INVITES YOU TO JOIN

Larry Mangino

Photographer

and

John Farnsworth

Artist ~ Digital Photographer

On board
AL ANDALUS,
 


a "Rolling Luxury" Hotel, for an  entertaining, enriching, enlightening workshop excursion through Andalusia, in Southern Spain, home of the Andalusian Horse and the Flamenco. The attention of the 20 person crew, the interior appointments, harking back to a more elegant time, and the gastronomy of the region, combined with the hands-on tutoring of these two fine teachers make this a truly unique workshop experience. No drawing, painting, or photographic experience is necessary, as all levels will be accommodated and instruction will be tailored to your specific interests and needs.

Al Andalus, a "Rolling Luxury Hotel" for an  entertaining, enriching, enlightening workshop excursion through Andalusia, in Southern Spain, home of the Andalusian Horse and the Flamenco. The attention of the 20 person crew, the interior appointments, harking back to a more elegant time, and the gastronomy of the region, combined with the hands-on tutoring of these two fine teachers make this a truly unique workshop experience. No drawing, painting, or photographic experience is necessary, as all levels will be accommodated and instruction will be tailored to your specific interests and needs.

CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION ON SPAIN 2004

Following the Al Andalus train experience, I'll be teaching a one week workshop based at Hacienda Dos Olivos, outside Sevilla. Dressage, Painting, Digital Photography, Flamenco, Shopping and the beautiful Horses  of Southern Spain will all be combined to make for an exciting, educational, relaxing week.

AL ANDALUS is a "Rolling Palace" composed of fourteen coaches: one kitchen car, two dining cars (Alhambra and Gibralfaro), one bar car (Giralda), one Salon and Games car (Medina Azahara), seven sleeping cars, one car for personnel and a generator van.

AL ANDALUS, allows us to travel through centuries of history and culture, while admiring the Andalusian landscape, the birthplace of Flamenco, Tapas, and the Cartusian horse, or Cartujano. We will travel slowly through the vast olive groves, visit the Pueblos Blancos, or White Villages, and cities filled with culture and romance.

Enjoy a trip back in time, featuring tranquility, peacefulness, rest, adventure, discovery, culture, and gastronomy, ... an unforgettable trip, possible only on this vintage train, saved and faithfully restored  thanks to the initiatives of railway lovers, who have maintained this rolling luxury hotel intact, while adding all the modern conveniences, such as traveling robes and slippers in each cabin room, with television and cellular telephone in the Medina Azahara car.. Recently, in order to improve the space and passenger’s comfort, the sleeping cars have been renovated by incorporating bathroom and shower in all rooms. All coaches have thermostatically controlled heating and air conditioning.

FEATURES

We will enjoy, either on board the AL ANDALUS or in selected restaurants at the visited locations, the outstanding gastronomic offerings of Andalusia.

This region offers a wide variety of products from the so-called Mediterranean diet, based on olive oil. It’s coasts provide us with succulent fish and seafood. Also famous are the Serrano ham and Iberian pork sausages, as well as area cheeses.

The water meadows and plantations provide all the necessary types of vegetables. What would Andalusia be without its hams, fishes, prawns, gazpachos, sweets and home-made pastries?

With AL ANDALUS we will take an interesting journey through the gastronomy of the region, as well as through its world-wide renowned fine wines and sherries.

The carefully selected staff of AL ANDALUS will look after us with affection so that we will have a charming journey. To travel between olive trees and sunflowers or mountains and fertile valleys, while enjoying a card game, a newspaper, watching a video or improving our artistic and photographic skills, assuring us of a lifetime of memories, is a great pleasure.

OUR RESTAURANTS:
These are the restaurants which will provide us with seasonal and typical dishes from each region.
(The selected restaurants can be changed for others of similar category or for the restaurant on the train).

El Churrasco
 Córdoba

La Ermita
Granada

Bodegas González Byass

Restaurant Vandelvira
Baeza

Parador de Ronda
(Málaga)

Restaurant Albahaca
Sevilla

ACCOMMODATIONS

NEW SLEEPING CARS
AL ANDALUS consists of 7 sleeping cars, 5 of them made in France in 1929. You will feel like a King traveling in the same cars that the British Monarchy used for its holiday trips from Calais to the Riviera. Its Belle Epoque decoration has been enriched with new additions during recent renovations.

