was hoping for the standard broth n' paprika treatment and was rather taken aback when they came out shelled and drizzled with olive oil, raw onion, and paprika. Not a great preparation. Makes me sad to see a mussel suffer so.



Next up was my usual: tuna belly with red pepper pistou. A good example of a classic Spanish dish. I have no idea why Americans tolerate tuna fish packed in water - the flavor of the stuff packed in olive oil is infinitely more delicious.



Spain is known for its migratory white storks, which can be seen almost everywhere in Castile and Leon. They are extremely large and ponderous and build landing-strip size nests - some very old. They now have too many storks in some parts of Spain. My guidebook had a great bit about how storks are coming in such immense numbers to some tiny bumfuck villages that they are invading the populace which just cracks me right up for understandable reasons. I mean, what the hell is an overabundance of storks really gonna do - carry away small children to their dark and bone-scattered lairs, shit on your John Deere dust-farming tractor, build fifteen nests upon the statue of St Jessup de Jerome Of the Sacred Oozing Chest Wound? How bad can it really get with storks?


Well, I guess they can do this.


Courtyard we had tapas in.

After these tapas, we walked a bit further down and came upon a more formal restaurant, the name of which I, uh, cannot remember. It did have a lovely courtyard right up against the walls - I enjoyed kicking off my shoes and squidging my toes around in the grass. We simply ordered a tortilla (omelet, not corn thing, remember that) and a salad, as well as some wine, and watched the swallows until it was time for bed.

Day 21: Full day in Venice, Doge's Palace, the Basilica, Winged Lions A Plenty

It was my first (and only) full day in Venice, and I decided to wake up early to make the best of it. This meant awakening at 7:00 AM and attempting to do my morning thumping-arounds as quietly as possible to avoid awakening the other hostel-dwellers - more difficult then it sounds. Thankfully they made some distressed moanings but stayed vertical, and I was able to get out the door.


Venetians are deadly serious about baked goods.

It was Sunday morning and there was almost no one on the street - Venice doesn't possess much in the way of natives - and I made my way to a sweet shop to have a cappuccino and re-align myself. I ended up befriending the owner, who spoke good English and apparantly made a mint off of American college students in his discoteque upstairs. Whatever works, good sir, whatever works.


A detail from the Basilica.


More details, more lions. Playing Spot the Goddamn Winged Lion is a pretty fun game in Venice.




This is a tower with a flag by it.


This is a tower without a flag by it.


This is the base of a tower.

The grocery store opened up and I wolfed down some yogurt and cherries, then headed to St. Mark's square for some intensive touristing. I am allergic to lines and would not wait in a line for, I dunno, the heavenly chorus, so my heart fell when I saw a big ol' morning line for the basilica.


Passageway into the Square. Note the Winged Lion. Can someone tell me what the guys up there with the bell symbolize? The clock below is comprised of the Zodiac symbols.


Another view of Lion + Mysterious Naked Bell Ringers.


St. Marks is of mild popularity on Sunday mornings.


A side door into the basilica.

But the line wasn't quite as long as it initially appeared, so I girded my loins (does that sound mildly dirty to you) and decided to wait. I had to put on a Holy Wrap Skirt around my legs, but then I was in. The basilica is gorgeous and Byzantine style, covered in gold gilt, elaborate mosiac work, and amazing relics and statues collected from the world over. The Basilica was originally not a church but instead the private chapel of the Doge of Venice, who presumably could have the whole damn thing to himself whenever the mood struck him. However, being a Doge of Venice wasn't actually as great at it sounds - indeed, the Doge's powers were almost entirely symbolic, rendering him an impotent vice-president of a ruler.


The Square. Believe these are old parliamentary and administrative buildings.


St. Marks from behind: pointy. Like many other historical monuments in Europe. Pointy. Pointillism. I should stop.


A gorgeous gold-gilt mosaic on the Basilica. Note the horses above.


More detail shots. I like them.


Another shot of administrative buildings.

