Southern Spain

If you happen to be a time traveller from, say, 500 A.D. SPOILER ALERT. If not, well you're cool too. Read on to learn a little history.

Much of what is now southern Spain used to be ruled by various Moorish (Nasrid and Ummayid) kingdoms and caliphates. There was a bit of back and forth between the Christian and Islamic states over the centuries until in 1492, at the end of what's called the Reconqista, the last Islamic kingdom fell to the Christian kingdoms of Aragon and Castile.

Five centuries later, and we have the vestiges of that influence in the culture of Andalusia.

Granada

We arrived in Granada on a hot autumn day, and spent the next hour trying to find our accommodation. I won't bore you with the details, but basically the bus system in Granada is in dire need of improvement, or rather, they need to post more information about how to get from A to B on their bus stops. Success at last though.

The main reason for going to Granada was for us to visit the Alhambra – a mountain fort/palace/garden complex which was a 20 minute uphill walk from where we were staying. Apparently it's the most famous and most visited monument in Spain. Booking a few days ahead of time, the tickets to see the whole complex during the day were already sold out for the two days we were there, but by splitting the visit up, we were able to see the main fortress/gardens in the day, and then come back at night to see the Nasrid Palace.

The Alhambra complex is largish, and sits on a hill overlooking Granada. It's a great location for a fort, and there's been one there since before the Islamic incursion into Spain. After a time, some caliph or other decided that it'd be a nice place for a palace too, and so the Nasrid Palace was built up on the hill, with an aqueduct to bring water from a spring nearby, since water was a big requirement in the Islamic gardens of the time.

Imposing walls of the fort.

View of Granada.

Charles V's palace. Apparently this area used to be used for bullfights. It's now a museum.

Islamic architecture at the time was into water features.

More water features.

In Spain, since everyone has dinner so late, it seems that things are open late too, which suits us well, and our ticket for the Nasrid Palace was set for 10pm. We lined up with around 300 odd other people, and managed to get inside at around 10:15pm.

The walls were covered with detailed carvings like this

and this.

Felt like something from Aladdin.

You might not be able to see the details here, but it's like an inverted wat temple. It's one of the ceilings, and was probably painted with even more details.

I want a courtyard like this in my house.

We enjoyed walking around the complex looking at the different buildings, walking through the gardens. The highlight though is the Nasrid Palace. It's really majestic. The Alhambra in general has aspects of what was in the Nasrid Palace, but it's a bit disjointed. The Nasrid Palace though seems much better thought out, and more cohesive.

Next morning we tried to find the Arab Baths. Bano Arabe. Having failed at that, we wandered around and looked at some of the buildings, went shopping, and felt pretty tired and slightly unwell so trudged home.

That evening (or really that afternoon) it began to rain. Not quite as hard as it had in Warsaw, but then it began to hail. Not exactly a storm of biblical proportions, but there was some good thunder and lightning, and I was a little bit concerned about the windows cracking if they were hit. We'd chosen a good evening to stay in!

The next morning we'd pretty much forgotten about the storm, until as we walked to the train station we had to walk through mud only to find our train was now actually a bus, presumably due to damage caused by the storm. Through a series of sign language and English and a little bit of Spanish (¡si!) we found the bus, and were on our way to Cordoba.

Cordoba

Neither of us was feeling all that well when we got to Cordoba. I was tired (early morning) and Anna was tired and had developed a mystery cough. It was still hot and sunny. And our schedule doesn't allow for sick days.

Cordoba is home to the Mezquita – what used to be the largest mosque in western Europe, turned into a cathedral.

Actually it used to be a Visigothic church. You know the Visigoths? The ones that were mostly Arian Christian (followers of Arius, basically a heretic). One of the barbarian hordes that swept through the western Roman Empire in the years after Constantine (I think. The time traveller from 500 A.D. should be able to correct me on this one). Anyway, so far it was a church for people who believe that Jesus was a created being, and not fully God and fully man at the same time, then it was levelled and became a mosque, built by the first European Caliph (who was actually from Syria originally). Then, after many additions, and after Cordoba was under Christian rule once more, it became a cathedral.

