Excited Spanish Travel, Rail Pass Matanza July 10, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Andorra, Europe, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Trip , 4commentsSix-thirty am. I’m already dressed and out of the couchette as the train slows to a halt in the darkness. Outside, nothing but gravel and a road on one side: on the other, the small halt with its sign L’Hospitalet and the bus waiting to bear us on the long winding climb, leaving behind an ever-lengthening panorama pierced with points of light. The snow stands in cliffs on the uphill side of the road, cut by snowploughs only hours before.
In Old Andorra, Peter is waiting with his Santana Land-Rover, and greets me heartily. Has there been a matanza yet? I ask. “There was one at Margarita’s on Monday. I think there’s another tomorrow at Mestre’s,” he answers.
Our goal is fourteen dizzying kilometres up into the Spanish Pyrenees. A community still living in an almost cashless economy, to a pattern already set in the fourteenth century. One of the last outposts of a peasant culture which is rapidly passing from the world, governed entirely by the seasons and depending little on manufactured inputs. (more…)
Hampton Court: A fine combination of the Tudor and English baroque styles May 26, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Embassy, Europe , add a commentHampton Courtis a very big palace — so big that it is quite possible for two people to have clear and precise images of it, for both images to be correct and yet for each to be totally different. It is possible to remember Hampton Court as a Tudor palace and to forget that, as such, it has lost all its state apartments. It is possible to remember Hampton Court as a great work of Sir Christopher Wren and to forget that as such it-is only a fragment of his whole design. Hampton Court shows us two architectural worlds, standing back to back, each robbing the other, but each so imposing as to carry absolute conviction.
The palace can be approached either from the Henry VIII end or from the William and Mary end. The Henry VIII end is near the river; seen across the water the palace provides the noblest panorama of Tudor architecture to be found anywhere, although the mind’s eye must supply many more lead-tipped turrets and golden vanes than are there now. (more…)
