Caixa Forum Madrid opens major exhibitition on Eugene Delacroix

by Sean McLachlan on


Caixa Forum Madrid has teamed up with the Louvre and several other museums and galleries to host a major exhibition on French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix.

Delacroix (1798-1863) is most famous for his painting Liberté, shown above in this Wikimedia Commons image. This masterpiece commemorates the revolution of 1830 in which French king Charles X abdicated and fled to Great Britain. Absolute monarchy was abolished and a constitutional monarchy was created.

This exhibition brings together more than 130 works of the French master from all phases of his career and explores how he was inspired by Spanish painters such as Goya and later influenced Picasso. Unsatisfied with the artistic life in Paris, Delacroix set off to see the world and paint it. He was an adventure traveler in an age when that really meant something and many of his best paintings are of (then) hard-to-get-to countries. The painting below, courtesy Wikimedia Commons, shows The Women of Algiers in their Apartment.

Caixa Forum Madrid is an amazing free art gallery with three floors of exhibition space, a large bookshop, and a cool vertical garden in front. Visiting it is one of the ten best things to do in Madrid. The show runs until January 15, 2012. It will reopen at the Caixa Forum Barcelona in February.

Cider: Spain’s other great alcoholic beverage

by Sean McLachlan on

While Spain is justly famous for its fine wines, the country also produces an amazing amount and variety of alcoholic cider. It’s made almost exclusively in the northern four regions that make up Green Spain.

From west to east these regions are Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, and the Basque Country, which isn’t actually a country but that’s another story. This region gets a lot of rain and is much more temperate than the rest of Spain, so it’s a good place to grow apples.

Asturias makes the most cider, called sidra in Spanish. It tends to be sweet, crisp, and a bit cloudy. You pour it from way up high like I’m doing here. This puts bubbles into the cider that makes it a bit like drinking champagne, assuming you get it in the glass and not on your kitchen floor.

I’ve seen Bedouin doing this with coffee and they said it both cooled the coffee and added to the taste. Hmmm. . .perhaps aerating liquid adds to the flavor?

Galicia produces some fine cider as well, as does the Basque Country, where in the Basque language it’s called sagardoa. The region that produces the least in Green Spain is Cantabria, where I’m living. So little is produced that I’ve met Cantabrians who said I couldn’t find any here! Well, find it I did, at a little farmers’ market downtown. It’s pretty good, but I have to say that Asturian cider is better.

Northern cuisine uses cider in lots of recipes, including my favorite chorizo a la sidra, a wonderfully rich and flavorful way to harden your arteries. You can see some below in this Wikimedia Commons photo. So if you’re headed to Spain, keep an eye out for restaurants serving northern cuisine and try out the sidra or sagardoa. It makes a nice change from wine.

Yes, Food Week was last week here at Gadling, but we’ll still be bringing you tips about what to eat and drink around the world!

African music in northern Spain? Gotta love the global village!

by Sean McLachlan on


I’ve recently moved to Santander, a port in northern Spain. While leaving a major European capital for a small provincial city was quite a leap, Santander has an international feel to it that I like. Being a port, it gets immigrants from all over the world, mostly China, South America, and West Africa.

The West Africans are especially numerous. They man most of the Cantabrian fishing fleet and work on the docks and in industry as well. Sadly I haven’t found any suya restaurants, but I did get to hear some great African music. Last weekend there was an African jam session at a local bar. The band was made up of guys from Senegal and the Ivory Coast playing drums, a xylophone, and the kora, with a Chilean saxophonist thrown in because. . .why not?

If you’ve never heard a kora player, try to go to a concert. The kora is a stringed instrument from Western Africa. With 21 strings it’s got quite a range and sounds like a cross between a harp and a guitar. Check out this video from kora master Toumani Diabate explaining how it works.

As I downed a generously poured rum and coke while speaking Spanish with a bunch of South Americans and listening to West African music, I got to thinking just how mixed together we’re getting. This mid-sized bar in a mid-sized city after the tourist season had people from at least half a dozen countries and four continents. Everyone drinking, dancing, talking, and listening to music. Nice. Later I stepped out for a smoke (Spain started a smoking ban this year) with a guy from the Ivory Coast and another from Cantabria. We all shivered in the cold rain of autumn and complained about the weather. Well, two of us did. The Cantabrian didn’t grow up in Arizona or West Africa, so he didn’t see what was wrong about the weather.

It was the only disagreement I heard the entire night. I can live with that.

