 Yes, that's Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz riding on a giant chicken while wearing ruby sneakers. Because why not? “I feel like I just sold my soul to the devil,” I told Rich last week. I’d finally taken the plunge and signed up for ChatGPT, the new artificial intelligence that will soon be running the planet. How complex was the signup process? About halfway between taking out a library card and applying to become a NASA astronaut on the Mars mission. The strangest part? It asked me — five times! — if I was human. Well, that felt a bit personal this early in our relationship. I wondered what would have happened if I’d said no. Would it stonewall me? You’d think any self-respecting AI would welcome fellow cyborgs to the conversation. Most likely ChatGPT just wanted to verify that yes, it had to dumb down its responses for yet another slow-moving meat-based brain. In my efforts to embrace ChatGPT, I figured I’d start with an easy test run, asking it to provide some background about the first activity of my Nutters Tour of California: the nearby town of Petaluma’s Butter and Egg Days. Disappointingly the chatbot seemed to know less than I did — and considerably less than Google and Wikipedia — about this annual screwball event.  A mom decorates her daughter's hair with feathers in preparation for the Cutest Chick Contest. The festival’s roots go back to 1849, when Petaluma had the great good fortune to be in the poultry business as the Gold Rush hit California, bringing in 300,000 hungry prospectors ready to pay top dollar for grub. By 1915, Petaluma was producing ten million eggs a year and for nearly two decades its banks held more money per capita than anywhere else on earth. Canny officials promoted their town as “The Egg Capital of the World,” “The World’s Egg Basket,” and “Chickaluma.” In 1918 the first Egg Day parade took place, with the theme “Eat More Eggs.” Forty years ago local dairy farmers wanted to get in on the fun, and today the annual celebration is known as Butter and Egg Days. With forty years marking the ruby anniversary, somebody hit on the theme of ruby slippers and the Wizard of Oz catchphrase, “There’s no place like home.” Ruby slippers, ruby sneakers, ruby boots, and ruby chicken feet appeared on everyone from babies to those old enough to know better. Saturday’s first spectacle was the spirited Cow Chip Throwing Contest, featuring festively painted dried dung patties. Locally sourced? It started out that way, but enthusiasm for picking up bovine droppings soon fizzled out among regional dairy farmers (go figure). Thanks to Ebay, boxes of cow chips are now shipped in from Texas every year, although the job of painting them still falls to Petaluma’s selfless volunteers. The contest began with the traditional Battle of the Badges, pitting fire chief Jeff Schach against police chief Ken Savano, whose epic throw a few years ago (past the end of the plaza and across the street beyond) has become a local legend. There was a wind up …. The pitch … And Savano won again, to wild applause. Town dignitaries and beauty contest winners then tried their luck, displaying more heart than skill. Several chips landed embarrassingly close to the starting line, one appeared to glance off an awning, a few skittered into the crowd, and one dropped down on a dog, who seemed surprised but uninjured and very interested in the cow chip. It was tough to tear myself away from this thrilling spectacle, but I had to move on to the next event, the heartwarming Cutest Chick Contest. Because who could pass up the chance to see toddlers dressed up as baby chickens? “We had to cut it off at seventy entries, with thirty waiting as backup,” said announcer Jeff Mayne. “That’s how popular this event is.” It may have been popular with the doting parents, but while some tots graciously accepted the adulation of the throng, most howled with annoyance or stared, glassy-eyed, into the crowd, clearly wondering what they’d done to deserve this hellish treatment. After that I strolled around booths offering clothing, crafts, food, and self-defense weapons for girls and women until it was time for the parade. As families began drifting to chairs they’d set out along the route first thing that morning, I took off for the staging area. There I found upwards of a hundred floats getting their final inspection as rag-tag bands tuned up, eagle-eyed moms adjusted kids’ headgear, and shelter dogs tried to look adoptable. As I strolled past the loony mix of small business owners, girl scouts, Harley Davidson bikers dressed as flying monkeys, Star Warzians, political activists, and