Saturday, June 25

We start late. Eddie, the beer-head, has just gotten up by the time we get to the Strecks'. Ed and I have decided today is gym day. The facility is posh. Eddie runs out of gas before I do. It has been a week and many calories since my last formal exercise session.

Ron and Karen take our girls to "the market" west of their compound. Jane describes it as making the market in Saigon look small. Yikes. They come back with only a few things, remarking that they covered only a fraction of the stalls in 2+ hours.

We spend more time than necessary deciding what to do next. Jane wants to resolve how we will return the car and get ourselves to Sevilla and Madrid. It will be by fast train from Sevilla, and Tatjana the concierge makes it happen including notifying the hotel in Madrid of our arrival one day later than planned. We also figure out how to work in the golf.

Lunch is outside at the Marriott overlooking the Med. Ron regales us with more jokes. Wish I had that skill. Unbelievably, it is 4:30, and we hustle to get ready for the event of the day, a drink at the golf club near Valdarama and then dinner at the restaurant owned by the Strecks' friends, Burkhard and Leslie Weber.

The three-course complex is west of Marbella almost to Gibraltar in the mountains north of the A7. Like so much else in the area, it has scores of extravagant houses, mostly second and third homes along fairways and on hillsides. Karen took us by a lot that they had bought about five years ago before the economy collapsed. Values have plummeted, so their timing in selling it was right. Karen had picked it out one afternoon while Ron played golf. She had done some very preliminary planning for a house on the lot when selling it looked like the better route. She has some minor regrets about giving up the real estate in this beautiful place, but it had been the right financial decision.

We arrive at the golf clubhouse to find Ron and Eddie already enjoying the view. This part of the coast is more forested and generally greener, surely because of rainfall levels. The elevation is not high enough to prevent vegetation, but high enough to be noticeably cooler than at sea level. The golfers are absent. It is the high season, and the course is empty. The Euro tourists stay home in droves.

The houses are huge and glorious, reminding me of the homes at Anthem Country Club in LV, but with less emphasis on windows here. Can't wait to play the course. Then we're off to the town of Benahavis to the Weber's Amenhavis Restaurant and Hotel. We are in for a treat.

Leslie met Karen years ago in some US city, I think San Fran. The

relationship grew as the Strecks frequented the Costa del Sol, where the Webers had opened the hotel. The Weber's beautiful daughters, Fiona (11) and Sophie (9) love Karen. Leslie welcomed us with a champagne-like drink and conversation while Burkhard dealt with the guests. They are warm and friendly. They have operated their establishment for about 10 years in the richest precinct in Spain.

Last year Michelle Obama brought her daughter to Benhavis on her much-criticized visit to Europe. You can't help but compare Fiona and Sophie to the young Obamas.

Leslie

described her role too modestly as "all-purpose gopher." In fact, she seems to be designer, accountant, purchaser, admin queen, and organizer. Burkhard deals with the menu, the kitchen, and the customers. The style is melded regional. In some ways it is Euro mountain with Arab tiles. The decorations include plastic floor covers over orderly closets of varied old Spanish objects. They sell ceramic and other objects, too.

The meal was almost indescribable. It emphasized sweets, which matches my inclinations. I had an appetizer that was good and a pork dish that was even better. A potato confection of some sort with thin apple slices on top was wonderful. The appetizer came with a port-like wine that pleased, even though I rarely have sweet wine. The meal took a long time, and we got home after the 45-minute drive very late.

Sunday, June 26

Mosquito bites -- they were the big news on Sunday morning. We had

heard one buzzing in our ears the previous night, but he brought back his whole gang on this night, and for some reason they attacked Janie rather than me. She awoke with eight red welts on her back and more on her arms. Some topical Benadryl seemed to help.

