Feasts for the senses.

Both days we spent in Salamanca we had lunch in a small cafe-bar on Via Libreros called La Andaluza, Low Cost, hardly the most pre-possessing of names, but as it turned out, serving very tasty tapas, and as promised very cheaply indeed. We are finally starting to get the hang of tapas. The secret is to take your time, and armed with a pocket Spanish dictionary, you can eventually work out what most dishes are. Anyway, having to struggle with the menu justifies having a glass of wine first, to pass the time and cleanse the palate.

La Andaluza - stunning value street-side tapas.

The sign of a great place to eat, good menu..dodgy drainpipe.

considering the options...

Good tapas are little miracles, the balance of flavours and textures truly delightful. The deal at la Andaluza allowed you to choose 5 dishes from the gourmet menu for €10. Over the two days we managed to work through half the menu, the other half will have to wait until we return another time. On the second day the bill for us both including five tapas, which we shared,, a side order of patatas meneas with a glass each of vino tinto was €12.70. Back home you would not even get a soup and a roll for that.

Pate de Perdiz (partridge)

Foreground: Champinones Rellenos de Jamon y Gambas con salsa Roquefort.
Back right: Medallon de Solomillo de Cerdo Tournedo en salsa Cazadora.
 Back left: Mini-hamburgeusa de Kobe.

Revuelto de Cetas de Temparara y Virutas de Jamon

Patatas Meneas

Bourgeoise Dreams and Nightmares.

The great thing about tapas is that although it is satisfying, you don't feel you have had such a big lunch that you want to find a corner to have a nap, though there are plenty of spots in Salamanca perfectly set up for a quiet snooze. Instead we went to the Museum of Art Nouveau. The museum itself is based in a beautiful modernista house with a huge wrought iron gallery overlooking the river. Inside the art nouveau ironwork, stained glass and woodwork are of the highest quality. The collection covers glassworks, ceramics jewellery and furniture of the Art Nouveau and Art Decor eras from Spain, France and Italy. The glowing colours and flowing natural forms were exquisite.

The spectacular iron and glass facade is easily visible from across the river

Although photography within the museum is banned, Gill sneaked a few shots in the cafe.

Some parts of the of collection arer broader than this and records more generally the taste of the cultured well to do - the not so petite bourgeoisie - in the first half of the twentieth century. To our eyes some figurines seem overtly racist. Moreover, if you were looking for the way conventional taste objectified women, then the semi-nude figurines of 'exotic' dancers would provide plenty of evidence of the how representation played to the 'male gaze' disguised as glamour. There was a complex relationship between glamour, eroticism and exploitation in many of the pieces. Some were simply kitch, but the dolls produced between the wars by German makers were the stuff of nightmares - manifestations of Freudian neuroses.

As photography was banned, so you will just have to take my word it, or even better, go there yourself. The friendly guy behind the cafe counter did allow us the take a photograph or two of his steam-punk antique Italian coffee machine and Gill nabbed a couple of surreptitious shots of the sumptuous interior for good measure. The coffee produced by the Jules Verne styled contraption tasted as good as the machine looked.

Steam-punk cortada

It looks like you could go deep-sea diving in it.

The cafe keeps to the style of the museum

What a great two days we've had. One of the dangers of getting older is that you develop a 'been there done that' attitude, that the world disappoints rather than surprises you. What we are doing presents us constantly with the unexpected; that's got to be good for us. What was it that Louis McNeice wrote....

"The world is crazier and more of it than we think, incorrigibly plural."

....in my happy place!