Musings

Daffies laid snugly in a box, ready for a vase in your home.

Posted at 10:06 PM | No Comments »

It’s a little early for irises to be blooming, unless you visit the Georgia O’Keeffe show (closing, what?, tomorrow?). She painted a single iris on a very vertical canvas. It looks rather different cropped like this.

Posted at 10:09 PM | Comments Off on Cropped iris

Once upon a time, this was a busy business, I’m sure. Now: nothing (beyond graffiti tagging).

With populations, demographic analysts may talk about central places, that is: places with clusters of residents. I’m thinking there are business central places, too. This one is a has-been, a now-unbusy business. Also, this is what cycling looks like.

Posted at 8:38 PM | Comments Off on ∆/t

Flower center.

Georgia O’Keeffe: White Flower, 1929.

White Flower, super contrasty, altered. The “grooves” that section the petals are interesting; I didn’t notice them standing in front of the painting, although they are plain as day. Instead, I noticed the subtle shading of the colors…yellows, blues, blue-greens…and the background in the upper corners.

Thanks, MSM, for suggesting this High adventure.

Posted at 7:57 PM | 1 Comment »

Clever signage from our trip that I neglected to post…as in, I already had too many photos selected for the day’s post…. The letters and symbol were cut from the sheet metal, when the light was bright, produced a…what’s the opposite of a shadow? A pass-through of light?

Posted at 8:34 PM | Comments Off on Castilla y León art

We got to see the sunrise while at the airport…waiting.

Finally, we took off!

[Insert hours and hours of westward movement.]

What a relief to reach ATL, and land!

[Skip discussion of extremely flawed layout of ATL airport…necessitating an at least fifteen-minute walk to get to passport control from our gate, and a fifteen-minute bus ride to the “other side” of the airport from the international terminal to reach the MARTA station.]

Posted at 7:18 PM | 2 Comments »

Our departure…leaving from beneath the looming, snow-dusted Sierra de Ayllón, amid ice-crystals…mostly melted when we got going (lots of sun exposure).

We came upon these round structures in/near several towns, but I couldn’t figure them out. They seem clearly for storage, and the roof is vented, yet there’s only one door, and it’s small. My guess is they’re something to do with grain production…mystified.

Our first stop was Tiermes, which was a large CeltIberian fort that allied with Numancia (and others), and held out against the Romans for longer than other places (probably routed about 133 BC). The Romans remade the settlement, adding homes, a large aqueduct, a forum, temples, and more. The sandstone hill also had earlier Neolithic and Bronze Age occupations. Here’s the southeast gate; all the gates to Tiermes that I saw had a bend like this…I assume offering an additional level of security.

The southern face of the hill is mostly a wall of sandstone. The horizontal rows of holes held beams that made ceilings and floors of multi-story structures.

Here’s a look along the aquaduct from where it (presently) goes into the hill. This is just to the left and above the last photo.

This is the west gate, surely more eroded than when Romans and their CeltIberian predecessors used it…or maybe this was just a Roman gate.

The wheels of carts dug into the soft sandstone, and later eroded into deep trenches.

That vegetated (grassy?) area is the Roman forum. These photos do not do justice to the huge area of this settlement, and I mean huge in pre-Roman CeltIberian times especially. My walking track was almost two miles, and I missed some highlights. Of course, I have not seen the excavation reports, which may describe many unused (often trash-collecting) rooms, as often happens for Puebloan settlements in southwest North America.

Our last stop on the present Tiermes property was to step inside this Romanesque chapel/church, probably built in the late 12th C. I don’t know the date of the interior. There’s no longer any town nearby and I don’t know if there are scheduled services any longer.

Our next place of interest was the Cerros volcánicos de La Miñosa, a very small area that constitutes an unusual micro-environment.

One species typically mentioned is Erodium paularense, or the Paular geranium. This might be it. Interestingly, a few hundred meters away archaeologists have recorded six Paleolithic (meaning early) sites…perhaps because the ancients obtained something important to them from the volcanic zone. Dunno, just hypothesizing.

The pointy hill has a Castro atop, and the other is a Castillo. Off to the right on the slope below the Castillo is the Medieval (as in: most of the central buildings date to…) town of Atienza.

That’s enough for today. Tiermes remains among the most amazing pre-Roman/Roman sites I’ve yet seen.

Posted at 2:31 PM | Comments Off on Best for last?

This is maybe the third time we’ve seen a stand of these silver-barked trees. Dunno what they are…mystery arboles.

I’ve confirmed that this is Moncayo.

Wind turbine alignments. I’m trying to get my photographic fascination with them out of my system. Round hay bales can grab your eye this way, too.

We’ve seen plenty of large and small irrigation ditches, but rarely the valves. Here’s a split, where the flow is being directed two ways.

One of our goals today was to get a look at a large eroded area, or badlands, that is a park called Bardenas Reales.

We did find one place with a road we could safely try to get into (or towards) the heart of this sculpted landscape. You can see we didn’t get far, as farmed fields remain.

