NEW YEAR IN THE BIG APPLE

MINUS 13º CELSIUS - DECEMBER 1996


"THE DRAKE SWISSOTEL at Park Avenue and 56th Street was for many times my home in New York. It was a quite nice European style hotel with a superb location. Last time in NYC I saw that there were works on the building, hopefully a renovation of the hotel. It would be a shame if we lose it as a lodging possibility..."



"DIM SUM AT 20 MOTT ST. - On Sunday, December 29, 1996, we headed to this Chinatown eatery, which used to be always crowded, for an excellent dim sum"


"CHINATOWN FISH MARKET, for the benefit of Ming the Merciless"


"DOM, West Broadway, where you'll find home furnishings and accessories that you just don't see anywhere else"


"CHRISTMAS TREE, Rockefeller Promenade"


"THE NUTCRACKER - George Balanchine's Nutcracker is a Christmas' must at the New York City Ballet! 2007 season is from November 23rd through December 30th"


PARK AVENUE at 54th Street, just two blocks down from the Drake..."


"42ND STREET with a view towards the Chrysler building. This picture was taken from Tudor City, where we stayed in 1979, the first time we went to New York (without the young lady, who was not born yet...). Other memories from that trip can be seen here, and here, and also here!"


"UN BUILDING seen from Tudor City"



"UN GARDENS with the Chrysler and Queensborough Bridge"


"METROPOLITAN MUSEUM"




"HAPPY NEW YEAR - On December 31st, 1996 we went to see "Cats" and then joined the crowd in Times Square/7th Av! The temperature was MINUS 13 Celsius..."



"BACK TO THE DRAKE - On the way back to the Drake, we took these two pictures at the Redeye Grill, home of the Dancing Shrimp..., and at Harley-Davidson Cafe"

POR TIERRAS DE CASTILLA LA MANCHA

TOLEDO - OCTOBER 1996

Toledo, the capital of the province of Toledo and of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha, is an interesting town located 70 km south of Madrid. It sits on a large hill, and is surrounded on three sides by the River Tagus. In 1986, it was included in the World Heritage Site List of the UNESCO. According to UNESCO, the reasons to include Toledo in the List were the following: «Successively a Roman municipium, the capital of the Visigothic Kingdom, a fortress of the Emirate of Cordoba, an outpost of the Christian kingdoms fighting the Moors and, in the 16th century, the temporary seat of supreme power under Charles V, Toledo is the repository of more than 2,000 years of history. Its masterpieces are the product of heterogeneous civilizations in an environment where the existence of three major religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – was a major factor». Many famous people and artists were born or lived in this city, including De La Vega, Alfonso X and El Greco.


"CALLE SANTA ISABEL - The old city retains its medieval road plan, with an irregular terrain and twisting streets. Here we are on our way to visit one of the must-sees in Toledo - the painting by Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco) known as «El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz» (The Burial of Count Orgaz), a masterpiece of painting! It's the biggest painting of the Spanish 16th century (4.8 x 3.6 meters). It represents an old legend: when in 1312 don Gonzalo Ruiz, count of Orgaz died, both Saint Stephen and Saint Augustine helped to bury the body inside this church owned by the count. The composition has two scenes: one terrestrial (the lower side of the painting) with the representations of contemporaries of El Greco (including his self-portrait and his son's portrait); and another celestial, on the upper half of the composition"


"CATHEDRAL - The Cathedral of Toledo, one of the three 13th century High Gothic cathedrals in Spain, is considered to be the masterpiece of the Gothic style in Spain. It was built on top of a Muslim mosque, and before that it had been a church in the sixth century during the reign of the Visigoth King Recaredo. Its construction started in 1226 during the reign of Fernando III and was concluded in 1493, when the vaults of the central nave were finished, during the times of the Fernando and Isabel"


"AYUNTAMIENTO - The City Hall, located next to the Cathedral, was built in 1575 when Baroque-style was taking over from the Renaissance-style. It resembles El Escorial as its builders were the same - Juan de Herrera, Nicolas de Vergara el Mozo, Juan Bautista Monegro and Jorge Manuel Theotokopoulos. It has two floors with impressive towers on each side with impressive spires"



"PLAZA and HOUSES - Toledo has several imposing plazas, as well as interesting houses"


"MONASTERIO DE SAN JUAN DE LOS REYES - An architectural jewel of the Spanish Gothic style whose outstanding features are the cloisters and the arched galleries. The ground floor houses numerous sculptures along with some fine carved stone reliefs depicting images of animals and vegetation. The upper storey has a richly decorated mudjar-style ceiling"



"MURALLAS - There were Walls to protect Toledo since the Romans and the Visigoth times, but the Muslims were those who, after capturing the city in 711, reinforced the old city walls to adapt them to their new military function as the frontier capital of the newly created Islamic State. The old Moorish wall still stands. It's still possible to see some remains of the Visigothic wall near the Puerta de Bisagra"


"BRIDGE - San Martin Bridge was built in 1203 to replace a previous bridge made out of wooden boats that was destroyed by floods. It too was partially demolished in the fourteenth century when the city was under siege during civil war in the Kingdom of Castilla but was restored shortly afterwards. San Martin Bridge has five arches and is flanked by two solid defensive towers with decorative facades"


"RIVER TAGUS, 1,038 km in length, is the longest river on the Iberian Peninsula. Its source is the Fuente de Garcia, in the Albarracin Mountains. After that, it runs through Aranjuez, Toledo, Talavera de la Reina and Alcantara in Spain, as well as Constancia and Santarem in Portugal to come to the Atlantic Ocean by Lisbon, where it has a magnificent estuary"

QUE VIVA ESPAÑA!

