As I’ve said, we had a fantastic time in Spain. Not only was it great catching up with an old friend and meeting a new one, but the too-short time we had around the country convinced me I need to go back.


We started our trip in Madrid. In my mind I had pictured it as being a rather dull practical city designed for government and business, but it was actually very pleasant! This revised impression might have been due to the fact that one of the first things we did was head off to a lovely square to sit in the sun (sun! I didn’t have to wear a coat!) and drink sangria. But there were lots of lovely buildings and many civilised things like giant sculptures on the street, permanent second hand book booths*, library kiosks on metro stations, excellent public transport and numerous parks. And we had some great paella and ewe cheese. The Prado museum was very very large. Even larger than I had imagined. However, despite limited time and the hordes who were taking advantage of the free entry on a Sunday afternoon, we saw some great paintings.

We took an impulsive side trip out to see local town called San Lorenzo del Escorial, you have to love small towns with colourful streets and monasteries like this:



We then caught a very civilised high-speed train to Seville that sped through large plains (so nice to have a distant horizon again), rolling hills covered with olive trees and, bizarrely, eucalypt plantations. Seville is a very pretty city, at least in the touristy old part we hung out in. There are lots of squares and narrow streets that cars can’t fit down. There were flowers and orange trees everywhere so the place even smelt good. But I didn't take enough photos. Here is one with a palm tree, flowering tree and an orange tree so you get a sense of how nice it was to hang out here:



Seville takes Holy Week very seriously, with numerous parades of brotherhoods. The costumes are a bit ku klux clan like at first glance (you can see them on the link) but the multiple colours soon dispelled that impression. The parades were very popular occasions, with lots of families turning out to participate and to watch.

After that we headed off to another Southern town that shows its Moorish influences very clearly, Granada. Granada has lots of white houses clustered on hillsides, so it was easy to walk around and get a good view from lots of different places. A nice meal here was gorgonzola tortellini with lime sauce, not so Spanish but delicious!



And Alhambra was wonderful, as you’d expect. My photos definitely didn’t do it justice, but there was lots of intricately carved white stone, fountains, curved arches at the top of doorways and terraces overlooking the city. Unfortunately one of the main courtyards didn’t have its fountains running, so I guess we’ll have to go back!



The worst part was the audioguide. Not only was there too much annoying music played to get you in the mood, it was based on the writing of Washing Irving. I previously had not given much thought to this author, but his sentimental descriptions of life in the palace don’t inspire me to go seek out his work. “Oh how my heart aches when I leave Alhambra”, “My cup of joy overruns every time I enter its dear halls”, “Can’t you just see the sun flashing off their spurs, gleaming on their white teeth” etc etc (these might be interpretations rather than entirely accurate quotes). Actually, by the end, it was fun listening to it just to see what he’d come up with next, even if it meant we never got useful information such as what the room was used for or what it was made from.

Granada was also the only place we had terrible waeather – very hard rain that even featured on the news that night! So I suspect I would have liked it more if we could have wandered around more.

The most unusual hotel of the trip was the cave. We couldn’t get an additional night’s accommodation in Granada so ended up in a small town set in a landscape where they used to film spaghetti westerns. But look, it was a cute cave!**



We briefly stopped in Valencia (cool towers with cannon marks from when Napolean tried to invade, giant Virgin Mary made out of flowers, cool underground archaeological site you viewed through a pool of water and a meal of tapas) on our way up to Barcelona. On the way we passed some nice looking coastline as well as some scary looking high rise developments that put the Gold Coast to shame.

The highlight of Barcelona were Gaudi's works. I was mildly interested in going to see some of his architectural features but admit I probably wouldn't have broken down and cried had they been shut for the day. But I'm so glad they weren't! First up was the Sagrada Familia church. Not only were there great features like columns that looked like trees, the audioguide very helpfully (and non-verbosely) explained the careful thought that had been put into the design. Also, it’s just very cool to visit a major monument while it’s being built. I'd like to go back for a service in 20 years and remember how it looked with rubble and scaffolding everywhere.

Casa Batllo was a completely different change of pace as it was designed as a private house. It also had lots of neat features like curvy door and window frames, cool blue tiles in the central atrium, attics that encouraged good air circulation for clothes drying and looked very attractive and a cool roof terrace that had elements inspired by a dragon. I could definitely picture living there. And I think more chimney pots in the world need to look like this:



We also got to wander around more cute pedestrian shopping streets, buy stuff at a food market, sample more tapas and eat in a lovely little restaurant. Then it was back to Merry Olde England for us, and Australia for our friends!

*Why is it that so many European cities manage to maintain hordes of scond hand book sellers but Australia/UK struggles?
**in case you were wondering, this was the excuse for using the icon for this entry

Tags: travel