Around the Old English District

Do you remember “The Saint”? The British television series aired between 1962 and 1969 and starred Roger Moore prior to his run as 007. The show had an interesting title sequence in which there was and animated stick figure with a halo. Recently, I saw that figure again but not on TV, but as a tattoo. It was on the forearm of the man handing me his business card. He was about six feet tall and a two hundred pounds with a mustache and three day old beard.  The beard and mustache were flecked with gray and a battered baseball cap was pulled down low but his sparkling blue eyes were visible. I detected the sound of the British Isles in his voice as he spoke and I queried him about his homeland. “Twenty-seven years I’ve been here, off and on,” he said, “but born south of London.” 

“Doing this?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” he said, “I’ve only been doing this about four years. I was a pipeline welder in Canada as well as here”

We talked a bit about the similarities in the two occupations, welding and making pottery, such as eye-hand coordination. He showed be his pieces for sale and  I was curious about the almost exclusive use of earth tones.  He said he hadn't notice his use af earth  tones but the colors felt "right". We talked about how it could be very difficult to create the primitive look. I mentioned that Picaso had once said that it had taken him a lifetime to learn to paint as a child. We exchanged notes on our visits to the Louvre, the Prado, and the Tate. He did beautiful work and I did buy a piece, a vase with an oriental motif before saying “good-bye” to the Saintly Potter at The Rock Hill Pottery Center in the old Post Office and Courthouse building.

There was more to see in Rock Hill, this town of 71,000 plus , a short distance from the Charlotte, NC, metropolitan area. Like many small towns Rock hill has undergone a local facelift in the downtown area. There are new store fronts and interesting shops, restaurants and galleries.  There is also a telephone museum, the Comporium Museum. It's right off main street and offers an interesting look into telephone communications from the early 1900's to the present.  Many antique telephones are on display as well as a look at behind the scenes equipment usually never seen by the public. There are a lot of "hands-on" displays which are great fun as well as instructional. The technical displays were right up my ally but what really caught my attention was the truck. It was an 1927 Mack truck used for setting telephone poles and pulling wire and cable.  It had solid rubber tires and originally had gas headlights. Top speed on this truck was 11mph, so it took over twenty hours to drive it from Atlanta to Rock Hill. This truck was in service until the 1970's and was in the television mini-series, Chiefs, filmed in nearby Chester during the early 1980's. A friendly helpful guide made this visit to the Comporium Telephone very enjoyable. 

We had a bit of lunch at an"Irish" pub. The chips with my fish and chips were potato chips!  There  is a first time for everything. The fish was no north Atlantic cod either, but was good. It's funny how a Guiness can take the edge off any disappointment. 

Our next stop was a natural history museum, The Museum of York County.  I had visited the museum long ago but Claudette hadn't been there.  It's really nice with different displays of mounted specimens of animals and plants. There is also a display depicting the local area in prehistoric times as well as modern times. All displays have audio visual effects and some have interactive features. There is an extraordinary display of African animals including an elephant and cape buffalo. In fact there are over 500 mounted animals on display including African and domestic. As an avid artist, it's great to be able to draw pictures of animals without their moving. (The Phoenix Zoo presented a big problem, the animals kept moving!) I like the "hands-on" part of this museum.  As you hold a replica of a sabre-toothed tiger skull you can appreciate exactly how dangerous this animal was. Did you know that the sabre-toothed tiger wasn't really a cat? You learn the most interesting things in museums.  We enjoyed the Museum of York County and I know I will return one day to fill a sketchbook full of drawings of African wildlife.

Blood and Taters

"Potatoes?" she asked.

"Yes, sweet potatoes.  The British were foraging for sweet potatoes because they had no bread," I said.

We were at the Eutaw Springs Battlefield Historic site in Orangeburg County, South Carolina.

"So, what does foraging for sweet potatoes have to do with one of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolution?" Claudette asked quizzically. I decided that it was a good time to impress her with my knowledge of American history.

"0n the morning of September, 8, 1781, about 2300 British soldiers were in this area, and a small party of them were here foraging for sweet potatoes, when they were discovered by a patrol of American patriots.  The British forces were commanded by Lt. Col. Alexander Stewart. About seven miles away was the American general, Nathanial Greene, with about two thousand troops. The bulk of his forces were Continentals from North Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware.  Continentals were the trained soldiers, you know. The balance were militia, farmers, and such; some were from the local area, some from the upcountry.  Many of the soldiers were barefoot and without shirts. Of course, it was early September, and  the temperatures were probably in the 90's, so nobody was freezing at night. But they were a somewhat rag tag bunch. Greene had all the partisan generals as well; Andrew Pickens from the upcountry, Thomas Sumter of the Piedmont, and Francis Marion,"The Swamp Fox', form the Santee hills and swamps," I said in my best authoritative tone. We walked through the iron gate hung between brick columns toward the first historical marker which  gave a brief account of the battle.  The next marker we looked at was in full color with a map.

