Travel Wish List for 2015/2016

The saying is shoot for the moon, and you’ll land amongst the stars.  I’ll visit pretty much anywhere and have found spontaneous and unexpected trips to be amongst the most rewarding, but I do have some goals going into this next year, places that I either didn’t get a chance to visit last year or which have made themselves very appealing either through word of mouth or otherwise.  So here are a few places that I’m aiming to visit during my next stint in Europe, in only a semi-particular order.

Lyon, France

Photo from Julien Reboulet

            I loved Paris and will be returning at least once during the upcoming school year, but I’m also keen on seeing more of France.  As I’ve stated before, I’ve been living with a strong case of francophilia for years now, and I want to see more of the country than just the capital.  Lyon has the reputation of being the true gastronomic capital of France, already one of the all time gastronomic hot beds in general, so to borrow a French phrase, Lyon is supposed to be la crème de la crème.  Besides its food and wine, Lyon also boasts a growing and vibrant electronic scene, as well as gorgeous architecture and history for days. 

Copenhagen, Denmark

photo from cnn.com

            The Danish capital brings to mind canals, bikes, bright colors, impressive architecture.  The middle ground between Scandinavia and mainland Europe, Copenhagen’s unique identity has really come into its own in the last several decades, boasting hip neighborhoods, world class restaurants (including the currently voted world’s best restaurant Noma), a self-governing squatter community called Christiania, and a thriving arts scene.  Besides Noma, Copenhagen is also home to another restaurant of some repute; the reigning king of the NYC restaurant scene David Chang has gone on record as saying that a little place called Kebabistan serves up the finest kebab he’s ever had.  A good friend of mine went to go see what all the hype was about last spring and said that Chang isn’t just whistling dixie.   

Logroño, Spain

photo from travelinginspain.com

            Considering the amount of Rioja wine I’ve drank in the past year, it only seems fitting to go to the heart of where the stuff is made.  Besides the wineries surrounding it, the capital of the autonomous community of La Rioja is supposed to pack plenty of Spanish charm, being fairly off the beaten track for the average tourist.  The pintxo scene is supposed to be one of the best, and if there’s a better recipe for happiness than locally produced world class wine and top notch pintxos, than you should really let me know.

Italy

photo from a-turist.com

           Yes, I know this is an entire country and not a city.  Probably the most glaring absence from my traveling last year was Italy.  A trip to Rome fell through for me in February of this year, and after that I never got around to visiting.  Luckily, one of the best friends I made over the past year is from a small town outside of Parma, in the north of Italy.  Besides teaching me the lesson that there is no such thing as too much parmagiano, he also really made me want to visit his country and explore its history and beauty.  Tentatively I’m planning on doing a long trip during Semana Santa of next year and hitting up his hometown of Gaione, as well as most of the big cities to the north, Parma, Gerona, Milan, Venice, Cinque Terre, etc.  Regardless of how it will pan out, I’m excited to see him in his element and share his culture with him. 

Athens and a Handful of the Islands, Greece

photo from lonely planet

            Right around the same time as the Greek bailout dominated the news, my Instagram feed was filled with boatloads of utterly beguiling pictures of Athens and many of the Greek isles, from Santorini to Mykonos.  After reading enough of the Greeks in college, it seems only fitting to visit the land that they walked.  And the aquamarine water, killer sunsets, and the endless white houses on cliffs make a pretty strong argument as well.

La Costa Brava, Catalunya

photo from wikimedia

            Maybe it’s because I haven’t spent much time there at all besides a few days in Barcelona for Primavera Sound in May, maybe it’s the different language, the fiercely independent culture, but I’m entranced by Catalunya as a whole and want to explore the region more deeply.  The Costa Brava starts in Blanes, a seaside city which is most interesting to me because it was the long time home of the Chilean transplant Roberto Bolaño, to the French border.  Further inland is the canal filled Girona, and the coast also boasts the long time residence of Dalí in Cadaqués, which is now a museum/theater fit for the memory of the surrealist genius. 

Edinburgh, Scotland

photo from edinburgh pub crawl

            Combine castles, some of the best whiskey in the world, stunning coastline, and the warmth of its people and you have a winning formula.  Although I was at first not super interested in our fellow Anglophone countries, after a great experience in Dublin, I really would like to explore more of the isles.  I haven’t been to London at this point, but Edinburgh promises much more charm while still providing the dynamism of a cosmopolitan city.  Also, Edinburgh is home to one of the best and most innovative electronic music scenes around. 

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

photo from huffington post

            It’s been the trip that’s never happened.  I’ve talked about going with at least three different groups of people, but for various reasons, ranging from the occupational to the financial, I haven’t made it to the city of canals.  I also want it to be somewhat of a special trip with close friends, so it’s going to happen one way or another this year, come hell or high water.

Sevilla and Córdoba, Spain

photo from vueling.com

            Another case of “just didn’t get around to it.”  We toyed with adding these two onto our trip to Andalucía during this past Semana Santa, but ending up opting for Morocco.  I don’t regret the decision in the slightest, but I feel silly not having visited the capital of Andalucía after loving the region so much in Granada and Málaga, as well as hearing such good things from so many people.  Being fascinated by Moorish architecture as well, I really have to get to La Mesquita in Córdoba.  Luckily the two are just a short AVE ride away from Madrid.

