27.01.2002 15 °C
Hola.....
Back in beautiful Madrid! (actually I seem to be saying that about a lot of places but there are truly many beautiful places here and we have visited many).
I left Paris on Wed morning after 6 fantastic days........Our last day there was mostly looking for postcards and souvenirs etc.... We also visited the Pere Lechaise Cemetary where you get to see the graves of folks like Jim Morrison (complete with lots of flowers and love poems written to him), Edith Piaf, Balzac, Chopin, Pisarro, and many others. Almost got locked in too as we arrived about 45 mins before closing time and the security guards came chasing us out the gates with stern warnings! In the evening we headed down to the non-existant Bastille, did some meandering around the Marais district (the centre of both Paris´ Jewish community and its gay life - interesting combo!) and went to our favourite little Chinese restaurant just around the corner from the hotel. I tried to persuade Denise to try some escargots but she shuddered at the thought. I can´t say I blame her - for me it was absolutely a once off thing....maybe frog´s legs one day though.
Anyway, Denise had to fly out of Madrid yesterday so she came straight back down from Paris while I headed to San Sebastian (Donostia) in the heart of Basque country. This place is (wait for it...) extremely beautiful.....there is the old town with lots of great shops, bars and cafes, three impeccable beaches with REAL sand, and two mountains up each end of the beach strips which offer fantastic views over the beaches and the Bay of Biscay. I didn´t actually do much in San Seb but sit on the beach and squirm my toes in the sand whilst reading a travel guide, wander about the old town, eat some Tapas at this nice little bar we found opposite the main beach and scale the (smallish) mountain on the side near the hostel. There were a couple of Aussies at the hostel and we contemplated going for a swim out to the little island that is 500m out or so from the beaches, but the water was seriously icy - much colder than in winter back home. One of the girls from the hostel and I (she was actually from Sydney which is cool because no Aussies I have met thus far have been from anywhere but Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth!)..... caught a bus out to Bilbao (a dump) to see the Guggenheim collection. It houses a great collection of modern art and an exhibition of Frank Gehry´s architectural models and furniture. He also designed the museum which is in itself, a fantastic site! Outside the museum is a ginormous puppy dog statue (Jeff Koons designed it) which is covered in flowers and is quite fun.....Julia (Sydney girl) said it actually was in Sydney a couple of years back so maybe some of you saw it then....
Unfortunately no big riots or explosions when we were in San Seb - not that I really wanted one but it does sound a bit more exciting when you talk about your holiday. We did come across some tiny protest of about 60 people outside (presumably) some government official´s workplace.....the cops were there with those riot shields and batons and machine guns (serious!) but nothing eventuated as far as I know. I was a bit disappointed to not even hear a smidgen of Basque being spoken by the locals either.....Spanish everywhere......
Anyway......back in Madrid...I am staying at the hostel which is right up the other end of town from where we stayed before. Not sure what the place is like yet as I dumped my stuff off and headed into town. I was hoping to meet up with some Aussies for Australia day but the only guy I met at the hostel was a Pom! Then again, it was mid afternoon and everyone is out sightseeing etc as they should be. Tomorrow I am going to visit the Prado (last gallery for the trip!) as it is Sunday (free day), go to the bullring and walk around the Parc del Buen Retiro (a gorgeous park with an amazing fountain, some statues and lots of chi-chi mamas with their poodles!
I´m thinking about heading out to Salamanca on Monday but it is a three hour ride one way and I am going to be doing a heck of a lot of sitting between Tuesday and Thursday (on the plane) so that may not yet happen.....Avila is much closer and so maybe I will go there instead.
OK Well this is it for me........I have had a fantasitic 9 and a bit weeks but it will be sooooooooo nice to get home to some normal food, TV in English (although it is fun to try and translate), my family and friends (most of you anyway), and of course my cat! The poor little bugger won´t remember me!
Hasta luego!
Bel x
Sunday, 27 January 2002
Tuesday, 22 January 2002
Paris Take Two
22.01.2002 12 °C
I am back in beautiful Paris _ co,plete with strange keyboard configurations!
