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Every year at this time, London is a sea of red. To commemorate the end of the First World War, tradition has it that poppies are sold on the streets everywhere in London.

Practically everyone wears one, and it is almost like a pledge of allegiance. Even soccer players from lands that have no history connected to WWI, for two weeks in November, wear shirts that have the poppy sewn into the team colors.

Newscasters on TV are never seen without a poppy. It’s an amazing sight. Kids pin them on their T-shirts, taxis have them on their front bumper, and trains have huge poppies mounted on the front.

In order to commemorate 100 years from the beginning of WWI, London has put up a sea of ceramic poppies around the moat in the Tower of London.

More than 4 million visitors will have seen them by the time the poppies are removed and returned to the people who bought them. My mum bought one. She even went down to the Tower the other day to see the exhibition. It’s amazing.

The exhibit is called “Blood Swept Lands And Seas Of Red” by ceramic artist Paul Cummins.

The poppies are a symbol made famous by the poem “In Flanders Fields,” written in 1915 by John McCrea, a Canadian soldier.

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

To find out more about the historic symbolism of the poppy, visit the website for the Tower of London.

Turkish Air

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Turkish Air (www.turkishairlines.com) seems to have appeared out of…well, out of thin air. They now fly non-stop from many North American cities and in my case they offered non-stop service from Boston to Istanbul. The transatlantic flight has brilliant service and a premium class that is as good, if not better than most of its European counterparts. Though still not a part of the European Union, Turkish Air won Europe’s Best Airline from Skytrax Passanger’s Choice Awards for the past 4 years. And if you happen to be passing through they even offer a free city tour, called, Touristanbul (http://www.istanbulinhours.com/)for passengers with a 6-hour layover. Great name, great idea!

If you’re staying in country, chances are you’re going to be taking a lot of short flights to Antalya, Cappadocia, etc… The fact is that there is no train system and the distances are substantial. Even though the buses are fantastic, with bus attendants and food served, it’s just cheaper and more efficient to use Turkish Air. On the short haul flights the service is fantastic; you actually get something to eat on a one-hour flight and the flight attendants are actually nice – yet another reason to travel to this country.

Turkish Arrival

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It is at once an exotic place, a border country between Asia and Europe which has this veneer of Euro sophistication, spotty in places, but reassuringly there. Istanbul’s airport is actually quite a welcoming place. A fairly modern arrival terminal that has pretty much all the stuff that Boston’s terminal E seems to lack (shops, restaurants, Starbucks – anything that would make your journey more pleasant). The only hold up is the visa processing, which is done ahead of time yet still tacks on a couple of minutes to each passenger’s stamp of approval. I avoided the long lines by grabbing a fast track pass. Even though they should not have given it to me, the British Airways’ staff seemed quite accommodating, dishing them out like nobody’s business. Thank goodness, otherwise the line would’ve been a bit of a nightmare.

The drive from the airport into the center of town takes around 30 minutes, depending on traffic. And traffic indeed, is the first thing that awaits you in this mega-city of around 14 million people. It is the usual mess of airport sprawl that greets the traveler until at some point you have this sense of the city; the Bosphorus in the background, the great Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, and suddenly you’re in. One of my great wishes transferring from airports into town is to somehow whisk past all the ugliness and surface in the city itself. I guess I’d call that the London Underground and the Piccadilly line – where are they when you want them?

This place is so steeped in history and diversions you can feel it oozing from the buildings around you. This is after all Constantine’s capital, the first move towards Christendom and the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire. This was the center of the power of the Ottomans that stretched into the 20th Century. This is modern day Turkey, profoundly changed by its prophet Atatürk, and to this day a secular political institution with deep Islamic roots. Imagine this, it is bordered by Syria, Iraq, Iran, Bulgaria, Georgia, and Armenia. It practically touches the Greek Islands of Kos and Rhodes. It is economically more prosperous than many European countries, and is a key ally to the US. Its economy is booming and we need it to boom, we need it to prosper. It makes our world a safer place. My favorite hotels to stay at would be the Four Seasons Hotel, formerly the infamous Sultanahmet Prison; the Ciragan Palace Hotel Kempinski on the Bosphorus with an incredible infinity swimming pool that gives you the impression, God forbid, that you are actually swimming in the Bosphorus itself!

