Trip to Spain: Tortosa, town of tiny jews.

Parador

Paradors are castles, monastaries, forts, etc. that have been taken over by the Spanish government and turned into upscale hotels. They were apparently very cheap but have gotten less so, although they were still reasonable. Now, they aren't what we would consider luxurious but they were pretty nice. The staff when we checked in late the night before wasn't that nice, althogh they warmed up eventually. After that, the front desk staff was helpful and one of the guys tried to show us the difference in pronunciation between Espanol and Catalan. One comment; the people of Spain are genrally very proud of the area they come from within Spain, especially in Catalan (the area in and around Barcelona). The language of Catalan is fairly different. We knew a few words of Spanish which allowed us to muddle through well enough, but Catalan...forget it. It also sounds very funny to an American ear. There are alot of "th" sounds which makes everyone sound a little like Sylvester the Cat or like they're lisping. So Barcelona become barTHelona. This casued us endless giggles through the rest of our trip, which I'm sure endeared us to the Catalan people.

The Castle was pretty cool and had some great views of the town.

The weather had improved slightly so we decided to explore the town a little and chance the rain. We started the day tryng to drive but quickly determined walking would be easier. (You are at the top of a hill, so just be prepared for the walk back up). We went to visit the cathedral but it had weird tourist hours (the siesta) so it was closed. We walked around town a bit. Tortosa is an odd mix of old and new. The ancient jewish quarter is supposed to be the oldest of it's kind. It was really just a collection of REALLY tiny streets (in a town of tiny streets) with a few non-working wells.

In addition to the old though, there are more modern stores and shopping areas in the center of town.

We visited Els Jardins del Princep a garden with really lovely plants and centered around the sculptures of artist Santiago de Santiago Herandez.

Some of his sculptures were cool:

some were odd:

and some were downright disturbing.

We had a very nice lunch at the resteraunt Pailet (http://www.paiolet.com/), which was very good (try the beet carpaccio salad) and seemed crowded with locals. Afterwards we visited the cathedral which was pretty cool. It was only a three euros and you get to tour pretty much the entire place, including the catacombs, again Denise resisted her fear of closed spaces and braved the dark underground area, but it was well lit and she did fine. The cathedral had alot of great artifacts, many of which were very close or even out in the open.

Back to the Parador for cocktails. Tortosa didn't seem like a party town, although the girls and I didn't look very hard, we were content to just relax. We had dinner atthe parador and had another excellent meal. A brief comment on the rooms; They were again failry small. We had reserved a "triple" which was a double bed with a oversized chair that was a pull-out bed. We opted to get an additional room. The girls shared a room and I had one to myself...which the girls probably enjoyed sonce I snore :) The bathroom was really big compared to the rest of ther room. The beds are VERY firm, verging on uncofortable...but again we weren't in Spain to sleep. I should also mention "Brunhilde". Of course, her name wasn't Brunhilde, but that name sums up exactly how she looked. She was our waitress a number of times and was great, she was like our Spanish mom and always took care of us. One night I just told her to bring me whatever she thought was good and had a delicious fish dish. She didn't speak very much English and we spoke no Catalan and only a little Spanish so we communicated through pointing, pantomime and just smiling, but it all worked out great. The parador also had a breakfast buffet that was really nice. I got hooked on the traditional Catalan breakfast of toast (or better yet grilled bread) rubbed with a clove of garlic, fresh sliced tomato and anchovies. The buffet also offered cereals, eggs, fruit, salad items, coffee, tea, fresh squeezed juices, pastries, Spanish meats and cheeses...it was pretty good and it was included in the price of our rooms. Spain has great pork products and delicious seafood pretty much everywhere you go. Of course try a paella dish, which is what Denise and Reed had this night, I had eel...yum.