Today was Ronda day. Eddie had visited this mountain town with his first wife 40+ years ago. Unlike most of our drives, this one with Eddie at the wheel and up the steep mountain road took much less time than projected. The town itself has grown hugely,

but it still centers on the gorge thru which a creek of a river flows. As in Italy and parts of Greece the buildings overhang the gorge on both sides. The "old bridge" dates from the 1600s; the new one, from the 1750s. The latter is tall - I'd guess 150 feet - and built like the Romans would have done it with a large and high arch over the creek. The streets of the old town around the new bridge -- go figure -- are narrow and of tile. Finding some shade to walk in was difficult on this very warm day.

The highlight was exploring the bullring. It was the first one in Spain exclusively for bull-

fighting. The prime mover had been the patriarch of the Ordonez dynasty, whose namesakes have dominated the sport (spectacle?) into the 21st century. The circular stadium seats 5000, but it is used only three days per year for a festival in September. We imagined the crowds and the movement of all the participants in the show; how the horses and bulls enter; how the equivalent of the rodeo clowns seek shelter behind thick wood walls. The ring is also home to a riding academy and museums that focus on the history of bullfighting, guns, and chivalry.

The girls found a shop to load up on ceramics and some decorative tiles, which will weigh us down on the trip home. Eddie and I thought we were clever to suggest going to get the car as they searched the store, thinking it would prevent their wandering into more stores. Seemed smart. We walked to the car and found that paying and getting out were less than obvious.

The ride down the mountain was easier, made better with our load of Ronda wine and cheese. Cleaning up for dinner after the wine and cheese took a while, leading to another late meal at the Marriott. A group of tango performers -- dancers, singer and musician -- entertained. The dancers selected both Jane and me to dance with them to our delight. Evonne

resisted eating again and went for a walk. She brought back a young Muslim mother with a question for Karen. The woman seemed to pour out her soul to Vonnie, and she seemed like someone desperately in need of companionship.

Monday, June 27

Eddie and I had rented golf clubs with Ron's help. I got the $48 variety and Ed the $38. Ed won. We couldn't tell the difference. We left the Marriott at 8:00 as planned, and then Griswold luck took over. A single-van accident delayed us on A7 for over half an hour. We missed our tee time. Ron, then I, then Eddie presented our credit cards. All were rejected. Cynical Jim blamed it on the course manager's not wanting to pay the credit card fee. Our cash was immediately accepted. We then followed the long path to the driving range. Neither cash nor tokens worked in the ball machine.

Two of these episodes had good outcomes. Ron didn't pay for Karen to play, and the range guy gave us free buckets of balls. We warmed up quickly and hurried to

the first tee, which was not the course we expected to play. Oh, well. No one pushed us and we caught up with no other group. As we had noted about other things, the busy season wasn't happening.

The course played to 6500 yards at the blue tees (measured in meters) and less than 5700 to the whites. We all would have liked to play about 6200. I foolishly agreed to play the blues, and it resulted in a fairway metal on most par 4s. Finally late in the round I suggested moving up to the whites. I scored pretty well at the end. Shot 47-47. The rented clubs felt OK, so maybe it is time to replace my old ones. Eddie cleaned our clocks at 10 centavos per hole on the back 9.

Karen has taken up the game in the last few years. She is clearly an athlete, and drives the ball a long way. As she plays more, she will be good. She says that she expects to be able to play golf longer than her first love, tennis. And their frequent travel together is enhanced if she can join Ron on the courses. He just loves to play.

As we hacked around the course, Janie and Vonnie explored

Gibraltar. Driving there themselves was an adventure -- their first solo, as in no male driver. They claimed never to have gotten lost. But the Barbary apes made their days. Ron had been warning them to expect to have their food eaten, their jewelry stolen, and to develop flea infestation. But it didn't happen. The photos of the monkeys on their shoulders are the best of the visit. The Spanish seem resigned for the moment that the Brits will own the rock. It has 30,000 Brit citizens there.

The girls

returned shortly after we finished, which called for a long session for drinks and lunch at the golf course. The girls regaled us with the description of their adventure, and the jokes rained again. Our friends have begun to wonder what events or moments will make the Journal.