wildlife rescuers, I said to Rich, “These are my people. I am home.” Does California turn people into nutters or just attract those with a pre-disposition? The old joke about the continental tilt theory — which says everything loose rolls to California — had never seemed more true than it did in Petaluma that day. I could not have been more delighted. Much as I love Seville and my life there, I will always be a foreigner in Spain, where most people have known each other since baptism. Here in California, home to five generations of my family, I am surrounded by people who may technically be strangers but who are as familiar as my own relatives in the way they embrace the unexpected and delight in the ridiculous. Nobody in Petaluma hesitated to walk down the middle of the street dressed as a chicken wearing ruby slippers. Nutters one and all. My people indeed. Every one of them embodied something AI will never know: the sheer, heady delight of doing something madly creative simply for a lark. During my research, I asked ChatGPT for possible headlines for a blog post about the event, and its first suggestion was, “Celebrate Petaluma’s Rich Agricultural Heritage at Butter and Egg Day Festival.” Talk about failing to capture the spirit of the event. Or the crowd. Or my blog, for that matter.  So many oddball choices, so little time; I had to make some tough decisions about what to sample during the Deviled Egg Competition. The last event of the weekend was Sunday’s Deviled Egg Competition, an unofficial part of the celebrations and “the most egg-citing day of the year” according to its promoters. I’m not sure it quite lived up to that hype (what could?), but it was a hoot and a great fundraiser for a charity helping local families in need. Surveying the options, I made my selections, including a red egg dyed with beet juice and — the hands-down favorite at our table — sushi deviled eggs, which combined the solid comfort of the classic base with a surprising topping of fresh roe, green onions, and a drizzle of sesame oil. Where else would you find this offbeat combo? “Dorothy was right,” I told Rich. “There’s no place like home.”  A biker Dorothy and one of the Harley Davidson flying monkeys motorcycle gang were delighted to clown around for me and my camera. If this isn't nutter, I don't know what is. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS WORLD TOUR SO FAR NOW STARTING: THE NUTTERS TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? THE NUTTERS TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.
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Chatbots are offering to help organize our journeys. But is artificial intelligence up to the challenge of Nutters Tours?
I sometimes envy my friends who have obsessions — I mean the mild kind, such as collecting ceramic mermaids, breeding show dogs, or hiking all 424 US national parks. Naturally some folks go overboard, like Jean-François Vernetti with his 11,111 Do Not Disturb signs, dermatologist Manfred Rothstein, who owns 675 backscratchers from 71 nations, and Nancy Hoffman, curator of 730 umbrella sleeves. I don't find any of these hobbies particularly tempting. But as you have no doubt observed, pursing any keen interest can transform a seemingly ordinary trip into an epic quest.
Long before selfies were a thing, a friend of mine had his travel companion shoot hours and hours of home movies of their youthful tour of Europe. Every frame showed my friend standing stiffly in front of the Eiffel Tower, the Brandenburg Gate, the Leaning Tower of Pisa … I can’t tell you where else he went, because during the viewing, seated on a plush sofa in a darkened room with a third glass of wine at my elbow, I soon dozed off. I’d likely still be there now if not for one my fellow guests, who woke everyone up by turning on the lights and announcing brightly, “Well, this has been lovely!”
“Good grief,” I whispered to Rich. “Was I snoring?” “I don’t know,” he whispered back. “I lost consciousness somewhere around Stonehenge.” But looking at my friend’s face, glowing with happy memories, I knew he was reliving his grand tour, satisfied to have carried out his vow to obtain footage of every stop. And to me, that’s what travel is all about: framing your journey as an adventure that will let you come home feeling fulfilled. A month ago, Rich and I set out to explore some of Spain’s loonier corners, visiting hotbeds of science, religion, art, culture, cuisine, archeology, history, and tradition. Each one inspired hours of discussion about the quirkiness of humanity and why Nuttiness is so important to our survival as a species. 
