Leipzig, Germany

My last day in Germany was one of the best. A sunnier, happier day I've rarely had. R, R2 and I took the high-speed train from Berlin; along the way, R2 and I OD'd on sugary German pastries while R worked on his laptop. At Leipzig's pleasant if enormous train station we met R's really lovely friend L, who walked us around the city center. Leipzig was how I imagine old Germany, far more so than ultramodern Berlin: clock towers and gabled houses and markets in the town square. Sort of Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. We saw St. Thomas Church and Auerbachs Keller, a restaurant where Goethe set a scene from Faust. In one mall, we saw--I don't know what it's called--a metal pool, of Chinese origin I believe, with brass handles on the sides about shoulder width apart. By gripping the handles and rubbing them in just the right way, you could cause the water to ripple hypnotically and generate a weird bone-shuddering sound. R loved it. Also in Leipzig: nude mannequins in storefronts, advertising sunglasses.

We had a scrumptious lunch in a "student-y" place recommended by L, with seating in an outdoor patio. Then we rented some bikes for the day, which turned out to be a great call: biking was a fantastically easy way to get around in Leipzig, and there were usually far more bikers than motorists on any given street. The four of us rode over to L's apartment, where we drank tea and viewed various YouTube videos concerning Snuggies.

Our strength recovered, we rode over to the river to rent a boat. As it turned out, we were the worst rowers on Earth; our poor vessel went zigging and zagging from one bank to the other making precious little progress. (I am confident the restaurant patrons watching us from a balcony on the bank were greatly amused by our antics.) In our defense, I think that there was something wrong with that boat. Happily, we weren't in any particular hurry and could just enjoy the beautiful day on the water.

We then went back to L's and ate delicious cake from the bakery next door to her house. Next, we biked out to see a famous monument to Napoleon and the Battle of Leipzig. I was impressed-- that thing was massive! A tall sandstone monument, high on a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside, very Masonic in style and fronted by a long pool that reminded me of the reflecting pool in Washington, DC. Bordered by woods and mellowing in the twilight, it struck me as a wonderfully peaceful place. Afterward, we enjoyed another amazingly good meal at another little place recommended by L, in a pretty neighborhood. We all agreed that Leipzig seemed like a great place to live. Afterward, L and I saw the boys off at the train station and left our bikes at a drop-off point there.

What a wonderful day--great weather, great town, great food, great company. A really nice last day of all my travels!

Potsdam, Germany

The next day, I took a high-speed train to Berlin, where I happily met again with R and another friend (unfortunately another R--I'll call him R2). It was such a pleasure to see those guys again! Really great friends from Boston. Berlin was cold and rainy the day I arrived, but somehow I found myself happy to see the place again. I felt the same on coming back to Marrakesh...I seem to find myself liking places more upon my second arrival. The pleasure of recognition, I suppose.

The three of us had a pizza lunch and then caught a train to Potsdam, just a half hour or so away. Unfortunately it was a Monday and it turned out that most of the palaces were closed. Nevertheless, I think we all enjoyed the damp gardens. They were extensive, and spanned a full range of horticultural styles, from meticulously manicured hedges and flowerbeds to patches of near wilderness. We had a little picnic under a tree, eating cakes we'd brought from the city while raindrops gently splished into the river nearby. Then we walked around, and at least got to see the lavish rococo palaces from the outside; but R said he'd heard that the gardens were the best part of the place anyway. There was one marble statue marvelously situated in a gazebo beside a meadow; I couldn't stop touching the figure, mostly because I could: in the US the thing would have been surrounded by all sorts of glass and guards and alarms!

R2 and I then wanted to eat in an "authentic" German restaurant. R obligingly hunted down a place for us, which turned out to be ghastly in nearly every respect--service, food, you name it. So much for authenticity...

Hamburg, Germany

I like Germany, I’ve decided. It’s similar to the US, but cleaner and with vastly superior baked goods. And much better train service.

Hamburg was quite nice. Swans kept watch on the lake just outside the beautiful old city hall, or Rathaus, as it was amusingly named (why is it that German words have such a propensity to be funny in English?). I wasn’t a great fan of the city’s celebrated counting houses, with their stolid, somewhat overbearing architecture—they seemed very nineteenth-century capitalist.

But the waterfront easily compensated: Hamburg has a long stretch along the Elbe known as the Landungsbrücken, which is essentially a boardwalk. Although it doesn’t have a beach, it does have great quantities of concession stands (selling quite an impressive variety of foods, actually—lots of beer and wursts, of course, but also candied apples and Chinese food and even a stand with nothing but barrels of pickles!). Moreover, I happened to arrive on the weekend of the city’s celebration of its 820th anniversary. I had a grand time walking on my own along the boardwalk, listening to the bands and looking out at the sunset and stuffing my little face with carnival food…it was twilight, and the party was winding down with a sense of mellow satisfaction. And that's how I ended my one day in Hamburg.