The Search for Delicious 8: Granada and the Art of Tapas

Tapas are Spain’s most palpable contribution to the international gastronomic scene, and in the past twenty years or so, starting with legitimately forward thinking kitchens and trickling down to those attempting to appear so, tapas or small plates have been the calling card of the cutting edge.  And in and of itself, the tapa is a very different way of approaching food.  Rather than one large dish, you can have many smaller dishes, each self-contained little worlds that can then bounce off of each other in ways that wouldn’t be possible with more bulky dishes. 

But focusing on the purely culinary also misses the forest for the trees, because the true genius of tapas is the social element, how it lends itself to a certain mode of eating and drinking and talking.  Rather than simply a mode of serving food and drink, tapas are a way of life, and Granada practices the art at one of the highest levels in Spain. 

The vast majority of tapas in Granada come free with a drink, which, while not unique or even uncommon in Spain generally, really makes its difference felt with the quality and size of the tapa.  In Madrid, you can get free tapas, but they are hardly ever as well executed, diverse, and generous as in Granada. 

So where all did we go?  The best place of the lot is a wine bar called Taberna La Tana, located in the Realejo neighborhood.  The wine selection is superb, with bottles from all over Spain and elsewhere lining the wall.  Mostly standing room only.  More upscale than your average old man bar, but totally worth it.  

Right across the street there's La Oliva, and if you're craving seafood, check out Los Diamantes II.  Just down the street, I reccomend Coco's Bar and Tapas, where we had a bountiful Sunday meal of great tapas, ranging from clams to huevos rotos.

We were in Granada for Semana Santa, so religious vibes were not in short supply, but if you find yourself craving a décor of Christ heavy iconography as well as some tasty tapas, head over to El Tabernaculo on Calle Navas.  Pictures of Christ adorn the walls as well as plenty of figures of the people in pointy hats that aren’t KKK.  Inside, it’s Semana Santa all year long.  Fun fact:  the hat is called el capricho and predates the KKK by several hundred years. 

Another spot to check out was where we met up with our friend Paradise, called Bar Damasqueros, and enjoyed some tapas for lunch.  Look for the giant orange Cheshire cat across the street.  There’s also evidently a quality vegetarian restaurant right next to the cat, called El Jergon if that happens to be your preference.

The “golden equation” is 1 drink = 1 tapa.   So, circling back to the social element, if you’re with a group of 4 or 5 people as we were in Granada, one round of drinks is going to get you a lot of food, normally either a larger portion of a single tapa, or a smorgasbord of several different tapas.  And with each round, you can expect even more food each time.

 So what are you actually getting?  Olives, beautiful tomato slices with olive oil, jamón, salchicon, butifarra, chorizo, sobrassada, juevos rotos, clams, goat cheese, blue cheese, fried pimientos de padrón, lacón, anchovies, mussels, chopitos (fried mini-squids), montaditos with a thin layer of salmorejo topped with anchovies…in other words a bevy of treats.

Being both food enthusiasts and scientifically minded folk, we did fairly extensive field work focused on the question:  do the tapas get better the more drinks you order?  In general, the most conclusive result we got was the phenomenon of what I will dub “the rabbit hole effect.”  To whit, the more you pursue the illusive “perfect tapa,” the stranger (and consequently more fun, at least in my book) the night becomes. 

As much as we could gather, there is some sort of system to the whole tapas thing, although this varies from restaurant to restaurant.  The first tapa is what you could call an opener, and while you should be cognizant of the quality of the opener is, you shouldn’t write off a place for a not so great first tapa.  The opener is the standard; anybody that comes off the street and orders a drink will get this one.  The restaurant isn’t going to give their best tapa to someone who’s only paid 2,50 euros or less for a drink. 

But then you can normally expect something more exciting on the second tapa.  And this is where it gets interesting.  At first, we started to assume that it was a sort of ladder progression, each subsequent tapa gets better, a Spanish stairway to heaven.  And TO SOME EXTENT this is true, but I got the impression that there are only maybe 5 or 6 tapas that are prepared each night, regardless of how many drinks you order, eventually you’re going to get repeats.  So it’s not an infinite progression to deliciousness, constantly ascending higher and higher.  And this is not to say that repeats are a bad thing by any means…what was delicious at the second tapa isn’t going to be something you turn your nose up at tapa #4. 

But it might mean that it’s time to go to another bar, which is another beautiful aspect of the whole process.  After you’ve exhausted the possibilities at one place, you can go somewhere else, and the mystery begins anew.  The whole experience hinges on both blind faith and good faith:  you put blind faith into the kitchen, surrendering yourself to what’s in the cards for you that night, and also making gestures of good faith towards the establishment as a whole, by spending time and money there. 

There’s also the question of the drink itself.  Does a glass of wine yield a better tapa than a caña?  What about a doble?  What about a cocktail?  What about a bottle of wine?  While our fieldwork was extensive in the various permutations, we didn’t come to any hard and fast conclusions. 