A middle-aged woman with a Scottish accent enters the conversation. She has attracted sparrows with potato chips, and asks us some questions quite charmingly. Later she returns for a drink after spending time at the pool. We speculate about her lifestyle, guessing that her annual nine months in Spain and three in Barbados for herself and her boyfriend are probably financed with a generous divorce settlement. My, aren't we catty?

We get back home without the difficulties of the trip in the morning.

Janie and I finally decide that we will take the car to Sevilla and the train from there to Madrid. But getting the tickets from the travel agent near the resort is again not so simple. We find from the German travel agent that we can get a senior discount. But we need both our passports, and mine is at our apartment. I could run to the apartment faster than drive there, but it is late and still very hot. It turns a quick stop for tickets into a 90-minute ordeal. The evening finds us headed to Marbella proper, requiring two cars. Karen guides me to the intended parking garage near the beach. Ron gets lost, though he denies it. He, Ed and Jane call us, but can't find the park where we wait, so we find them and share another drink. We wander some more looking for a

restaurant, but it pays off. We find an authentic Italian one, La Familia, which hits a home run for all of us. Ron and I have lasagna that is just wonderful.

What did we not do in our stay that we could have done? At least these: swim in their pools, ogle at the topless beach, go into the

Med, see Flamenco, and take a day that wasn't filled with activities.

Tuesday, June 28

Check in/check out happens simultaneously, given our activities and the reception office’s limited hours. We leave at about 10 to pick up Vonnie and Karen and get to Marbella to meet Leslie and her girls. I had hoped to play golf with the others, but that would have left Janie to do all the departure stuff by herself, and it would have prevented Karen and Evonne from getting to see Leslie.

In the garage we saw a full-size Chrysler trying to park. Lesson: drive small.

Jane and I use the stop to stick our toes in the sand and in the Med for the first time this trip. The water is clear and warm. We photograph a series of sculptures in the square by Dali -- a nice surprise.

We start the long drive to Sevilla by getting out of Marbella without problems. However the trip is longer than we expect. It is easy as long as we’re on the A4 headed north. We see many windmill farms, suggesting how far ahead of the US Europe is in sustainable energy development. But after getting closer to Sevilla it becomes clearer that our printed directions make no sense -- they send us to the wrong train station. Janie, following the directions wants me to go set on S-30, but I take us west across a fancy bridge into what we think is Sevilla rather than one of the other nearby towns shown on our map. Somehow, it turns out to be the right move. Then we stumble onto streets that we identify on the map as near or heading toward the station. We buy gas (another 58 E) and find the rental

car return area. That is the good news, and it is/was indeed good.

Unfortunately we then have to negotiate getting the bill adjusted. The clerk, who tries to be "nice" to a point, says there is no record that we are NOT to be charged for the car upgrade the clerk in Madrid gave us for no extra charge. We were to be hit for 120 E for five or six days of Eddie as additional driver plus the GPS, which didn't work after the first hour. She tried it, and of course in good Griswold fashion it worked perfectly. Came on instantly.

Ostensibly, she tried to call the clerk in Madrid, but after no luck over the course of 30+ minutes, we agreed to pay using an Amex card, so we could stop payment until we got a credit of about 60 E. We'll see if that ever happens. The line of a dozen customers behind us cheered our decision.

The hotel is very small, only nine rooms each with a name, not a number, connected to a famous bar and restaurant called Alabardero. We are surprised to learn that it is one of a family of such bars with one in DC that won a Washingtonian Magazine award as best bar twice in the 90s. (We'll find it at 1776 Eye St.). We immediately wish we had booked it for more nights. The building is old, but the interior has been recently updated. The room is on two levels, with couch and table on the lower.

