Spain's Great Ideas: The Via Verde

Go to the light!

 Spain is full of great ideas - possession football, highway maintenance, tomato bread, and bars at kids' sporting events, to name a few. But perhaps their best idea is the Via Verde (Greenway): a network of old unused railway lines that have been reconditioned for use by cyclists and hikers. There are 2,200 kilometers of Via Verde across Spain. Businesses have developed to support travelers along the way. Former train stations have been turned into inns and restaurants. Bike shops rent bikes and transport cyclists to and from starting and finishing points. Best of all, no motorized vehicles of any sort are allowed.

Since they were railroad tracks, the Via Verde tracks have gentle grades and often run along river canyons. And the mountainous tracks have tunnels, sometimes dozens of tunnels in short stretches. Many of the tunnels have solar-powered, motion sensitive lighting systems inside. On a hot day riding through a kilometer-long railway tunnel cools you off faster than a leap in the river, and you aren't soggy afterwards.

Julie and I rode a 30 kilometer section in Tarragona last week, and we took the kids on a 40 kilometer section from Girona to the Costa Brava a few months ago.  A few more photos below.

Along the Ebro River.

In a tunnel.

Andalucia

A few more photos from our Semana Santa trip through Southern Spain:

Flamenco guitarist and dancer, Granada.

Walking on the beach, Zahara de los Atunes.

Sunrise, Ronda.

Looking the other way at sunset, Ronda.

Ceiling, Alhambra, Granada.

Alhambra by night, Granada.

Andalucia: The Cofradias of Semana Santa

We spent Semana Santa (Holy Week) driving around southern Spain. It was a wonderful week - we traveled with our good friends the Cullens, saw my fraternity brother David Hoffner and his family in Sevilla, and had a great weekend in Grenada with our old China buddy Willie Brent and his family. I'll post some pictures and descriptions in a few separate updates.  

This post focuses on the cofradias - the holy processions that take place across Andalucia during Semana Santa. The processions are run by different brotherhoods, which are something between New Orleans krewes and religious orders. The brotherhoods parade across cities in Andalucia, typically carrying either large floats (pasos), crucifixes, or both. In Sevilla, the processions can take as long as 14 hours, and there are often several going on at the same time during the week. The pasos themselves are huge, heavy, elaborate depictions of Jesus and Mary, sometimes gilded in gold and silver.

The members of the processions dress in traditional penitential robes and the tall pointed hoods known as capirotes. The capirotes were designed so that members can repent from their sins without being recognized, and were evidently the inspiration for the Ku Klux Klan robes in the US. For an American, this can make wandering Sevilla during Holy Week a somewhat creepy experience.  At several points we were literally surrounded by processions of hooded marchers coming at us from all directions. We were also lucky enough to visit the headquarters of the oldest cofradia in Sevilla and get a closeup look at their elaborate pasos. It's quite a labor of love and devotion.

A particularly bloody cofradia in Sevilla.

A cheery daytime cofradia in Grenada.

Soldiers prepare to carry the crucifix in a procession in Ronda.

A paso prepares to cross the bridge in Ronda.

An ominous cofradia in Sevilla.

Lindsay stands next to a paso in Sevilla.

 

Postcards from Venice

We spent last weekend in Venice. The kids have been wanting to see it "before it goes underwater", and Julie and I hadn't been there since 1994.

Venice is beautiful. It is a wonderful city to wander in, with surprises around every bend. But my overall impression was of a city that is living in the past tense, not the present tense (verb tenses are much on my mind). It's full of glorious palaces that are falling into disrepair. There are scores of gondoliers in traditional clothing, but few signs of any modern enterprise or business. In many buildings, the first floor has been abandoned due to rising water. Other buildings seem totally empty. The whole time we were there, I felt the sense of things getting old, of things falling apart.

I decided to create a set of pictures that capture that feeling, photos that look like a pack of old postcards. You know, the faded, scratched photo postcards you can sometimes find at flea markets or antique stores. A few samples are below, as well as a link to the full twelve-pack. These are all photos that I took last weekend. Read below the images if you want to geek out on the process to create them.

Tom's 2015 Venice Postcards - the complete set

Gondolier going against a headwind, Grand Canal

Quiet canal at night

Rounding a bend

Grand Canal from Pont dell'Accademia

For photography geeks only:

To create these images, I first tried to take photos in Venice that could have been taken fifty years ago, by leaving out modern street signs, tourists with selfie sticks, or other signs of modernity.

