Sketches of Spain
Madrid was cold and gray and I was ill. The chill from the north winds bit through my thin, ill-packed clothing, which I feebly topped with a well-worn scarf, felt hat and leather gloves. It wasn’t yet spring enough to warm me in midday, but its imminence was encouraging enough for the buds to break, sending their pollen forth to lodge themselves deep into my sinus.
Braving it all, I took in a late morning breath of air in the park across the street from the hotel, discreetly exhaling a mediocre Moroccan smoke procured from a wiry man sitting on a bench at its entrance; a welcome greeting to the acres and acres of surprisingly kempt, green gardens. The center of this Eden was laid with a lake, reflecting the late winter sky, its hues the blues and whites of good English porcelain. Rowboats full of screaming girls snapping pictures of their pouts float unnoticed by young couples in traditional garb, sneaking away from their families for a rare few minutes of intimacy.
Pulling my sweater tighter, I walked a length of the city, past important museums with long lines of people accustomed to patient queuing; past cramped bookstores and deep scowls etched across the rugged jawlines of Spanish men, eye-candy all; past enormous facades of buildings hundreds of years old, their sheer faces propped up only by the steel beams in their backs, waiting for their modern guts to be implanted; ghosts of Madrid’s past fully present and integrated into its restoration.
Smack dab in the middle of Spain, Madrid oddly calls to mind Paris: stately architecture, large and well-considered parks and public spaces, quaint streets lined with diminutive cafes and boutiques. Indeed, this makes sense given that the House of Bourbon, a European royal house of French origin, has held a throne in Spain since the 1700s, with the grandson of France’s Louis XIV becoming King Philip V of Spain. His son, King Charles III of Spain was a tireless proponent of reforming the country into a great power, and urbanizing Madrid into a world-class city. On his royal watch, hammer was put to nail and marble expertly chiseled on many of the city’s architectural masterpieces, including the Prado Museum, The Puerta de Alcalá monument in the Plaza de la Independecia, The Royals’ Observatory, Conservatory of Music, and Botanic Gardens.
Never one to pass up the opportunity to look death squarely in the eye, I headed to the massive Almudena Cathedral, underneath which lies an even larger Neo-Romanesque crypt. Dating to the 19th century, the theatrically lit crypt is lined with more than 400 marble columns. The marble floor houses hundreds of catacombs, each slab beneath my feet noting the name, birth and death dates of its inhabitant. Aromas of white lilies placed in memory by those remaining mingle with ecclesiastical incense, the silence of the dead reverberating against the echo of my boots.
A short walk under gray skies found me in a tiny storefront café, which looked as though it had not been modernized since opening in 1839. Lined with unusual liquors and wines and pastry cases, I knew I had found midday cheer. Lhardy’s has a famed, old-school, white-table clothed restaurant upstairs, but its café was warm and quiet and lovely. The owner, a manicured older gentleman in a vest and thick tweed trousers, hovered anxiously while I coughed and wiped at my tearing allergy-tinged eyes, before wordlessly serving me a pot of tea, a tisane of dried Spanish herbs, accompanied by an entire jar of dark mountain honey. Two panellets de Pinyons appeared, small cookies made with almond paste and covered in toasted pine nuts, originally baked in the ovens of Spain’s Catalonia region and eaten to celebrate All Souls’ Day. The story, reiterated quickly in native tongue, only the briefest of which I understood, was something about children and marzipan and death.
I motioned to the wall lined with many bottles of a single vermouth, Lacuestra Reserva. Produced since 1937, the vermouth is made from bitter herbs and aromatic plants, which are cold pressed in white wine and then aged in French oak barrels. Requested neat in one of the thin crystal glasses lining the zinc bar, the first sip promptly warmed my toes. The second sip, a round mouth feel and length of bitter orange, stifled my allergies. After the third sip, I’d procured a bottle for my suitcase, along with a bag of the cookies and a jar of the honey, all of which were tucked into a cloth backpack adorned with the Spanish flag purchased at a tourist shit shop near the train station.