The stairs up to the basilica museum were very steep, and I was afraid of tumbling backwards and causing a horrible tourist disaster. This did not happen. The actual church was shut - it was Sunday morning - but from the museum nestled around the actual sanctum, you could hear the up-and-down tones of the priest's singing and the chorus. It was beautiful and extremely atmospheric. I wonder what you have to do to get into a Sunday service at St. Marks? Have an incurable cancer or be exceptionally holy or something of that nature?


The Square from above - note the pillars. Executions used to be held in between them back in the good old days!

I headed out onto the walkway, which allows an excellent view of the Square and the teeming zillions of tourist below.


Replicas of the Four Tetrarchs.

The walkway puts you right beneath the impressive testicles of the Four Tetrarchs, a group of monumental horse statues captured from the Hippodrome of Roman Constantinople. Doge Enrico Dandolo captured the horses in
1204 after the sacking of Constantinople, and they were put on St Marks around 1254. Napoleon did remove the horses to Paris for a stint - he used them in the design of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel - but they were returned in 1814 and here they have remained. The horses on display are replicas, and the real deal is on display inside the museum. They really are magnificent works, all rippling muscle and flaring nostrils and that other stuff that makes people all sentimental about horses. The mostly-copper skins of the horses were scratched up so that they might better absorb light (in case you were curious, and you were, weren't you?



As for the museum - no photos allowed, so sowwy. I particularly enjoyed the displays of incredibly antiquated mosiacs - it is always amazing to witness what our forebears could do with tiles of colored clay and glass. The staring and round eyes of the older Bynzantine art was particularly arresting. I am an agnostic and have no formal religion, but I enjoy visiting places of worship the entire world over - Buddhist, Catholic, Islamic, whatever, I enjoy it. I think religious sites get at some essential human truth that reverbates with us all - I don't neccesarily believe in an omnipotent deity, but I do recognize that humanity has been seeking out answers in religion for a few millenia now and the impulse is worthy of study and interest.


A canal near the Arsenal, complete with posing gondolier.


Another shot of same because I'm silly like that. WHICH ONE IS BETTER?!?




Another view of same.



After the museum, I decided do some more exploring, as well as hunt down a decent place to eat lunch. I walked alongside the lagoon for a while, enjoying the perfect weather and the site of huge luxury yachts and tiny little skiffs weaving in and out of one another. I prowled through the back alleys for a while, avoiding pushy gondoliers (80 euro is too damn steep for a glorified boat ride, says I). I ended up near the old Venetian Arsenal.




why yes it is a winged lion so terrifically unusual i know

The Venetian Arsenal used to be one of the biggest-deals in Venice, hosting the city's world renowned ship building activities. It's said to have been built in 1104 (though no one really knows,) and the place is even mentioned in Dante's Inferno. The Venetians were badass ship builders and could, at the height of their powers, turn out one ship a day, a precursor to the incredible volumes of the Industrial Revolution. The Arsenal's innovators also made many excellent improvements to handguns and firearms, finally unseating the crossbow as everyone's favorite weapon of death and destruction. The lions around the entrance are especially impressive - they come from all over, including a couple from Greece and one with 11th century Scandinavian graffiti on it. (Does anyone else like ancient graffiti as much as I do? Getting proof that elder generations were just as dorky as we are fills me with delight).



I found a nice row of restaurants by the Arsenal, and stopped in at a small seafood-specializing place for a plate of seafood antipasto. Venice is, not surprisingly, renowned for its seafood, and this was a really delicious specimen of such. I particularly enjoyed the crunchy-chewy octopus salad and the delicious fried sardines in cold cream sauce. Cold seafood antipasto is about the perfect thing to have for lunch on a bitch-hot Venice day, as it was shaping up to become.


Canal - gondola- taxi pileup OH NO.


Same thing. Don't worry, everyone lived!

After lunch, I figured it would be wise to check out the Doge's Palace, which everyone says is unmissable and all that junk. I wandered over and bought a ticket using my student ID (yes!), then headed inside. The scale of the place is immense: I was particularly impressed by the tremendous staircase up to the Doge's personal apartments, which is almost disgustingly classical and heroic in design. (It is a gothic palace to be entirely accurate). The palace also contained "Lion's Mouths," decorated slots that were literally complaint booths - if you had an issue with the government or wanted to tattle on your neighbor, you could slip a piece of paper in the slot with the assurance that the authorities would read it. Handy.