“I’ll tell you one thing Nuttiness does,” Rich told me yesterday. “It teaches you how to laugh about almost anything.” Laughter certainly helped us stay (relatively) sane as we coped with the various stumbling blocks a capricious Fate saw fit to strew in our path. It began with our first stop, Jaén, where we were given the wrong street number for our lodgings. What, me worry? Kindly neighbors and shopkeepers provided help and support until the muddle was sorted. Fast forward to this week when, just before heading to the airport for our departure from Spain, we ordered paella at a popular café. What arrived was rice studded with crabs and shrimp so tiny they literally had no meat on them. “There’s no there there!” I said to Rich in dismay. He burst out laughing and exclaimed, “The perfect end to the Nutters Tour!” 
To be fair, the paella did include two mussels and one knobby, bony lump of chicken, too. And the rice was delicious.
Those incidents were the bookends of a trip characterized by endless cockamamie confusions, the kind that might have proved seriously annoying except that they fit so perfectly with the theme of our journey that they gave us plenty of chuckles. And stories I’ll be telling for years. Many of those stories revolve around our lodgings. I frequently use Airbnb and always appreciate the way they encourage hosts to provide welcoming touches such as a homemade guest book with directions to the best neighborhood pubs, cute photos of the building during a rare snowfall, and tips for operating appliances. But like many travelers, I’m finding myself a bit exasperated with Airbnb’s hidden fees, which they spring on you so late in the process you can’t bring yourself to start over. So this time, we decided to go with booking.com. The booking.com infrastructure is refreshingly straightforward about pricing but a tiny bit compulsive about withholding key details until the last minute — and beyond. In Burgos, for instance, we again had an incomplete address and the wrong contact phone number. When we finally reached the manager by phone, he gave us incorrect keypad entry instructions. However, being Nutters, we simply reversed what we were told and bingo! We were in. 
Various apartments' entry instructions provided plenty of opportunities to expand our Spanish vocabulary, problem-solving skills, and technical know-how.
The accommodations themselves ranged from decent to fabulous. Most were Ikea modern but one I dubbed 50 Shades of Gray — not because it inspired any kinky hijinks but because of the color scheme; even the kitchen tablecloth was the color of ashes. A few apartments had such sleekly modern showers and washing machines it took me forever to figure out how to run them. It was like suddenly finding myself in the cockpit of SpaceX's Starship rocket and being told, “Oh, just fly the darn thing, will you?” I reminded myself to be grateful, knowing these stimulating problem-solving exercises will keep my brain’s synapses firing at warp speed for years to come. 
Some technological advances made perfect sense to me, like this headboard with a built-in light and recharging station for your phone or Kindle. I know, right? Brilliant.
Late on Friday, Rich and I left Spain for California, and ever since we landed, I’ve been wandering around our San Anselmo cottage marveling at how easy it is to work the appliances and wondering why I own so much stuff. That said, it’s been heaven to cook meals in a well-stocked kitchen and dress in something I haven’t seen constantly for weeks. As I catch my breath after the Nutters Tour of Spain, my thoughts are turning to this summer’s Nutters Tour of California and September’s Nutters Tour of Italy. Every corner of the globe has wonderfully goofy people, places, and traditions, and I’m determined to find more of the most outlandish ones and write about them here. For planning assistance, I’ve decided that for the first time I’ll reach out to (drum roll, please) chatbots.
The cyborg community is solidly behind my decision.
