They Shot the Piano Player compares favourably to a number of Oscar-winning works! (Film review)

 

My life in Hong Kong: film festing, and way too ubiquitous 

police presence (See the police van on the 

other side of the road from the HKIFF advertising?) :S

They Shot the Piano Player (Spain-France-The Netherlands-Portugal-Peru-U.K., 2023)

- Fernando Treuba (who's also wrote the script) and Javier Mariscal, directors

- Voice actors: Jeff Goldblum, Tony Ramos, Abel Ayala, Roberta Wallach

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Fetival's Animation Unlimited program 

 

The last animated movie I viewed prior to viewing this multinational offering was Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron (Japan, 2023).  I realise it's unfair to compare these two very different cinematic offerings -- but if I did so, I'd say that I actually liked They Shot the Piano Player better, and am surprised that it didn't even get nominated for the Animated Feature Film Oscar that the Studio Ghibli production won this year.

 

Speaking of Oscar nominated animated works: Persepolis (France-U.S., 2007) is one of three works I got to thinking of when viewing They Shot the Piano Player; with the other two being the non-animated Academy Award winners Searching for Sugar Man (2012) and Missing (1982).  For like Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi's work about a girl growing up in Islamic Revolution-era Iran, this offering from Fernando Teruba and Javier Mariscal is an animated docudrama -- in the latter case, about an American journalist trying to figure out what happened to a musical hero who appeared to have vanished into thin air, a la Searching the Sugar Man's Sixto Rodriguez, in a foreign, South American country similar to the fictional one that's the setting for Costa-Gavras' Missing.

 

It's 2010 and New York music journalist Jeff Harris (voiced by Jeff Goldblum) is planning on writing a book about the Brazilian bossa nova craze of the 1960s.  Early on in his research, he comes across a recording featuring the piano playing of Francisco Tenório Júnior and determines to learn more about this Brazilian musical talent.  

 

On research trips to Brazil, Jeff interviews illustrious Brazilian bossa nova musicians like Gilberto Gil, João Donato and Chico Buarque (voicing themselves in the movie) about their music, and memories of Tenório Júnior.  At some point, he changes the subject of his planned book to the piano player whose music, life and mysterious disappearance back in 1976 he has become well nigh obsessed with.  And eventually, he is able to piece together the tragic story of a much beloved musician and man who went missing while on tour in then dictator-ruled Argentina -- leaving behind a wife, children, mistress and many friends mourning his disappearance from their lives.

 

At one level, They Shot the Piano Player is a enthralling dramatic investigation into what happened to a piano player who look to have unwittingly got involved in South American politics, to his great detriment.  At another, it's a chilling indictment of totalitarian regimes and their state terrorism -- which, in South America, led, among other tragedies, to the "disappearance" tens of thousands of people, many, if not all, of them innocents.  At the same time, it's also a beautifully hand-drawn work that's a thoroughly affecting celebration of bossa nova, and the life of Tenório Júnior.

 

It is very much to its makers' credit that they attempted to do so much, and succeeded in doing so.  A feast for the eyes and ears, this work -- which also happens to be tri-lingual (English, Portuguese and Spanish) -- is also heart-breaking and heart-warming at different parts of its story -- which, it is worth emphasizing, is, at heart, non-fiction. (The fictional bit comes from the man who became obsessed with the story of Tenório Júnior -- so much so that he kept at it for some two decades! -- being not Jeff Harris but the film's co-director and scriptwriter, Fernando Trueba -- and instead of writing a book about the Brazilian musician, he made They Shot the Piano Player!)

My rating for this film: 9.0

Demanding that the government listen to the people in Hong Kong and willing it to screw up less in Malaysia

What would have been a normal dinner scene at a 

Baba-Nonya restaurant in Penang not so long ago

 Going out to bars and restaurants is still allowed in Hong Kong

-- but I find myself wondering for how much longer?

 

The Hong Kong police fired tear gas at people once more this evening in Yuen Long.  Earlier in the day, people had gathered in that northwestern New Territories town (which I used to love having post-hike meals in) to commemorate the eight month anniversary of the attack by white shirted thugs on MTR passengers -- some, but not all, of whom were returning home from taking part in anti-extradition bill protests on Hong Kong Island -- and, equally shocking to Hong Kongers, gross dereliction of duty by the police that night.