TWO ATMOSPHERES IN ONE
Its ‘Club Cabins’ are made of two low beds, or if you prefer, you will be able to choose one of our five Club Cabins with double-bed , all of them with shower, WC and private lavatory for your comfort.

During the day, your cabin will have a different aspect, as both beds can be folded up, transforming them into comfortable sofas and leaving space for a table and a chair, creating an ideal ambience for reading or comfortable enjoyment of the landscape.

The cabins also have a space to keep your suitcases, a wardrobe, drawers for your clothes and your own strongbox. The Club Cabins are  thermostatically air-conditioned and heated.
 

THE COACHES

MEDINA AZAHARA
It’s a model WR-3562. It was built by the Navy in Bilbao, in 1930, as a dining car, and acted as such for many years, coupled to trains of the highest lineage. In 1985 it was rebuilt and restored with all types of luxury materials, to initiate a new day’s run even more aristocratic as a recreational coach of AL ANDALUS.
In 1988, new suspensions were added in the form of Gran Confort bogies.

ALHAMBRA
It’s a model WR-3579. Dining car built in 1929 in Charantaises, (France), brought to Spain in 1941. Rebuilt  for AL ANDALUS, in 1985, its interior was refurbished in 1988 and its Pennsylvania suspensions were changed for Gran Confort bogies.

GIBRALFARO
It’s a model WR-3395. Built in 1929 in the United Kingdom by Metropolitan, it was transferred to Spain immediately after, more than 60 years ago. It went through the same modifications as the Alhambra in 1985 and 1988.

GIRALDA
It’s a model WR-3582. It is an antique Wagons-Lits dining car, built in France in 1928 for luxury trains. It came to Spain in 1941 and was rebuilt in 1985 for its integration in AL ANDALUS. Its interior and exterior decoration was refurbished, including a new distribution. In 1988, the Pennsylvania suspension was changed for Gran Confort bogies.

THE people of
AL ANDALUS

TRAIN CREW
During the journey through Andalusia, our selected crew of more than 20 multilingual people will take care of you, providing 24 hour cabin service. A chef on board, stewardesses, musicians, maintenance staff, maitre, cooks, waitresses and cleaning personnel will make sure that your journey is charming and full of personal experiences, an experience to be remembered for a lifetime.

LAND CREW
For the services like reception in stations, porters, restaurant transfers, visits and trips, etc. you will find another high-qualified team of a minimum of 22 people, consisting of two porters, one sommelier, two bus drivers, and three or four local guides in every visited city. Both teams are like a family that will make you feel at home and will transmit the Andalusian happiness and good sense of humor.

El Mezquito

El Churrasco Restaurant
 Córdoba

Giralda

On Sunday, Sept 14, we will meet in the xxx Restaurant in the Santa Justa Station in Sevilla at 11 a.m. After a special welcome at the station, we will board the Al Andalus Express at 12:15, to start our journey through the incredible and fascinating cities of Andalusia. Following a welcome cocktail on board, a presentation by the crew of the Al Andalus, an introduction to the instructors and a course outline, we will depart for Cordoba, with lunch served on board.

In the afternoon, we will visit Córdoba, with its famed Mezquito Mosque, with its six acre roof held high by over 800 columns and double arches with a baroque cathedral set right in the middle. Then to the old Jewish Quarter, with its blocks of white houses with flowers filling inner patios.

Larry Mangino will be available to assist with your photography, and John Farnsworth will be there for you when sketching or painting and to help with digital photography, as they will be throughout our journey.

After dinner in a typical Cordovan restaurant, El Churrasco, including a visit to its wine cellar, we will be returned to the train, with musicians waiting to entertain us in the piano bar coach, Giralda".

Our instructors will be available during the evening to answer questions and assist us with our sketches and photographs from earlier in the day.

 AL ANDALUS will be our home for the night, en route to Granada.

