We were greeted at the Madrid airport by my cousin Ralph, who had 'gone south' 13 years ago after living throughout Europe. Ralph wears smiles and wit and carries himself with a sense of passion for life. In this sense, Ralph has become an adopted Madrileño, and I sensed that he too, could 'pick up the dirt and smell it' at least if it was a good Spanish vineyard dirt.

He brought us to the Sanchez Romero Grocery Store in a mall near his flat. Spanish wines, sherry, salami, olives, hams, Japanese rice and Mexican tortillas. Chicken, and several cuts of steak which were quite impressive, but nothing next to the selection of local and French cheeses. Pheasants hung upside down and some still bled from their feathers. The raw brains of lambs. Grouse, partridge and skinned rabbits, which bled out of the remains of their eyes and brains. I examined the seafood section - shrimps, crabs, fish, salmon, lobster, eels and tiny barnacles.

It was strange, but equally impressive that a landlocked city such as Madrid lived on such a high diet of seafood. Very little of this seafood came from Spanish waters. The Mediterranean is essentially a dead sea - fished out from years of over-use. To fish in the Mediterranean today often means illegally dropping bombs to shock 'anything that lives' to the surface,netted and sold dried in Greek and North African fish markets.

Ralph explained that if you want tapas in Madrid, there is only one place to go. Soon enough, we were at Bocaito, a small bar packed with chattering Madrileños. Sherry from Jerez, a plate of salted olives, tuna on bread, chorizo sausages, octopus, fried peppers, monkfish liver, shrimps fried in garlic oil. Tapa - the word for 'cover,' comes from the practice of placing a lid over a glass of wine or sherry to keep out the flies - and adding olives or cheese on the lid as a complement to the wine.

After several sherries and brandies, Ralph was taxiing us across the city. The Museo de Jamòn - a museum dedicated to ham, Plaza de Colòn, Plaza de España , Calle Maria de Molina. It didn't much matter anymore - fatigue and jetlag and brandy made it all a blur of city lights and cafes.

The next afternoon we took the road north where the rocky slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama slid into cork oak and olive groves. The road climbed up into the hills, and soon it was dreary, and snow drizzled from the clouds. We came around a bend and into the gray palace of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, where the Kings of Spain are buried.

I am not interested in buildings and monuments (of which modern culture has little to do), but the city of El Escorial and its palace was a glimpse of the creation of the New World. It was a vision of gold pouring into Europe from South America, and of the inherited kingdoms of Philip II, and maybe even why the Latin American's disdain Spain.

From the Palace we headed north, and up the mountains until we could see Madrid province below. We crossed into the autonomous region of Castilla-Leon, the Northern Meseta. Lily and Ralph took to the bar, and I took to the snowed woods, with a quick jump over the highway and into the backcountry. I tore down the hill, slid down the snow and watched the sun make its brief red appearance before it was lost among the clouds and falling snow and the free-range Clydesdales.

I can see one of the seven peaks. Most of these peaks are unreachable except by foot, and so this entire range protects an array of vultures, eagles and buzzards and Spanish lynx.