We decided on a whim to come here from Madrid on an overnight bus......sure; it got us here, but 16 hours on a bus qlmost completely full of skanky and smelly (or are the two mutually inexclusive?) men is not recommended.
Flicking through my travel guide we found a place on Rue de Rivoli, which is where the Louvre is, and connects onto the Champs Elysées and Arc de Triomphe. It is about as central you can get and is super value. We can see the Hotel de Ville from the window to our room. There is also a gorgeous carousel there and an ice_skating rink. Lots of streetside vendors selling crepes too....banana and nutella heaven. The night we got here we visited Centre Pompidou, a zanily designed building equipped with colourful pipes, a brilliant modern art museum and shops and restaurants.
The next day we visited the catacombs where some 6 million Parisiens were buried after the cemeteries became overcrowded. It is truly bizarre walking through corridor after corridor of bones and skulls! Also visited Saint Chapelle, an incredibly beautiful stained glass window rooved church, wandered up past the Louvre onto the Champs Elysees, back to Notre Dame and the island on which it is situated and visited the Australia shop where they sell Vegemite and Cherry Ripe bars.
Spent Saturday in Brussels - contrary to what i had been told, it is auite a beautiful city but it rained most of the day which was a pain in the butt!
Sunday I was back in Paris....visited Hotel des Invalides which houses the French army museum and is adjoined to the over the top tomb of Napoleon in the Eglise de Dome. We came across the sewer museum but it was closed!
Today we went up to a huge big market place just north of Monmartre. It was full of interesting clothes and a fantastic antiques section but it is in one of the seedier parts of town and was pretty shabby. This afternoon I wandered through the passages of the Right Bank - all the old 19th century shopping arcades with vintage clothes, antique shops, old postcards and Toulouse-Lautrec posters, and lots of sweet little cafes. Also wandered about Royal Palace gardens and saw the room where the revolutionary plans were born.
Tomorrow is more sightseeing, then on Wed I am off to Basque country to have fun with the ETA separatists.
Ciao
Belinda x
I am back in beautiful Paris _ co,plete with strange keyboard configurations!
We decided on a whim to come here from Madrid on an overnight bus......sure; it got us here, but 16 hours on a bus qlmost completely full of skanky and smelly (or are the two mutually inexclusive?) men is not recommended.
Flicking through my travel guide we found a place on Rue de Rivoli, which is where the Louvre is, and connects onto the Champs Elysées and Arc de Triomphe. It is about as central you can get and is super value. We can see the Hotel de Ville from the window to our room. There is also a gorgeous carousel there and an ice_skating rink. Lots of streetside vendors selling crepes too....banana and nutella heaven. The night we got here we visited Centre Pompidou, a zanily designed building equipped with colourful pipes, a brilliant modern art museum and shops and restaurants.
The next day we visited the catacombs where some 6 million Parisiens were buried after the cemeteries became overcrowded. It is truly bizarre walking through corridor after corridor of bones and skulls! Also visited Saint Chapelle, an incredibly beautiful stained glass window rooved church, wandered up past the Louvre onto the Champs Elysees, back to Notre Dame and the island on which it is situated and visited the Australia shop where they sell Vegemite and Cherry Ripe bars.
Spent Saturday in Brussels - contrary to what i had been told, it is auite a beautiful city but it rained most of the day which was a pain in the butt!
Sunday I was back in Paris....visited Hotel des Invalides which houses the French army museum and is adjoined to the over the top tomb of Napoleon in the Eglise de Dome. We came across the sewer museum but it was closed!
Today we went up to a huge big market place just north of Monmartre. It was full of interesting clothes and a fantastic antiques section but it is in one of the seedier parts of town and was pretty shabby. This afternoon I wandered through the passages of the Right Bank - all the old 19th century shopping arcades with vintage clothes, antique shops, old postcards and Toulouse-Lautrec posters, and lots of sweet little cafes. Also wandered about Royal Palace gardens and saw the room where the revolutionary plans were born.
Tomorrow is more sightseeing, then on Wed I am off to Basque country to have fun with the ETA separatists.
Ciao
Belinda x
Wednesday, 16 January 2002
Lazy Lisbon and Manic Madrid
16.01.2002 18 °C
Hola...
