We live these days on our inner fat, turning over the souvenirs and trophies we've kept, poking in our library and record collection.

A cocooned Irish friend sent Lise a clip in which the French song La Mer was accompanied by seaside scenes painted by Sorolla.  Our beleaguered friends in Madrid live around the corner from Joaquín Sorolla's former residence, now a fine museum.  I dug out our copy of Begoña Torres González beautiful Vida y Obra Sorolla, 978-84-662-1879-5 and came across this

image of his 1906 Puente de Alcántara. Reminded me of days when we could roam.  In the Summer of 2006, I got the bus to wait, and ran across this very bridge to the city (Toledo) side, to get down the bank and taste the Tagus.

Toledo! What a place!  City of steel, Damascene, El Cid, El Greco, and the main channel through which Moorish civilization enriched Europe.

Tasting great rivers is a habit learned from Belloc.  I liked Belloc a lot in my teens.  Revisiting him, I find his antisemitism repellant.

Tagus is a universe, from the pristine stream of the Alto Tajo in the highlands northeast of Madrid, to the magnificent fortifications of Toledo, all the way down to Lisbon, with its gateway to the whole wide World.