Where Have I Been?

by Barb, back in wonderful Maine, watching the cruise ships from her study window

Astute readers of the blog may have noticed my absence over the the last three weeks. (Possibly because I mentioned I was going away a couple of times.) I did manage to get all my Wicked Wednesday post responses done ahead of time, but I haven’t been chiming in with comments in my usual way. Also, Edith was kind enough to trade posting days with me.

Where have a I been? We started with four days in Paris.

The trip was long planned. We didn’t realize it would take place over the 50th anniversary of the day we met until Bill figured it out right before we left. It was a happy coincidence. When our granddaughter, Viola, saw this photo she said, “I bet they’re eating cheese!” We were.The Picasso Museum in Paris had become a bit of an inside joke for Bill and me. It was closed for renovation 2009 to 2015, which meant it wasn’t open on our trips in either 2010 or 2014. This time true to form, while it was open, the exhibit had just changed and the top two floors were closed. Nonetheless, we had a lovely visit and I have officially checked it off the list. The museum is in the beautiful Hotel Sale, built in the 17th century by the guy who had the right to collect the salt tax in France, a lucrative position.I was anxious to see the progress that had been made at Notre Dame since the fire. The construction of the cathedral in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is a marvel, but looking at the current work, even in an age of cranes and power tools, what has been accomplished seems amazing.

From Paris we boarded a train to Bordeaux, and boarded our cruise ship. We spent a day and a half in Bordeaux, where we toured a vineyard and admired the vibrant city, and then we left for the long cruise up the Garonne River and on to northern Spain.

We had long wanted to visit the Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa. The building is every bit as stunning as everyone said it would be.

After visits to El Ferrol and Vigo in northern Spain (and a short foray into Portugal) we cruised to southern Spain.

In Seville, a small bit of the decoration at the Spanish Pavilion from the Exposition of 1929. One of the fun things about a cruise is going places you never would have thought to go. It’s happened on every trip. This time it was Gibraltar. Here is one of the Barbary apes that live on the rock. (Really macaques.) They are wild animals who will steal your sunglasses or hat or jump on your back. We were warned to carry backpacks or bags on our fronts as the mothers carry the infants. If you carry them on your back the way the older kids are carried, the apes may try to steal them back.Gibraltar: Light show in St. Michael’s caveMalaga, Picasso’s birth place and another Picasso Museum, this one in a 16th century palace. The exhibit was arranged chronologically by the women in Picasso’s life, his muses. All things considered, being a muse appears to be a pretty thankless task.We spent the last four days of the trip in Barcelona, where I ate Andalusian gazpacho every chance I got. We didn’t have a single bad meal on the trip, even when eating near a tourist site or just wandering and randomly picking a place to eat.Barcelona, our third Picasso Museum. We had been to this one before, but I was working on symmetry, or Rule of Threes. I’ve always liked this museum in the city where Picasso lived and studied as a young man, because among other pieces, it has a lot of his early work, which really shows his evolution as an artist.When we visited Gaudi’s Sagada Familia in 2005, it was a construction zone. A beautiful, awe-inspiring construction zone like no place we had ever been. In 2023, it feels like a cathedral (which it technically isn’t) with floors and pews and stained glass. It is still beautiful and different, and unfinished, but it looks now more like it will be and not so much like it has been.

It was a marvelous trip. I didn’t take my laptop. Didn’t answer emails. I said to Bill at one point that I was more relaxed than I had ever been in my life. I missed you all, but I wouldn’t have missed it.

Readers: Do you have a fantasy trip, even if it is to remain a fantasy?

Photos by Bill Carito. You can see more of his work at

https://www.billcaritophotography.com/

and follow him on Instagram at billcarito and bill.carito.colorphotos.