On the streets...
El Cristo de "El Amor" by Juan de Mesa (c. 1618) a half-block from my apartment
The palio of the Virgen de "La Estrella" dancing a paso doble before the shrine of the Virgen de "El Baratillo," behind the Plaza de Toros
Last week, I traveled by train to Santander, capital of the autonomous community of Cantabria, for the annual mid-year meeting for Fulbright grantees. One of Spain’s smallest autonomous communities, Cantabria lies along the east-west mountain range that runs parallel to Spain’s Atlantic coast, wedged between the Basque Country to the east and Asturias to the West. 
Unlike the Mediterranean climate that bakes the much of the peninsula in scorching sun and sparse rain for the better part of the year, the Atlantic climate of the northern coast is known for heavy cloud cover and frequent rainfall. Cantabria is so green and mountainous that its inhabitants are known within Spain as los pequeños suizos, or the lesser Swiss.
Thanks to the additional support of the Universidad de Cantabria and the Fundación Marcelino Botín, the Fulbright grantees stayed at the posh and brilliant white Hotel Real, a structure built at the start of the last century to house visiting nobility when the royal court accompanied the king to his summer residence at the Palacio de Magdalena. Between presentations of our work, the grantees were invited on two daytrips. 
The first daytrip took us to the visitor center at Altamira, to see the full scale recreation of its famous cave – which the general public may no longer enter – and its famous Neolithic paintings, and to the well-preserved medieval town of Santillana del Mar where we were treated to a traditional lunch of hearty bean stew and cod fish. 
The second daytrip took us to Comillas, a small beach town in short viewing distance of the towering silhouette of the Picos de Europa, where we were invited to a sneak peak of the soon-to-open Fundación Comillas, a new center for the study of Hispanic language and culture housed in a remodeled modernist masterpiece by the Catalan architect Lluís Domènech i
Montaner.
Formal events aside, the rather mundane preparations for Semana Santa now seem to dominate life in the Old City. My walks across town are now accompanied by the constant hammering of scaffolding and boards to form raised walkways along the main routes to the Cathedral and viewing stands under construction in the main squares. The trumpet and drum bands that will lead the processions have started to practice around the clock. Costaleros, the men who carry the pasos (floats), also have stepped up their practices rounding tricky corners and generally trying to accustom themselves to the experience of carrying the combined weight of statues, candles, and silver adornments atop a bed of gilt wood. 
Older member of the confraternities now seem to wear their lapel pins more proudly, a firm testament to their membership in one of several not-so-secret brotherhoods. The churches are thoroughly adorned in purple, white, and red. 
Civic spaces are undergoing transformation as well. In recent days, city hall has been treated to an ample helping of red velvet with gold trim to adorn its facade. Even local businesses get in on the act. Nearly every store has a Semana Santa poster, framed in some instances. The fabric stores have nazarenos (the figures with pointy hats) on display and the confiterías (pastry and sweet shops) have started to sell torrijas, a type of French toast treat traditional to Semana Santa celebrations.
Even those of us not who are not part of a hermandad seem to take an active part in the preparations, if only indirectly. The housing market in the city spikes during Semana Santa, when thousands of out-of-towners descend on the city to see the affair. Extra couches, balcony space, roof access, and the tickets owed to locals have become hot commodities. I’ve decided to forego renting out my couch, instead offering it up to a series of visiting friends. 
To signify that we are now on the home stretch, last Sunday – one week prior to Domingo de Ramos, or Palm Sunday – religious spaces were opened for public viewing of the pasos and photos. The penitent were also invited to kiss the feet of various wooden Jesuses (...de la Cruz, de los Tres Caídos, and so on) amidst a cloud of incense, provided by elaborately costumed altar boys and stern-looking members of the respective hermandad, for the last time before the statutes are mounted atop the pasos.
And what of the guy that had a nativity scene built into the back of his car and on display during the month of December? Well, just last night I saw him parked alongside Plaza de La Campana, trunk open and trumpet and drum music blaring, showing off the procession scene he built into the back of his hatchback. Too funny! Lest the kissing of idols confuse you, this festival is as much about tradition and unadulterated civic pride as it is about anything sanctified by the Catholic Church.
*****
In the last few weeks, I spent a week in Madrid working out of the National Library, I took a day trip to the center of the Spanish ham-producing region in the Sierra de Aracena (Huelva province), spent several days along the Atlantic coast from my base in Cantabria for the Fulbright mid-year meeting in Santander, and then traveled to the far eastern reach of the province of the Sevilla to visit an archive in Osuna. It seems my travel schedule has outpaced my ability to keep updating the blog with a high degree of regularity. To this end, I’ll probably keep my comments shorter in future posts in the interest of at least committing some more pictures to the site.
Only a matter of days after returning home to the United States, my mother learned that she would return to Spain at the end of that same month, this time for work. As her company was sending her to Barcelona, Spain’s second largest city and capital of the Catalan speaking region of Catalunya (Catalonia in Spanish), I took this development as a cue to return to the city for the first time in eight and a half years.
I landed in Barcelona on a Wednesday in time to meet my mother and her coworkers for dinner. 
The following Thursday, we headed outside of Barcelona by train to visit the Benedictine monastery of Santa María de Monserrat. Located aside the face of a mountain with numerous jagged peaks (hence the name: serrated mountain), the monastery was built around a shrine to the black virgin, the most venerated saint in all of Catalonia. A site of worship for over a thousand years, many of the buildings existing today date to the 1400s. 
Overnight climbs to the top of the mountain remain a traditional pastime for Catalan youth. After wondering the grounds for a while, we were able to hear a short performance by L’Escolonia, one the oldest boys choirs in Europe, before climbing the grand staircase to visit the shrine itself. In the afternoon, we switched gears to visit Antonio Gaudi’s Templo de la Sagrada Familia, one of Barcelona’s signature sights and perhaps Europe’s oldest construction site.
Friday morning, after wishing farewell to my mother, I went to Parc Güell – another Guadi work – and for a long walk along the Passeig de Gràcia and the surrounding L’Eixample district. Of particular interest here were two Gaudi Batlló (left) and Casa Milà (above). 
On Saturday, I ventured around the old city or Barri Gòtic. Here I visited the Museu de Ciutat, where I walked above the ruins of the former Roman city and the adjoining ruins of the Visigothic Palace, and the Cathedral. 
My stroll also took me the famed (though to my mind overrated) boulevard of Las Ramblas and by a number of soaring medieval churches, architectural masterpieces burnt during the anti-clerical violence that shook the city at the start of the twentieth century.
On my last day in Barcelona, I joined my host, Antonio, and headed to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya where, in additional to seeing some awesome frescos collected from chapels located high in the Pyrenees Mountains to the north of the city, I also briefly met accomplished Spanish historian Sir J. H. Elliott. In the afternoon, I wandered through the former grounds of the 1992 Olympics to view the city from the old fort at the very top of Montjuic. By dinnertime, I was back in Sevilla.