Still in Madrid but we have had a sudden change of plans. We are heading up to Paris for about 5 days. Because I have been able to change my flight and it was too difficult to manoeuvre the Lisbon-Santiago de Compostelo trek, I have some extra time, and also several days on my rail pass with which to play around.
Anyway, we have had a great past 5 days here. I think Madrid is a fantastic city - definitely in my top three favourite European capitals - the city is beautiful, there is great food around the place (especially if you are a fan of ham, as there are Museu del Jamon [Museum of ham], on every street corner), there are fantastic galleries and parks and lots of great shops!
My last couple of emails, have been a little truncated...but anyway...had a nice time in Lisbon. We stayed in a superb pensao (2 star hotel) right in the centre of Lisbon. We had a view of Plaça de Figura from our window where there is a statue of some most important dude (of which there are many many all over Lisbon) in the centre, and lots of shops, patisseries and bars. The first day we had there was a little drab as we had caught an overnight train (with lousy air-conditioning) and were most fatigued upon arrival....we also went looking for one of the apparently most important churches in Lisbon, but wound up in a decidedly seedy part of town and decided to hang out in the hotel for a couple hours before venturing out again to look at shops!
A lot of Lisbon is quite seedy....and then there is the spitting....it seems that ´real men´ in Portugal must be competent in the art of forming big boluses of saliva in their mouths and projecting them at tremendous velocities towards the ground. I actually saw a chick do this last night to my horror! Anyhow, it's revolting.
We had a much better day the next day for Denise´s birthday (i think this is a rehash but bear with me)...went up to the district of Belem.....a lot of the lead up to it was just the shabby seaport, but then beyond that we saw the monastery of St Jeronimo, Tower of Belem and the beautiful Discoveries Monument.....also got my first look ever at the Atlantic Ocean (from a distance)......it looked much the same as the Pacific Ocean but it was smellier and the sun was in the wrong spot!
Spent the day after that in Sintra...it was quite beautiful and lots to see there but the city is very hilly and the points of interest are all over the place i.e. from the Pena Palace (which is great) to one of the monasteries ( it is 4km), and then there is some other stuff another 5 km in the other direction. Also went to this Moorish castle which has all but disintegrated but you can wander through all the old parts of the castle, and scale the walls for a panoramic view of Sintra and out to the sea. We caught a bus from here out to the Cabo de Roca which is the Point most "Occidental" (westerly) in europe.....that was pretty cool.....the coastline is extremely rugged and the sun in Portugal is tremendously glary....really beautiful there.
The following day was spent in Cascais.....a charming seaside resort town. Lots of wandering around the town centre first, before we wandered along the beach and up to the Boca del Inferno (mouth of fire) which is essentially a blowhole. Caught a bus back to Lisbon and went to this ginormous shopping centre...the biggest on the Iberian Peninsula...for a spot of bargain shopping.
After another day back in Lisbon we caught the overnight train to Madrid
Arrived in Madrid on the 12th (am) - wandered up to Puerta del Sol and hit the shops. Also visited the Reina Sofia (Queen of Spain) Museum....
13th - took a bus out to the Valley of the Fallen (where there is a huge basilica and statue in tribute to General Franciso Franco - even though everyone hated him they still built this huge monument for him) and to the Monastery San Lorenzo del Escorial - there is a vault here where about a zillion princes and princesses and kings and queens have been buried.....room after room of it. Also a brilliant display of ancient maps - it is fun to try and work out where the hell some of these places are as they all have different names and their orientations are not always as usual.
14th - back in Madrid today.....some more shopping, and not much else.
15th - caught a train to Segovia for the day.......it is an extremely beautiful city but it was sooooooo cold there. It is at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, and it was bitterly cold and raining for much of the day. We visited the incredible Alcazar, the Cathedral, wandered about the Aqueduct and found the most amazing hot chocolate in Spain. I am totally converted.....no more of this watery hot chocolate with milk....this stuff is divine!
