The Sacramento Greek Festival and a Master Musician - Opa!

                           
                       

Those of you who visit my blog often know how much I love travel and other cultures, whether  I physically travel to another country, vicariously travel through books or go to local multicultural events. The Sacramento Greek Festival on Labor Day week-end is one such event. I always call it my "free trip to Greece." Above, you can see some of the displays of Greek costumes. This is probably the closest I will get to Greece, but I've always been charmed by it ever since reading and seeing the movie, Zorba. What I am most pulled by is the music. It's so haunting. It lingers in your mind afterwards. Those minor notes . . .

At the Greek Festival,
 there is also an agora (marketplace) where you can shop for anything from imported clothing, jewelry, art, ceramics, etc. And a little garden shop.

The food is also delicious. (See how contented these diners look?) There are also Greek cooking lessons. Wine and beer 
are also available, as well. (Where else can you get an intriguing retsina--that resin-flavored wine I really enjoy) than at the festival? And displays are set up to celebrate Greece's history.

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A big event each year is when the noted artist, Greg Kondos, shows up. To support the event,  Kondos usually donates prints to the Festival to sell; those who buy one can get his autograph. We missed seeing him this year, but we have two  autographed prints from other years that have pride of place in our home. 

An important feature of the festival is the performance by young people of traditional greek dances--by age group, from elementary school age, middle school, high school, and finally the college group that performs late in the evening, choreographing their own special performance at a facsimile of a Taverna. Unfortunately we didn't stay for this part of the program, as we had to leave early the next morning for a trip we were taking. And pictures we took at earlier festivals print -- digital ones-- got accidentally erase (evil computer problems.) But we have more or less watched a whole generation grow up, advancing from group to group. (We've gone to the festival for about 32 years!)

A live band plays later in the evening, and between sets, Demetre Paraskevas, the DJ and host of the evening ,usually plays taped music while people get out on the dance floor and circle dance, if they know how. If they don't, as the evening wears on, Demetre gives free dance lessons. You can go to the Greek Festival site to see and hear more HERE. 

But now I'm coming to the real treat for us this year--a concert by two musicians, one playing the bouzouki, (a Greek stringed instrument that looks somewhat like the Portuguese guitar I've mentioned in earlier posts about Fado) and the other playing an acoustic guitar. Both instruments blend so beautifully.

I've always loved acoustic guitar, but the bouzouki just swept me away, and Rajan as well. We felt so lucky to have come early! The bouzouki player's name is Orestis Koletsos, and he records with his trio, HOLAX. Last Friday he explained to the audience that the bouzouki expresses the soul of the Greek people. I can believe it. There was so much fire, excitement, sadness, happiness, conveyed by turns on this marvelous instrument. I wish I could share the sounds of it right here on the post. The best I can do is send you to his website HERE  His trio also includes a violinist. The three instruments together just take you to a different world, and the guitarist, in addition to playing so beautifully, is a fine vocalist as well. You can hear some of their songs on YouTube HERE and HERE. You can also follow Orestis on Facebook HERE.

Check out these sites, including the Greek Festival. I'll close with the one Greek word I know--Opa--which means, I've been told, a great many things. So that, frankly, I'm still not sure what it means. If  you can find out, please let me know.

How about you? Are you smitten by travel? Have you always wanted to go to Greece? What is your favorite Greek novel or movie?

The Buildings of Braga

The main entrance of
Se Cathedral

For some time I have been wanting to write about the wonderful buildings we see each time we go to Braga. The Sé Cathedral is probably good to start with for two reasons: The personal reason is that my husband, who loves black and white photography, is entranced with the stone churches of Spain and Portugal, and this building is a knock-out. The more serious reason is that it is the seat of the Archdiocese of Braga and one of the oldest cathedrals in Portugal; some say the oldest. As such, it shows the many architectural features seen all over the city: The entrance facade is Romanesque (notice the arches);  the bell towers are Baroque, (intricately ornamental). And inside, many areas are tiled with the distinctive Azulejo blue and white tiles one sees on walls, both exterior and interior, all over Portugal.

Braga is a city of churches, given its long history as the the religious capital of Portugal. But you see the interweaving of Roman and Baroque in many of the churches, and also many of the mansions and museums. One example is the old Archbishop's Palace, where the Jardim de Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara Garden) is nestled in a back square of the former palace.