Seville, Spain

Over the weekend, I took a short trip to Seville, the largest city in Andalucia. I was soon reminded of Marrakesh by the contrast between Seville's hot, sometimes claustrophobic streets and the abundance of lushly green public spaces, and I passed quite a bit of time in Seville succumbing to the tempting park benches I happened to walk by. The city was on the touristy side (think cheesy flamenco themed shops), but still beautiful. I loved the Plaza Nueva, with its courtyard of white and pink stones.

I also think Seville's Alcazar may have been the most impressive I saw in Andalucia--the Islamic decoration of the original rooms was hauntingly beautiful. I heard a guide describe one of the painted ceilings as the finest in Spain, and I wouldn't disagree; it's frustrating that photos do such a poor job of capturing such three-dimensional spaces. There were beautiful gardens as well, although unfortunately when I saw them it was pouring rain. The later Christian kings (Ferdinand and and Isabella again!) had decided to build additional rooms on top of the original structure, and these housed some beautiful tapestries. One featured one of those neat old maps of Europe, the upside-down kind, with Africa on top and France on the bottom. Almost all of the other visitors to the fortress were French, a trend I'd noticed in Granada and Cordoba as well; apparently the French consider southern Spain to be a hot vacation destination. Or at least a nearby one.

I also visited Seville's impressively large Catheral, whose massive nave made for an enjoyable stroll. The most beautiful part of the church was the bell tower, known affectionately by Seville's inabitants as the Giralda. It was originally the minaret of a mosque, and was only later fitted out with bells.

Segovia, Spain

I had a very pleasant day trip to Segovia, about an hour's train ride out of Madrid. The little town's main attraction is the ruins of a great Roman aqueduct running through the heart of the city. Legend has it that the structure was built by the devil in just one night when a young woman sick of carrying water from the local well promised to sell her soul if the task could be eliminated. In the sunlight of a May afternoon, I had to admit that the aqueduct hardly seemed Satanic--quite the contrary: it was not only useful, but beautiful, with arches that seemed themselves to flow down calmly down the hillside. The aqueduct was most impressive in the central plaza, where it reached its maximum height of forty feet or so.

After a meal of the local specialty, roast suckling pig, and a good night's sleep, I visited Segovia's other major attraction, its castle (which locals proudly assured me had helped to inspire the castle in Walt Disney World). I was the very first person there in the morning, and accordingly was able to walk through the rooms in wonderful solitude. It was beautifully situated, high on the hillside with gorgeous views of the surrounding countryside. I've decided that I prefer castles to palaces: they're more properly scaled to human size, less brainlessly opulent, more historically rich... This particular castle was beautifully preserved, with some wonderful stained-glass windows and wall hangings. And what's more, I was able to catch the next train to Madrid and be back by mid-afternoon!

Granada, Spain

Ever since we learned in my ninth-grade world history about how the sultan of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in the Iberian peninsula, wept as he abandoned his palace to the conquering Christians, I've had a certain romantic fascination with the place. The tale of doomed love affairs and family feuding that led to the Nasrid dynasty's loss of power and eventual downfall seemed like it would make a great movie; and so I was particularly looking forward to my two-day stop-off in the little southern town.

However, I soon found that while Granada was pleasant enough, it was merely that; I actually preferred the inviting gardens and meandering little alleys of Cordoba. Granada reminded me a little of Rabat, with its little souk-type streets, but a sanitized version.

The main attraction of Granada is the Alhambra, an enormous complex inhabited by the Muslim and then the Christian rulers, with loads of lavishly decorated rooms and gardens. The rooms which featured both the original Muslim decoration beside later Christian additions mostly served to highlight how inferior the Christian craftsmanship of the period was... One very cool sight there was the throne room in which Columbus presented his petition for money and ships to Isabella. Early on in my visit, funnily enough, I happened to run into P and J, whom I'd had a couple of drinks with in Cordoba, and we all ended up wandering through the palace together. Later in the evening, we explored the streets of the city, which were pretty quiet at that time; and wound up drinking cups of herbal tea in the kitchen of my hostel. It definitely wound up being a fun stop-over, if not quite major motion-picture worthy!