Istanbul for a 3-day getaway is absolutely perfect. It’s two time zones away from London. It has great restaurants, a fantastic nightlife, amazing stuff to see and buy and it’s kind of edgy. It’s a good time to go, to see a side of Islam that is not often portrayed. Good for the spirit, good for the soul and good for a better worldview of stuff. And incidentally, the Syrian border is nearly a thousand kilometers away!

We ended up at a hotel in Taksim Square. Being here is simply to take advantage of less expensive hotels and essentially it’s a jumping off point. There is a main street with lots of shops, bland restaurants and a San Francisco-type tram that goes up and down the hill. Taksim Square could be called “tacky” square, so it was fitting that our hotel was called, of all things, The Titanic (http://www.titanic.com.tr/). Maybe they hadn’t read the book, maybe they had seen another film altogether? We hoped our stay would be disaster-free! Check into the room and out on the streets, there is stuff to do in this city and I haven’t been here for a while.

I had not been for several years and so I immersed myself in re-sightseeing, refreshing or simply being in denial about my forgetfulness. The Hagia Sophia was closed the day we were there, so we took in the Blue Mosque, we went down to the cisterns and saw the Medusa, we spent some time at Topkapi Palace, which has beautiful views across the water and rummaged around the spice market and the Grand Bazaar. The city is tightly woven like a fine cloth, nothing is too far away from each other, and everything really, is on the other side of the Galata Bridge. The smells from the spice market waft through the air, mingling with the call to prayer. The guys selling tea on portable stands pop up like Starbucks and the Turkish ice cream guys play with the ice cream as if it were molten metal, drawing the tourists in – me included. Incidentally if you are crazy enough to want to go to a soccer game, the stadiums are in the center of town and Turkish fans make English fans look docile.

Hampstead Heath

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I popped into London for a couple of days, primarily to check in with mum and to do some other business. I love London! I had arranged to meet with her over by Hampstead Heath, a feast of childhood memories for me. Hampstead Heath is a real wonder in the center of London. It dates back to 986, was bought by the City of London in the 19th century and has been protected land for Londoners to enjoy ever since.

I jumped on the 24 bus and jumped off at the bottom of the hill that leads to the Heath itself. Unlike the Royal parks, Hampstead is a wild and rambling forest-like place, beset with a necklace of ponds nestled amongst the hills and valleys that comprise acres and acres of endless walking paths. My mum used to swim in the ponds of Hampstead Heath. In those days the ponds were separated into male and female. In these most liberal days they are now mixed! This is where Londoners retreated in the 17th Century to avoid the Great Plague. They even called one of the ponds, the “Vale of Health.”

We walked to the top of Parliament Hill, from the Heath side, and there was the view I almost remembered as a kid. The skyline has changed so much, modern buildings like the Shard and the Gherkin, provide a spectacular vista of the new London. London’s skyline in the distance, only 4 miles away and yet we could have been in another world.

Nowadays the houses that abut the ponds have this wonderful disheveled upmarket feel to them. The stately house of Kenwood serves as an anchor on one side of the Heath, while on the other is the running track and open air swimming pool, providing recreational space for London’s summer needs. I remember the fairs at Hampstead Heath, fishing in the ponds, long walks through the acres and acres of woodland and biking clear across to Highgate. All of these places became my backyard. We had no garden; we didn’t need one. We had Hampstead.

We finished our day at the pub by the railway station and I took the 24 double-decker back into town. I thought to myself what a wonder it is to have a space like this in a busy metropolis like London. There’s a whole debate right now about the new Garden Bridge project in London. On one hand you have the desire to protect London’s cherished architectural landscape, on the other hand you have the greening of London. The Garden Bridge promises to be an iconic tourist attraction and something for Londoners to enjoy as they cross from North to South on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I love this idea. It’s probably one of the most exciting concepts out there at the moment. It’s funny really. Hampstead was probably its inspiration.