Still with me?

Anyway, it's a fantastic piece of architecture, and we had a great time wandering among the marble columns listening to the audioguide, staying cool in the shade.

It was nice and cool and dark inside the older mosque parts.

Lighter in the slightly newer areas.

This part is the part that indicates the direction of Mecca, so it's pretty fancy.

Other parts make it obvious that it's a church too.

After we'd seen this, we wandered around a bit, and went to get some ice creams. I was able to use my limited Spanish in a transaction that went something like this:

John: Hola.

Dude: Hola.

John: Dos Cornetto por favor, uno Natrel, uno Vanilla, por favor.
Dude: Dos Euro.

I think after that I handed him the money, he said something I didn't understand, I said “Gracias”, we grabbed our ice creams, and we left.

And the next day, we left Cordoba.

I'm trying to think of how exactly to describe our experience in Spain. It was a cool country, different to anywhere else we've visited so far. We both really liked it. I feel that it's kind of like what I'd expected Mexico would be like - hot, arid, exotic. It's a place that I'd happily go back to and spend more time in.

Sevilla

We decided to take a fast, flash train between Barcelona and Seville with Spain's national train company, Renfe. It was our first experience of train travel in Spain; there was an airport-like lounge, with eateries with airport-like prices, and you have to go in a line to get your ticket checked, then through security to get all your bags scanned before boarding. The train was the flashest we'd been on thus far, too; it had a power socket, we were supplied with complimentary headphones, and we rocketed along at speeds of up to 300kph on our journey to our stopover in Madrid.

Unfortunately, that still wasn't fast enough. We arrived in Madrid at our scheduled time, and had 15 minutes to catch our train to Seville. We've made other connections without any problem, but we hadn't counted on the massive airport-like terminal that is Madrid's train station. Up a long travelator we went, before hurrying down a looong hall over the tracks, into the main area, then after a wrong turn we were told that our platform (unsignposted) was on the first floor. We only had a few minutes to get there by this point, and we clumsily and apologetically hurried past all the people with their baggage on the travelator up, raced through security, and came up to the gate just after our train had pulled away.

It was fairly distressing. We went to one Renfe counter, where the lady indicated we should go downstairs to the ticket office. Instead, John took us to another Renfe counter nearby, and asked for help with our missed connection. Initially they also told us to go downstairs to buy a new ticket, but then John's assertiveness showed up, and he let it be known that it was the fault of whatever system had given us such a measly stopover time to get between platforms, rather than our own negligence in missing our train (I'm not sure he conveyed that FULL meaning of that to these Spaniards... but enough of it). “Just a moment,” she said, and then all the people in the office space behind the counter, maybe half a dozen, started conversing in Spanish back and forth, and then she called someone and was on the phone for a little while; finally she wrote on our ticket, and then gave it back to us with a new time, coach and seat numbers on it, for two hours later. Hurrah!

We made sure to be on the next train in plenty of time, and from there to Seville our journey was pleasantly uneventful.

a view of Seville

We had been primed to expect a big difference between Barcelona and Andalucia. They were right! It was immediately noticeable once we arrived in Seville; it was hotter, with fewer people who spoke English, and a very different style of city. Our Airbnb hostess described it as a “big village”, and it felt that way – a big, charming village, with narrow, winding streets I would hate to drive down, more pedestrians than cars, and awesome houses. Our own house had three stories, with our floor on the second, a big lightwell in the centre and a flat shaded roof you could sit and relax on. We had only booked one bedroom with a bathroom but, as it happened, we were the only guests there, so had the whole place to ourselves!

On our way to our accommodation we passed a big group of people dressed fancily; our hostess mentioned how all the women dress up heaps for weddings here, and indeed, the women all looked like they could have been bridesmaids, their dresses were so beautiful. If we were in the US, I would have suspected that might actually be the case.