16th.....today! Went to Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza (an overly wealthy Hungarian art collector) where I saw some Italian stuff, a lot of Flemish and Dutch paintings, a stack of Impressionist paintings, and some post-impressionist, fauve, avant-garde, pop art and surrealist works. Also did a circuit of the city and wandered down Gran Via (one of main streets), saw outside of Royal Palace, San Miguel Meat Market, the Palace of COmmunications (which is the post office but looks like a palace), lots of statues, the town hall, and I found the Chocalateria of Saint Gines...I think it is the oldest one in Madrid. I´m definately going there when I get back here next week! Weather here is nice.....I am down to a t-shirt, jumper and jeans! But Paris will be colder I´m sure
Off this evening to Paris.....I shall write from there.
See ya
Belinda x
Hola...
Still in Madrid but we have had a sudden change of plans. We are heading up to Paris for about 5 days. Because I have been able to change my flight and it was too difficult to manoeuvre the Lisbon-Santiago de Compostelo trek, I have some extra time, and also several days on my rail pass with which to play around.
Anyway, we have had a great past 5 days here. I think Madrid is a fantastic city - definitely in my top three favourite European capitals - the city is beautiful, there is great food around the place (especially if you are a fan of ham, as there are Museu del Jamon [Museum of ham], on every street corner), there are fantastic galleries and parks and lots of great shops!
My last couple of emails, have been a little truncated...but anyway...had a nice time in Lisbon. We stayed in a superb pensao (2 star hotel) right in the centre of Lisbon. We had a view of Plaça de Figura from our window where there is a statue of some most important dude (of which there are many many all over Lisbon) in the centre, and lots of shops, patisseries and bars. The first day we had there was a little drab as we had caught an overnight train (with lousy air-conditioning) and were most fatigued upon arrival....we also went looking for one of the apparently most important churches in Lisbon, but wound up in a decidedly seedy part of town and decided to hang out in the hotel for a couple hours before venturing out again to look at shops!
A lot of Lisbon is quite seedy....and then there is the spitting....it seems that ´real men´ in Portugal must be competent in the art of forming big boluses of saliva in their mouths and projecting them at tremendous velocities towards the ground. I actually saw a chick do this last night to my horror! Anyhow, it's revolting.
We had a much better day the next day for Denise´s birthday (i think this is a rehash but bear with me)...went up to the district of Belem.....a lot of the lead up to it was just the shabby seaport, but then beyond that we saw the monastery of St Jeronimo, Tower of Belem and the beautiful Discoveries Monument.....also got my first look ever at the Atlantic Ocean (from a distance)......it looked much the same as the Pacific Ocean but it was smellier and the sun was in the wrong spot!
Spent the day after that in Sintra...it was quite beautiful and lots to see there but the city is very hilly and the points of interest are all over the place i.e. from the Pena Palace (which is great) to one of the monasteries ( it is 4km), and then there is some other stuff another 5 km in the other direction. Also went to this Moorish castle which has all but disintegrated but you can wander through all the old parts of the castle, and scale the walls for a panoramic view of Sintra and out to the sea. We caught a bus from here out to the Cabo de Roca which is the Point most "Occidental" (westerly) in europe.....that was pretty cool.....the coastline is extremely rugged and the sun in Portugal is tremendously glary....really beautiful there.
The following day was spent in Cascais.....a charming seaside resort town. Lots of wandering around the town centre first, before we wandered along the beach and up to the Boca del Inferno (mouth of fire) which is essentially a blowhole. Caught a bus back to Lisbon and went to this ginormous shopping centre...the biggest on the Iberian Peninsula...for a spot of bargain shopping.
After another day back in Lisbon we caught the overnight train to Madrid
Arrived in Madrid on the 12th (am) - wandered up to Puerta del Sol and hit the shops. Also visited the Reina Sofia (Queen of Spain) Museum....
13th - took a bus out to the Valley of the Fallen (where there is a huge basilica and statue in tribute to General Franciso Franco - even though everyone hated him they still built this huge monument for him) and to the Monastery San Lorenzo del Escorial - there is a vault here where about a zillion princes and princesses and kings and queens have been buried.....room after room of it. Also a brilliant display of ancient maps - it is fun to try and work out where the hell some of these places are as they all have different names and their orientations are not always as usual.