The Device that Changes Flying

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So how do you really feel about being stuck in the middle seat of an economy section on a full flight with nowhere to go? Exactly – it isn’t fun.

Now there is an “anti-seat-downer” device called the Knee Defender that is being sold online and in retailers. By having the Knee Defender, you can walk onto a plane and know that the person in front of you cannot put their seat back to disrupt you. Just a few weeks ago, a flight was diverted to an alternate airport because of an argument that ensued between the person with the device and the person in front who wanted to recline their seat back.

So where do you stand? For me, I must confess that I have become a less pleasant person when somebody on a three hour or less flight decides to throw back their seat, choking off my space. This either causes me to create an inconvenience to the person behind me or have a horrible experience for the next three hours.

I have tried, I must confess, the knee trick. With my knees, I would give a nudge here, a knee kick there, and a nasty stare as I go to the bathroom. But all I really wanted was the person in front to turn around and say, “Hey, is it cool to put my seat back?” On some budget airlines, they have solved this issue by locking the seats. It’s all about reasonableness.

It is that strange thing that happens when people get on airplanes in overcrowded situations. Normal, rational people begin to inconvenience other people by grabbing any piece of real estate they can with their elbows and sometimes even sticking their bags over in your foot position. My two cents is that this is not a luxury experience. We are all in this together and if we work as a team, everybody’s life will be made less unpleasant over the two or three hours that we have to endure bad food, bad service, an overheated cabin, and a journey that, if we could take a high speed train, we most certainly would.

Am I thinking of getting a device? No. Do I have some sympathy for the people who try to defend their position? Absolutely. And the jury is out on this, incidentally. Even my brother’s girlfriend seems to think that it’s okay to throw your seat all the way back on a short flight. Not to offer a knee jerk reaction necessarily, but breathe, do yoga, or anything. Just please do not put your seat back.

Tough Connections

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Ever wondered how your life could get worse in an airport as you connect between planes? Well guess what, it just did.

American Airlines is deliberately spacing flights closer together. The reason being economics. They are loading more and more flights into their schedule. Making tough connections more common among travelers. The peaks and valleys that airlines shunned are now being embraced. Bottom line, if you fill more seats, have more flights, make more money, and create more margins, you can succeed in an industry that is plagued by non-profitability and loss.

For the poor traveler facing inevitable delays as planes are bunched up in the air, and terminal hubs become choked, it just means that you need to put your skates on to connect between flights and terminals. Will that mean that the minimal connection time will go down? You bet.

The airlines are gambling that they can fill their planes to optimal levels, and if one or two of us are left behind, no worries, there will probably be a plane six hours later! On the other hand, the airports, if all goes well, will sell less paraphernalia to us. You can bet your life that you are going to have to abandon the Starbucks coffee and the inevitable twenty minute line. So the shops will lose what the airlines might gain and passengers will just sweat a little bit more than they used to!

Logan’s Terminal E

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It is getting ridiculous over at Terminal E at Boston’s Logan Airport. I truly love the fact that more and more international flights are using Boston as a main hub. As a Boston resident, it means that I can fly non-stop to a lot more international cities.

But has anybody looked at the load factors in Logan’s Terminal E on any incoming busy afternoon and wondered why there is a two and a half hour line to get through passport control? It’s crazy!

This is “Welcome to the USA” time – the moment when we are supposed to, as a country, make a good impression and provide a friendly welcome, and in a place that is supposed to be an icon of efficiency. However, we are looking like a third world hub with a grubby terminal, overworked immigration staff, and no place to sit down as you wait for two hours for one of the five or six planes to clear through.

The other day I saw an elderly couple, who had not had the foresight to ask for wheelchair assistance, look like they were about to pass out in the non-air-conditioned cube en route to one of the first waiting stages before you even got a glimpse at your final immigration destination.

