Royal Guard

Looks like someone is just waiting to sign up.

Inevitable.

Yes, I've too fallen victim to the trend of over-processing my photos using clever filters that mimicked "old" styles of photo development.

But doesn't it look cool? (I suppose I should note, that this photo was altered by blurring the edges, darkening the corners and generously cropped to give the appearance of floating above the clouds.)

Face Value.

Not a metaphor. Not a winking comment at the intersection of history and development. Not a visual take on the way in which Spanish colonial heroes appear to be losing their heads, or maybe even drowning in a rising tide of revisionism.

I just like the orange and blue colors.

First Thing.

They say the hardest part about getting up early to run before work is just putting your feet and on the floor and deciding to do it. And oh, they are right. They are right. But my reward is a nearly empty Retiro Park and the chance to ponder this:

I have no doubt that this is a reference to a Greek or Roman myth, but I've not a clue which one. Rather, it means I get to spend the rest of my morning run imaging stories where the ending has a naked man reaching down into the stomach of a lion to retrieve a lost item.

Safe.

Due to the dire economic situation in Europe, banks have been making cuts in all departments. Here we see the new security guard at Banco Totta in Lisbon.

Don't touch the money.

Up.

For when one wants to go up a hill, but doesn't want to bother with walking up stairs. (And also, one needs to travel straight up in Gothic style.)

A bit more detail on one of the elevators in downtown Lisbon.

Sport.

You just point the thing at the flying clay thing and then pull the thing and that's it! Well, at least it seemed so much easier when Diego was explaining it.

And if none of that works, hey, we can all have drinks and meats while sitting in the midday sun.

Address.

Naturally, I had to go to the skateboard park to be addressed as Oye Tio, instead of the usual, Disculpe Sr.

Well Wrapped.

And then a mix of the new with the old. Here, a winery we didn't actually visit, with a roof designed to mimic the rolling wave of the mountainside.

And the spaceship that landed in a 16th century village? Frank Gehry's hotel and winery that took a few extra years to finish because the high winds in the region kept trying to tear off the metal roof pieces.

History on history.

Here amidst the early blossoms of a vineyard that was once tended by an order of monks, we wandered about and admired the coastal mountain range in the distance.

Just in case there wasn't enough history in one place, in the same grape fields that the monks watched over is a burial site from pre-Roman times.

Rioja Wines.

Oh, and that other thing that Rioja is known for? I guess it's the wine. The valley is set between a coastal mountain range that properly regulates the amount of moisture in the air, and a different mountain range on the south that helps regulate the temperatures from the dry plains, making the region perfect for growing grapes.

Wine tasting tourism is a relatively new concept for the area, but wine making dates back a few hundred years.

Not really a Hostel.

And after about four hours in the car, we came upon our hotel for the weekend.

A former monastery and now a museum, one wing has been converted into a hotel. The building is now surrounded by a small town, but one could see how it would be a very peaceful place for a monk to hang out and pray or whatever it is that monks did.


The view from our window. You can just make out a bit of snow at the top of the valley.

Aggies.

Just a few hours outside of Madrid and off the main highway, and things became, uh, rural very quickly. Not that these guys (and girls) seemed to mind one bit.

We later passed several very large bulls that looked like they could knock our station wagon over if they so desired.

Along the Way.

And so we took the road less traveled, and were rewarded with sights like these:

I'm not sure one would even call it a village, but just a small cluster of houses on the side of a windy road that leads down from one snow dusted mountain and then on to another.

Kids These Days

Back once more in Segovia, clearly my favorite day-trip from Madrid. Here, after a fantastic lunch in the famous Meson de Candido, the afternoon sun turns the aqueduct a golden color.

We were lucky enough to have our lunch while looking out the windows directly onto the aqueduct.

The restaurant was built in 1786, a baby compared to the aqueduct, which was built by the Romans sometime in the first or second century.