14th - back in Madrid today.....some more shopping, and not much else.
15th - caught a train to Segovia for the day.......it is an extremely beautiful city but it was sooooooo cold there. It is at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, and it was bitterly cold and raining for much of the day. We visited the incredible Alcazar, the Cathedral, wandered about the Aqueduct and found the most amazing hot chocolate in Spain. I am totally converted.....no more of this watery hot chocolate with milk....this stuff is divine!
16th.....today! Went to Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza (an overly wealthy Hungarian art collector) where I saw some Italian stuff, a lot of Flemish and Dutch paintings, a stack of Impressionist paintings, and some post-impressionist, fauve, avant-garde, pop art and surrealist works. Also did a circuit of the city and wandered down Gran Via (one of main streets), saw outside of Royal Palace, San Miguel Meat Market, the Palace of COmmunications (which is the post office but looks like a palace), lots of statues, the town hall, and I found the Chocalateria of Saint Gines...I think it is the oldest one in Madrid. I´m definately going there when I get back here next week! Weather here is nice.....I am down to a t-shirt, jumper and jeans! But Paris will be colder I´m sure
Off this evening to Paris.....I shall write from there.
See ya
Belinda x
Sunday, 13 January 2002
Lisboa
3.01.2002 22 °C
Ola!
Given the ridiculous price of internet in the tourist information centre, this is going to be a quick one...
After a pretty decent train ride from Madrid, we arrived in Lisbon...it's a tad seedy, but the centre has it's own rustic beauty. After a quick walk around the main square, we visited the Castle of St George and the weird sculpture garden housed within it, the Se Cathedral, admired about zillion statues of various holy dudes and founding figures and looked in shoe shops.......I haven't actually bought any yet which is quite remarkable for me. Also cruised about the old Alfama quarter, checked out the aqueduct and visited the wonderful Monument of Discoveries and Tower of Belem.
Jan 8 - more of Lisbon.......lots of shopping for Denise´s birthday!
Jan9 - went to Sintra, a lovely old royal town just north of Lisbon
Jan 10 - spent day at the beautiful seaside town of Cascais before heading onwards to the Cabo de Roca, the most westerly point in Europe and my first visit to the Atlantic Ocean! not that exciting really, but it was really lovely at sunset!
Jan 11 - back in Lisbon today.....visited the Museu Calou Gulbenkian.....this guy was a Turkish bloke who struck it big with oil (like the Beverey Hillbillies!) and spent all his money on art......it is quite an impressive collection. A good range of middle eastern and far east sculpture, ceramics, furniture, ornaments and tapestries, and also a collection of European paintings. Then we went over to the Museum of Coaches....not something I would normally go for, but all the tourist brochures give it 5 thumbs up so we checked it out.....then off to the Cultural Centre of Lisbon to see the Gilbert and George exhibition which had just opened.....these guys are absolutely crazy......they are two ordinary looking middle aged guys who are are mixture of conservative and camp....the exhibition was pop-art and they featured in all of the artworks....a lot of it was a little crass but mostly it was just really bizarre and amusing. Caught a night train to Madrid........
Jan 12 - just arrived in Madrid this morning and we´re staying at the same place we stayed last year.....it is in the centre of the three main art galleries and within walking distance from all the interesting stuff. Had breakfast at our favourite little cafe, and gorged on Andalusian toast (with a tomato-garlic sauce) and thick, thick hot chocolate, then we headed straight for the shops. Denise has managed to find 3 pairs of shoes today, to my one. I think the rest of today will be spent shopping and also looking for some a good tapas bar for dinner.
Adios
Belinda x
Cascais, Portugal
Tuesday, 8 January 2002
Sunny Sevilla and Grandiose Granada
08.01.2002 19 °C
Hola!
OK...here is a catch up on the past week or so.
Due to the overwhelming number of tourists in Barcelona for Xmas, we wound up getting stuck there for a couple extra days than anticipated which somewhat threw our plans into chaos......or rather, it put us behind a few days. Barcelona is wicked though, so I really shouldn't complain!