—
AI chatbots have been the talk of the planet since November, but now it’s finally dawned on world leaders that they, too, might be replaced by robots right along with everyone else. They (the humans, I mean, not the bots) are calling for a six-month hiatus in research while somebody figures out how to install proper controls on the machines. Good luck with that! AI’s $100 billion industry is projected to grow twenty times larger by 2030. Nothing is slowing this speeding train, folks. Might as well jump on board and hold on. So this summer, I’ll be working with ChatGPT and their hot competitor, Google’s Bard. “Both ChatGPT and Bard have their flaws,” reports Forbes, “The chatbots have each been known to spew misinformation and present biased responses.” Gosh, that’s not worrying at all. Still, Forbes says, one of the best ways to use the new chatbots is planning travel; apparently AI can’t actually book tickets (yet) but can help by suggesting destinations, comparing prices, and checking luggage restrictions — so we can avoid moments like this: 
I'm ready to put AI to the test. What do you reckon — will my new pals Bard and ChatGPT understand the idea of a Nutters Tour? Can a mechanical brain recognize true quirkiness? Or will they try to send me to places selling backscratchers, umbrella sleeves, and ceramic mermaids? I have no idea. If you’re already exploring travel chatbots, I’d love to hear about your experiences. Meanwhile, I’m doing my research and will update you as my AI experiment unfolds. Stay tuned.
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I'VE NOW COMPLETED THE NUTTERS TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) UP NEXT: THE NUTTERS TOUR OF CALIFORNIA WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  This isn't the actual orangutang that served as a butler in Barcelona, but it sort of captures the spirit of the tale. (See below.) No one ever visits the same city twice. Because it’s not the same city, and you’re not the same person. I proved this to myself again this week when I revisited two Spanish cities that left me flabbergasted. My first impression of Zaragoza was wild. I’d arrived oblivious to the fact the city was celebrating the Festival of Our Lady of the Pillar, a traditional religious observance that includes a parade of wild drunkenness through downtown streets. I saw carts carrying huge vats of wine with hoses dangling off the back, so marchers could run up and refill their cups or simply pour more vino into their mouths and often all over their clothes, inciting cheers from the crowd.  During my 2015 visit, I saw countless revelers in the streets, celebrating the Festival of the Pillar. I didn’t expect to be greeted with such hullabaloo now, in the off-season, but I was stunned to step off the train into silent emptiness. Yes, this was the same railway station, but on my earlier visit I’d failed to take in its full dimensions. The thing is huge — 2,000,000 square meters, and while a few services lurk in distant corners, almost the entire vast structure is simply … space. To put it in perspective, the world’s largest city, Tokyo, has 14 million residents and a station of 182,000 square meters. Why did Zaragoza’s 666,880 residents build something so supersized? And why put it nearly five miles from the center of town?  The Zaragoza train station, built in 2003. “Just as in earlier times the cathedral was the cohering representative scheme of the urban organization,” the architects’ website explained earnestly, “so here it is hoped that the implantation of the rail station will provide a functional, contemporary, and emblematic boost to town planning.” Talk about delusions of grandeur! For 2000 years, Zaragoza’s cathedral has housed a statue given to St. James the Apostle, on that very spot, by the Blessed Virgin Mary in her only official instance of bilocation — that is, appearing to him in Spain while she was living in Jerusalem, in 40 AD. Now that’s a church with some gravitational pull. Top that with a new train station? I don’t think so. No wonder people stay away in droves. In contrast, I arrived the next day to find Barcelona’s 1970s railway station absolutely mobbed. It serves 30 million passengers a year, all of whom seemed to be crammed onto the platform right then. Barcelona attracts 27 million visitors a year; the streets are always jammed with revelers and rubberneckers and the pickpockets who love them. The long promenade La Rambla, which 100 years ago the poet Lorca called "the only street in the world which I wish would never end," is now clogged with souvenir kiosks and selfie-takers. I find Barcelona’s tourist boom so depressing I rarely go there except in transit.  