Arty

The weather has turned cool – highs in the mid-teens. The good news is, it’s sunny again (or was until this morning). It’s a little cool for the bikes, so we’ve just been walking, mostly in the centre. Good rambling weather, as long as you can find some sunny stretches in which to warm up.

On Monday, we walked over to Carmen, on a hunt for more of the recommended restaurants Karen has picked for our lunches out – a reconnaissance mission. The two we found looked good, closer to our style than the one we went to last week, with relatively inexpensive, multi-course menus del dia. Both are in fairly out-of-the-way locations away from other eating spots.

Apartment building on the edge of Carmen with competitive balcony gardeners

Along the way, we walked by the Torre del Quart again, one of the two surviving medieval gates. They’re so impressive, and seem to go all but unnoticed by locals. As always, we found new street art and, as always, I had to photograph it. It wasn’t a long walk, and that was all we did on Monday. We get lazy sometimes.

In the evening, the 2016 Blackwell Scrabble season continued. I haven’t mentioned it before to avoid embarrassing Karen. The fact is, I’m whomping her pretty badly this year. I fear my luck must change soon, though.

On Tuesday, it was back to the Centro Cultural Bancaja, the bank-run art gallery, for the rest of the Picasso y el museo exhibit. It’s mostly prints – etchings, aquatints and linocuts – inspired by the artists and subjects Picasso studied in galleries he frequented in Paris and Madrid. The prints are fabulous. I can take or leave his paintings, but the prints are something else.

There are so many in this exhibit, though, and so many with similar themes: dozens of prints, often riotously funny and brilliantly drawn, of artists painting nude models. In the exhibit’s back rooms – located there perhaps so teachers with school groups can conveniently edit them from the trip – are a couple of print series that go beyond the raunchiness of the artists-and-model scenes. Some are scenes in whore houses, inspired by Degas, but much racier than anything he ever depicted. Degas appears in many, usually standing at the edge of the frame, coolly appraising the naked wares on offer. And then there are some prints in a small, almost hidden room that are out-and-out porn, fairly hard core in some cases.

By the end of it, Karen and I were both thinking there was maybe a bit too much of a good thing here. (Perhaps Karen felt it more than I did.) 

  

Huge fig tree in square near centre - a three-frame panorama, the only way to get it all in

We did go out again in the evening after dinner for a very short walk, just as the shops were closing and folks were scurrying home or to the restaurants and bars.

Yesterday, we walked a lot. In the morning, we got going relatively early for us (before noon) and walked over to Rusaffa, the neighbourhood we stayed in the last time we were here four years ago. Our first destination was the lovely market there. It’s not as big or as architecturally impressive as the central market, which is a little closer to where we are this year. It’s still a good size, though - much bigger than the nearby Jerusalem market, for example - yet still has a nice neighbourhood-y feel. (There are fresh produce markets all over this city; the Spanish take their food seriously.)

We weren’t shopping this time, just walked up and down the aisles, ogling the luscious produce. As Karen pointed out, upscale markets always display their wares so temptingly. This market is more upscale than we remembered, in keeping with the neighbourhood’s ongoing gentrification. There were new specialty shops, including two selling bulk tea and one each selling Mexican and Japanese foods. (The only place we found to buy bulk tea last time was a very expensive shop in the heart of the richest shopping district in the centre.) But many of the stalls looked to be the same, including one in the middle selling take-away portions of paella. We really must try that one time.

We walked around in Rusaffa for awhile. Our other errand this day was to check on the progress of Fallas-related preparations in the neighbourhood. Rusaffa is one of the city's Fallas hotspots, and starts setting up early. Within a couple of blocks of our old apartment (a few blocks from the market), two of the most ambitious and richest Fallas organizations plant statues that are among the biggest and most elaborate of the festival. And the son et lumière show on Calle Sueca between Literati Azorin and Puerto Rico draws tourists from all over the city. The whole area ends up being one big street fair.

We were pleased to see workmen were out erecting the frameworks for the lighting. Excitement is building...

Street art in passageway by bullring

We went home for lunch and then out again in the afternoon around four – end of siesta; my, we’re almost Spanish now – and walked over to the Real Academia de Bellas Artés de San Carlos (Saint Charles Royal Academy of Fine Arts), the historical art museum. It’s across the street from the river, right at the end of the lovely Jardines del Real (Royal Gardens). The attraction of the museum for us, poor pensioners as we are, is that it’s free every day. (Most museums here are free on Sunday, or sometimes Saturday and Sunday.)

Detail from Bosch triptych no longer on display at Real Academia de Bellas Artés 

I was hoping there might be a special exhibit or two to view, but no such luck. It was just the permanent collection on display, and it appears to be pretty much unchanged from our last visit – except some rooms were blocked off for renovations, and at least one piece I had hoped to see again, a Hieronymus Bosch triptych of the passion of Christ, was missing. There are some nice Gothic church pieces, a special section devoted to native son Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923), a few fine Goyas and one good El Greco, all of which we dutifully looked at again. But neither of us was really into it this day. It’s such a lovely museum, but so much of the art - aside from the highlights mentioned - is dull and uninteresting. In my humble opinion.

We walked back by a different route, through the centre, through Plaza de Virgen. We poked our heads into the glorious Basilica where a service was on, and I took the panorama shot of the square (four or five vertical frames, stitched together in software). Note: you can click on the pictures to see a bigger version. Note 2: Blogger somehow makes all the pictures look darker - at least on my screen.

Near the central market, we happened to walk by a workshop where a guy was hand painting a Spanish-style fan. We’ve seen them in shops here, priced well in excess of €100 in some cases. For a paper and wood fan, probably manufactured in China. Still, hand painted.

Today the plan is to head back to Rusaffa market and actually shop.