With so little time to play tourist we had to set off right away for a major site, Real de Alcazar. The maps seemed to be clear about where it is. We delayed a little after seeing a Starbucks, but there was plenty of time before it closed. Again, that was the good news. The bad news was that we simply couldn't find the entrance. We were lost for a good half hour. A student with a densely thick Castilian accent pointed us in the right direction, but even then it didn't pop out. But having arrived, it pleased us tourists greatly.

My impressions:

- We are reminded of aspects of Alhambra. The biggest difference is that this reads as a single building with separate gardens rather than the multiple buildings/palaces at Alhambra.

- Again we see the mix of styles thru the centuries, as the facility expands and redevelops. As the control passes from Moorish to Christian, the Moorish style recedes but does not disappear.

- Even as the Christian kings and queens appreciate the Renaissance styles, the Moorish influence affects how the doors, entrances, and arches look. The use of painted tile is not standard Euro.

- Pedro I's throne room is very Moorish floor to ceiling. It is as elaborate as any room we saw at Alhambra. The carved wooden ceiling reminds his visitors that only God is above the king.

- The gardens are lovely but bedraggled in comparison to the Alhambra. Some features are similar including the use of water troughs and fountains.

- Changes have been made to the building even into the 20th century. The king and queen added the first tennis court in Spain in the early 20th century, but it is

no longer there.

Archeologists are digging out the first floor of the original buildings. The post-Moorish architects either covered the old buildings or simply built on the accumulation of debris. One visible garden was built on top of another that had a column-held roof, but this one seemed to have been there intentionally.

- The Spaniards do not mark their tourist attractions well. We wandered around the cathedral and the university before finally finding the small entrance building off Avenida Constitution.

We found our way back to the hotel in the stifling heat. The temperature was 38 or 39 C, meaning over 100 degrees. Sundresses and tee shirts were the

norm for locals and tourists. We had stopped for cold drinks at the first Starbucks we saw, and then saw two more in the next few blocks. We found a section with many cozy outdoor restaurants, and decided to return for dinner.

We managed to make it to the restaurant by about 10, again feeling very properly Spanish. The streets were busy, but not very crowded. We shared a salad and paella at a very modest price, and a gelato on the way home.

Jane hadn't been able to get the iPad to pick up the hotel wi-fi, and the staff couldn't make it work either. We tried a Starbucks for wi-fi, but it had just closed. The wonderful little computer seems to have more than its share of glitches.

Wednesday, June 29

Breakfast buffet in the hotel was certainly adequate. We were glad it extends to 10:30.

One of the front-desk clerks suggested Jane try to pick up the signal for wi-fi in a different part of the building. It worked. Later in the day we caught up with business things on the Internet and downloaded the Post. Yet!

The first order of the day was to visit the Cathedral. It has features that are simply stunning, and we spent a little more time there than we had planned. The highlight might be Christopher Columbus' sarcophagus carried by four statues.

We decided that we had time for only one more event, and we chose a stroll in one of the ubiquitous horse carriages. The driver, we are sure, took us to the cleaners on the price, but we could not have seen all the things in Sevilla in the relentless

heat walking around ourselves. The monumental Plaza de Espana and the public park were the best.

We checked out and taxied to the train station to catch the Renfe to Madrid. It was cheap and even faster than the schedule. We'll take this train any time.

The Madrid taxi told us the hotel was in a promenade that he couldn't drive in, so we schlepped the bags for a couple blocks. We checked into the hotel and got our bearings. We are centered between two major plazas in the middle of town. The hotel, Petit Palace (Posada del Peine), is not typical Jim and Jane -- new, post-modern -- in fact it is owned by a chain called High Tech. But it will do nicely.After freshening up we go on a hike to see the neighborhood. Plaza Mayor is old and huge, all cobblestone terrace and

four-story buildings on four sides. We find a tapas place on a side street and eat too much with a pitcher of tasty sangria, our first on the trip. (It will not be the last.). It also turns out to be a great place for people-watching.