"See," I said, "this shows how the troops were deployed." 

"I'm afraid that I don't understand," she said, somewhat perplexed.

"Well, it went sorta like this. The  Americans formed a line with the militia in the front and the Continentals behind them. The redcoats attacked the middle of the line and began to break through, but the Continentals  reinforced the line and pushed the British back. Again the British sent in more men and pushed the Americans back. Then Greene ordered the Virginia and Maryland regulars into the front line and halted the redcoat charge.  It was a violent battle and many accounts of the battle say that "the blood was ankle deep". After four hours of vicious fighting both sides seemed to have had enough.  The British retreated and the American swarmed into their camp. Believing that they were victorious the Americans plundered the British camp. The patriots found and consumed considerable quantities of rum in their enemy's camp which rendered them somewhat ineffective. But the British had retreated," I explained as we walked along.

"Why is there this big marker for a British soldier here?" she asked.

"That's a good question.  Why is there a British officer buried at this historic American Battle field? I think he was their hero."

"Hero?" she queried.

"You see when all the fighting was going on here, a few hundred yards away Major John Marjoribanks was in command of a battalion of British soldiers at a two-story brick house.  His troops held off the Americans at the house, but he was wounded. The next day when Stewart decided that the land was not worth defending, and his troops began their march to Charleston, they didn't bury their dead!  September the ninth was a rainy day, and Greene decided not to pursue. Marjoribanks died in route and was buried by the side of the road. In the 1940's when Lake Moultrie was built his grave was moved here."

"I had never heard of the battle of Eutaw Springs before," she said.

"Hey, Greene even received a gold medal for his efforts here. There are eight scenes from U.S. history depicted on the bronze doors of the United States House of Representatives and the presentation of this medal to Greene is one of them."

We got back in our car and were off to visit the grave site of General Francis Marion, "The Swamp Fox".

A European Atlantic Beach

“This is unlike other Portuguese towns,” commented Claudette as I drove the Opal downhill toward the sea.

“It’s not medieval like most of the others,” I added. We were in Nazare, a town of over fourteen thousand on the west coast of the country. The road dead-ended at the beach with a broad street parallel to the shoreline. The Atlantic was a beautiful blue on this cloudless day with a temperature in the eighties. There is a lot of surf here. According to the Guardian newspaper a surfer once rode a ninety foot wave here. But there are no surfers out today. We parked the car and got out for a walk along the beach, or rather the sidewalk along the beach. The sidewalk here is as it is in most of Portugal, made of what appears to be black and white shards of ceramic material laid in a pattern. There was an old but brightly painted fishing boat there on the white sand of the beautiful crescent shaped beach of approximately one mile in length. We immediately noticed some fish nets which appeared to be drying on some posts on the beach. Upon closer observation we found that the nets were used to dry fish. There were a few dried fish on one of the nets, and nearby was a woman who appeared to be in her late fifties dressed in a long skirt with long sleeved blouse and a kerchief about her head.  She was cleaning fish. They were sardines, about eight inches long. With rapid deft moves she scraped the fish and removed the entrails. By rapid, I mean that she could clean about a dozen fish per minute. On the other side of the street were a variety of eateries and shops selling touristy items. By the time we had almost reached the marina we realized that we had not passed our hotel which was on Praca Sousa Oliveira.

After a leisurely stroll in the opposite direction we found Hotel Mar Bravo. But, alas, it was too early to check in. We wandered through the narrow streets looking in all the various little shops and found a laundry. However, it seemed a bit expensive. Since we travel with only a carry-on bag laundry becomes a necessity when we stay over a week. We will be doing laundry in the hotel room tonight.

Nazare is divided in two parts: Praia (along the beach) and Sítio (an old town, on top of a cliff). At the opposite end of the beach from the marina a rocky promontory rises with Sitio on the top. We knew that there would be a spectacular view of the beach from atop the cliff. As we walked the narrow streets in the direction of the cliff, we saw the signs for the funicular. We bought a round trip ticket before entering the very modern rail car. The steep climb to the top of the cliff was at least 35 degrees, and we stopped once half-way up to allow the other car to pass on the way down. After leaving the station we were only a few yards from the panoramic view of the beach far below. It was indeed breath-taking. There was a fruit and nut vendor close by. We bought cashews and figs from an old woman who could have passed for the witch in a Hansel and Gretel story. She was dressed in the traditional black of a Portuguese widow. We saw a number of these women either selling things or holding signs announcing rooms for rent. Back at the base of the cliff we found a restaurant for lunch. We ate outside under a canopy in this eatery operated by a rather plump lady insistent on barking orders to the kitchen and wait staff. I had grilled sardines with vegetables and it was good. Claudette did not care to order fish. She has a thing about fish with their heads on and, also, the cooks on the Iberian peninsula cook their fish rare; not like sushi, but close. Between me and the street was a large container of cockles. It was great table side entertainment watching the little bivalves move around in the water.