Restaurant Vandelvira
Baeza

We start the day by enjoying Breakfast on board AL ANDALUS, followed by a visit to the Museo del Aceite (Olive Oil Museum), where we will learn the traditional processes of obtaining oil from the olive, as well as the evolution of the most modern oil press We will be able to taste the different varieties of oil. We will then walk to the monumental city of Baeza, the image featured on its traditional olive oil can.

Lunch at the Vandelvira restaurant.

Following lunch, we will be free to explore with camera and paints. As always, Larry and John will be available to aid, instruct, and demonstrate, according to your needs.

Dinner will be on board the train, on our way to Granada.

After Dinner on board the train, on our way to Granada, we will be taken to the traditional quarter of Albayzin for an evening of Flamenco, and a beautiful night view of Granada. Don't forget to bring your  cameras and sketch books.

We will spend the night on board the train, where, once again, we will be able to enjoy the music in the "Giralda", with Larry and John available answer your questions and provide critiques for the day's work.

We start the day by enjoying Breakfast on board AL ANDALUS; then we will be taken to the  Moorish Castle, the Alhambra, made famous by Washington Irving, and to visit the incomparable Generalife Gardens.

Lunch will be at La Ermita Restaurant, followed by an afternoon of exploring, photography, sketching, and shopping in this city of millenary and local crafts.

In the evening, we will be returned to the train for a sumptuous dinner on board, followed by a third evening of assistance, demonstrations, and music in the "Giralda".

We will overnight on AL ANDALUS en route to Finca 'La Bobadilla".

Parador de Ronda
(Málaga)

n this morning, we will enjoy Breakfast on board AL ANDALUS, followed by bus transfer from Bobadilla to Ronda. On the way, we will enjoy the beautiful landscapes of the Serrania de Ronda.

In Ronda, scene of the last great uprising of the Moors against Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, we will visit the Ciudad Vieja (Old City), for great shopping,  the Casa de Don Bosco, the Cathedral, and Ronda's beautiful bullring, Spain's oldest, most beautiful, and most historic, now used mostly for the training of Andalusian horses. The bullring houses a splendid small museum with many mementos of Spain's most renowned bullfighters.

We will have free time for shopping, sketching, photographing until Lunch at the  Parador de Ronda, overlooking the chasm that divides the town, and the ancient "Punta Nueva", or "New" Bridge". After lunch, we will stroll along the overlook, and locate ourselves for painting and photographing. Those who wish will have an opportunity to hike down the path to lookout spots affording views back up toward the village and the bridge.

In the evening, we will be transported back to the AL ANDALUS for Dinner on board, and an evening with our musician in the Piano Bar coach "Giralda". The night's accommodations will be on board en route to Jerez de la Frontera.

( HACIENDA WEEK PARTICIPANTS WILL JOIN US AT THE ROYAL ANDALUSIAN SCHOOL OF EQUESTRIAN ART)

Breakfast on board AL ANDALUS will be followed by a sight-seeing trip through Jerez, famous for its Sherry industry, to the González Byass wine cellar. On foot, we will see the wine cellars and will go deeply into the culture of the processes of cognac elaboration, dry wines and sherries, ending this fascinating visit with a wine tasting.

Next, we will visit the Real Escuela Andaluz del Arte Ecuestre, or Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art and its famous Carthusian horses. We will first visit the beautiful grounds of this famous school, founded by Alvaro Domecq in 1973 on the grounds of El Recreo de las Cadenas Palace, surrounded by gardens designed in the second half of the 19th Century by Garnier, to observe the students exercising their mounts, and watch as the horses are prepared and groomed for their performance. After visiting the museum and gift shop, we will enter the main arena for a thrilling show of Equine Ballet, the  Symphony on Horseback, that, while somewhat less refined than the Lipizzaner Stallions, is more passionate, as befits the Spanish.

We return to the wine cellar González Byass for a typical Spanish lunch, based on a selection of ‘tapas’, and bid farewell to our guides and the crew of AL ANDALUS.

(or) A short walk will take us to our Hotel for the evening, the Royal Sherry Park Hotel, for lunch.