After dinner we stroll around some more. The Porto del Sol is obviously the hottest low-life spot in town for both locals and tourists. Street musicians, protesters, pot smokers, beggars, and ordinary folks like us congregate en masse at all hours. There are at least six streets that feed into it,

plus a Metro station. We will walk thru it often over the next few days.

Near Plaza Mayor we find a modern all-glass building that houses a multiple-booth food joint -- a sort of Inner Harbor, but all run by a single company, MM. It intimidates with its incredible array of choices: tapas, desserts, beer bars, drink bars, meat shops, candy shelves, et al.

Plaza Mayor differs from del Sol -- restaurants, more traditional buildings, softer entertainment. The musicians and street performers are mostly a little quieter, and they come each day. One guy sits himself in a baby carriage and pleads for money, squealing when a tourist rewards him. Another performs as a statue like the superman in Piazza Navona who held the pose as if the wind were blowing him. As in del Sol, the streets come in like spokes on all four sides.

Thursday, June 30

The breakfast setting at the hotel is exactly the same as yesterday, right down to the placement of each item. One of the guests is wearing a sundress that is as revealing as any on the trip, and her size draws a chuckle. Shame on us.

Today is to be Prado day. We figure that we will take the subway, but the young lady at the desk suggests walking, and we do in the 100 degree heat again. We

see another Starbucks on the circle that includes the Thyssen-Bornemisza, two non-art museums, a Westin hotel, and the Prado.

The old building is massive, but new wings have been added to accommodate its huge collection. We ask for the printed guide in English. They are out of stock. Excuse me!? This is the biggest attraction in the city at the peak of the season, and you are out? We opt not to get the audio guide and take off on our own.

The exhibits go on and on, and we spend about three hours seeing hundreds of paintings. I am disappointed that I was not blown away. The Smithsonian, the Uffizi, and others are even more impressive. It will prove even less memorable than the Thyssen-Bornemisza. We buy lunch there and decide to do one more museum, the Reine Sophia, which is only a few blocks away and houses a famous modern art

collection. On the way we walk thru the Botanical Gardens next door to the Prado, which does not impress us.The Reine Sophia is housed in an old hospital on three floors of exhibit rooms. It boasts lots of works by Spanish and non-Spanish artists of the late 19th and 20th centuries. But the highlight by far is the Guernica. Picasso allowed it to be moved from NYC to here in the early 1980s, after the fascists were long gone from Spain. The museum must have more Picasso pieces than any museum in the world. It displays dozens of preparatory and post-Guernica anti-war works by Picasso. Janie gets tired of looking at the modern art, and leaves me to soldier on. But I point out there is an entire room of Juan Gris, and we go back to find it. We learn a lot about the differences of Gris, Braque, and Picasso in the early 1900s.

Tired and on art overload, we head back to Posada de Peine. We decide to find a close-by restaurant for dinner and settle on 4D, where we split a small pizza and paella. The next stop is the big event. We figure out how to get to Plaza de Espana (there is one in Madrid, too) on the Metro to Las Tablas, a classic Flamenco joint. As with Fado in Lisbon, we enjoy it immensely.

The show starts as billed promptly at 10. The troop consists of two dancers, two guitarists, and two singers, who appear to enjoy their work. The female dancer is 50ish and very fit. Her performances are energetic, and she is out of breath after each. Over the course of a bit over an hour she changes her dress at least three times. The man is younger, pencil slim, handsome, and has elegant arm

movements. These folks are very good. Both guitarists seem to be excellent -- we're sure Mark would approve.

At the end, the woman, who is clearly the star, introduces a couple in the audience, an elderly gentleman who is both a former dancer and the owner of the troupe. We had noticed that both the lead singer and the woman dancer had visited with them at their table near us. Janie, with my encouragement, approaches and sits with him after the show. He engages enthusiastically. Turns out he spent years performing in the States and has visited DC. He assures her that these performers are good.

We take the Metro home feeling like we have experienced an important part of Madrid.

