But the picturesqueness and the novelty of everything else! The folk music, with fifes and drums; the frenzied dancing in the Plaza del Castillo around the bandstand all lit up by colored bulbs; the crowd sipping iced drinks in front of the Plaza cafés while watching the dancing; the glimpse into Sarasate’s career, of a brilliance unequalled in the second half of the nineteenth century, vouchsafed to me by his friend and biographer, a career made a palpable reality by visits to the Sarasate Museum where everything relevant and otherwise- his violins, orchestral scores and parts, even his collection of shirt studs and walking sticks, down to his calling cards (nothing but the magic name “Sarasate” on those bits of pasteboard)- was proudly preserved(…)”. << less