Unfortunately, for non-US citizens, there is no way out as Terminal E has simply maxed out. For US citizens, my only advice is to sign up for Global Entry. The entry scoots you through the process in minutes rather than hours.

For more information on Global Entry go to www.globalentry.com and for any overseas citizens, good luck!

The Traffic Cop’s Symphony

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I could not resist stopping the car and asking the guy standing in the middle of the traffic circle a question.

I wasn’t really lost but honestly it was like I had rediscovered an old friend.

There he was with his gloves on, conducting traffic, no traffic lights to bother him, and the cars, even in this chaotic country, obeyed his every move. There was a guy, whom I recall with fond memories, that stood on a podium at the end of the Via del Corso and the start of the Piazza Venezia in Rome. He wore white gloves, a very white uniform, and conducted the traffic as if it were a symphony.

The Vespa’s and motorbikes would stop at his every whim. Then a glance and a finger pointed and in one fell swoop he would start the traffic flow from one street and stop the flow from another. I always imagined that the cars and scooters were parts of his orchestra. Everybody would obey. A tilt of the head, a look away, a hand to halt an ongoing flow of traffic, and all in constant movement, exhausting, artistic, and beautiful. The Traffic Cop’s Symphony.

I do not see him anymore but in Turin that day, I saw a glimmer of hope.

Merano and the Sud Tyrol

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It is one of those wonderful Italian moments that you pick up in Northern Italy.

You are driving along the Autostrade, stopping at an auto grill here or an auto grill there, the bathrooms are okay but not brilliant, but the further north that you go, you start to see the signage change.

If you trace the River Adige to its source high up in the Alps, you suddenly uncover a different Italy — Austrian Italy. The signs are in German, the bathrooms are perfectly spotless, and everything is organized. Plus you even get a few Alps thrown into the scene so you know that you are close to Switzerland.

At Bolzano, which is home to the now famous 5,000 year old man, named Ötzi, I chose to take the Autostrade to Merano situated in the Italian Alps and specifically not in the Dolomites which are on the other side of the ridge near Bressanone and Ortisei.

What an incredible place Merano is. First of all, it is the apple capital of Europe. I have never seen so many apples in my life. There are fantastic wines around here as well, notably the white wines. Because of the thermal springs in the area, it has become a world-famous spa resort made famous by the Empress Elisabeth of Austria during the great Hapsburg reign. Nowadays there is a large, modern spa (not offensive) near the center of town on the Passer River. It is great fun with the kids or on a rainy day as there are a series of huge hot baths both indoor and outdoor.

Everything is terribly well organized as it would be in the Sud Tyrol. From the baths, you can stroll through the lanes along the river front to the castle. There are also the most famous botanical gardens in all of Europe just outside of town.
The town itself boasts several fabulous restaurants. Scattered in the hills around the town are standout resorts – some of them with Michelin-starred chefs. My hotel, the Castel Fragsburg, had amazing food, a brilliant chef, and I could not resist the spremuta of apples and celery with olive oil for breakfast in the morning.

About a 10 minute drive from the hotel is where you can pick up the cable car called the Merano 2000. It takes you up to around 10,000 feet and from there you can bike or hike with views across the Alps and the Dolomites in the distance.

This place is amazing. It is an hour and a half from Innsbruck, Austria and three hours from Munich, Germany. You can visit Ötzi in Bolzano or discover the Dolomites on the other side of the valley. It takes an easy three hours from Venice. All you do is take the Autostrade all the way to Verona and then head north.

For my two cents, during the heat of an Italian summer, you cannot beat the diversity and openness of the Italian Alps and Dolomites. There is plenty of sunshine, clean air, fabulous food, and everything works. The Italy of dreams, Merano and the Sud Tyrol!

Does Size Matter?

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Does size matter? according to Emirates airlines, it sure does. They have staked their airline on the A380 Airbus. A larger than life plane with a seating capacity of 460. Its wing span is 54% larger than a Boeing 747 and yet it is super efficient. With 320 miles of wiring inside the plane, it is also super state of the art technology. Add to that a comfort cabin that boasts in first class a shower and discreet sleeping and you get the picture.