Cordoba, Spain

After a couple days' rest at home in Madrid, I headed off again in a southerly direction. I took a bus through the luscious Adalucian countryside to Cordoba on the Wednesday before Easter. Getting from the bus station to my hostel proved to be a nightmare: I was supposed to take a certain bus, Bus 3, to the city center; but unbeknownst to me, it had been rerouted due to pre-Easter celebrations. When it finally became apparent that the bus was simply not going to arrive at the plaza I had been told to expect, I got out and hailed a cab. I was becoming more and more anxious, as I had been told my hostel locked its doors on people arriving significantly later than the check-in time they had originally specified. The cab driver told me there was no way he could get near the place where I was staying, because of the processions, and dropped me off several blocks away. It would have been an easy ten minute walk, had the streets not been incredibly congested with processions and spectators (I'll elaborate more on the processions themselves in a bit). I made my painfully slow way through the crowds, dragging my suitcase behind me and earning lots of dirty looks from people who thought I was just trying to get a better viewing spot. "Perdona, perdona," I muttered. When I finally arrived at what I thought was my hostel, I nearly collapsed when told that the hostel had no record of my reservation. It turned out that there were two hostels in the area with similar names. I hurriedly made my way to the other hostel and received my bed and key very shortly before it closed up for the evening. This all would have been kind of fun if it hadn't been so very stressful.

When I walked out the next morning, I found Cordoba to be a surprisingly delightful place, with myriad fountains, unexpected little gardens and courtyards, twisty alleys, and rough cobblestones in geometric patterns. I spent a good bit of time just wandering around, past the river and the beautiful old mezquita. Adjacent to this last was a beautiful courtyard, the Patio de los Naranjos, in which you could sit for free and as long as you liked. During my wanderings, I also chanced to meet some fellow travelers who accompanied me at various times: R, a cute little undergrad from Chicago, and P and J, a pair of American friends also from Chicago.

R and I together visited the mezquita, or rather the "cathedral-mezquita," as it is known. It was not only one of the most beautiful buildings I had ever seen, but also utterly unique. It was originally a mosque built between the seventh and tenth centuries, composed of row upon row of white and red arches. Even the Church authorities who eventually arrived on the scene couldn't bear to tear the place down. Instead, they plopped an elaborate Christian chapel, complete with stained glass windows, into the central space, and threw some crosses up here and there. You'd think the whole architectural mash-up would come out looking hideous, but somehow it worked: the space felt otherworldly, solemn (still, I was glad that R and I had arrived first thing in the morning, in advance of the hordes of tour groups). I was particularly surprised that the Christian authorities had left intact the royal prayer nook, which was richly decorated with Koranic inscriptions.

Also splendid was the Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos, the fortress of the Christian kings. The interior was OK, with some fine Roman mosaics on display, but it was the gardens that were breathtaking, with their extensive flower beds, fish ponds, and hedge mazes. On a creepier note, the place was apparently the Inquisition's center of operations--something that the building's caretakers did not seem particularly eager to highlight.

During the day, there was the city to explore; at night, there were las procesiones--at once strangely ancient, sad and hair-raising. They departed roughly at dusk and went on through the nights of Holy Thursday and Good Friday, filling the city streets (all quite wonderful unless you happened to be a traveler desperate to reach your soon-to-shuttered accommodation!). Different Spanish religious orders departed at different times, and followed slightly different routes through Cordoba's streets. Each procession featured long slow lines of the participants, the penitentes, walking in threes. They were robed and wore long hoods with points, like those of the Ku Klux Klan (I couldn't help but be reminded by this curious resemblance that the Spanish Inquisition had been headquartered in Cordoba.) I had the impression that it was difficult to keep the eye slits in place, as people seemed to keep adjusting the hoods. Each procession carries with it its own float, a revered image of Christ, or just as frequently, the Virgin. Some of these were astonishingly beautiful...ethereal silvery creations surrounded by candles. They were carried from beneath by what looked to be about twenty men, who had to execute some tightly coordinated movements in order to maneuver the antique statues through the narrow streets. Bands followed behind, playing mournful music. Some penitentes carried crosses, or walked barefoot. Most carried very tall candles, and children from the audience would run up to beg some wax drippings. Out of these donations, the children formed wax balls--the idea being to try and get the biggest ball possible by the end of the Holy Week, or so I imagine. According to R, a fluent Spanish speaker who was able to chat up our fellow spectators, each order seeks to demonstrate its power in a different way during these processions: for instance, some seek to show off their wealth by carrying precious jewels, while others broadcast their political power by having members of the Spanish military flank their floats.

While the processions were very cool, I was struck by the odd dissonance between their medievally penitent aspect and the holiday atmosphere of the spectators, who cheered and munched on roasted peanuts. One did not come away with an overwhelming sense of sorrow over one's essential sinfulness, which I imagine was more or less the effect originally intended by the ritual. Even so, it's wonderful that the Andalucians still follow the custom.