 

Despite what some folks might think, the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong have not ended.  At most, many protestors have decided to use the past couple of months or so to try to protect Hong Kong against the Wuhan coronavirus (which we first got wind about in early January) -- by doing such as sourcing masks for people as well as pressuring the Hong Kong government to close the territory's borders and contesting the authorities' plans to set up quarantine centers in high density neighborhoods.  But, truly, as long as Hong Kong has a government that is more inclined to do Beijing's bidding than that of the local populace, I am sure that many Hong Kongers will feel obliged to resist the authorities, and demand that their voice be heard, respected and obeyed. 

 

Also, the way that Carrie Lam and co have responded to the Wuhan coronavirus threats (i.e., badly) has probably lost them more allies and supporters, and got more Hong Kongers realizing that they need as well as deserve a better government.  A case in point: in recent days, lawmakers across the political spectrum have united to demand that Hong Kong ban all non-residents from entering the Big Lychee, unanimously passing a motion in the Legislative Council calling for such a move, as well as for tests for the Wuhan coronavirus of all locals arriving home from overseas; this after a rise of confirmed cases of infection in the past week, mostly as a result of a number of people flying into Hong Kong testing positive for the coronavirus, to bring the total of cases in Hong Kong to 273.     

 

In addition, Hong Kongers were horrified yesterday to learn that only one third of the monitoring wristbands that new arrivals to the territory's were given by the authorities to wear to check that they were indeed self-quarantining for 14 days actually have been activated!  And then today, came the news that a test sample mix-up at the quarantine center set up close to the airport had resulted in two people infected with the Wuhan coronavirus being allowed to make their way home rather than be sent to a hospital isolation ward!

 

To be sure, these screw ups can see rather minor to people in other countries where tens of thousands of people have been infected (including Spain and Germany) and even died (e.g., Italy as well as Mainland China).  And, in all honesty, I actually have spent much of this week in greater shock over how badly Malaysia, for one, has been dealing with the Wuhan coronavirus onslaught.  This is the country, after all, that went from zero deaths from the coronavirus at the beginning of this week to eight today, and whose number of confirmed cases of infection has now risen to 1,183 (from 428 just one week ago).

 

This past Monday, the leader of the backdoor government appeared on television to announce the placing of a "movement control order" from Wednesday through to March 31st.  With his speech being short on details, the order sowed much panic, chaos and confusion.  Days after implementation, there still appears to be disagreement about what it actually entails, with new details emerging -- including that today which apparently makes it so that only the head of each family is allowed to venture out to shop for groceries and other necessities (which then begs the question: what if the head of the family is elderly, incapacitated and otherwise not the best choice of person to go out to do such?!)

Truly, the more I hear about the "new" Malaysian government (which many Malaysians don't consider legitimate nor capable), the more I despair that it can steer Malaysia out of this crisis any time soon, and with fewer casualties than would be the case if, say, the Pakatan Harapan government were still in power and its health minister were in charge.  At the very least, unlike the present incumbent, the much respected Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad surely would not have fallaciously suggested that drinking warm water can help to prevent infection by the Wuhan coronavirus!  

 

And while I know this ridiculous pronouncement by someone who supposedly does have a medical degree is ridiculous, I really can't laugh about it because so many lives are at stake.  We're talking, after all, about the dangerous enemy that Malaysia is currently having facing, along with Hong Kong and the rest of the world, is one that the last time I looked at the latest coronavirus pandemic statistics a minute or so ago, had already been confirmed as having infected 288,044 people in the world and claimed a reported 11,949 human lives. :( 

10 highlights of my 2018 year

An image that brings back fond memories 

of my favorite hike of 2018

Puppet Ponyo posing in front of a temple in

my favorite town or city visited this past year

The proverbial "they" say that time flies when you're having fun.  If so, I must have had a lot of fun in 2018 -- and in the similarly fast passing first month of 2019!  So it really would be a crime to not note down 10 highlights of the past year for the record to add to my previous posts for 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006 (the last of which was the year that I began this now over 12 year old blog) -- and preferably before the second month of 2019 comes long!  So, without further ado...

