We met great friends for an amazing meal at Trattoria Novecento, a gorgeous restaurant in Hotel Santa Lucia.
I don't throw around words like "amazing" when it comes to the food here in Cuenca because quite honestly the cuisine doesn't often measure up to U.S. standards. But Cynthia's salmon and roasted veggies and my pepper-encrusted steak with mushroom risotto were both spot-on. Here's a shot of our mozzarella and prosciutto salad.
Afterwards the plan was to attend a special choral production nearby in the Old Cathedral that we had read about. When we got there about twenty minutes early the church was dark and the gates were locked. Not promising----
While waiting outside "just in case," we noticed well-dressed people coming in and out of the beautiful building across from the church.
Were we mistaken about the concert's location? Curious, we went inside and found folks standing around chatting and sipping wine.
Looking into the empty auditorium we discovered a presentation had just taken place for members of the Judicial Council. Not sure what that organization is but we figured, what the hell, the concert's not happening and we're here, so let's have a glass of wine and do a bit of chatting ourselves. Which is exactly what we did.
We soon parted company because our friends had an early start the next day. Cynthia and I weren't really ready to call it a night and decided to walk to a symphony performance that was on the way home anyway.
En route we bumped into a fab new art gallery, Galeria del Artista, and detoured a few minutes to check it out.
The owner was quite gracious and invited us to the gallery's grand opening next Friday night. Art--live jazz--wine--cheese--put that one on the calendar!
Oops-time for the concert to start. We hustled down the street and luckily snagged two great seats on the first row of the balcony just as the lights went down. We were treated to an Easter extravaganza featuring the full orchestra, a beautiful violin virtuosa, 60 member mixed choir, and four solo vocalists. Wow! And as usual, completely free of charge.
Strolling home afterwards it would have been easy to conclude we were under the spell of the full moon overhead. Except the truth is, because we often find ourselves walking around in such an interesting city, cool stuff like what I've described happens to us all the time.
Photos courtesy of Cheri Edwards and Jadwiga Rytych.
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