Hikes near Madrid: a new guidebook shows you the way (in English!)

by Sean McLachlan on

Every year, thousands of English speakers visit Madrid on holiday or to teach English. Most never explore the many hikes near Madrid, and that’s a shame. The Sierra de Guadarrama offers some challenging and varied routes, and the lowland areas of the Comunidad de Madrid offer pleasant rambles. One of the best spots is La Pedriza, which can be a tough slog and easy to get lost in.

One of the reasons these hikes go unexplored by visiting Anglos is that there wasn’t an English-language book dedicated to them. That’s changed with the publication of Take a Hike: The Best 50 Routes in the Community of Madrid. The book is the result of two years of research and walking by expat hikers Beau Macksoud and Cynthia Blair Kane, who also founded Madrid’s only English-language hiking group, Hiking in the Community of Madrid.

I’ve been on several hikes with this book and I can say that it’s accurate and clearly written. Unlike the book I used to hike near Faringdon, Oxfordshire, the maps in Take A Hike are professionally done and easy to follow. They look like they were adapted from Spanish government topo maps. I’ve never understood why some hiking guides think they can get away with sketch maps. In Oxfordshire it’s annoying; in Sierra de Guadarrama it would be downright dangerous.

Take a Hike offers a variety of hiking experiences for all skill levels. It also touches on the history and culture of the area you’re walking through, mentions any local festivals, and even gives you a quick Spanish lesson with a list of hiking and sightseeing-related vocabulary in the margins.

So if you’re headed to Madrid, pick up a copy of this, put the tapas and vino to one side for a day, and go Take a Hike!

[Photo courtesy Ediciones La Librería]

Hiking in Cantabria, Spain: my first day out

by Sean McLachlan on

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m no longer living in Madrid and have moved to Santander, a port in Cantabria on Spain’s northern coast. Cantabria is part of Green Spain, the area that includes the regions of Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, and El País Vasco.

This strip of land situated between high mountains and the sea gets plenty of rain and doesn’t look at all like the common perception of hot, dry, sunny Spain. Santander is only five hours’ drive from Madrid but feels like a different country.

The main things that attracted me to this region are the outdoor activities: the sea, hiking, and caving. It has a much lower cost of living than overpriced Madrid, which is good news for travelers as well as part-time residents such as myself. It’s also more social than a big city. Thanks to the friendly folks at Couchsurfing, I already have a couple of offers for hikes and a spelunking group I can join.

Yesterday was my first day in my new home. The friend who helped me move was still around, so after a glance at the map we headed out to the Parque Natural Collados del Asón, about 30 minutes inland and deep in the mountains. This park covers 4,020 hectares (9,934 acres) of the Cordillera Cantábrica and some of the most beautiful mountains in Spain.

The drive took us up winding mountain roads past sheer cliffs and forested hillsides. Nestled in the valleys were a few stone farmhouses and herds of cows. Tall peaks, some well over 1,000 meters (3,281 ft.), towered around us. This is one of the best regions for caves in all of Europe and I could see the entrances to several as we drove past. Some were dark holes high up on cliffs, while others lay at the bottoms of sinkholes by the side of the road. Many are open to the public and some even have Paleolithic cave art of prehistoric men hunting extinct animals 15,000 years ago.

%Gallery-134360%The village of Asón is on the edge of the park and surrounded by tall peaks. While this was the least remote part of the park, it felt truly rural. The village is only a couple of dozen buildings and the few residents we saw stared at us with open curiosity. We parked the car and chose one of the shorter hikes, an 8 km walk to a waterfall.

The path gradually climbed through thick forest and over a couple of streams. We passed only two small groups of hikers in the three hours we were out there and saw nobody else. We did have company, though, in the form of herds of cows and the biggest slugs I’ve ever seen. Check out the gallery for a photo of one of these monsters.

At the river Asón we had to hop from rock to rock using a stick to steady us. Once while doing this same stunt in Missouri my foot slipped and I fell headfirst into the water. The bottom half of me landed on a flat stone so I was only wet from the chest up. Luckily I didn’t embarrass myself this time and my camera survived to take shots of the waterfall just upstream.

As you can see from the photos, it was a stunning cascade hurtling over a sheer cliff. Vultures wheeled about overhead, riding the air currents and hoping one of us would conveniently die. The whole scene was so alien to what I’ve experienced in Madrid in the past few years–lush forest, cheer cliffs of gray rock, a mild temperature, and no people.

My friend looked around and remarked, “I think you’ve landed in the right spot.”

Yes, I think I have.

Several long-distance trails crisscross this park and I’ll be sure to explore more of them in coming months. I may not be back for some time, though, because living anywhere in Green Spain you’re really spoiled for choice. All of the mountains have trails and caves, and little villages have restaurants serving up local specialties. I’m also planning trips under Cantabria and will be writing up my reintroduction to spelunking in future posts.