Regardless, during this time, you’re talking, laughing, recalling memories and making new ones, as you relish the finer things in life, floating from one bar to the next, amongst people doing the same. 

In general.  Be bold.  Explore the gastronomic treasures that Granada has to offer.  Pick a place, go inside, order a drink.  The worse that’s going to happen is that they’ll give you free food. 

Granada

“Las horas son allí más largas y sabrosas que en ninguna otra ciudad de España. Tiene crepúsculos complicados de luces constantemente inéditas que parece no terminarán nunca.”

'The hours there are longer and more delicious than in any other city in Spain.  Granada's dusks are complex, made up of lights that are constantly appearing in ways never before seen and which seem like they will never ever end.'

                  ~ Federico García Lorca

            Federico García Lorca was my biggest and most important introduction to Spanish culture, and although I had been studying the language for several years before I learned about him, it was through him that I had my first glimpse, the first brush, with what is unique and terrific about the Spanish soul and the way it moves through and interacts with time and space. 

Of course at the time I wasn’t aware of the specifically Andalucían nature of García Lorca, but regardless of the technicalities, I was struck by the passion, equal parts ecstasy and despair, and the vividness, the way the land itself was alive and cried out, in response to the crying out of the poet, but just as often how laughter would ring out as well, echoing through the streets and up to the mountains, a constant dialogue. 

And this is all to say that what began in books was consummated when I finally visited Granada, Lorca’s hometown and spiritual center, as the first stop of our Semana Santa vacation, and everything I had intuited years ago was manifested all around me in nothing less than complete splendor. 

Granada is nestled in a valley in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, whose snowcapped peaks sparkle white-hot in the distance.  Even in the valley, the topography is quite hilly and the town and the land mesh together, following each other’s contours harmoniously.  The Alhambra, the Moorish fortress/castle/palace, sits on a ridge overlooking most of the valley as its center and crown jewel. 

We stayed in an Airbnb cave house in the Sacromonte area, just north of the Alhambra.  We took a bus from Madrid and arrived around 10 PM, to find that our accommodations for the next four days were a 30 second walk from an incredible view of the Alhambra.  After dropping our bags, we took a few minutes, in awe and disbelief as we took in the vista of the Alhambra, illuminated, against the backdrop of the Sierra Nevadas, before heading into town for tapas.

Cave houses are just like what they sound…rooms carved into the side of the many hills of the valley, primarily as a way to beat the Andalucían heat during the summer months.  Luckily, we were there in late March, and the weather was perfect.  The trademark white buildings of Andalucía are also another way of beating the heat, and the best places to experience the charm of these houses and the narrow winding streets are the Albaicín and Sacromonte neighborhoods. 

Don’t worry about where you’re going, just get lost.  And be sure to take in a sunset from this area…I’m a sucker for a good sunset and the ones here are among the most breathtaking I’ve ever seen.  

As further proof of Granada’s magic, the first night we ran into a friend of my friend that I was travelling with at a bar.  Although they hadn’t seen each other in several years, they both had caddied at the same golf course in Long Island, NY during the summers between high school and college. This friend, whose nickname fittingly enough was “Paradise,” was visiting his sister who lives in Granada and spending a month or so hanging out before heading back to the states.  So, inadvertently, we ended up with a tour guide right off the bat.  Besides several great restaurant recommendations, one of the coolest moments of the whole trip was hanging out and having a couple beers at one of the lookout points in Albaicín, while people played guitar and the sun set, before going out for tapas later that night. 

Our route from the Air BnB into the center of the city was emblematic of all that Granada has to offer.  We started from the caves of Sacromonte, and then headed west, with the Alhambra to our left, before cutting down to the Río Darro, passing by the Arab Baths, the terraces that line the river, the many gypsies/hippies with wares to sell ranging from leather bracelets to wind up boats, some playing instruments, and then hitting the Plaza Nueva, with street performers and flamenco artists filling the air with the fervent thrum of strumming guitars and the clicks and clacks of heels and castanets. 

Then you move into the small restaurant lined streets of the Jewish Quarter, where we had the most success finding delicious tapas.  And after hopping around to a few bars, eating and drinking a bit here and a bit there, we would retrace our steps, our bellies full and our spirits light, wondering how in the world such a beautiful place can be real.

After being in the city for a day or so, the best way I could describe Granada was as “turbo Spain,” or to put it another way, Spain par excellence.  All of the things you hear about Spain generally are on magnificent display in Granada.  The relaxed and leisurely pace of life.  The beautiful dark haired, olive skin complexion of its people.  Gitanos, or gypsies, playing guitar and dancing flamenco.  The food.  Quaint and awe-inspiring architecture in equal measure.  The cobblestone streets.  The natural beauty of its landscape.  The palpable and deep-rooted sense of history.  The mixture of different cultures.   Orange trees lining the streets.  Etc, etc.  Even after having lived in Madrid for 6 months at that point, and experiencing many of these hallmarks of Spain, Granada was the complete package and then some.