After checking out a bit of Barcelona, we went to Figueras to visit the Dali museum. The town itself is, as Lonely Planet correctly terms it, a dive, but the museum is bloody fantastic......it is like you are walking inside a gigantic surrealistic lollipop. There is room after room of drawings, paintings, sculptures, and in the centre of the building is a quaint little courtyard which has bizarre scupltures and a beaten up old car in the middle with mannequins sitting inside. Trippy music plays in the background and if you put a coin in the slot it actually starts ´raining´ inside the car!
The next day we visited the monastery of Montserrat, which is nestled amongst the mountains to the NW of Barcelona. It is in the middle of nowhere and you have spectacular views across the valley and of the curiously shaped rocks that form much of the mountain range. To get up there, we caught a funicular up about 800m. It was pretty damn cold up there but it was incredibly beautiful and the views were spectacular.
Apparently Montserrat is the most important site of pilgrimage for Catholic Spaniard´s - they go to see the black Madonna, which is a pint sized statue encased in bullet-proof glass. Up at the monastery we also got to chase around the feral cats - one of my absolute favourite European pasttimes! Sad, but true!
When we got back to Barca we went to the Picasso museum. We had visited the museum a few years ago and really enjoyed it as it has a tremendously diverse range of his work. Unfortunately, we discovered that they were refurbishing the place so half of the place was closed and only his typical stuff was on show, but still, it was pretty amazing. Also, as the city was inundated with tourists, and this was the first day the museum was open after Xmas, the place was a little overcrowded.
Feeling like a further injection of quirky art, we went to the Joan Miro museum - turned out to be a lot more fun than Picasso. Lots of weird and wonderful sculptures and paintings. They actually gave us free audioguides which was nice, though it did remind me why i never pay for these usually! They talk such bollocks! Also went to the Iglesia of Santa Maria de Mar, and the wonderful Palau de la Musica Catalunya - basically the multi-purpose music centre for Barcelona....it is an extremely beautiful and colourful building, but it kinda seems as though it is a little too flamboyant for anything classical and the decoration would perhaps be distracting if you wanted to take in the music.
After more than a week in Barcelona we jumped on a 12 hour train trip to Granada as we couldn´t get on an overnight service. Quite nice scenery along the coast.....especially between Barca and Tarragona. I think the highlight of the day was trying to communicate with this wacky old lady who needed help with her luggage. A gentleman sitting a few rows down from us informed us she was at "one o´clock" (i.e. a bit mad). We seem to be finding more and more people at that time as the trip progresses.....I think one of the folks we saw yesterday was at about half past 3!
12 hours on a train makes you pretty happy to arrive anywhere, but especially somewhere like Grananda!! First we visited the old Islamic quarter of town, before winding up looking like drowned rats as a result of the torrential rain! We got chased by gypsies around the cathedral who were trying to get us to buy lavender and other herbs from them. NYE was a bit of a write-off.......after last year´s NYE in Berlin, and hearing a few wild firecrackers go off around Granada.....we decided to bail on the celebrations and crashed early....Í don´t think the Spaniard´s are quite as batty as the Germans, but I don´t like fireworks being chucked in the air and exploding at random. So I'm a wuss!
After a pretty decent night's sleep for NYE, we wandered up through more of the quaint Alcaceira (Islamic Quarter) and saw several caves in the rocky hillsides where the local gypsies live. Also checked out the zillions of souvenir shops and chased the feral cats around the city.
The next day, the weather had thankfully turned delightful and we had a fantastic day. We got up at the crack of dawn to head to the Alhambra at the top of the hill. This was the old Moorish palace and the last fortress of Muslim power in Spain. The buildings are gorgeous and there are incredible gardens with fountains all over the place. Thank goodness we arrived early as it become flooded with Japanese tour groups very quickly.... We had to race around to take photos of everything sans tour groups, and then wander back through more slowly to properly absorb everything
After we had done that, we sauntered back down the hillside to find people lining the streets - literally everywhere! We thought there must have been some royal family member or dignitary about to come past.....but it turned out to be a parade. For the 2nd of Jan is the anniversary of when the city of Granada fell back into the power of the Christians in 1492......Granada was the last Muslim city in Spain and on the night of Jan 1/2 the conquistadors captured the fortress and reclaimed the city.....anyway big party all round. Caught an afternoon train to Seville.....
