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
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