Saludos desde España

You can sum up Barcelona with two words; art and architecture. After checking in at the hotel late in the afternoon following our flight from Austria, we went up to the roof to check out the panorama it offered of the city. All around us were examples of some of the strangest buildings I have seen, but we couldn't fully appreciate them in the half light. The following day we started the morning with a stroll down the la Rambla, the main corso of Barcelona, just taking in the morning sun, which was a real treat after the last few months. We then made our way down to the Arts hotel near the beach, so Christine could check out where she had stayed with her sister, Juliann, 15 years ago. After mistaking another freaky building for the Arts hotel, we eventually found it and fulfilled another of Christine's personal missions. After that we made our way to the Sagrada Familia, a church designed by the architect Antoni Gaudi in the late 19th century and is still being worked on today in accordance with his original vision. It's easy to use superlatives to describe all the things we've seen, but this one trumps everything. Words cannot do justice to this building. In fact, 'building' doesn't do it justice either. It is like the whole vast structure just grew out of the ground. The space inside is so natural it's like sitting in a park, and just as peaceful. Strangely, we then actually visited a park designed by the same man, and with the same incredible utilisation of organic shapes that made you feel like a particular structure simply had to be there the way it was and no way else. A true genius.

On our second day we visited a museum dedicated to one of Christine's favourite artists, Picasso. While it's hard not be familiar with his work now, this museum was interesting because it contained mostly his early pieces, from the time he was barely a teenager. He was a remarkable talent, even then, and it is amazing to see his early paintings in the classical style, and then watch his steady progression towards the cubism that made him famous. From this museum we caught the train out to another of Antoni Gaudi's creations, this time an apartment block. Generally such mundane, modern structures, this apartment building had no straight lines! It was like something out of Alice in Wonderland. Extraordinary now, let alone in the early 1900's.

Our last site in Barcelona was the National Art Museum. The building itself provided a magnificent view of the city and you could have spent days wandering the galleries inside. We stuck to the modern art section mainly, taking in the works of Picasso, Dali and Miro, but also took some time to look at early painters such as Goya and Velazquez. Velazquez painted the famous La Meninas, which Picasso later copied in about a dozen different ways in his cubist style. Worth looking at if you get the chance.

The following day we made our way further down the coast to Valencia. It's main claim to fame is an extraordinary park area in the middle of the city. It consists of four buildings, each of them utterly unique, set in amongst carefully constructed lakes. There is a distinct ocean theme (one of them does house their oceanographic institute) and the buildings reminded me of immense crustaceans of some kind. I can't imagine what Circular Quay might have looked like if an architect with this imagination had been commissioned to build apartments there instead of those god-awful toasters! The Sydney Opera house would not have looked out of place next to these buildings and, in fact, they made frequent comparisons to it in their tourist information. After that it was a trip to the beach and very, very long lunch at La Pecica, an old haunt of Ernest Hemingway's, (according to the pictures of him all over the walls).

After another pleasant high-speed train trip, we arrived at the inland town of Cuenca, about half-way to Madrid, and then checked in at the Parador Hotel, a converted catholic convent that looks directly across the canyon to the old town perched on the cliffs on the other side. We have visited and stayed in plenty of old churches and convents now, and the brothers and sisters of these various orders should have been in the real estate business. Are they in dimly lit back streets looking out towards the city garbage tip? No. They are always perched on a cliff, looking out over some of the most magnificent scenery you could imagine. But then, I guess that's the point. 'Nearer my God, to thee' and all that. Well, close to God or not, Cuenca was a beautiful town. Not a lot to do in the way of museums etc, but we spent a full day climbing up and down the hills surrounding the town and walking around the myriad little alleyways within it, as well as enjoying another very long lunch in a restaurant literally hanging over a cliff. We have now made a pact to calm down on the long lunches a bit, just to help with the adjustment when we get home and are living on peanut butter sandwiches!