So, why are BA and most other airlines not buying the Airbus and why is the A380 not realizing its early potential? Because BA sees the future in the Dreamliner 787. A smaller and more cost effective plane with 214 seating capacity and the ability to travel long distances and land in smaller hub cities. Add to that a fleet of 777 and you can see that nobody at BA is craving the move for a monster plane.

Emirates is dreaming that Dubai will become the new world hub of all routes to Australia and the far East. But from the USA, nobody is going that way, and from Europe, the traffic to Dubai may not be able to sustain a full plane of business travelers on such a grandiose scale. Did Emirates gamble wrong? Maybe. But as Emirates is wholly owned by the government of Dubai, I am sure that at least for the time being, the money is not going to run out. And at least they haven’t been so foolish and made a bid to bail out Alitalia which is still shopping itself around. Etihad didn’t take the bait. Oh well.

The Redentore Festival

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I had never been to Venice during the sildenafil citrate 100mg viagra generika Festa del Redentore. It is quite a spectacle. Historically, the Redentore Festival is a celebration of the end of the 16th century plague when 50,000 Venetians died. The Santissimo Redentore Church, on the Giudecca Island, was designed by Andrea Palladio as a mark of thanks by the survivors of the plague. It is a remarkable sight from across the bay. The celebration takes place on the third Sunday in July. As with all ceremonies in Italy, it has taken on a festive air in spite of its melancholy origins. It is basically a party. On the day that I was there, the weather was beautiful and warm and Venice already was bustling with its fair share of tourists. Add all of the locals to this mix as well, along with colored garlands, balloons, and makeshift restaurants around the waterfront, and you have a fun atmosphere. There literally are hundreds and hundreds of boats that come into the water that separates Santa Maria della Salute from the Redentore Church. A pontoon bridge is created to connect one island to another as it has been the way for hundreds of pharmacy online viagra years. At the magic hour of 7:00 pm on the Saturday evening, the bridge is opened. The bridge remains open until the fireworks at 11:00 pm which incidentally last a full hour and are shot into the night air from a string of pontoon boats which sit equidistant from San Marco and the Giudecca. It is semi-casual. People probably get too close to the firework pontoons and goodness knows where the rockets end up landing but no one gets hurt and everyone has fun. There is an absolute festival atmosphere both on sildenafil 20 mg tablet the water and in the restaurants and bars that dot the perimeter of the Giudecca and the boardwalk beyond San Marco and down towards the Arsenal. At the end of the fireworks, a siren blows, the boats all free cialis coupon head back to their homes (probably at the Lido or beyond), and the bridge is open again until sunset of the following day. The Lido becomes party-central and restaurants and bars stay open until the sildenafil 100mg chile dawn. The magical 24 hour bridge that connects the Giudecca for a single day in the year is taken down and on Monday the steady stream of traffic flows along the canal once more. It is ironic that the Santa Maria della Salute, a beautiful Baroque church that sits facing Piazza San Marco, was also built to celebrate the end of another plague in nearby Mantova. A ceremony celebrating this church takes place in November and is also symbolized by the joining of the Campo Santa Maria del Giglio to La Salute by a pontoon bridge. Sometimes there is nothing like a plague to inspire great architecture and a fantastic party.

The Secret Life of Bees

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I paid a visit to Rick and Nancy’s farm, Bear Meadow Apiary, in Ashfield, MA the other day. They keep chickens, grow vegetables, and also have a bunch of bee hives. Rick spends most Saturday’s educating me about bees at the farmers market, pointing out the difference between bumblebees and honeybees, and explaining his current housing arrangement for the bees. On a weekly basis, he gives me updates on what is going on in the hives.

On this day in particular, I was specifically heading there to get a look inside the kingdom of the honeybees.

As it turns out, each of Rick’s hives has between 30,000 and 50,000 bees living inside. The bees in the hive are devoted entirely to providing for the queen whose job it is to keep producing bees and sustain a stable population.

The players inside of the hive all have a role.