Barcelona Sants train station is constantly jam packed with travelers. But this time I experienced a completely different city. I wasn’t anywhere near the touristy Ciutat Vella, the old Roman and Medieval center. Instead Rich and I were meeting up with friends who wisely lived well outside the old quarter. For the first time in a decade, I was bedazzled to find all my favorite aspects of the city — great architecture, extraordinary cuisine, a culture of creativity — in a more leisurely and civilized atmosphere. And staying in that quarter made it easy to visit the legendary estate of Dr. Josep Altamira, an eccentric Freemason who returned from Cuba in 1860 so wealthy he was called “the Count of Monte Cristo.” He built the Tower of the Golden Dome, a fabulous palace surrounded by lakes, waterfalls, caves, and a hypostyle (pillared hall) topped with a small forest. For parties, he would flood the lower garden with water so he could take his guests on boat rides into the caves. And as if all that wasn’t enough, he had — according to legend — a domesticated orangutang acting as a waiter at his parties. Altamira spent his vast wealth on whimsical construction projects, outrageous parties, and orangutang training. The rest he squandered. Near the end of his life he was penniless and promised his palace to the Missionary Sisters if the nuns would care for him until his death. Today his palace is a convent, and his enormous garden is reduced to a modest greenspace. Rich and I wandered across the old stone bridge, followed winding paths through exotic trees, and sat on a dusty bench hoping Altamira had thoroughly enjoyed every one of his extravagances.  Supposedly the hypostyle's columns contain esoteric Freemason symbols on them, but I couldn't identify any. On Easter Sunday we left Barcelona for Tarragona, where I hoped to track down the relics of St. Tekla, who is honored with annual festivities involving human towers. Naturally everything was closed for Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, but this morning I was able to visit her shrine. My best guess was the gold box over the altar holds pieces of her arm, but there was a complete lack of signage or staff to confirm this. It’s a mystery.  St. Tekla's chapel in the cathedral of Tarragona. Tekla was martyred two thousand years ago, not long after the Romans colonized Tarragona and began building it into a successful military base. You have to hand it to the Romans: they built to last. There are ancient walls everywhere throughout the old quarter, some sitting atop even older walls containing boulders as big as pool tables. One of their most popular projects was the 12,000-seat amphitheater.  Tarragona's Roman amphitheater was built in the second century and designed to enjoy the cool breezes of the Mediterranean Sea. The site has a checkered past. After the Roman empire crumbled, it was abandoned, then used as a cemetery, quarry, Visigoth church, prison, convent, and local trysting place until restorations began about 75 years ago. Sitting on its ancient stones, I had comforting thoughts about the fleeting nature of all things. Whenever I feel particularly gloomy about the world, I recall how many crises humans have weathered, and figure we have a pretty good shot at surviving this lunatic era, too. Tarragona's magnificent Roman temple has been replaced by the cathedral. Elsewhere in the city — nobody seems to recall where — there was an altar put up by Emperor Augustus in 27 BC, in gratitude for the city’s lovely climate helping him shake off his ill health, keeping him fit enough to oversee his demanding schedule of conquest and subjugation. But like me, Augustus found that you can’t return to a city and expect to find things as you left them. When he came back to Tarragona after an absence, the residents of the city excitedly reported to him that a palm tree had miraculously grown on the altar he’d put up. “Really?” he said dryly. “That must mean it’s not being used very often.” Zinger!  Rich didn't hesitate to join these Tarragonans building a human tower. This is the final week of our travels through Spain. On Friday Rich and I return to the US, where (after a brief pause to catch my breath) I’ll be launching the Nutters Tour of California. I know the America I return to won’t be quite the same as the one I left. As usual, there will be cultural references I don’t get, jokes about people I’ve never heard of, and headlines like “A $17 glass of wine is normal at Bay Area restaurants now.” (Yikes!) But one thing I know I can count on: my home state is full of nutty people, places, and activities just waiting for me to discover them. Stay tuned. WHERE ARE WE NOW?  JUST JOINING US? HERE'S THE NUTTERS TOUR SO FAR Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) THAT WAS FUN. WANT MORE? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  The organ in Palencia's cathedral, third largest church in Spain, is an oddball extravaganza. What were they thinking? “This is it,” said Rich, staring around in awe. “The epicenter of nuttiness.” Yep, it truly was. We were in a town I hadn’t even planned to write about; Palencia was meant to be a simple 24-hour stopover to break the convoluted journey from Oviedo to Pamplona. And I’d vowed to skip writing about houses of worship for a while because I didn’t want to give everyone cathedral fatigue. But Palencia’s main church was just so endlessly, inexplicably weird… I’d gone there to see the famous gargoyle that’s shown holding a camera. No, it wasn’t an uncanny ancient prophecy, it was added during some repairs in 1910 — a tribute, says local legend, to a photographer killed by a falling stone during the restoration.  Among the skeletons and mythical beasts decorating Palencia's cathedral there's a human gargoyle in a cassock holding a camera. As I glanced around the church — third largest in Spain but so overlooked it’s called “the unknown beauty” — I began to notice all sorts of oddball imagery. The garish organ looked like it belonged to a circus or Coney Island fun fair. Who the heck was that martyr with the sword in his neck? Why was there a grotto filled with surgical masks? Who was the flamboyant character in the turban and earring? The whole quirky place was built over the crypt of the martyr San Antolín, who is said to have lived in the first, second, fourth, and fifth centuries; probably not all of them, of course, but historians are still struggling to nail down his details. We do know where he was in 1035: right there in Palencia, miraculously appearing to King Sancho in the middle of a wild boar hunt. Naturally the king felt obliged to build a cathedral on the spot. As one does. Ever since then, the good people of Palencia keep adding eye-catching oddities to give themselves plenty to look at while heading to and from mass. My personal favorite arrived in 1995. While fixing some damage to the King’s Gate, the architect wanted to give the bestiary border a contemporary touch, so he added extraterrestrials based on the creature from Aliens, which had just released its third movie. Who says church architecture can’t be fun?  You can see the two aliens facing each other at the very tip. And this is why I’m so smitten with Spain. It never ceases to surprise me. I happened to catch Palencia’s Palm Sunday procession, and having seen Seville’s world-famous Holy Week celebrations, attended by millions, I expected to be underwhelmed. Instead I was charmed. Nearly all of the city’s 78,629 residents seemed to be in the streets, either marching with the statues of Jesus and Mary or standing along the parade route, clearly enjoying the spectacle and the chance to come together in the sunny spring weather. This cheerful gathering of neighbors was the Spain I first fell in love with, before Andalucía and Barcelona were discovered by the tourist industry and flooded with visitors. I was overjoyed to discover Palencia, and the other cities I’d visited this trip, had avoided that fate. Would I be able to say the same about my next destination? Pamplona’s a city so famous you can scarcely utter its name without immediately mentioning Hemingway and the running of the bulls.  For a week in July, the bulls run daily at 8:00 am, and between 2000 and 3500 people run with them each day. Me? Not on your life. Photo: Villar López A hundred years ago, it was common practice throughout Spain to move fighting bulls from their pen to the bullring by herding them through city streets. Inevitably a few local sparks would display their bravado by mixing it up with the beasts. In 1925 Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, used running with the bulls to define manhood and courage in the context of the steamy sexuality of the roaring twenties. No wonder bull running became so wildly popular. Now every July, a million people attend the week-long festivities in Pamplona, and thousands run with the bulls. Injuries? A hundred or more per year. Deaths? Not as many as you’d think; a total of 16 since 1910. I’d seen Pamplona in the movies — the opening scene from City Slickers comes to mind — but had no idea that arriving in the offseason I’d find such a vibrant and welcoming city. The old section, where the bulls run, has narrow streets lined with cozy bars, inviting restaurants, and small, family-run shops. Yes, there are souvenir sellers, too, and a short stroll away are the usual big chain stores and high-end boutiques. In the heart of the city I found Plaza del Castillo — nicknamed the cuarto de estar (living room) — teaming with kids playing tag around the old bandstand, busy workers hurrying by, others lingering at café tables or sitting on the long benches with their faces turned to the sun. Knowing almost nothing about