You can see how the word "Palace"
applies here. 

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The new Archbishop's palace is located elsewhere and this crenelated building now houses archived material for the University of Minho. But step inside the entrance and you can see the true beauty of Azulejos:


   

 So many insides of churches had scenes in Azulejos, too. And many an exterior is decorated in blue and white tiles. While ceramic tiles were used all over Europe and were inspired by Moorish and Egyptian, the way Azulejos are used in Portugal have become an art form. In addition, many walls in Braga often display solid or geometrically patterned tiles as well: 

                                                                   

 All the beautiful colors and textures add to the distinctive quality to each building. No two buildings are exactly alike. Some have arched arched windows; others arched doorways. Some have painted walls, others have tiled walls. Sometimes the grill work of balconies is black; other times it's painted in bright colors. I could have taken endless pictures. You've actually been spared an extensive photo album of shots! :-)

Back to the churches: You could call Braga a city of churches. As the religious capital of Portugal, there are over thirty-to-thirty-five churches, in addition to the Sé Cathedral, and all quite distinctive. There is Igreja dos Congregados on the one side of Avenida Central bordering  Praça República (Republican Square (two views below).

Seen from the Arcada, which fronts
one end of Republican Square. 

Seen from across the triangular park
 that starts at the Arcade and ends in
Largo Senhora Branca.

There was also Igreja a Senhora Branca (Church of Our Lady in White) just across from our hotel (Hotel Senhora a Branca). A sign forbade picture taking inside, but the chapel was lovely, tiled in two shades of yellow with the main altar ceiling painted blue. The tiled facade could be photographed, and above the entrance, a statue of "Our Lady" in an alcove was lit by night: Here are some pictures by both day and night:

 On this particular trip (June, 2015), we were there during the full moon, which added a veil of mystery at night.

There were other churches of note: Bon Jesus, four miles out of town, up in the hills, which we did see last fall while attending a photography exhibit. (Our pictures were mainly of the exhibit, but here is a plaque on one wall.) A small, baroque church  on a street behind the Arcade, Igreja da Terceira Ordem Regular de São Francisco (Church of the Third Regular Order of Saint Francis). And inside the arcade is a small church, Igreja Paroquial de Nossa Senhora da Lapa (Our Lady of Lapa). 

If you look closely, you'll
see more beautiful Azulejos.

Then there were the museums. I'll concentrate on two that captured our attention. On our first trip, we went to the Museu da Imagem - The Image Museum, that specializes in photography exhibits. I had read of this museum in a travel article posted in the Huffington Post and was particularly interested, because my husband does black-and-white photography. Online, we made friends with the director, Rui Prata, and when we visited, we got acquainted with him and this beautiful museum. It's partly housed in an old tower of the original castle and an adjoining building that looks out on the street. Inside are current exhibits and historical photographs of Braga, and Rui Prata was generous with his time, telling us much about the history of Braga. He himself is a photographer, a curator of exhibits, and has recently retired from director of the museum to move to Finland from where he still curates exhibits all over Europe.

Museum entrance - the red building.

Street view from inside the door.

My husband debating what
to look at first. You can see
the complexity of the layout.

Just one of the sections of photos. 

This particular exhibit was
about the 1974
Carnation Revolution

Later Rui treated us to dinner
and introduced us to some fine
Portuguese wines.

We'd often heard about the Museu dos Biscainhos, a historical mansion, originally built in the early 17th century by a noble family. Inside its many rooms are collections of 17th and 18th century European and Asian furniture, ceramics, porcelain, glass, paintings, etc. The baroque palace or manor had its own chapel, servant quarters, carriage house. But it was the 18th century baroque garden with statues, fountains, pathways between hedges and flower beds, and trees that blew me away, and I focus my pictures on its beauty. 9One tree is a giant tulip poplar, sent from Virginia to the nobleman's family 2 centuries ago.)                                                                                                                            

 

A 200-year-old tulip poplar and me.
   Did I mention it was huge?
   Moments like this give you a sense of your size in the scheme of things.