Best book: It's been decades since I last set foot at my beloved undergraduate college but, as a recent blog entry shows, I still find myself fondly recalling my experiences there from time to time.  Perhaps for this reason, I still enjoy reading stories that take place, even if only partly, in college settings.  So when I saw a copy of J. Courtney Sullivan's Commencement for sale at the local Salvation Army thrift store for HK$25 (~US$3.18), I bought it despite being unfamiliar with the author or book title.  Post reading this 2009 novel, I now realize what a bargain I got -- since this gem of a book is one that I can easily foresee myself re-reading again more than once in the future! :)    

Best concert: I went to a number of classical music concerts in 2018 that I thoroughly enjoyed, including yet another Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra concert which had my favorite classical musician, Ning Feng, as the featured artiste, and a Hong Kong Sinfonietta concert with a movie-themed program.  However, none of them got me beaming from ear to ear all evening that the Hong Kong leg of Charamel's Splash Tour did!  There's no two ways about it: my favorite pear fairy and its band really rock, and are super entertaining and fun to watch as well as listen to! :)   

Best decorated building (complex): I visited many buildings in 2018 whose decorated interiors as well as exteriors had me gasping at their sheer beauty, and filled with awe at the mastery of the artists and artesans whose creations remain amazing centuries after they were made.  This was particularly the case in Spain, a country whose past glories have left it with a number of really incredible works of art, including architecture.  In Segovia, I was so busy admiring the buildings seemingly everywhere around me that I literally fell down in the street.  In Sevilla, I was bowled over by Christian cathedrals along with Mudéjar artistry.  But it was Granada's Alhambra, particularly its Palacios Nazaries, which I found truly heavenly -- and I count myself very blessed to have been able to see its beauty up close and with my own eyes.   

Best exhibition: After visiting in Hiroshima in October 2017 and discovering that the area's oyster season hadn't begun yet, I vowed to return there soon to feast on fresh and raw Hiroshima oysters.  Upon doing so early last year, I not only was able to do that but I also got to check out a special exhibition of works by the great ukiyo-e artist, Hiroshige, at the Hiroshima Museum of Art which ran there for less than two months.  Although the art history classes that I took at college in Wisconsin focused by and large on Western art, this former art history and anthropology double major (and museum studies minor) still is able to appreciate masterworks from the Land of the Rising Sun which may use different aesthetics but depict scenes that I increasingly find familiar rather than super foreign, and feel an emotional as well as intellectual connection to.

Best hike: For a number of reasons, I didn't hike as much in 2018 as in previous years.  At the same time though, I was able to get in a number of hikes outside as well as in Hong Kong -- sometimes on my own but also often in the company of friends; with my favorite being a hike in southwest Lantau on the third day of Chinese New Year in the company of two good buddies who I've done a lot of hiking with over the years and are always fun to be around both on a trail and off it.  On that particular excursion, we got to see lots of great views (and Chinese New Year flowers) and also get to talking about a wide range of subjects -- the kind of ingredients enjoyed by people who go for the kind of "non-competitive hiking" that we all like to do! ;b 

Best meal: The category with the most candidates by far; something which should come as no surprise considering how much of a foodie I am and that the territories I visited in 2018 include Japan, Penang, Spain and Jeju!  This past year, I also dined at a couple of three Michelin-starred restaurants (8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo and Lung King Heen) here in Hong Kong.  The more I think about it though, the more I return to my most recent meal at zero Michelin star Godenya -- which I actually am a bit shocked to realize that I didn't blog about.  Many months later, I still can almost taste the incredible kabogani (female snow crab) risotto, the inspired combination of sweet potto, beets and century egg, the rich-tasting abalone and shirako combo dish, and the amazingly delicious pistachio and sake dessert -- and their memory is getting me thinking that another visit to that sake-food pairing specialist is overdue! 

Best museum: Last year, I achieved a dream I've long had of visiting Spain's Museo Nacional del Prado.  But as it turned out, my favorite of the museums I visited in 2018 actually was another Madrid museum: the, to my mind, better designed and curated Museo Arqueológico Nacional which came across as well as innovative as well as interesting and informative, filled with lots of impressive artefacts and also possibly the best multimedia displays that I've ever seen in a museological institution ever!

Best sunrise: Being far more of a night owl than early bird by inclination, it's extremely rare for me be awake at sunrise, never mind wake up to hike up to a high vantage point from which to watch the sun rise.  Thank goodness that the views from the top of Jeju's Seongsan Ilchulbong were absolutely worth it -- and the sunrise I viewed there may well be the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen, never mind for the year 2018, which is saying something since the previous year, I had seen the sunrise from atop Indonesia's Borobudur!  