Pamplona or the Navarra region, I suggested getting a grip on the backstory by visiting the Museum of Navarra, which covered everything from prehistoric finds to contemporary art. Rich and I got there by hiking along the old Roman wall with a sweeping view of the valley and gale force winds buffeting our faces. When I asked a helpful museum staff member what the most important exhibits were, he promptly directed me to the pre-historic display in the basement. “La Mapa de Abauntz,” he kept repeating. Stumbling downstairs, I soon learned Abauntz was a nearby cave where recently discovered treasures included the “map” — a rock about the size of a softball with faint lines that to me looked like ordinary nicks and scratches. Luckily alert archeologists realized they represented mountains, rivers, marshes, hunting grounds, and foraging areas, possibly intended to help people navigate future hunting and gathering expeditions. The leap of intelligence and imagination involved in creating this transmission of information was extraordinary, at a time when ... Say, just how old was this thing? I let my gaze drift up to the heading on the display case. It indicated the map was 47,000 years old. Yowzer! In the spirit of full disclosure, I should mention that according to Wikipedia, the rock map is 21,000 years old, while others put the age at around 16,500 or 10,000 years. Maybe someday, after they’ve sorted out San Antolín’s dates, the experts will give the Map of Abauntz a go. Of course, if age really is just a number, who cares? My point is Spain is full of curiosities, wonders, and ancient mysteries so profound their meaning is beyond the reach even of Google, let alone us mere mortals. Luckily we don’t have to unravel these riddles and conundrums, we just have to stand before them, wide-eyed and openhearted, enjoying their abundant nuttiness. WHERE ARE WE NOW?  JUST JOINING US? HERE'S THE NUTTERS TOUR SO FAR Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) THAT WAS FUN. WANT MORE? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  You have to love this lion emerging from Léon's sewers — a gift to the city from the sanitation workers. “And now you will see the most famous thumbs in the city,” said our guide Luis. Rich and I exchanged delighted glances. What new nuttery was this? Were we visiting the town’s Picasso, famous for its distorted hands? The miraculously preserved relics of Saint Eubondiga the Eight-Fingered? A science experiment run amok? The legendary vanishing hitchhiker? After two weeks on the road, my capacity for surprise should be exhausted, but somehow I’m continually stunned by what Spain shows off to visitors. Rich and I had headed north from Burgos to Léon, a city roaring with life. My theory is the town still reflects the character of the Roman legion that founded it 2000 years ago. Those guys were known for their kick-ass attitude on the battlefield and in the barroom. Their commander-in-chief, Julius Caesar, blamed some of this on those “damn Spaniards for whom drinking is living.” Even now, the presence of those formidable Romans can still be felt throughout the city. This week Léon pays homage to its most famous over-indulger, the late, legendary Genaro Blanco Blanco. On Holy Thursday night in 1929, the old rogue was very drunk, and while reeling along beside the Roman wall, he paused to answer the call of nature against its ancient stones, as had so many before him. Just then, the driver of the city’s first municipal dump truck took a turn too fast, lost control of the vehicle, and crashed into Genaro, killing him instantly. The tragedy would have soon been forgotten except for four witty bohemians, who decided to pay humorous homage to his memory with an annual Last Supper, poetry reading, and procession. Now, crowds continue to gather every Holy Thursday, in the midst of the grandeur and solemnity of pre-Easter processions, for this irreverent, wine-soaked revelry. How Genaro himself would have loved to be part of it.  This irreverent street party honoring Genero has become an established part of Léon's Holy Week. Léon’s ripsnorting atmosphere has inspired some bold architecture, including Casa Botines built by Antoni Gaudí. If you’ve seen his undulating works in Barcelona, you’ll be as surprised as I was to discover here his style was sternly gothic. In fact, it was designed to look like a dragon, with a door suggesting an open mouth, spiky railings, roof slates in the shape of scales, and (in case you missed the point) a statue of St. George dispatching a giant reptile on the front. When it opened in 1892, the upper floors were apartments for the prosperous middle class, while the bottom floor was a textile warehouse and shop. It’s now a museum with a goofy special effects screen that lets you see how you'd look in fashions from the era. After Léon, it was something of a shock to arrive in Oviedo, the sober and stalwart capital of the Asturias, a region nicknamed Switzerland by the Sea. Luis told me Ovieda’s been voted the cleanest city in Europe nine times, and twice ranked cleanest in the world. To say it’s orderly is like saying the Camino of Santiago is a good-ish walk. Take this date sign, created of pristine white gravel and living grass, which is changed daily (presumably at the stroke of midnight). If this was Seville, people would steal half the grass numbers and letters for souvenirs and rearrange the rest to spell out some pithy political or social commentary. Here, there’s not even a pebble of gravel out of place.  