I then followed my regular photo editing process:

- copied all the photos from my data card to my hard drive (I took 283 photos over the weekend)

- imported all the photos into Adobe Lightroom

- selected the ones I like/would like to show (culled 283 images to 15)

- did first pass editing/color correction in Lightroom

- did additional HDR processing and editing in Photomatix Pro and Photoshop as needed

- created a final set of selected images in Lightroom

I then had a set of "clean" images - typically this is what I would save and show to people.  However, in this case I added a few steps:

- copied my clean images to my IPad

- converted to "antique postcard" look using two programs: Pic Grunger and Picfx

- compared the results from both programs and selected the best final images (down to 12)

- copied the finals back to my PC and uploaded to Flickr

What Do You Do All Day Long?

Since we moved to Barcelona last August, the most common question I get from friends at home is the one above - so, what do you do with your time? For a while, I laughed the question off or made some bad joke about sleeping in and watching TV. Finally, when my friend Micky, who is himself quite skilled in the art of taking time off, asked the question, I thought it might be time to come up with a proper answer. (At a minimum, when people ask me in the future, I can send them a link to this post.)

The short answer is that my days are quite full, and I'm never bored. At times I feel busier than when I had a paying job, and I have a host of long term projects on my list that aren't even started yet. Given that we've just signed on for another year here, maybe I'll get to some of them.

So, here is the list:

1) Day to day family support. To state the obvious, I'm not the only adult in our family "on sabbatical" during this time abroad. I wouldn't expect or want to take a year off from my career and not take on at least a little more of the day-to-day work of taking care of two children. I make breakfast almost every morning. I drive the kids to school and shuttle them to and from sports, activities and play dates. I still don't cook dinners, much to the relief of the rest of the family, but I do laundry and dishes and a lot more shopping than I used to. All this frees up some of Julie's time so she has more time for other interests as well. And lest I make this sound like a burden, it's the opposite. By far the best part of this year abroad is the opportunity to spend a lot more time with the family. I'm reveling in it.

2) Travel agent. I am the primary travel planner for all of the trips we take. And we take a lot of trips. Since we left San Francisco, we've spent almost 40% of our time on the road. We've traveled 45,000 miles in eleven countries. I've booked air tickets, train tickets, hotels, AirBnBs, bicycle tours, glacier hikes, and camel rides. It's time consuming, but we all love to travel and we look forward to keeping up the pace.  Off to Venice this week, Budapest in a few more.

3) Photography. If you have been following this blog, you've figured out that I like photography. I'm trying to learn a lot more this year. That has involved shooting during our trips, and a lot of time in the "darkroom" (i.e. at the computer) at home. I'm also reading a lot and taking some online training, and hope to start some workshops as well. Photography is changing so fast these days. It is very hard to keep up, and I'm just scratching the surface. 

Sunrise, Ronda, Spain. HDR of five separate images.

4) Physical exercise. Julie and I joined a great gym, where she plays tennis, I lift weights, and we both spin, steam, and relax. We mountain bike in the hills above the city, and we walk a lot.

5) Spanish classes and practice. Julie and I take Spanish twice a week. Honestly, I've been pretty lax about studying, but I do put in some hours.

5) "Mental" exercise. This is a more recent addition to the list. Prompted by Spanish friends here, and by having a teenager in the house, I started doing some reading about mindfulness and started meditating most mornings. I hope to work my way up to spending 3% of my waking hours meditating.

6) Tour guide. Thankfully, we are lucky enough to get lots of visitors and I love showing them this beautiful, fun city.

7) Tourist. Julie and I try to be tourists ourselves when we find the time, going to museums, biking, or just going out to lunch.

8) Everything else - the stuff I would do anyway, like paying the bills, managing the finances, figuring out how to spoof our IP address so I can watch the NCAA tournament, getting the car fixed - you know, day to day living.

For the first three months here, Julie and I both spent A TON of time on getting settled: buying furniture, getting residence permits, getting utilities in our name, finding insurance, etc. If you've ever lived in a country where you don't speak the native tongue, you know that this stuff is time consuming. However, it's mostly done now.

And, a shorter list:  What do I want to do that I haven't had time for yet? Well, I want to build a new website for my photos. I want to learn to surf (tweaked my shoulder so I had to put that off for now.) I want to write some things. I want to volunteer at a few places around town. I want to spend more time on Spanish. And I want to figure out what comes next in life.

That should keep me busy for a while.

Las Fallas: Mardi Gras Meets Burning Man

We spent last weekend in Valencia, Spain's third largest city, for the festival of Las Fallas. Las Fallas is kind of like Mardi Gras: neighborhoods around the city build huge and elaborate Fallas, which are cartoon-like structures that poke fun at politics and current events. It's also kind of like Burning Man: the fallas are on display across the city, but then, at the end of week, they burn them down in huge bonfires. It's also kind of like that scene in the movie Boogie Nights where a guy keeps randomly throwing firecrackers: all day and all night the city is full of kids (and adults) lighting off firecrackers and exploding things. At 2PM every day in the main square they have The Mascleta, where they set off enough firecrackers to shake buildings and set off car alarms blocks away, and at midnight each night they have a huge fireworks show. Crazy loud fun.

