Late September Spanish summer. Hot days, cool nights. Late nights. A different world where dinner doesn’t begin until long after the sun has set. Where everything closes in the late afternoons. Where meals seem to be mostly meat and wine. A culture that is uncompromising, unapologetic
The character, undeniable.
Alquézar, turquoise, red, brown, green. A medieval village on a hill. Pomegrante trees, wild. Window boxes overflowing. Hiking through the canyons, Pasarelas del Vero.
The feeling of the sun in late September.
The air was so fresh; it was palpable. The gazpacho was the most rich that I’ve ever tasted.
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We toured a winery outside of Alquézar while we were there, Enate. The wine was incredible, but moreso, the art. Every wine created is given to a local artist, who paints his/her interpretation of it. That artwork is the label of the wine for life. It’s so creative, so different. To be able to taste wine, and to also taste art.
This city. This summer.
The sun shone bright every day.
The boats jammed the river; the people filled the streets; the blankets covered the entirety of the park.
Riding my worn-out bike home from the river at dusk with a bag of books, an empty wine bottle, and the remaining strawberries
– that will always be Cambridge to me.
“Dear old Sandringham, the place I love better than anywhere else in the world.” – King George V
The Queen’s Norfolk country estate. The place she spends every Christimas. The place her father died.
So much history. Trespassing on a private life.
The grounds, the halls, the stables; they all have so much to say.
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Inside the house, in the last room open to visitors, a ballroom covered in Indian armor, I saw a filthy, tattered British flag suspended from the corner. The kind of flag that has obviously survived something; I assumed WWI or WWII, but I was wrong. When I approached and read the plaque displayed beneath it, I learned that it was the flag that Ernest Shackleton carried to the South Pole and back on his first Antactica expedition. The exact flag. It made it all the way back to England.
To see that flag in person, knowing all that it had survived; there were no photos allowed, but I’ll never, ever forget it.
Suffolk Coast, countryside. Grey sky. A sleepy fishing village, Orford, where children hang from the pier dangling nets, reaching for crabs.
Sailboats and seagulls. Bells on boats. A seafood shack and a sailing club.
We walked along the green ness, sinking feet in the mud, the skyline broken by the single, solitary lighthouse that pierced the sky.
Finally made it to Bury, the quaint, little English town in which so many of our American friends in England opt to live. I didn’t expect it to be so busy – a bustling, lively town square, packed restaurants, challenging parking. Charm, color, character.
And yes, across from it all, the Abbey Gardens, the old cathedral ruins. Thousands of years of history to walk by and through, after breakfast. A casual Friday afternoon in England.