Best tour: If I could only choose one alcoholic beverage to drink, it'd be sake (yes, rather than beer!).  And if I could only drink one brand of sake, the Asahi Shuzo Company's Dassai sake would be it.  With this in mind, I hope you can get a sense of how much of a thrill it was for me to be accorded a personalized tour of the Asahi Shuzo Company's brewery: one which included visits to a rice milling factory and various rooms in the main building including one where the koji was being sprinkled onto the rice along with my third meeting with company president Kazuhiro Sakurai (and the first in his home country) and complimentary glasses of the three sakes at the top of the Dassai range.  In addition, so amazing was the hospitality that I will feel forever in the Sakurai-san's debt -- one which I guess I can only repay by making sure to imbibe a lot of Dassai sake in the years to come! 

Best town/city visited: There are many towns and cities in Japan, my favorite country to visit, that I've been charmed by over the years -- places where I've seen beautiful sights, tasted good food and had great encounters with local folks.  Nonetheless, Takayama, which I visited for the first time this past year -- and certainly want to return for another visit at some point -- really did feel especially wonderful.  In just a few days there, I got to see a seriously gorgeous sunset, had daily encounters with super friendly people, enjoyed a lot of good food and loved the sights found in its streets so much that I spent many hours doing nothing more than strolling around the town that I would go so far as to say that I fell in love with... :)           

Less than positive experiences in the second most-visited country in the world

Artistic depiction of a smelly habit

Allergens and allergy medication abounded

in Spain this spring!

Not the kind of conditions I expected to encounter

in the main airport of a first world country's capital city

Earlier this month, a heatwave hit Spain that was so bad that it claimed the lives of several people.  Even before this news came along, I had known not to visit this country -- which attracted 82 million visitors last year, making it the second most-visited country in the world -- in the hot summer months.  If only I had known that springtime also is not an ideal time to visit the parts of Spain that I did; this because spring is prime hay fever season and Andalucia and the central areas of the country (where, say, Madrid is situated) regularly have high olive, plane tree and grass pollen counts!    

As it was, my allergies kicked in pretty early on in my May Spain trip and my eyes were all watery, my nose all itchy and runny, and I was sneezing so badly that in the middle of my visit to the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, I developed a nosebleed which I feared that I would not be able to stem for a time!  With no fever having developed, I figured (correctly) that I had hay fever: for the first time in a decade and a half (because, ironically, I don't react as badly to the air pollution in Hong Kong!); and which was made worse by so many people -- women as well as men -- smoking like chimneys in the streets, while strolling about or when seated in the outdoor sitting areas of cafes and restaurants.

Things did not get better after my German friend and I left Madrid and headed over to Andalucia, with an antihistamine spray I got in the Spanish capital not helping much at all.  Fortunately, things vastly improved -- and pretty quickly too! -- after I got some 24-hour anti-allergy tables from a pharmacy in Sevilla a few blessed hours before our visit to the city's Real Alcazar.  Sadly, that was the same day that my German friend came down with a bacterial infection (whose symptoms included red eye and prolonged bouts of coughing) which I managed to stave off when I was in Spain but then was overcome with a couple of days after I got back to Hong Kong!

Partly because of our health problems, my German friend and I weren't able to enjoy our vacation and appreciate Spain as much as we would have liked to do so.  At the same time though, there were aspects of our trip and things about the country that I honestly think that, even if we were in the best of health throughout, we would not have been happy with.

Among them are the over-crowdedness of certain attractions and parts of the towns and cities we visited.  With regards to this: Cordoba was by far the worst; and so off-putting were my experiences there that I ended up opting not to go to the even more celebrated Toledo, which had actually been top on my list of places (along with Granada's Alhambra) to visit in Spain prior to my trip.  And things were not helped by many of the super crowded spaces -- including Madrid's Puerta del Sol -- often feeling like prime petty crime (specifically pickpocketing) territory.     

A note on Spain and pickpocketing: before our trip, both my German friend and I had heard horror stories about and got warnings to watch out for it from various people.  And while walking on a street near the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía on my final day in the country, after I felt pressure on my backpack and quickly spun around to see what was going on, I saw a woman with a large plastic bag walking quickly away from me -- and feel pretty certain that she had been planning to steal stuff from me!   

Continuing with the tales of theft: on my plane out of Madrid later that day, the two women seated in my row (who, suspiciously, were the only other Asians on the aircraft!) told me about their backpacks having been slashed and stuff having been taken from them while they were walking along the Camino de Santiago!  And they too had heard stories of other fellow travellers having been victims of pickpockets and were inclined to conclude that tourists are specifically targeted by Spanish petty criminals.