American readers: keep in mind that here in Europe, they show the day first, then the month. While the atmosphere may be Swiss, the food is straight from heaven. In the global ranking of cuisines, Spain is currently third, after Italian and Greek, and it’s easy to see why. Oviedo’s headliner is the traditional cachopo, a sort of veal sandwich in which two large pieces of veal serve as the “bread,” which is then stuffed with jamón (cured ham) and cheese, covered with a breadcrumb mixture, and fried. Not exactly health food! But I felt I owed it to my readers to perform a taste test, and wow, it was delicious. And I’m almost sure my arteries will recover before my cholesterol test in August.  We ate this cachopo at La Manzana, winner of the 2022 cachopo competition. Their secret: using three different cheeses. Because obviously one wouldn't be nearly rich enough. Another regional favorite is fabadas Asturianas (bean stew with chunks of sausage and pork belly), a specialty of the unfortunately named El Fartuquin restaurant. There Rich and I were surrounded by workmen on their lunchbreak, and we watched with awe as they consumed a bowl of fabadas, followed by cachopo or a half chicken, washed down with tinto de verano (red wine mixed with a soft drink), topped off with flan and coffee. The lunch of champions.  A bowl of fabadas Asturianas is a hearty meal in itself; even splitting a portion we couldn't quite finish it. Our selfless dedication to culinary research included a visit to the Rialto, home of Moscovitas: chocolate almond cookies with a famously secret ingredient and a legend claiming the recipe was found inside a set of Russian nesting dolls a traveler brought home from the USSR. Recent labeling laws forced the Rialto to reveal the secret ingredient: higher-fat almonds. (I didn’t know that was possible. See how educational travel can be?) Efforts by the Rialto to squash the legend, including an 80th anniversary box printed with their protests and images of Russian nesting dolls, naturally had the opposite effect — as perhaps was intended.  The name Moscovitas refers to these cookies' legendary origins in Moscow, Russia. Whatever the truth is about the recipe's source, I can say for sure it's a spectacularly tasty treat. By now I’ve seen countless churches, but I couldn’t pass up Oviedo’s cathedral because its relic collection is quite possibly the most extraordinary on the planet. Inside the Cámera Santa (Holy Chamber) is the Arca Santa, a box said to contain a piece of the True Cross, shards from the Crown of Thorns and Holy Sepulchre, bread from the Last Supper, a wine jar Jesus used for his miracle during the wedding at Cana, and some of the Virgin's breast milk. Of course, not being possessed of x-ray vision, I couldn’t actually see any of these marvels for myself. However I was able to view the Sweat-Cloth of Jesus, allegedly used to clean his face after the crucifixion. Naysayers point out radiocarbon dating places the age of the cloth at 700 AD; believers insist that can’t be right because stories about the cloth go back to 500 AD. Which is still off by five centuries, but who’s counting? The next day, when Luis led us to Oviedo’s most famous thumbs, Rich and I both stared in disbelief then burst out laughing. Evidently we’d misheard him; he wasn’t taking us to see thumbs but to see tombs. The handful of others on the tour looked at us oddly, but that’s nothing new for us. Confusions and misunderstandings are a way of life on the Nutters Tour, and luckily they give us plenty to chuckle about along the way. WHERE ARE WE NOW?  JUST JOINING US? HERE'S THE NUTTERS TOUR SO FAR Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) THAT WAS FUN. WANT MORE? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. |
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I'm an American travel writer dividing my time between California and Seville, Spain. I travel the world seeking intriguing people, quirky places, and outrageously delicious food so I can have the fun of writing about them here.
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