Hemingway's Madrid, 50 years after his death

[xchrom]

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/english/Hemingway/s/Madrid/years/after/his/death/elpepueng/20110713elpeng_1/Ten

"Yet when you get to know it , it is the most Spanish of all cities, the best to live in, the finest people, month in and month out the finest climate," wrote Ernest Hemingway in Death In The Afternoon . The Nobel Literature Prize winner visited Spain on several occasions, and in the 1920s he was here nine times with his family. During the Civil War, in 1937 and 1938, he returned to Madrid as a correspondent for the North American Newspaper Alliance, and was back again in the 1950s, attracted mostly by the bullfights, especially those featuring his friends Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez at Las Ventas.

Madrid's streets, parks and buildings were immortalized in his books. In his short story The Denunciation , Hemingway talks about Bar Chicote, on Gran Vía, as a symbol of the affection foreigners felt for Spain. This refuge of stars is also the setting for a scene from his play The Fifth Column . Some of the establishments that Hemingway frequented are still around, like Chicote, but others have met a sad fate.

The Gaylord, one of the most important hotels in Madrid during the war, used to stand on Calle de Alfonso XI. Now there is a residential building in its place. Robert Jordan, the main character in For Whom The Bell Tolls , said it once: "Too good for a city under siege." To mark the 50th anniversary of the writer's death last Saturday, EL PAÍS reviewed some of the establishments from Hemingway's era:

- Restaurante Botín. (Cuchilleros, 17). Carlos González, the current owner of the oldest restaurant in the capital, asserts that Hemingway used to love roast suckling pig. The writer was a regular at Botín and a good friend of Emilio, Carlos' grandfather and the former owner. One day, Hemingway asked Emilio to teach him how to make paella, but after several failed attempts the author of The Old Man and the Sea declared: "I'd better stick to writing." The Sun Also Rises , the novel that made him world famous, ends with a scene in this restaurant.

[CTyankee]

1. I loved Madrid when I visited in 08. With everyone mad for Barcelona and

crowding into it, I thought that city overrated and Madrid underrated. But perhaps it was just me. I had 3 world class museums close to one another that I could glory in...plus the miraculous food and just the beauty of it...

[marmar]

4. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Barcelona, but I liked Madrid a lot too......

I know a lot of people who've visited Madrid and didn't like it, I suspect because it doesn't have as many marquee attractions as Paris or Rome or Barcelona. It's a city you've got to get to "know" a bit.

[CTyankee]

5. I didn't dislike Barcelona, I just thought it had been inundated with tourists

so I tried to get off the beaten track a bit while I was there. I think Barcelona is one of those cities, like Venice, that would have been great to visit 30 years ago, before it got jampacked with people.

I must say, tho, that I had my greatest tapas meal in my entire Spain trip in Barcelona.

I want to go back to Spain, the southern part. I toured around northern Spain which was fascinating and even into the Pyrenees (mystical and wonderful). Pamplona was terrific. I went to San Sebastian and then to Bilbao (to the great Guggenheim museum...altho the entire city has been transformed by modern art and architecture...quite a place!).

[marmar]

7. Seville is awesome.....I'd love to go back and visit Bilbao and the Basque country.

nt

[xchrom]

9. i want to see gehry's museum in bilbao so bad.

i think it's stunning from what i can tell.

[CTyankee]

12. It''s pretty overwhelming. Big. Made out of titaninium.

Twombly's "Ah, the Peonies" is magnificent. You will love the place...and you'll love Bilbao. A nice old section where I bought some art...and good restaurants...

[xchrom]

13. i just knew the food would be good.

i can build a whole vacation around a museum{s}.

[CTyankee]

11. Do visit Pamplona on your way up there! I had a very wrong notion of it before I

stopped by. I thought it would be a kind of backwater, because all I ever saw of it was the old street that the bulls run down. But here was this beautiful town with very well off people, a graceful plaza major and that bar that Hemingway hung out in. There's a statue of him right at the bar.

Seville is on my list...I have a whole itinerary all laid out in my mind for southern Spain...

[Paka]

10. I was lucky enough to visit all of them back in 1966 and '67.

It was a magical time to be wandering around in Europe. I was living and working au pair in Paris in '66. One of the best moves I ever made in my life. More recently, I've had my best tapas in France (Pays Basque).

:thumbsup: :hippie:

[BeyondGeography]

2. Great town...Go to the Museo del Jamon and inhale

[xchrom]

3. jamon makes me weak in the knees. nt

[CTyankee]

6. I brought back sausage (shrink wrapped of course) from the Basque region.

Quite interesting...

[era veteran]

8. I love Spain, visiting twice

In Pamplona,outside the Plaza de Toros, there is a bust of their Don Ernesto. Reading The Sun Also Rises was the reason I went. They love him, although I hear the plaque has been vandalized. It was there when Franco was still in power, which must have bothered him a bit.

[comtec]

14. My inlaws live in Salamonca

which i personally prefer over madrid.
it's something about really big cities taht i don't care for.
Salamonca is a university city, walled, moat, the lot, it's very nice, an there are a ton of little villages (including the one my in laws live in) where you can get some amazing food.

Being in the middle of the rolling plains, it's beautiful, dry, and hot (those siestas make sense once you are there)

and the tortillas in the pubs MMMMMM

One of the tastier things i've learned how to cook from europe