We finally checked into the Hotel Mar Bravo. It was a beautiful modern facility with large murals and a large amount of glass and chrome in the lobby. Our room was on the third floor overlooking the plaza. Next to our room was a large common room with a computer terminal and large sofas, chairs and magazines and newspapers to read. Our Portuguese isn't very good, so we just surfed the Internet and checked e-mail. However, the room’s best feature was the view, through huge windows, of the beach. Sunset from this viewpoint will never be forgotten.

We walked around the plaza that evening and had an ice cream while doing some people-watching before turning in. The morning would find us on the way to Lisbon.

Thursday 9/29/2011

What? No Bull?

“You missed it!” she said.

“What?” I said.

“You missed the turn,” she said.

“Did I?” I said.

“You did.” She said.

“So...” I said.

“We’ll have to go around a gain,” she said.

“I didn’t see the road number.” I said.

“There was no road number,” she said.

“Then how do you know we missed the road?” I said.

“Because the sign said “Pamplona”” she said.

“And...” I said.

“That’s where we’re going.” she said.

“I didn’t know,” I said.

“I’m sure it is,” she said, and I was glad to hear it in the midst of the dialogue beginning to sound like a Robert B. Parker novel.  It had been a long drive from, although Spanish tollways are excellent highways. I was tired. We found Hotel Pamplona with relative ease, parked the car in hotel parking, and planned our visit. 

Pamplona is one of the cities on El Camino de Santiago, the Way of Saint James, and has existed for over a thousand years. Legend has it that the body of Saint James was carried from Jerusalem to the coast of northern Spain and buried at Santiago de Compostela.  The route is marked by an image of a blue seashell. But this was not why we were here. We came hoping to join in the Fiesta de San Fermin. The festival is held twice a year with the more famous one in July. This would be the mini-festival.  The July festival attracts more that a million people. But, then, that is when the bulls run through the streets with people, an event reserved for those lacking in some mental facilities.  Our friend Brian ran with the bulls. The event is also chronicled is Ernest Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises. But, alas, we would see no bulls run. However, we would join the festival the following day. 

Pamplona, like many old cities, is build on a river and has a wall surrounding it it.  The Hotel Pamplona was not within that wall, so we walked from the hotel, crossed the river, and walked up to the walled old city. It was only about ten o’clock in the morning when we entered the medieval city. I reminded Claudette  about the early hour and that I did not think that festivals began that early.  And then a young man with a trumpet walked past us on the narrow street. As we walked along more people  were going in the same direction. Now we were sure we had found the festival. We knew that the festival parade would follow the same route that the bulls ran in July but had not a clue what that route was. We continued to walk, and our pace quickened.  We heard horns and drums and people, many people.  We could tell that we were joining a parade.  But what kind? Did we really care?

The crowd had many families with youngsters on adult shoulders and some mommies pushing strollers with little tykes. The street is only about twelve feet wide including some of the tables of the sidewalk cafes. We continued to move faster trying to get to the head of the parade.  Then we saw them: thirteen foot tall giants.  Obviously there was a man underneath providing motivation for the giant king. Further up the street I saw kings and queens all dancing and swaying with the music.  We had stumbled onto the parade of “the giants and big heads”, a tradition for over one hundred and fifty years. Each royal pair represents either Europe, Asia, Africa, or America. We had to hurry on and get in front of the parade which had grown to nearly one thousand people by now. We ducked into a cafe for a restroom break and a quick cafe con leche.  We watched as the happy revelers went by and noticed that street vendors were out selling balloons kid stuff. Also, another band unattached to a giant and led by people carrying a banner had joined the parade.  We got back in the melee, enjoying the throngs of happy people and I was constantly checking to see that I had no strange hands in my pockets.  The parade goes downhill since it ends at the bullring. In july the bulls run from the bull holding pens to the bullring. But no bull today!  A few blocks from the bull ring is a large, life size sculpture of the running of the bulls. Ernest Hemmingway, as well as the sculptor, are depicted in the work of art. Shortly after viewing the statue we had an amusing encounter with a Spanish automated toilet.  Once again the lack of native language was our undoing.  But why would you need instructions to use a toilet?  Some of us do.  This was a self-cleaning unit. If you did not get out of the small structure within a certain number of minutes of flushing the door would lock, the light would go out and the floor would be sprayed with a cleaning liquid. Fortunately, this cleaning liquid does not stain ones clothes.  Later we found a plaza where many of the parade participants were singing while accompanied by guitars. We took the funicular back down to the riverbank near the bridge and walked back to our hotel. It had been a most enjoyable day. We walked around the area about our hotel but did not find a place we thought we would like to eat at and decided to eat at the hotel. It turned out to be good food and a good value. We turned in early.(In Spain that means before midnight.) It had been a great day of automated toilets and giants!