Our trip to Madrid from Cuenca was marred a little bit by Christine coming down with a bit of Bali belly but, typical of her constitution, she bounced back pretty quickly. We had four days in Madrid and spent our mornings in the incredible art galleries and the afternoons wandering around the various plaza's or lying in the magnificent parks and soaking up the sun (this last activity seems like a national past-time and goes a long way to explaining their current economic crisis). The art collections in Madrid were spectacular and the equal of anything anywhere else in Europe. The Museum de Prado, in particular, had an enormous collection of classical paintings, my favourite being "Saturn devouring his young" by Goya, whilst Christine preferred Bosch “garden of earthly delights”. One thing that impressed us both was the number of 1st and 2nd year primary school kids in the galleries, receiving what looked like quite detailed lectures on various artworks from the museum staff. Just seems to be the norm in Spain (and Europe generally) Can you imagine? "Little Johnny, what are the major differences between Rubens early and late period in terms of brushwork, composition and use of light? Quickly now!". Really impressive. In my art classes I got a gold star if I didn't eat the paint.



Following Madrid we travelled on to Toledo, another beautiful old town famous for its winding alleyways, 15th century churches and magnificent surrounding countryside. It was a very small town so lovely to just wander around. After that it was Almagra, a place famous for its religious festival around Easter (the one where the priests are dressed in the gowns and hats that look like the Klu Klux Klan, though we're pretty sure the Spanish got there first). We were too early for the festival itself though we got too see them practicing one night as a brass band slow marched down the streets behind their icons. This festival has been going on for about three hundred years in it's current form. After two nights there it was on to Granada. We wanted to see the Alhambra palace, a Moorish castle from the 15th century completely restored after the Spanish Civil war, but did not realise you needed to book a couple of weeks in advance to get in. In any case, both Christine and I had been really struggling with getting rid of the stomach bug we had picked up in the middle east. Christine's had actually given her peptic ulcers (so clearly not stress related!). We took it easy instead and took a slow walk around the city taking in the gardens and reading in the park.

Our second last stop in Spain was Seville, way down in the south. I picked the hotel this time as a once off so naturally it was about 30 minutes out of town by bus. I have been officially relieved of hotel picking duties (again). Anyway, after a pleasant bus ride we arrived in downtown Seville and walked through the magnificent plaza espana. Although it was only built his century and is not highly regarded as an attraction (too 'gaudy' apparently) we really liked it because it reminded us of Venice. We then spent time in the cathedral which, though very large and impressive, is starting to blend a bit with all the other cathedrals. Extraordinary craftsmanship everywhere, but the architects just lacked a bit of imagination (with the exception of Gaudi and the Sagrada Familia, of course!). More interesting, architecturally, was the Alcazar, built in the 9th century and still used by the Spanish Royal family as their official palace. It was fairly tastefully adorned, it's marvellous wooden ceilings, elegant tapestries and mosaic tiled floors contrasting sharply with the sheer decadence of a palace like Versaille in France (which is why Spain still have a royal family, one imagines...).

The highlight of Seville though, was the Palm Sunday procession of the various brotherhoods through the streets to begin the celebrations for the holy week leading to Easter. Christine thought we had missed it, but I used my pull with the Catholic church to get them to throw together a parade for her. It was a fascinating site. Hundreds of 'penitents' dressed in white robes and hoods (the significance of which is: God knows who you are so why show your face?) The parades last for hours and they do it every day of the week and they get longer and longer. By the end of the week they are finishing about 4am. You can hear people shouting and yelling all night, it's like a soccer match. Our last stop in Spain was Malaga, Picasso's birthplace, right on the coast. Apart from the Picasso museum (which was brilliant) there is not much to do in Malaga except go to the beach - which was the plan but it has now rained after all our brilliant weather! Instead we have spent the time planning our final leg through Scotland and England, which starts tomorrow with our flight to Edinburgh. (we are praying to God that this time we don’t have any flight problems). Only one month to go before we head home.