We saw off our last night in Antibes at the pub with
the friends & work colleagues we met over the last couple of years. It was
good to have a final catch up and even put some faces to names of some of
Cathy’s work colleagues that I had heard about but never met. The wobbly shoes
came out again for the trip home.
After our gear was packed away and we officially declared ourselves homeless
we headed for Spain. We’ve been
living less than five hours from the border for two years and have really only
ventured as far as the very northern tip of the Costa Brava so we figured it
was time to explore a little further a field.
First stop Barcelona, well actually Montpellier for a change of
trains followed by Figueras for another change and then on to Barcelona. We arrived at Barcelona train station to
discover that no lifts work and all escalators travel downwards… We had to
carry the bags up a million stairs. It was nearing midnight by the time we
found our way via the metro to our hostel, still bearing the effects of the
previous night in Antibes and about 26
degrees to boot. We found the hostel and after climbing a few more flights of
stairs we discover that our apartment is actually a couple of blocks away. So
we cart the bags back down the stairs and along the back streets again only to
discover that we’re on the 3rd floor and there’s no lift! Adrian’s biceps are
getting a great workout!
The first day in Barcelona started for Cathy
with a run to discover the World Trade Centre and the harbour / marina whilst Adrian…well….stayed in
bed of course. Then it was off to Placa Reial for a walking tour around the old
Gothic quarter of the town.
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| Cathy at the fountain in Placa Reial |
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| Some kind of painted / stucco building decoration. It's everywhere in Barcelona but this is a great example. |
Lots to see in the Gothic quarter, including the shrine for Saint Eulalia
who, at 13 years of age, was tortured for refusing to revoke Christianity and subjected
to 13 forms of torture; one for each of her 13 years. One of the 13 forms of
torture was to fill a barrel with knives and broken glass and roll her down a
hill. They then stripped her bare and crucified her on an X shaped cross! In the
cloister of the cathedral where she is now buried they keep 13 white geese in
her memory; one each for her 13 years.
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| St Eulalia's white geese |
After the tour of the Gothic quarter we had some lunch and saw a lady
dancing with a table. No that’s not “table dancing” as some of you are probably
thinking but a woman actually dancing with a table…! Some people will do the
strangest things for a few bob.
Anyway I digress… We also went and had a look at the Palau de la Generalitat
de Catalunya, basically the seat of the Catalan government. It was once the
royal palace but became the permanent seat of the Catalan government in 1400.
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| Slender stone columns - it's an architect thing! |
Now what would a trip to Barcelona be without a bit
of Antonio Gaudi. For those who don’t know, Antonio
Gaudi was a Catalonian architect, now of world renown, in the late 19th & early 20th century. The majority of his works are located in Barcelona including his magnum opus; the cathedral known as le Sagrada Familia which we will get to shortly. So in
the evening we did a walking tour to visit and learn a little bit of the
history behind some of his works. The tour passed by Casa Gruell, Casa Batllo,
Casa Mila and Sagrada Familia. The tour, however, didn’t go inside any of them.
Day two we hired some bikes to get a different feel for the city. What a
great way to get around as a tourist, you get to see a heap more than any other
form of transport. I think we’ll be doing some more bike trips in the coming
months.
Whilst we had the bikes we took the opportunity to go back andd see
inside a couple of Gaudi’s creations, namely the good old Sagrada Familia and
Casa Batllo.
Sagrada Familia is an astounding kind of gothic revival type of
structure. Well it was in fact started by another architect as a gothic revival
building but Gaudi took over the project some time later and added his own
special charm to it. The pictures tell more than anything else we can say. It’s
been under construction for approx 125 years and it might be finished sometime
around 2030 or 2040. I think it’s probably to most visited construction site in
the world! The Pope visited the cathedral in 2010 and in fact declared it a Basilica so I guess even he was impressed...
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| The Passion facade & current main entry |
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| Inside the cathedral |
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| The column structures were inspired by nature - much like a lot of Gaudi's work |
Now Casa Batllo is in fact an apartment building. It’s named after the
principal client who in fact resided in the first floor of the building. In Barcelona the first floor
was the most prestigious floor on the building. In fact they still number their
floors in a very peculiar way – the ground floor (or the first floor that you arrive
at after entering) is referred to as the entry level, the next floor up (what
we call the first floor) is called the principal level and then their first
floor is above that – hence our surprise on the first night to find that our “first
floor apartment” was in fact three storeys up. Again the pictures of Casa Batllo
tell as much as any words can.
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| Adrian inspects some of the finer details of the windows. |
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| The light well |
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| The stairs to the roof |
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| The attic in fact has some of the most striking spaces in the building |
For our last night in Barcelona we had dinner in
our little apartment and polished off a lovely bottle of wine given to us as a
farewell gift from Bertrand – thanks Bertrand.
Next stop Madrid. Madrid seems like a
great city with a wonderful vibe about it.
The first night we went to Placa Mayor, one of the main squares in the
city, for dinner and then retired to bed. The next morning we went on yet
another walking tour. That was a fun tour, the guide was a local Spaniard and she
was a complete nut case, laughing and joking all the time which makes a big
difference to the vibe of the whole group. We saw Paca Mayor (again for us) and
learned some of its history, plus a lot of the lesser known sights and stories
about Madrid as well as the palace, cathedral, opera house, etc.
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| The old Madrid train station now turned into a greenhouse space. |
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| Placa Mayor |
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| The Royal Palace |
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| The Madrid cathedral |
One of the highlights of the walking tour was when the guide managed to
get us in to see the kitchen and cellar of the oldest restaurant in the world –
Restaurante Botin, founded in 1725 and operating as a restaurant continuously
to the present day!