MADRID - OCTOBER 1996

Madrid is a magnificent city, with splendid avenues, superb buildings, incredible museums and terrific tapas bars. The only missing is water: actually, the Manzanares, the river that crosses Madrid, is far from being remarkable… Some say the weather is awful (nine months invierno (winter), three months infierno (Hell)), but the fantastic cultural life, as well as the glorious night life used to compensate everything. It started in the late 70s of last century, when Enrique Tierno Galvan became mayor ("la Movida"), and there have been several movidas after him. I don’t know how are things today (we are so close that we don’t go there that often, but I’ve to re-visit it one of these days), but meanwhile you can enjoy the different aspects of Madrid at the wonderful Dsole’s blog. It has beautiful pictures, much better than the somehow lousy photos you can find herein below...


"COLON - On the Paseo de la Castellana side of the Plaza de Colón, originally called St. James Square, there is a monument built in 1885 with a statue honouring Christopher Columbus, at the top of a tall column"


"CIBELES - The Plaza de Cibeles is a beautiful square with a wonderful fountain in the Paseo de Recoletos. It shows Cybele, the Phrygian goddess of fertility, sitting on a chariot and being pulled by two lions. On one of the corners of the Plaza there is the «wedding cake», a stunning building housing the headquarters of Correos y Telegrafos, the Spanish Post"


"REINA SOFIA - On the right hand side of the photo, we can see part of the façade of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid's 20th century art museum: the third location where I saw Picasso's Guernica. At the distance, there is the Atocha railway station where bombing attacks took place on March 11, 2004"



"ATOCHA - The old building of the railway station was taken out of service in 1992 and converted into a concourse with shops, cafés, a nightclub, and a 4,000 square meter covered tropical garden"


"PARQUE DEL BUEN RETIRO is a 1.4 square kilometre park in the city centre, not far from the Prado Museum. Originally the site of a royal palace built in 1632 that was destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars, it opened to the public as a park in 1868"


"ALFONSO XII - Within the Retiro Park there is a large artificial lake, next to which one can find the Mausoleum of Alfonso XII, featuring a semicircular colonnade and a statue of Alfonso on horseback on a tall pedestal"


"BOTERO - A nice sculpture from Fernando Botero, with the now renamed Gran Melia Fenix Hotel in the background"


"DON QUIXOTE - The most popular sight at the Plaza de España is the monument to Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, writer of «El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de La Mancha». Visitors get their pictures taken in front of the bronze statues of Don Quixote on his horse and Sancho Panza on his mule. Behind them there is a statue of Cervantes himself. At night one can hardly see anything; furthermore with such a lousy camera..."


"VELASQUEZ - In front of the Prado Museum there is a statue of Velasquez, anticipating Las Meninas"


"PLAZA MAYOR - I prefer the Plaza Mayor at Salamanca, but this one is also a beautiful squre!"



"AYUNTAMIENTO - Some VIP was supposed to be inside, as there were almost as much security people as normal pedestrians..."



"CASA DE CAMPO is the largest park in Madrid (1,722 hectares to compare with the 142 hectares of Retiro Park and Central Park's 340 hectares. It used to be the hunting grounds for the Spanish Monarchy until May 1st, 1931, when it was donated to the public, under the Second Republic"


"PLAZA DE ORIENTE - View towards the Royal Palace"


"ROYAL PALACE - The Palacio de Oriente is the official residence of the King of Spain, used for state ceremonies only. Actually the royal family lives at the Palace of Zarzuela, on the outskirts of Madrid"


"ALMUDENA CATHEDRAL"


"PRECIADOS - The Street had the same name as the shopping mall that occupied most of its space. Later, it became Corte Ingles, but La Oficina still had nice tapas. I wonder whether it still exists..."


"INTERCONTINENTAL - Lounge at the Intercontinental Hotel, Paseo de La Castellana"

TABLE MOUNTAIN VIEWS

SOUTH AFRICAN ATTRACTION - SEPTEMBER 1996

The flat-topped mountain named Table Mountain, in Cape Town, sculpted from sandstone, is South Africa's first tourist attraction. At 1086 m altitude on its highest point - Maclears Beacon, above the bay - it provides visitors with stunning views towards the city and the sea.



"ON THE WAY UP - The main feature of Table Mountain is its flat summit, which measures nearly 3km from end to end. It's limited on the west side by Lion's Head and on the east side by Devil's Peak. Devil's Peak gets its name from a legend related to Van Hunks, a pirate in the 18th century, who retired from his life at sea to live on the ramp of the Mountain. It's said that he spent his days smoking pipe, until the day a stranger approached him, and started a smoking contest, which would last for some days. Then, the smoke built some clouds and the wind blew them towards Cape Town. At the end, Van Hunks won the contest, the stranger revealed himself to be the Devil, and the two disappeared in a cloud of smoke. This cloud of smoke they left behind became Table Mountain's famous tablecloth..."




"ON THE TOP - Breathtaking views from the top of the cable station. The easiest way to get up is with the cable car. The Cableway was opened in 1929 and takes almost 600,000 people to the summit annually, on a trip which lasts approximately six minutes to the top"


"EMULATING ANTONIO DE SALDANHA, another Portuguese, author of the first recorded climb to the top in 1503"


"BEACH - Looks great, but it seems that the water is a bit cold on this beach..."


"ROBBEN ISLAND at the distance - 12 kilometres from Cape Town, the Island was for a long time a place of exile and imprisonment. It became mostly known for having been the home of Mr. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela during most of his 27 years in prison"


"TABLE BAY AND CAPE TOWN - Cape Town is a beautiful city, and one can enjoy it through the eyes of Kerry-Anne and Paul at Cape Town Daily Photo"






"ON THE WAY DOWN - Just enjoy..."