Down by the River in Basque Country

The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao,Spain

My most vivid memory of Bilbao, Spain is of a Basque driver screaming at me.  I’m sure they were obscenities with no doubt some reference to my mother.  But my lack of knowledge of the native language left me unscathed,  although perhaps deserving of the outrage. I DID cut him off at an intersection, but I didn’t hit anybody. In my own defense I find it difficult to understand street signs and directions in Basque cities such as Bilbao. 

Soon we were on a street by the river, and in front of us was the reason for our being here.  The Guggenheim Museum  was in full view.  Canadian architect Frank Gehry’s masterpiece emerges from the bank of the Nervion River, the titanium finish glistening in the afternoon sun like the sails of a silver sailing ship.  We crossed the river on the Princes of Spain Bridge and almost immediately found ourselves in the huge underground parking garage beside the museum. We took the elevator from the spacious parking garage to street level to walk a few hundred feet to the museum.  

The Puppy

Near the entrance is the “Puppy”: a 39 foot sculpture of a dog covered with 70,000 blooming flowers! Created by American Jeff Koons, the fifteen ton creation has been in San Francisco, Paris, Sydney, and Arolsen, Germany, before finding a permanent home in Bilbao.

One of the first things you notice upon entering the lobby of the museum is that everything is curved; there are few flat surfaces except for the floor. There are nineteen galleries and a permanent collection of modern and contemporary art from the mid-twentieth century to the present. I was surprised to see a small (one meter square) painting by American artist Jackson Pollack,  I did not realize he ever painted canvas that small in his “drip” style. 

We had seen New York’s Guggenheim collection in a museum designed by another famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Gehry’s museum is much like being in a multilevel maze of titanium, limestone, and glass. It’s quite exciting and encourages discovery. No photography was allowed inside the museum, and I followed this rule, I must say due to the encouragement of my travel mate. There are large terraces from which to view the river and river walk nearby.  Here I saw a most unusual thing. There was a wheelchair with half a male manikin (from the waist down, fully clothed) in it. “Pushing” the chair was the upper part of the manikin.  It was eerie and created quite a stir.  We looked for the person controlling it via radio but could not find him in the crowd. 

Back inside the museum we ate a sandwich at one of the museum’s cafes.  The food was good but over-priced. On our walk back to the garage we could not restrain ourselves from taking a look over our shoulders at the “flowering pooch of Bilbao”. I also realized that I had been in a museum in which the structure was more exciting than the art it housed.

Cathedral de Santiago

 After touring some of the city streets and numerous traffic circles we found the Hotel Arriaga overlooking the river Nervion.  It was almost directly across the street from the opera house and down the street from a cathedral, the Church of San Anton.  I double parked while Claudette went in and found where hotel parking was.  It was underground as usual, and I started down the ramp after the garage type door went up and I saw a slim dark-haired woman motioning to me to follow her. I squeezed the Opal into a spot near the wall after letting Claudette exit the car first. (Otherwise, she would not have been able to get out of the car.) The lady, whom Claudette explained was the innkeeper, indicated that we were to follow her. We barely managed to get ourselves and luggage into the lilliputian elevator while the innkeeper explained in accented staccato English that she must operate the elevator.  We were not allowed at the controls. The room was like something out of the 1930’s, but comfortable. We stowed our gear and hit the streets to check out Bilbao’s old city.

Walking down the street  outside the hotel we could see a cathedral bathed in the late afternoon sun.  The yellow limestone had a golden glow.  We entered the first street to the right and found ourselves in the fourteenth century old city. The old buildings now have modern shops of high fashion and expensive jewelry. Foot traffic is fairly sparse but will increase as the clock approaches the nine o’clock hour. We window shopped a bit before finding an old restaurant for a bite to eat.  

The Bilbao Athletic Club had some of the older residents  dining.  There was a counter down one side with a display case full of enticing tapas.  The walls were decorated with soccer jerseys, posters, faded photographs of soccer teams of the years gone by, and a glass case full of autographed soccer balls and trophies. The counterman was quite chatty with fairly good English, and an old fellow suggested we buy a certain tapas. “Bueno, bueno!”, he said as he pointed at certain dishes. Then we bought a selection of tapas but noticed that he bought something different.   We took our food to one of the about ten tables. It is cheaper to buy your food at the counter than from a table. We enjoyed our food and soon joined the growing crowd in the streets.  We walked  by Cathedral de Santiago. Bilbao is on El Camino de Santiago, the route of pilgrims following the path of Saint James. 

After a good nights sleep and a quick breakfast we were on the road again.