Firstly, meet the drones – the male bees. These guys do nothing at all except impregnate the queen bee. It is a one off job and once they perform, they die. This is not from exhaustion incidentally; I will leave the rest to you. There are about 200 of these guys hanging around. Once their queen bee is impregnated, the rest of them sit around the hive drinking beer and watching TV. Once a day, they go to “a drone congregation center” (I am not kidding) looking for suitable brides to mate with. They mate in the air incidentally…a bit like the “mile-high club”. If they happen to get lucky, then they do not come back but if not then they return to the hive to eat more potato chips and just hangout.

Meanwhile, there are sentries on duty to stop intruders from other hives from stealing their honey. This stuff does actually happen. It goes something like, “Halt! Who goes there and who is your queen?” The wrong answer means you cannot come into the hive.

Then there are the bee-bread makers who make a bread-like substance from the pollen and the nectar which will serve to sustain the entire population of the hive. In addition, there are a large amount of worker bees who create the honeycombs.

Only a super elite core of bees are allowed to fly everyday across the countryside while caressing the flowers, scraping the pollen, smelling the roses (as it were), gliding through lavender fields, and making our flowers more beautiful and faster-growing.

Rick splits the honey with the bees. He has a deal with the queen. They produce about 70 pounds of honey per hive each year. This gives him enough honey to sell and the bees enough honey to feed on and the queen enough honey to stay happy; believe me you need to keep the queen happy.

The queen has a lifespan of over three years while the other guys in the hive only get to see around three months of life. Rick had actually brought in some Russian queens which cost him a sizable chunk because of a disease infiltration with his home bread queens. The Russian queens came “pre-loaded”; even less work for the drones to do.

Today, I climbed into a bee suit and walked into this holy empire to visit each hive while looking for the queen. In addition, Rick was trying to make a new queen from some of his good bees. Would I be able to see a new queen? Would I survive my first incursion into the Red Zone?

Although slightly concerned that a bee would penetrate my outer layer, I was reassured that it would not happen. Rick told me that bees essentially do not sting. They give you warning signals.

They first turn on their buzz and start buzzing around you if they do not want you to be near. If that does not work then they start hitting you by flying straight into you as a second warning. If that does not work, then frankly it is a lose-lose situation because they now have to assume that you did not get the message and they are going to have to sting you. That means that they die and you have to seek medical attention. Chances are that that will not happen but…better to not take chances.

Anyhow, today I got to see a queen bee made. It was an incredible moment inside of the bee hive. The queen bee came out from her overly-large pod. The deal was he had six female bees he was trying to make a queen from. The first one out of the pod would kill the others because there can only be one queen. It is a tough world in the hive and it’s not easy unless you happen to be one of the short-lived males.

Beehives are filled with life. There is a police force, there are workers, there are artists, and there is a boss. If everyone plays by the rules, there is lots of honey for everyone, our flowers get pollinated, our gardens look beautiful, and all is well (i.e. a Bull Market). However, as in life, every now and again someone will screw it up. Bears like honey too (i.e. a Bear Market)! Such is life.

The Ups and Downs of Spending Miles

I have more airline miles than I need. Nearly 2 million. But I have a suspicion that my miles are going to be ripped away from me or I will throw them away on a ticket that is better paid for with cash. How could that be? You can always use miles to book hotels, upgrade your flight tickets, and even cash them in to get rewards.

Take the other day when I was trying to book a round trip flight from Boston to Rome for my wife using my miles. There is great flexibility with leaving from Boston because British Airways has four flights daily to London, however there was limited availability. To buy the ticket with points, the cost was 330,000 miles. In dollar terms, that means it would cost me $330,000 worth of purchases to get this ticket. I ended up buying the ticket instead for $1,800. My dilemma was that I could not bear the thought of losing a huge portion of my miles or $330,000 worth of purchases to buy a ticket that would actually only cost me $1,800 and give me no miles because the ticket was not mine.