Thursday, July 1

A bad night of sleep precedes another beautiful, hot day.

Today is visit-Toledo day. Janie has arranged to meet up with the Fells and the Strecks, who will drive to Toledo today. But first we walk to the Opera square and the Presidential Palace, the Palacio Real. It proves to be amazing.

Maybe we just don't recall it too well, but even the rooms in Versailles do not outshine this one.

The

sumptuousness of the entry staircase, the throne room, the meeting rooms, and bedrooms amazes us. Most rooms have frescos in the vaulted ceilings painted by the great Spanish masters. The rooms are filled with tiles, tapestries, paintings, ceramics, busts, and gilded and carved furniture. The kings seem to have had a thing for clocks, and there are many prized ones. The styles range from Moorish to post-Gothic to oriental to Rococo to Renaissance. The treasury contains massive gold and silver pieces. Even the armory is over-the-top with dozens of knights in armor.

Now comfortable with the Metro, we head to the train station for the Renfe to Toledo.

But the real story was getting the tickets. The directions about where and how to buy them were confusing even to our Spanish semi-speaker. One office required that we take a number and wait our turn. Our number was 646 and the number they were on was 505. Hmmmmm....We might get our turn tomorrow. We decided to try something else. Good thing. Another clerk told us the computer system was down. The line seemed endless at the ticket counter, but in half an hour we had our billets, and the train left on time. Couldn't really complain that it was an hour later than we had hoped. And the train is sooooo comfortable.We make the 2:50 train, which gets into Toledo at 3:20. I reject walking up the steep hill to town, and the cab drops us at Alcazar, which is a much smaller version of the Alhambra. As the travel guide warns, it is closed for major renovations, so the number 1 attraction is off the list, if one doesn't count the view of Toledo from the hills outside town.

So we find our way to the Cathedral, which by itself proves worth the visit. Toledo remains the seat of the Church in Spain despite that the government moved to Madrid 500 years ago. The Cathedral meets the Cardinals' needs.

Like the other ones we've seen throughout Europe, it has been added to, rebuilt, and renovated over the centuries. Part of it started as a Visigoth temple. The sacristy has about 20 El Grecos plus a Raphael and heaven knows what else. A multiple-story carved piece on the rear of the main altar is called the finest Rococo work in Europe. A gold piece -- I don't even know what to call it -- is too stunning.

We wander the streets of the western part of town toward the old Jewish quarter while we wait for Eddie to call to say that they have arrived from their hotel on the outskirts. We exhort them to drive from a parking lot down the hill to a place closer to Plaza Zocovacar. They do, and we find them. You'd think that the girls had been separated for years. Many photos later we find a restaurant for wine and nibbles. The jokes fly again, and Janie tells Eddie that she knows he missed her, despite his denials. They get more advice than Ron and Karen need about what to do in Madrid. After even more photos, we catch a cab.

We have the cabbie take us to Pandaras Hotel in the hills outside the city to see the view of Toledo made famous by the El Greco paintings. It is spectacular, but the Cathedral blocks the view of Alcazar.

On the Renfe and Metro going from Toledo to Porto del Sol takes 45 minutes.

We finish the day with a light meal on Mayor and more wanderings.

Now for overall impressions of Spain:

- Spain is simply delightful. We can't wait to visit the places we didn't get to see this time.

- The geography is varied and interesting, from the desert-like central area to the west-to-east mountains in the south to the sea coast.

- The history is captivating. The integration of Moorish architecture into the more traditional Gothic and Renaissance forms makes it more interesting than some other spots in Europe.

- Spanish history tells our very conflicted world that it is possible to blend cultures and traditions, that war and hate are not inevitable.

- Flamenco is very impressive, and it doesn't have the Freudian downside that Fado has in Portugal.

- Housing is high-rise, with the suburbs denser than the more low-rise central cities. Shopping patterns have been imported from the US. Jim Rouse-style malls predominate.