SPAIN, SCHHMAIN

Ok...Day four. The day from hell. Every trip has one of these right? Well despite the bad luck/stupidity on this day we did do alot of laughing. The day began rainy and dreary. But trying to "look on the bright side of things" we thought it was a good day to spend the majority of our time in the car. We were driving from Madrid to Tortosa via a fairly direct (as direct as the roads of Spain would allow) route. This route did offer an opportunity to see some of the spanish countryside and we just thought, what the heck, lets drive through Spain. Now this all sounds good in theory, in actual practice it was less then an ideal trip. Now it is possible to rent an automatic transmission car in Spain but it is much more expensive. So Denise rented a manual car and since I was the only one who could drive stick, I was doing all the driving. Again, in theory, this was fine, it was going to be a few hours of driving, no big deal. And really it wasn't all that bad...on the highway. It becomes another matter when your in the middle of a major city with city traffic, or in the midst of a highly touristy area where people just randomly jump in front of you (it seems the people in Spain actually take that "pedestrians have the right of way" thing seriously. Or it becoms even more worrisome when the place your going to check into is a castle...perched on a mountain...with roads big enough for a large man on a donkey...that are rainy and slippery...and the driver hasn't driven a stick shift in about 10 years. Needless to say, less then ideal conditions. So my first piece of advice about driving in Spain, don't do it. Take a train. (We actually would have done this but Tortosa isn't really on any major train route). So things begin drearily as we leave Madrid in our rental car (oh, which I am driving illegally by the way becasue you have to pay more to have more then one driver). The clerk at the Hertz counter was really helpful and gave us great directions out of the city. And, really, things were going very well. The rain was on again, off again but wasn't too bad. We found highway signs easily enough and were on our way to Tortosa. Now I believe it was Denise who replied, when I said in planning this part of our trip "where will we stop for lunch?" with "Oh, at some quaint little Spanish town where can experience Spanish life off the beaten path." Again, this sounds all good when your finishing off a bottle of wine in your comfy Philadelphia home. We eventually pull off at some tiny town, I forget the name of it. There was a diner of some kind right off the highway but the girls believed we should search out "something cuter". This was a weird town, it was really small, there were bars on the windows and every door was covered by a curtain. We saw not a soul in the town nor another car. It was funny (and a little scary) trying to navigate these tiny tiny streets with someone not super proficient with a stick shift. Yeah it was all fun and games until I made a turn down one street which came to a T junction that I was pretty convinced I would get stuck in if I tried to navigate it. Reenie and I were concerned, but Denise was downright spooked. It seems she has a wee problem with enclosed spaces. This street was so small I don't think we would have been able to open the car doors all the way becasue we would have hit the walls of nearby houses. As we were panicking a little this old wizened woman peers out from befind lace curtains and the iron bars on the window. I immediately had a flash of that movie "Hostel" and thought, "We're going to be abducted, tortured and killed by these locals." It was a little crazy for 2-3 minutes. I managed to drive backwards the way we had come and eventually find our way back to the "main" (a bigger dirt) road. We stopped at the place we had passed when we first got into town and had lunch. It was actually pretty good and was full of locals, although we didn't see any of them walking anywhere...a little weird. So back on the highway, no problem. The girls were reading various touristy books and we were talking about things to do when we got where we were going and what not. We passed these big black bull signs accross the countryside. Turns out they are an advertisement for a Spanish liquor. Spain made a decision not to have any roadside advertisements and was going to get rid of them but apparently the people rebelled and this is now the only rodside advertising (along highways at least) you'll find in Spain.

At one point someone was reading about Valencia, which we were going to pass close by. Valencia was trying to increase tourism and had just designed this new science center that sounded really cool. We thought, "Let's stop for an hour and do something touristy in Valencia, then we can say we visted Valencia." Again, it sounded good in theory. Here is my second piece of advice when considering visiting a major metropolitan area, for which you have no street maps, you don't speak the language and the driver is of limited recent experience with a stick shift: don't do it! We ended up lost in Valencia for two hours. We actually got lost on dirt roads (in the middle of a city). We got turned around and I thought the sign in Spanish meant "service area" turns out it was a "service road", you know the kind you find in Texas or Kansas, in the middle of nowhere...which go nowhere. It was like being trapped in the twilight zone, we could not find our way out of this place, and the roads were flooded from all the rain. Denise and I were giddy with fear, Reen was pretty concerend about the flooded roads and...I don't know, crashing into a hidden hole or getting the engine flooded...you know, little stuff like that. We stumble accross some Spanish nursery and the girls braved the rain to ask for directions. The men in the nursery are closing up for the day and want nothing to do with the gringo girls...some eight year old who speaks a tiny bit of English gives the girls partial directions. We eventually find our way out of the service area and are immediately lost within the metro area of Valencia. There are signs that point the way to Barcelona (which is the direction we want to go) but they literally point towards one another. In addition it is rush hour and the traffic patterns are not as neat and orderly as in the USA, they have these combination circles/intersections that are a terror. I am amazed I didn't: 1. Get into an accident 2. Stop and cry 3. Get pulled over by police, they discover I'm driving illegally and get arrested. By some miracle we find our way out and head toward Tortosa on the highway. As we leave we do ponder how three relatively inyelligent people EVER thought that was a good idea.

The partially flooded road in the Twiligh....ah, I mean Valencia:

The highway is fine, we shake off the Valencia fiasco and try to get positive again. We drive for a few hours and stop for a snack and gas. The girls buy a truck stop bottle of wine and enjoy it on our trip, I am now hooked on Orange Fanta so I have some of that. (The legal alcohol limit in Spain while driving is .06, lower then the USA...so I wouldn't advise it). It's getting late, the rain continues and it's getting dark. We are about 45 minutes away from the highway exit we need when we discover that the toll ticket, in some miracle of engineering, has fallen down behind the ashtray in the car, near the cupholder. We can see the ticket, but despite Reenie's Macgyver like manneuverings we are unable to retrieve it. This was the straw to my camel, and I admit it, I lost it a little bit. All I could picture was some burely, tourist intolerant, red-tape loving toll taker making us jump through rings of fire to fix the situation. As it turns out, the toll taker was a nice lady and although we struggled to communicate our disastor...we eventually navigate through the exit. We have arrived in Tortosa, where we are checking into a castle turned hotel. It is dark. It is raining. Our mood is less then happy. The roads are slippery. There are, initially, signs to the castle, which mysteriously disaapear. We now wander around this tiny town for a good 45 min - 1hr trying to find the giant castle on the hill. It was ridiculous. We eventaully find it and check in. The dining room is closing in five minutes. The front desk was nice enough to let us run to get something to eat then come back and check in, which we do. Then we all collapse in our beds from exhaustion and frustration. Thus endith the day from Hell of our Spanish trip.