Living as I currently do in a part of the world where one's personal safety and security tends to be assumed as a matter of course (so much so that I feel perfectly able to be out late at night), it can be quite unsettling as well as disheartening to feel obliged to be on one's guard against being taken advantage of by others.  Also rather upsetting was my seeing as many beggars on the streets in Spain, particularly Madrid, and also the buskers and itinerant street hawkers who seemed far more like panhandlers than bona fide entertainers or vendors.                 

I had read about the Spanish financial crisis but thought that the country was on the road to recovery.  In my short time in Spain, however, I saw plenty of signs that quite a few people and institutions remain financially strapped and economically troubled, and my general impression is that this is a country whose glory days are way past and is a shadow of what it used to be (and may still perceive itself to still be, especially vis a vis countries located in others of the world's continents).

For these reasons, among others (that I don't want to go into, at least not in this post), I actually came away from my Spain trip thinking that it will be my final as well as first visit to the country.  And this despite my having seen some really amazingly beautiful sights (created by Muslims and pagans as well as Christians who lived centuries before) in various cities and also my having tasted a variety of dishes that got me thinking that Spanish food may well have become my favorite European cuisine. :S  

Positively reacting to snowy sights in Spain this past May!

Snow on the mountains visible from Madrid's Palacio Real!

 

 Lots of snow visible too on the Sierra Nevada range when viewed 

from atop the Alcazaba's main tower at Granada's Alhambra

 

Still more snow visible on the peaks of mountains -- 

this time from a viewpoint by Segovia's Roman Aqueduct 

 

Growing up, as I did, as a small child in a country situated very close to the Equator, the closest thing to snow that I saw or touched in real life was the frost in the freezer section of the refrigerator.  Little did I know then that there would come a time in my life when I would see snow so regularly and in such great quantities that I would get sick and tired of seeing that cold white stuff and decide that if I never ever saw snow again, that would be fine by me.   For as it turned out, I ended up spending four years attending college in a part of the US known to many as "the Siberia of America", where winter comes with the Halloween Ghost and leaves with the Easter Bunny!  

 

The first winter that I was in Wisconsin, I was happy and excited when the first snow fell.  But it kept on snowing and snowing and snowing for a number of months.  And long before spring finally came along, I not only got fed up of seeing so much the cold, white stuff on the ground and roofs of buildings and such but also being asked whether I was happy and/or excited at the sight of the snow.  (With regards to the latter: I took to responding in a world-weary tone: "No, because I'm an Eskimo"; which apparently was so convincing that it prompted many of the questioners to apologize for having mistaken me for, well, someone from warmer climes who wasn't used to seeing snow!)

After garduating from Beloit and moving to Philadelphia, I continued to see snow regularly each winter.  And while there was far less of it in that part of the country, the authorities seemed to be far less able to deal with it -- with the result that roads were often more hazardous in winter and the snow often didn't get cleared for days and, consequently, often turned gray with dirt or yellow as a result of many a dog in the neighborhood getting walked out to pee on it!

So it suited me perfectly fine that for some 11 years after I left Philadelphia, snow was confined once again to paintings and the silver or small screen.  But on a visit to Shirakawa-go in May 2014, I caught sight of white-capped mountains and one year later, found myself unexpectedly walking once again on the wet, white stuff on a visit to Norway in June 2015.  Since then, I also have had snow fall on me while on transit at Munich airport one January evening in 2016, got to gaze at a beautifully snow-topped Mount Fuji in the fall of that year and trudged through quite a bit of snow in Hikone this past January! 

 

In Spain this past May, I found myself viewing snow-capped mountains on a number of occasions, one of which happened to be the Old World's Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Rather than be alarmed or annoyed by those snowy sights, I found them to be pleasingly picturesque.  Consequently, I've now amended my "not ever wanting to see snow again" stance to one where I do think it rather pleasant to catch sight of the white stuff every once in a while, albeit from a distance, and without having to set foot on it and feel the icy cold temperatures that are required for it to stay for a time on the ground. ;b

Anguish and disquiet at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

At the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía... 

One can see works by Joan Miró...

...and Salvador Dali, among many others

Many visitors to Madrid only pick one museum to visit -- and when they do, it invariably will be the very large artistic treasure house that is the Museo Nacional del Prado.  It seems that there also visitors to the Spanish capital who leave without setting foot in a single museum there.  I, on the other hand, spent time in four of Madrid's museums: the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Borenemisza on my first full day in the country; the Museo Arqueológico Nacional on the day that I returned to the city from an Andalucian sojourn; the Prado (where photographs are not allowed to be taken, like with the Palacio Real and El Escorial); and, on my final day in Spain, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.   