I have an Irish friend who lives two doors down from me and he is an absolute expert on miles. He buys everything with miles but travels tactically off-peak and uses miles only to upgrade. Therefore, he picks up the miles for his current itinerary and uses very little miles to upgrade to a different class of service. He seems to never run out of miles as he constantly replenishes his miles with his paid ticket and offsets the upgradeable miles used with the new miles coming in.

He has explained this to me many times, and maybe it is just my bad luck, but every time I try to follow his procedure, I find that I have the wrong date or availability is blocked. In other words, if you have flexibility, you can absolutely play the miles game. Incidentally, miles now are increasingly based around price not distance. Maybe these are just the ups and downs of spending miles. If you are traveling on a cheap fare to a transatlantic destination, consider that the mileage benefit will be negligible. His main advice was that if you need to top your miles off quickly, go to California for the weekend! If you invest $1000 in a round trip ticket, then you will have created a jump into another tier and a business class upgrade to most places in the world.

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on using miles, I would love to hear them!

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Andalucía

Not to flog a dead horse, but the sheer delight of travelling by train in Europe never grows old. I jumped into a taxi and headed to the Atocha train station to catch the AVE to Seville. Atocha is quite a delight. Nestled between the museums in a busy intersection, it has a lush tropical garden with hundreds of tiny turtles paddling about their day. The AVE takes around two hours and fifteen minutes and stops at the beautiful city of Cordoba en route. Cordoba is famous for its Mezquita; the mosque within a church.

On the way down to Andalucía, there are orchards upon orchards of oak trees. These are not the oak trees of northern Europe, but rather Spanish oak trees which are smaller and provide the fruit of the acorn that is fed to the pigs that gives us the veritable jamon pata negra. There are also no shortage of almond and olive trees that populate the landscape as the train speeds towards its destination.

My final destination was Seville. Here in the Santa Cruz area you feel the power of Andalucía which to my mind is one of the most important regions in Spain. Spanish traditions are bred here. Flamenco was born here. The colors of Andalucía, the ornate tiles, the whitewashed villages, the evidence of a once great and powerful Islamic influence, all hang in the air as does the scent of jasmine and orange blossoms that float around the Alcazar.

We had arrived during the Semana Santa, the Holy Week. The city had this electric atmosphere as various neighborhoods participated in their own homage to Christ through the processions that took place every day, almost every hour, and throughout the night. This truly provided a colorful and yet bizarre backdrop to this already colorful city. The procession of pasos, floats of lifelike wooden sculptures of individual scenes of the Passion, or images of the Virgin Mary showing grief for her son, are masterpieces of art and sculpture. The penitential robes and hoods and the brass bands all add to this spectacle. It is like something that you have never seen before. On this beautiful spring day the crowds surrounding the procession were particularly vibrant. Even the taxi driver had the processions on the radio as if he was listening to a soccer game.

We drifted over to the river (avoided more churros) and headed to a restaurant that was tucked behind the Macarena Hotel. Tomorrow morning I would return to Madrid wishing that I could have stayed longer.

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Chocolate con Churros

It wasn’t that I had had enough of Madrid. I had spent my first night doing a tapas route while bumping into a bunch of teachers that I knew. As is the way, I ended up at the Chocolateria San Ginés, a café on Pasadizo de San Ginés in Central Madrid and is close to the Puerta del Sol. This is the stuff that dreams are made of. All of that work in the gym, the yogurt for breakfast, and the carrot smoothies with kale for your midday fare are undone in a matter of moments.

The churros here, essentially just deep fried batter, sort of like a donut but linear in shape, are always served piping hot. You just have to dip them into your own personal mini vat of hot, thick, chocolate. This place is open 24 hours per day so if you have one of those :Chocolate con Churros” cravings, no worries, just pop on over. They are always there for you.

After the various savory tapas that preceded this extravagance, you can safely say that there was no longing for something extra at the end of the evening. Happily I went on my way through Madrid’s ever busy streets late at night while imagining how many miles I would have to run in order to pull back the decadent gains made at San Ginés. Tomorrow I had decided to get out of town and head to Seville. Churros can do that for you.

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Chocolate con Churros