We partly circled Moncayo yesterday, and completed the loop today.

One more eroded landform.

I finally got a shot of the Ebro when we crossed it. I think this is normal spring elevated levels.

We cut through a “corner” of the lower slopes of the Moncayo massif, and found what must be a relatively warmer area, as many orchards flaunted blooming trees. My guess was peaches or apples, but I couldn’t parse the tree shapes and figure out the species.

We went through/by many little towns. Amazingly, most had parked cars and evidence of active residents. I cannot figure out the economic support for these scattered villages.

Later in the day, I became fascinated with the variations in soil color…this is rather brick red, and the trees are not yet blooming (February, remember…snow on elevations, remember?).

Castle ruins above larger small town…note the white lenses in the far distance behind the jagged walls…Moncayo massif, again.

I counted one man and one dog with this substantial sheep herd. As we continued up the road, it was evident that they’d come down it for at least a mile. Transhumance underway? Earlier in the day, we saw a smaller herd, controlled by a man with a loaded mule and four dogs. Spring is springing for shepherds.

This is the second fox we’ve spotted. Neither was much concerned with our presence.

I just encountered a description of wheeling clouds of birds as resembling the billowing robes of a genie. As shown….

Posted at 3:30 PM | Comments Off on Circumnavigation, etc.

Wind turbines on horizon. Strange color balance (through windshield).

Frost patterns…one shady place we saw frost as late as 11:30am.

Flags, bell tower.

Storks, backlit.

Horses, also backlit, with frost, tracks.

Medieval rock graves, Revenga.

Medieval rock graves, Regumiel. They antedate the 12th C church built partially atop them.

Medieval rock graves with ice skim, Duruelo. Some sources say this trend in this area, the Upper Arlanza Basin, say these graves are 7th/8th C. Others say 8th–10th C.

Stand-alone snow-capped mountain, perhaps Moncayo.

Wind turbine array, with Pyrennees in far distance and Ebro basin between.

Rioja territory grapevines.

This is the part of the Roman city of Graccurris, founded 179 BC, that has been “reconstructed.” I could make little architectural sense of what seemed to me to be mostly a wasteland. Of course, there was significant Medieval occupation here, too….

Largest church in Alfaro, essentially modern Graccurris.

Smaller Alfaro church.

Fuzzy moon out our hotel window, a few minutes ago.

Posted at 1:57 PM | 2 Comments »

Different day, different museum: Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, established 1908. This is the “Old Building;” behind it, the new is being reworked—note crane. The collection focuses on Basque and Spanish works.

This is Ramiro Arrue’s (1892-1971) “Euskaldunak karta jokoan,” meaning Basques playing cards.

He did it about 1919. I was fascinated by the footwear, especially the boots on the left with exterior laces.

Aurelio Artete did this in 1930–35, and called it “Euskal arrantzaleak,” or Basque fishermen. Again: footwear…. I’m wondering if the short boots are of rubber? They do look globular. Also: bare feet.

We saw one Picasso on display: “Still life with glass/bowl of fruit,” dating to 1937 (don’t know the original language of the name). In English, it’s “still life,” but in Spanish it’s “naturaleza muerta,” or, literally, dead nature.

They had three Goyas on display, including the side of the shipping crate they came in from France…I didn’t get the full story. This was the middle painting of the three (yes, I cropped it), the esteemed Bernard Tavira, dated about 1787-88.

Here’s a detail of the Señora’s carnation and ruff.

A few smaller rooms displayed fascinating historical documents and the like that normally no members of the public get to see. These are a pair of pages from “Corpus Iuris Civillis;” it dates to before 1477, and is in Gothic script. This is a later copy of a compilation of Roman laws from AD 117–565; the compilation was ordered by Emperor Justinian I, who was emperor from AD 527 to 565. This copy was made for Pierre de Laval, who became archbishop of Reims in 1473, and died in 1493. Many modern legal systems relate back to these laws.

Here’s a small section of the official document of excommunication of Henry VIII of England by Pope Clement VII and the Holy Council of Cardinals. This is an authorized copy sent to the Spanish court, and dates to 1531.

And then we were outside enjoying the sun…we found groundskeepers at work—here the fountain cleaners.

Here’s Bilbao’s river, the Nerbioi (Basque), or Nervion (English). This view is toward the mouth. This area was once the port area. With larger ships, it’s moved to the bay at the mouth. Note also that Bilbao, the city, is along the river, and the higher elevations are forested.

The façade of this building stood out to us both. It appears to be a private business…. BTW, that’s a pedestrian bridge to the left.

And, our riverfront trajectory brought us back to…this sculpture/building by Frank Gehry (born Frank Owen Goldberg, in 1929).

I very much enjoyed seeing Anish Kapoor’s “Tall Tree & The Eye” (2009) without raindrops.

Here’s this combo moto and lift that I posted yesterday from the other side.

Guggenheim detail. I think this is employee parking on the “back” side.

And, for giggles, a totally different façade, in town, away from the former port area.

Posted at 12:55 PM | Comments Off on No archaeo, day three