Located in the museum neighborhood where the Prado and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Borenemisza are to be found, Spain's national museum of 20th century art is quite the attraction itself; thanks in no small part to it being the home of Pablo Picasso's iconic Guernica.  And the historical as well as artistic significance of this mural-sized oil painting created in reaction to the bombing of a Basque village by warplanes from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy at the request of the Spanish Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War should be clear to visitors to the museum which has devoted eight rooms (by my count) to showcasing the work and providing information as to the politico-historical context in which it was created.    

No photography of any sort is allowed in that suite of rooms, and I find it understandable because the mood in there is much more like that found at war monuments rather than conventional art museums.  But contrary to the insistence of one over-zealous museum guard that I had the bad fortune to encounter, it's actually allowed in the rest of the public galleries of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.  

Among the other works that caught my eye in this museological institution are very dark  works by Goya (some of which really graphically document human atrocities), and those by Miro and Dali that were rendered in a very different style from that which has come to be associated with them along with others that are far more recognizably works by those two artists.  If truth be told though, fewer art works really impressed me at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía than I thought would be the case for an art museum that does have a number of works by famous non-Spanish artists (e.g., Francis Bacon, Alexander Calder and Rene Magritte) as well as Spanish ones.

Something else I found rather troubling was that even while the exterior of the museum's buildings looked pretty stunning, there were literally were cracks in the floor tiles and some of the tiles even had come loose.  Put another way: I came away from my visit to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía with a sense that Spain's decade-long economic woes have affected its artistic legacy as well as the individuals out begging and turning to crimes such as pickpocketing on the streets in the neighborhood in which it's located; and, almost needless to say, I found this more troubling than some of the frankly pretty disquieting art on display in the museum.

All in all, my visit to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía didn't leave me feeling as good as I expected and would have liked.  Having said that, when its main treasure is a work that is effectively a primal cry of anguish, I guess it stands to reason that this is a museum where beauty is secondary to expression and emotion, negative as well as positive.       

Traces of Spain's Jewry in Segovia

Not the kind of place that visually screams out 

that it's of much significance

 

 Home to a convent's modest church since 1419

Would you believe that this space was previously 

home to Segovia's main synagogue?

I may have opted to give Segovia's Cathedral a miss but this doesn't mean that I didn't spend any time in a house of worship in that historic Spanish city.  While making my way from the area where the exposed section of the Roman aqueduct can be viewed over to the city's Alcazar, I found myself seeing shelter from the rain at the Corpus Christi Convent's modest -- definitely by Spanish standards -- church.        

Described as "skippable" by the guidebook I heavily relied upon while in the country, I nonetheless found this place of prayer to be worth a visit; not least for its history as Segovia's main synagogue up until it was confiscated by the authorities in 1410.  Turned into a church in 1419, the 14th century building is physically attached to the rest of the convent which is situated in Segovia's old Jewish quarter, within the old city walls and across the river from where I later saw that the old Jewish cemetery is located.

Like with Cordoba's Mezquita, sections of the former non-Christian house of prayer are visible in this historic section of the convent; this even after the bulk of this building was destroyed by a great fire in 1899.  While this does not seem like much, consider that in Spain's Jewish museums (including Cordoba's Casa de Sefarad), there is next to no artifacts which actually hail from Spain and a time which predates the mass expulsions of Jews from the country in 1492.    

I must confess: While I knew about the historical presence of Muslims in Spain prior to my setting foot in it, I hadn't realized until I visited the country that there once were as many as 200,000 to 250,000 Jews in Spain during what has been described as the "Golden Age".  These days, the population size is more along the lines of 13,000 (affliated) or 50,000 (resident) -- which is not much at all in a nation of more than 46 million people but, nonetheless, more than I expected of a country which has a history involving mass expulsions, conversions and massacres of its non-Christian -- actually, even non-Catholic -- populace.

In addition, I must admit to not expecting that there were Jews living in Segovia during the reign of Isabella I of Castile and her forebears.  Somehow, it had not occured to me that there would be a Jewish community in the city in which she was crowned queen.  Put another way: I naively thought that she wouldn't consider people living in the same part of the world as her to be "the other".  But it seems that, too often, one's enemies are those that one really should know -- and think -- better about rather than those whom one has geographical reasons for not knowing all that well (in more than one sense).