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| The original wood fired oven |
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| Suckling pigs ready for the fire |
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| Adrian in the cellar |
That was more or less it for Madrid as we only stayed
for one day. The next day we jumped on a train from Madrid to Granada with a stop in Cordoba for the
afternoon. We stopped in Cordoba to see the Mosque
or what is now known as the Cathedral of Cordoba. It is an astounding building
dating back to around 785 AD. Even prior to this time there was a catholic
church on the site until the invading Muslims purchased the site (yes they
actually paid for it) and started construction on what would come to be
considered the most important sanctuary of Western Islam. Anyway very long
story short, this building is fundamentally a mosque structure with all of the
traditional Moorish architectural features but smack bang in the middle is this
outrageous baroque / gothic / renaissance style catholic “cathedral” built
inside the actual mosque building. This insertion is the result of the
Catholics reconquering Cordoba in 1236 and
reconverting the mosque to a catholic consecrated site. It is well worth a
visit if you are ever in the area. We also visited some of the other
surrounding sites which are all steeped in history and all form part of a World
Heritage Site.
We then caught a train for our final leg of this part of the journey to Granada. Once again we arrived late so just found our
hostel and made camp for the night. The
next morning it was up a stupid o’clock (5:50am) to head up the
hill to get in line to buy tickets for the Alhambra & Generalife – another
World Heritage Site. It is the remains
of a once splendid complex of palaces and supporting buildings dating back to
the 13th century, a small city for want of another description. The main attraction here are the Nasrid
Palaces which is a series of interconnected palaces with the most amazing and
intricate Moorish stonework and decoration.
Again the photos tell a better story than our recollections.
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| Nasrid Palaces |
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| Nasrid Palaces |
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| Fountain at the Generalife |
On the same site there is another a palace built by a later Spanish
king, Carlos V which was never finished but was built right next to and partly
on top of the Nasrid Palaces after he visited the Alhambra in 1526 and fell
in love with the place.
The whole site was left to ruin until the early 19th century
when the American writer Washington Irving visited Granada, found the Alhambra and fell in love
with it. He stayed in what was left of
some of the former royal quarters and wrote his “Tales of the Alhambra” and started the
petition to restore and protect the site.
Most of the commentary on the audio guide is extracted from his writings
– which make for a less than informative commentary but an interesting one
nonetheless.
From Granada we headed off
into the Spanish countryside via rental car.
We drove by a small town called Anquetera and the nearby “el
Torcal”. El Torcal, as described in one
of our guide books, is a “freakish landscape” where the limestone formations
have formed towers, etc. The guide book
suggested that these resembled buildings, streets and squares but we couldn’t
quite make the analogy ourselves – I guess if you’ve never seen some of the
spectacular Australian landscapes like the Bungle Bungles in WA then el Torcal
may well appear “freakish”!
Then we got lost in Malaga. We were really only heading through Malaga on
our way down the coast but we did get to see the same parts of it about three
times as we drove round & round in circles!
Once we found our way out we found a lovely winding road through the
mountains on our way to a little town called Ronda. Ronda is perched high up on top of a cliff with a spectacular bridge across the
gorge. We only stopped to have a quick
look and then it was off to Sevilla.
We stayed in a lovely little studio apartment in Sevilla which was
within easy reach of restaurants, old town and of course the Plaza del Toro, or
bull ring, which we will get to shortly.
The first night we headed down to the river front for the obligatory
paella & tapas and a few too many drinks.
The next day we jumped on a hop-on hop-off bus though the first attempt
had to be aborted due to some sort of bike ride with thousands of bikes
disrupting the route / tour. So we
jumped off, wandered around the old town for a while and grabbed some
lunch. We stumbled across an
international fair of some sort with arts, crafts and food from all over the
world. Australia was represented
too with a barbie and, for the love of god…Fosters!!
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| The bikes.....! |
Our next great find was Placa Espagna which is this astounding complex
surrounding a fabulous courtyard complete with a little moat / fountain with
row boats.
From here we jumped back on to our bus tour for a second try which was
more successful than the first attempt.
We saw the sights and got a little insight into the city and its history
before being dropped back a couple of blocks from our apartment.
That night it was time for the bull fights. We thought it would be worth the experience
if just once in our lives. Now Cathy was
thinking just one poor beast would meet its end and I was thinking perhaps
three. There were three new up & coming matadors making their debut in the Sevilla stadium and they each fought
& killed two bulls; meaning a total of 6 dead beasts. It was intriguing and interesting if just for
the spectacle and the pomp & ceremony but it all got a bit much after three
bulls – the rest just seemed like mindless slaughter. Perhaps if the matadors were more well
renowned superstars there may have been more locals (rather than mostly
tourists who our crowd mostly seemed to be) and the atmosphere may have taken
the edge of the harsh reality of it all. Definitely Cathy's one and only bullfight experience as she's still suffering the after effects!
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| Plaza del Toro |
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| Pomp & ceremony at the start of the spectacle |
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| The Picador - this guy rides in on his horse and gets to draw first blood |
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| The bull gets his own back, unfortunately on the horse |
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| Score ten points for the bull - OLE!! |
From Sevilla we made a bee line for the north end of Spain to the
architectural mecca that is the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. This museum is probably the most profound
contribution to late 20th century architecture by American architect
Frank O Gehry. Definitely worth the
hassle of getting to, what is otherwise, a fairly out of the way town. The construction of the museum was, in
effect, the trigger for Bilbao’s transformation
from a languishing Basque industrial town to what now an international tourist
destination. Once again the pictures
below are much more effective than any more words.
And that was Spain. Next stop – Cologne, Germany and on to Denmark. But that’s for the next post.
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1 comment:
I am breathless after that trip, you will have to slow down or I won't be able to keep up the pace,
Eamon
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