Last, but not lease, I'd like to mention our good fortune to meet Inȇs Barbosa on our first and subsequent visits. Inȇs is getting her Masters at University of Minho and was interning at the hotel where we stay (Hotel Senhora a Branca) until just recently, when she went to work for Lufthansa in Porto. She patiently answered innumerable questions about Braga, about Portugal, about Fado, etc. On our last visit she told us about some of the Folklorico groups in Braga. The group she belongs to were to perform in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, the day after we left Braga.

In Folklorico costume. 

 She kindly sent me a video of the group performing in Braga, and I'm passing it on for you to enjoy: Just click HERE.

How about you? Do you belong to a heritage or historical interest group of some kind? Do you love historical buildings and gardens?

Beautiful Galicia, Otra Vez

It's hard to believe that we arrived in Spain 8 days ago. Time flows by in a different way, even though we bring work with us. The trip is long, we arrive exhausted, but we have rituals along the way. The trip is more than 24 hours (door to door) and spans two days. We leave Saturday morning, have a long stretch in Dallas/FW Airport, where we have battered and fried green beans and a glass of beer at TGIF, waiting for our next flight. We arrive in Madrid around 10:30 a.m. Sunday, and have a lunch of smoked salmon, bread, and wine, then fight sleep while waiting for our connection to Santiago de Composetela. We arrive in Santiago a little after 5:00 p.m. and collect baggage. Our friends, Terri and David,  meet us, drive us back to our house in Trasulfe, where we "turn on the house" (electricity, water, gas-tank connections, etc.), then we all go out to eat at a restaurant in Monforte, called O Pincho, where we split delicious raciones. (Rations are smaller than dinners, bigger than tapas.) 

Here's a picture of Terri and David from last summer (we haven't yet gotten around to pictures of friends on this trip.) As soon as we got to O Pincho, we woke up and had a great time catching up on news, eating rations and drinking the house wine. The next morning, waking with the sun (about seven-ish), eating lunch at 2:00 p.m. and dinner around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m., Rajan and I realized we'd fallen into Spanish time right away, with very little jet lag!

Friends and neighbors tell us it was a continually rainy winter, but our first few days were sunny. There was the usual morning mist and intermittent sprinkles through the day that vanished in afternoon heat. Still, we felt free to bring out our patio table and chairs. Then things changed.

The small pasture across the sheep
path in front of our gate. The thin
tree in the foreground is a volunteer
peach tree that so far doesn't bear.

A neighbor's pasture below ours.
See those little fruit trees? The storm
blew all the petals away. No fruit
this year. 

After four beautiful sunshiny days, on Thursday afternoon a fierce hailstorm struck. First thunder rolled and roared for about an hour, and then hail beat down for about thirty minutes. This was the result :

These aren't snow drifts. Just lots and lots of hail.

I wanted to put a video here, with all its great sound effects, but I couldn't get my video to play. (I've sent to Google for help.) But this should give you some idea.

On another note, we've been making a point to walk at least two miles a day. In about a year, I want to walk a portion of the Camino that ends in Santiago. (One item on my bucket list.) I won't be able to make it to Santiago, but a friend informed me that if you walk 100 km, you can get a certificate. That's about sixty miles. Next spring I'd like to do about 30 miles, and then in the fall of 2015 do the second set. So far, a few times we've parked at Gadis, one of the big supermarkets at the edge of Monforte, and walked up to the Parador.

Here's the Parador, seen from the Gadis parking lot.
Below is Gadis, seen from Parador, to give you and
idea of how far we walk.

Gadis, where we parked, seen from the Parador: See the thin pale blue
stripe about two thirds up in the middle? Above the center green? To the
left of that is a teeny yellow sign. That's Gadis.

Other walks have been along country roads. Beautiful nature walks, really. This will give you some 
idea: The picture on the left is an example of most of the scenery here. 

The picture to the right is of a pretty church in Toiriz. We don't have pictures yet of the stork nests, but on tall posts nearby, there are two separate stork nests, and we sometimes see one of the parent birds feeding the baby birds. All you can see is the upended body, so we aren't quite sure how big those babies get. Hopefully we'll get a good photo sometime soon.



And now, it's time for a walk! But stay tuned, because the next post will be about a wonderful Fado singer we heard Sunday night. 


Meanwhile, if you have special items on your bucket list, I'd love to hear what they are.