The stairs to the Doge's palace. For Triumphal Walking.

I walked up to the apartments, and was pleased by the huge map room, which contained a hilariously inaccurate 16th century rendering of California and an upside down and extremely stunted take on India. The actual living spaces were not particularly huge or ornate, although they did contain some excellent art, including some distressing works by the great (and greatly disturbed) Hieronymus Bosch, depicting writhing demons in hell or something of that nature.


Carpaccio's lion. Bro's just chilling.

I particularly liked Carpaccio's rendering of Venice's winged lion, which can be seen above. (The lion is standing half on the water and half on the land, to symbolize the city's dual interests). Why is Venice mad for winged lions? The story begins when some Venetian authorities decided it would be swell to steal the remains of St Mark from Egypt for internment in their own city. The moldering corpse was, apparently, covered in pork to deter the local Muslims from opening up the container they had placed the Saint in. St Mark's body was successfully taken to Venice, and St. Mark's traditional symbol, a winged and halo-wearing lion, was adopted for Venice's purposes.


The bridge of sighs is behind that blue thing. It's Under Construction.

Next was the Bridge of Sighs, as coined by Lord Byron - legend has it that people walking over the bridge to the prison would snatch one last look at the lagoon out of the gridded windows and sigh. Truth is the bridge was never used in this fashion, but it's a swell story and we're sticking to it. As Abroad is Always Under Construction, the bridge was covered up in sky blue wrapping and pictures of pissed-off looking Italian models, but you could still walk through - it's a twisty, turning, claustrophobic thing, although there is a bit of a view of the lagoon. The prison chambers were as dank and depressing as you could ask for. I enjoyed looking at the super-old graffiti within them. Unfortunately could not understand the Japanese tour smack dab in front of me.

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Ain't dat a purty sight?


Also purty.

After the palace, I wandered back to the hostel to sort out my train tickets back to Switzerland. At the hostel, I ran into one of my room-mates, who turned out to be from Tennessee and a nice guy. We ended up heading over to the train station together and chatting about barbeque, which is something us red blooded Americans seem to invariably miss when abroad (unless you are a vegan or some freaky shit like that). Along the way back to the hotel, a pigeon crapped on him, point blank. They say it's good luck. Well, it didn't crap on me so perhaps the old saying is true. I met the rest of the room-mates - a girl from Japan, an Australian guy, and the American guy's friend - and chatted for a while before heading out again.



I wanted to go back to the museums, but it was later then I realized, so I ended up hanging out on the dock to finish up my cherries, sip some pre-dinner grappa, and watch a gigantic Greek (?) cruise ship come out of the port.


People in gondola who I do not know. Hello!


My view from my dinner table. Poor long suffering me.

For dinner, I decided one one of the restaurants along the water, on the way to the Arsenal. Although this restaurant was a mere block further along the water then the other, more frequented waterside restaurants, it featured good prices and no annoying-ass touts trying to hurry my ass inside. Therefore I picked it, and selected a nice seat with a view of the sun going down. Yum. I really despise restaurants with touts aside, trying to get you to come in, especially as many of the Italian specimens decide that hitting on me is a great way to get me to come inside. No, I would not like a side of hot smokin' sexual harassment with my fritto misto, senor.




This was REALLY GOOD spinach. Just so you know.

I had seafood soup Venetian style which was downright delicious. Perfectly cooked shrimp, baby octopus, mussels and clams, a delicate saffron and garlic flavored broth - the ideal meal for a summer evening on the lagoon. With a side of spinach cooked in garlic and olive oil, it was a simple and good meal and a definite highlight.


Sundown. Hideous, I know. Rather like Detroit in flu season.

After dinner, I walked back to the hostell to try to find the others, who had gone out (and since they didn't have cell phones, no way to contact em'.) Not that there was much going on in the way of nightlife, anyway. Venice on Sunday nights is a veritable wasteland for sin and pleasure seekers. I ended up going to bed at an unseemly 11:00.