On the way we'll visit a delightful shop full of great, hard to find Spanish equestrian tack and gear at bargain prices.     

After Breakfast in the Hotel, we will have free time until meeting at 10 a.m. for to be transported to the Yeguada de la Cartuja for a look at Spain's national breeding farm of the Cartusian horse. Here we will see carriages and buggies pulled by beautiful, full-maned Andalusian horses in full harness. We will have an opportunity to visit the mares, colts and stallions in their boxes and pens, prior to entering the large, glass enclosed arena, where we will be entertained in Royal style by a breath-taking display of the finest of La Raza Pura, the pure Spanish bred horse.

Caballeros in fine costume will put their fine steeds through their paces, displaying their talents, fiery but gentle nature, and regal bearing. The brood mares, tethered neck to neck in a line known as the "Cobra", will respond to the slightest command, while turning, reversing and pivoting with precision in a series of movements designed to show them to their best advantage, in a group, for prospective breeders.

This noble line, extending back, uninterrupted, to a time before Columbus, was originally the product of Cartusian Monks, whose monastery we will pass on the way to the Yeguada.

Following the show, we will visit the museum and shop of the Yeguada, for a chance to bring home books, videos, and fine apparel, all related to the Andalusian horse.

After an open air lunch on the Plaza el Arenal in Jerez, we will be transported to the Jerez Train Station for a high-speed TGV train to either Sevilla or Madrid for our departure.

The riding courses, like those in photography and art, will be tailored to meet your specific interests and needs and may include: Classical Dressage, trail Rides, and Lunge Lessons.

We  will be met at the Santa Justa station in Sevilla and transported to the Hacienda. 

 And, when you fall in love with the Spanish Purebred, La Raza Pura, Joanna Beattie and her dedicated staff can even help you to find your very own little piece of Spain.  

AL ANDALUS
NOTES
SEPT 18-25, 2004

Price: $4600 USD
per person, double occupancy
HACIENDA WEEK
DETAILS AND PRICE COMING SOON
 

TRAVEL CLOTHING
We recommend comfortable clothes and shoes, specially for excursions. For dinners on board and the formal farewell dinner, we suggest formal clothing.

TIPS
In case you want to give any tips, please give it to one of our stewardesses at reception, who will make sure to distribute it between the members of the crew.

ON BOARD SERVICES
Games, leaflets, DVD, magazines, envelopes, first aid kit, hairdryer, iron, are at your disposal. Just ask one of our stewardesses.

INSURANCE
We recommend obtaining personal insurance from your travel agency against robbery, accident and illness, assistance, as well as cancellation costs of the journey due to illness or accident.

LUGGAGE
There is no weight limit for your luggage at Al Andalus Express, even though we recommend you not bring massive luggage with you, due to space limits on the train

TRANSFERS AND EXCURSIONS
Transfers at visits, restaurants, shows, etc. will be made on luxury private buses.

SAFE DEPOSIT BOX
There is a safe deposit box in each cabin for client use.

SEVERAL
IBERRAIL, S.A. - AL ANDALUS and Taos Art School reserve the right to modify or change the program without prior notice.
In the event of a strike of RENFE (Red Nacional de Ferrocarriles Españoles) or major reasons, the tour might be done completely or partly on luxury buses.

MEETING POINT
We will meet in the restaurant/bar inside the Santa Justa Train Station, Seville, at 10:00 a.m. on the morning of September 14, for a brief introductory meeting and orientation. We will then meet with our stewardesses at 12.00 o’clock on the platform (usually platform 12).

LINKS:

ROYAL SCHOOL OF EQUESTRIAN ARTS
http://www.realescuela.org/defaulti.htm

YEGUADA DE LA CARTUJA
http://www.yeguadacartuja.com/yeguada/index1.htm

SHERRY PARK HOTEL
http://www.sherryparkhotel.com

HACIENDA DOS OLIVOS
http://www.equiworld.net/uk/ezine/0802/hacienda.htm

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This page was last updated by John Farnsworth on Tuesday, April 29, 2008