A few photos below, full set is here:

 Tom's 2015 Valencia Photos

Neighborhood falla.

Nighttime falla detail.

Valencia street by night.

Just a Little Bit Longer......

I've always loved David Lindley.  And to answer the question, yes, I think we will stay - just a little bit longer.....

Around the world in February: From Factories in India to Skiing off a Mountain in the Alps

We had a busy February. First, Julie and Leo were invited to visit India with our friend Astrid and her son Tjade, one of Leo's school friends here. Astrid founded a nonprofit that runs educational programs for girls and women, including programs in garment factories in India. The group spent several days visiting factories and schools in India, and mixed in some sightseeing in Kerala as well. It was an inspiring and eye-opening trip, further supporting the vision of One Sky, the giving circle that Julie helped found: that the key to peace and economic progress lies in tapping the potential of half the developing world's resources:  women.

Leo at factory in India (photo by Julie)

Not wanting to be to be left out of the traveling, Lindsay and I decided to do a quick trip to London while they were in India. We had a great time visiting the sights, museum hopping, and going to shows. Highlights included the London Eye, the Egyptian rooms at the British Museum, and the remarkable puppets of Warhorse, which we added last minute when we discovered it was playing around the corner from our hotel.

Aboard the London Eye (photo by Lindsay)

Lindsay at Matilda

We finished all that traveling just in time for "Semana Blanca" - the week-long February holiday here in Spain. Julie and Leo had 24 hours in back in Spain before we headed off for a wonderful week in Verbier in the Alps. So lucky to have great friends come over, including the Blachfords, the Raneris, and Claudine and Ian Ryan. Micky and Lizette were also in town. Eight children and seven adults for a week of skiing, sledding, Swiss chocolate, and congealed cheese. Pretty much heaven.

One of the highlights for me was watching my son, my daughter, and my wife ski off the side of a mountain (albeit with parachutes and instructors). I did briefly wonder whether it was wise to send them all off at the same time, but decided it was an apt metaphor for our time here in Europe. Strap in and go, and hope for the best.....

Morocco: Out of Europe

We landed in Marrakesh on January 2nd. After a twenty minute ride from the airport, our driver pulled into a dirt parking lot on the edge of the medina (old city). He piled our luggage into a pushcart, and an elderly woman in traditional dress beckoned for us to follow her down a narrow alley.

And with that, for the first time in six months, we left the elegance and modernity of Europe for the color, chaos, and liveliness of Africa.  We jostled for space down the narrow alleys of the medina with horse carts, families on mopeds, Berbers in traditional dress, and shops selling chickens, rugs, Moroccan bread, spices, and tagine pots. Entering the medina is like going back in a time machine, albeit one where Google maps still (occasionally) works.

Medina scene

Marrakesh is a great city for wandering. On a map, the alleys of the medina look like someone dropped a plate of noodles on the page, and there are surprises around every bend.  The Djemaa El-Fna, the main square in town, must have been the inspiration for the pop-up restaurant, as hundreds of eateries selling everything from couscous to goat brain to jus de pamplemousse are set up each night and then torn down by morning.

Djemaa by night

From Marrakesh, we traveled two days across the High Atlas mountains to Erg Chigaga in the Sahara, where we stayed at Nick and Bobo's Luxury Desert Safari Camp. There we rode camels, hiked up giant dunes to watch the sunset, dune-boarded down the same dunes, and marveled at the beauty and solitude of the desert. If you ever want to see the Sahara, go see Nick and Bobo - link below. A special place, and a photographer's paradise. There are a few more images below, and a full set up on my Flickr page.

Tom's Full Morocco Set

Erg Chigaga Luxury Desert Camp
 

The family agreed that Morocco was right up there with Alaska and China for our most memorable family vacation. The culture, the food, the desert scenery, the safari tents, and the warm Moroccan people combined for an unforgettable week. And since several people have asked - we felt completely safe during our entire visit, and found the Moroccans very welcoming and engaging.

The Kasbah de Telouet across the High Atlas

Camel at sunset

Hiking in the dunes

Sand dunes at sunrise

Family portrait

A Catalan Sunday

We had a true Catalonia morning today. We spent last night in the medieval town of Corça, at the lovely country house belonging to our friends Viçenc and Ari. 

Arch of Saint Mary, Corca

This morning we headed over to Monells, yet another impossibly quaint cobblestone village, where we had the traditional Catalan breakfast of eggs, bacon, tomato bread, huge hunks of sausage, and red wine. 

Breakfast of champions

When we emerged, engorged, from our feast, we discovered we were just in time for the Blessing of the Tractors. For a small village, Monells has a surprisingly large tractor population. Equally surprising was that Pope Francis made the trip all the way from the Vatican. I guess even popes like tractor parades. 

The papal blessing