Following a good sleep in Seville, we visited the Alcazar and Cathedral. The cathedral is apparently the 3rd biggest in the world, after St Paul's in London and St Peter's at the Vatican City - quite impressive, I have to say. With bright sunshine streaming through it's windows it was truly ethereal. A nice change from the relative darkness of a lot of cathedrals in much of Europe. We also wandered through the tiny little streets and looked at shops. Also went to a bullring and museum of Torreadors. I still don't get the whole thing with bullfighting though! It's such a horrible sport! In the late afternoon we went to Plaza de Espana which is a semi-circular building with little curved seats all around it which have mosaics which commemorate the joining together of all the different parts of Spain to form a nation.....there is a huge fountain at the front and you can row boats around the water. It is really quite delightful
Jan 4 - went to Ronda for the day. This place is incredibly beautiful and we wished we had had more time there than in Seville or Granada.....We visited yet another bullring (Ronda is the home in bullfighting in Spain), wandered down the gorge to see the gorgeous (no pun intended) bridge and look at views over the valley, and visited the museum of Bandits! They trace the history of bandits in Andalucia, show you comic books featuring legendary bandeleros, show you costumes they used to wear and play schmaltzy music as you go through....it's quite a fun place. I didn't realize there were also female bandits that used to reek havoc about the place but apparently they were quite nasty.
Jan 5 - went on a day trip to Cordoba......mostly to see the Mezquita, apparently the greatest hybrid of a mosque and cathedral anywhere in the world. It's truly bizarre to walk through this mosque that has St Mary and Marthas and Antonys and whoever else in portraits all over the walls. Also visited the Palace of Mondrian, the Jewish quarter and ate some fantastic Churros con chocolate...I think they need to get this stuff happening back in Oz. Long doughnuts that you dip in thick hot chocolate - divine...sublime... In the evening back in Seville we went to the Three Kings street parade where all the children are thrown lollies from floats passing through the streets. The three Kings are dressed like Santa Claus, but one wears red, one wears green and the other blue! Any excuse to party in Spain, it seems! The streets were absolutely choked with people and the amount of lollies thrown from the floats was unbelievable..........we weren't even trying and scored 135! It is quite peculiar to Spain.......it seems as though there is a constant siesta......the 2 weeks I have been in Spain we have had about 6 holidays and about 4 parades! All people seem to do in Spain is shop, eat, drink and party.........which is fine if you are there all the time but somewhat frustrating if you want to see stuff.....
Jan 6.....everything was closed so unfortunately there wasn't so much to do. Also as we had had quite a spat with the manager of the hostal the night before - who quoted us an exceedingly inflated price for the room -something we only discovered when we happened to spot a price list that was hiding in the corner of the room... so we weren't really happy to leave our things there so just up and went! Caught a night train to Lisbon last night.......quite a long trip. Took about 13 hours on the rickety train but it also didn't cut down sightseeing time so a pretty sensible option.
Anyway, will write more from Portugal
Adios
Belinda
Sunday, 6 January 2002
Sunny Sevilla
06.01.2001 20 °C
Hola...
Still having lots of fun. Been very busy the last week or so. Am currently in Seville and heading to Lisbon tomorrow night. Spent today in Cordoba, came back and watched the Three Kings parade in the street (for Epiphany or something) (we managed to get 135 lollies that the multicoloured Santa Claus impersonators and overweight tellitubby kids throw to the multitudes of Sevillians), and then went back to the hotel to tangle with Spanish bureaucracy - dodgy hotel man quoted us a price that differs to the price we found listed in a hidden spot in the hotel.........grrrrrrrrrr not impressed. Won't be patroning that hotel again...
In the last week we have visited the incredible Dali Museum in Figueras, the beautiful Monastery of Monserrat, the Picasso and Miro museums, spent a couple days in Granada, the day before yesterday in Seville, yesterday in Ronda (this is fantastic!), and today in Cordoba.
Will write in a few days or when I can get online.........
Belinda x
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