On a perhaps more positive note: One often hears -- and sees the truth in -- the quote that "history is written by the victors"; so it's intriguing that over the course of my travels in Spain, I've come to learn quite a bit about the Muslims and Jews -- rather than just the Catholics -- in the predominantly Catholic country's past.  And I find it pretty interesting that the three Segovian landmarks that I ended up spending time checking out turn out to have have Roman (the aqueduct), Muslim (the Alcazar) and Jewish (the church of the Convent of Corpus Christi) origins! 

Off the beaten tourist track in picturesque Segovia (Photo-essay)

A few days ago, I blogged about venturing off the beaten track in Hong Kong.  Should there be any doubt: Escaping from the crowd is something I enjoy doing, even when touring in parts of the world less familiar to me.  Consequently, when I visited the historic Spanish city of Segovia earlier this year, I found myself loathe to follow the route a tourist office staffer marked out on a map for me (without my asking her to do so).

To be sure, I was unable to resist checking out the exposed section of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Roman aqueduct or paying a visit to Segovia's Alcazar while I was in the area.  However, I ended up eschewing the opportunity to spend time in the city's cathedral in favor of doing such as going wandering in the areas beyond the old town walls rather than just those encircled by them.

A confession: it was in large part due to my wanting to get better views of the Alcazar then I had been treated to while walking through the old town to it that I decided to descend several meters down to the plain below from the rocky bluff on which the bulk of the old town stands and take a circuitous route back to the part of the city where most tourists were to be found.  Along the way, I got to spend time in areas that were greener as well as quieter than much of where I had previously ventured in Spain, and made that walk feel at times like an actual hike in the country that got the adrenaline flowing and my spirits soaring in a way that I don't think a visit to yet another historic place of worship would have! ;b

The Gothic cathedral which I was content to just view 

from the outside -- so sue me!

Click on the above image and I think you'll understand why I preferred 

to spend a good bulk of my time in Segovia walking around outdoors instead!

Minutes before I took the plunge and ventured

down to the plain below...

A far better view of the Alcazar than one can get from

the rocky bluff on which the old town sits

Solitary angler doing his thing by the river

 Another stunning view of the enchanted looking Alcazar!

 

A quiet, green area I passed by turned out to be 

the old Jewish cemetery

 A view of Segovia old town, including the top of 

its cathedral, from outside the old town wall :)

Like something out of a fairytale: Segovia's Alcazar (Photo-essay)

Earlier in my Spanish travels, I visited an alcazar in Sevilla which caused me to come down with a major case of tile envy.  Presented with another chance to visit an alcazar in Segovia, I grabbed the chance; this even though I knew full well that this particular complex actually is largely a reconstruction of the fortified palace that was one of the favorite residences of the monarchs of Castille (including the (in)famous Queen Isabella I who went on to marry King Ferdinand II of Aragon in Segovia and now lies next to him in Granada's Capilla Real) of in the Middle Ages that was burnt down in 1862.

My reason for this is that the Alcazar of Segovia is that its 19th century restorers appeared to have pulled out all the stops to (re-)create the kind of place that looked like it's come out of a fairytale.  Said to have be in the inspiration along with Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria's Schloss Neutschwanstein for the castles in Walt Disney's Magic Kingdoms, Segovia's fortified palace is a fascinating blend of Mudéjar and Gothic artistic styles.  And, unlike with Cordoba's Mezquita, I think the Muslim and Christian aesthetic elements actually go well together here! :)

Walk across the drawbridge over the moat to 

a place of visual wonder perched atop a huge bedrock! 

Some of the armory and weaponry on show

in the fortified palace

The thrones in the Alcazar may look rather modest 

compared to those found in Madrid's Palace Real...

 ...but a look up at the throne room's ceiling gives a clue that 

memorable visuals can indeed be found in this fortified palace!

In the Sala de Galeria (whose colorful moulded ceiling purportedly

resemblea an inverted ship hull) is a large mural of Isabella I being 

proclaimed Queen of Castile and León in Segovia's Main Square

Stained glass window whose central figure is

-- you guessed it! -- Queen Isabella I!

 The grand Hall of the Monarchs contains three-dimensional 

portraits of 52 rulers of Castile and León, and 7 queens 

  

So... fantastically fairytale-like enough for you? ;b