- The economic problems are not as apparent as in Portugal, but property values have declined hugely in the south. The number of Euro visitors during the busy holiday season is down, and it has to be because of econ circumstances.

- The church's and royalty's riches tell a sad story of the neglect of the populace at large thru many centuries. Somehow that story is more vivid in Spain even than in Italy. The good news is that the concentration of wealth gave us Velasquez, El Greco, and the dozens of artistic All-Stars from Italy and the Low Countries from the early and late Renaissance.

- For a while I wondered whether Spanish women and men were as attractive as I had imagined. In the towns the folks on the streets didn't dress so stylishly, and there were fewer head-turners. Madrid has many more attractive folks. Obesity is much more common than in other Euro countries we have visited.

- The art museums in Madrid are simply spectacular. The Thyssen-Bornemisza (see below) is perhaps the best we have ever seen. The Guernica by itself makes the Reine Sophia an essential stop in Madrid. The Prado is Louvre-like.

- After the disappointment of Portugal's food generally, we found Spain's to be terrific.

Saturday, July 2

The visit to Thyssen-Bornemisza dominates the day. We walk down expecting to stay a couple hours, as the Frommer's suggested, but the visit lasted for about five, and we could have extended. A hugely rich Euro family decided to sell its huge collection in the 1980s. The Spanish government decided to pay $350 million for it in a bidding war amid some national criticism. It then built the museum for an additional $40+ million, and it opened in the mid-1990s. Later the lady of the T-B family lent additional art to the collection. The paintings are wonderful, but the presentation and explanations and the depth of coverage of subjects are even better.

We found many of the old masters and others, but we saw wonderful works by people I had not heard of. Roger van der Weyden painted in the 15th century in the low country. Bramantino painted like the Flemish masters, but in Milan. Ghirlandaio trained Michelangelo in Firenze. A German master, Kulmbach (I'll have to tell my friend Kalmbach) could have been an Italian Renaissance master. The Dutch painter Kalf was considered the master of still life in the early 1600s. The fauvist painters Durian and Kirschner must have been favorites of the T-Bs. We saw painters influenced by Caravaggio, unusual subjects in paintings by Goya, Cezanne, Matisse, and Gauguin, and even more El Greco’s. We really enjoyed the Goya painting of the prelim to a horse race in an improbably setting. As you can tell, we had a wonderful time. Both the husband and wife philanthropists had life-size portraits in the lobby. They made all us viewers jealous.

We then wandered up to the famous Grand Via, expecting to find a major shopping area or something 5th Avenue-like. Not to be. But as we walked back up toward our part of town we passed a group of gays and lesbians coming from a gay rights parade of major proportions. Not exactly expected in Spain. They dress creatively, as in San Fran.

Our handy-dandy bank had decided to block my debit card, so I couldn't use the ATM. They thought that our buying things in Spain with the card might be suspicious -- only took them two weeks to notice. Great fraud protection. Fortunately we got Jane's card to work.

The final vacation event surprised us almost as much as the T-B and the flamenco. Our friendly concierge got us reservations at Posada del Villa. The maitre d' practically ordered us to order one of the house specialties, a lamb dish for two. It seemed like it had been cut for at least four, but we finished every bite

-- could have chewed with our tongues. He also picked a wine, a Rivera del Duero. We've already tried one at home. We love both the price and the taste.

We went to the hotel to pack and get ready for a very early cab to the airport.

Sunday, July 3, Heading Home

The cabby picked us up right at the door, unlike the guy who brought us to the hotel four days earlier. The second bag fit nicely in the front seat. We got the boarding passes expeditiously, but no business class this time. We expected having to pay a little extra for over-stuffed suitcases, but Air Lingus didn't seem to notice.

The flight was on time and easy. Lauren picked us up at Dulles, and the vacation was over -- altogether enjoyable, the more so for Evonne, Eddie, Karen, and Ron.