Plaza de la Encarnacion with a big confounding wooden structure

On our first full day in Seville, we had a leisurely stroll through the centre of town, seeing the Plaza de la Encarnacion and some market stalls on our way to see the cathedral, a major attraction. We were appropriately impressed; it is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, built on the foundation of the old mosque, and it took us a few hours to get round it with our audioguides. The cathedral also contains la Giralda, a former minaret turned into a bell tower.

the Cathedral

 Although not normally a fan of statues of Mary, I liked this one - she looks so pretty! Love the bodiless heads at her feet too.

insane golden altarpiece

the orange grove outside, a legacy from its days as a mosque

Our hostess had recommended we see Plaza de Espana, a free square, we presumed. We checked it out, and discovered that “square” is not really an adequate summation; it's more like a lovely open area, half encircled by a long, fancy building, and adorned with fountains, bridges and pretty lamps and fences.

Not just a square!

Far more exciting!

We ended the day with a lovely walk through the adjoining Parque de Maria Luisa, a big, tropical park with various fountains, flowers and garden areas. It had more trees than we're used to in an urban park, so it felt more like a forest much of the time. We could understand the sense in it, given the temperatures southern Spain can get up to.

The next day, we started with a long visit to the Alcazar, the other main draw in Seville – again, justly so. The royal residence was unlike anything we'd seen before; the fusion of different artistic styles and influences was beautiful and fascinating, perhaps in part because it was unfamiliar. The building had quite a few courtyards with little gardens, which were designed to be smaller and more intimate, and achieved their aim well.

Amazing ceiling, the amazingness of which cannot be captured on camera.

highly ornate decoration

extremely incredibly very highly ornate decoration

Faced with ludicrously expensive audioguides, we also started our new technique of hiring just one and sharing it between us. Absolutely brilliant idea – we bet no one else has ever thought of doing that.

The gardens were just as lovely as the palace; large and disparate, they had evolved over a long period of time, with different areas planted in different eras. There was a labyrinth, a rose garden, several fountains and pools of water, with water running down channels in some of the paths. A special feature was a musical fountain – different from the one in Barcelona; apparently the last working one in Spain? This one used some sort of mechanism to play a pipe organ,which tooted away happily to itself playing an unfamiliar tune with slightly off notes and timing. It's an engineering marvel to be sure, although I'm sure there's a more efficient way to create music.

just a path in the Alcazar gardens

Water played a prominent part in the garden's design, so there were lots of murky, stagnant bodies of water lying around.

a building for hanging out purposes in the gardens

Like the park from the day before, the gardens also had a good number of shady trees and tropical foliage, making the Alcazar a good place to spend a hot day – it was probably about 30 degrees. And this is Spain in autumn? We're really glad we took the warning about European summers, and headed north during the warmer months before venturing down south.

It was still too hot for our next two expeditions, neither of which met with success. First we tried to find the Inquisition Museum, and failed; next we tried to make it to the bullring by 6 o'clock for one of the free half-hourly tours, which turned into a power walk after taking a wrong turn.

At least we got to see this tower.

As it turns out, it didn't matter, because all the free tickets, valid between 3-7pm on Mondays, had been sold out on or shortly after 3pm that day; apparently you couldn't just turn up at one of the times in the free time period. Naive fools! There were paying tickets available for later in the evening, but that would conflict with our next appointment, which was...

A flamenco show! We decided it would be a great idea to experience some authentic Spanish culture by attending an authentic flamenco performance. Our hostess had recommended la Casa de la Memoria, House of Memory, as a more affordable and less touristy option than many other offers. In any case, it was still all tourists in the audience. That audience was limited to 80 members, however, as flamenco is apparently meant to be performed in a more intimate setting.

There were two dancers, male and female, who took a lengthy turn each, as well as a mean guitarist (mean as in rad), and a male singer. The guitar was absolutely lovely – and then the singer started doing his thing. Man, we weren't feeling it. We've seen buskers flamencoing it up since then, as well as heard similar singing in shops around Andalucia, so we've gathered that the way this singer was doing it was indeed the way it was meant to sound, but unfortunately it wasn't to either of our tastes. It mainly sounded nasally, and more like semi-melodious wailing than the singing we're used to; it was clearly a song about heartbreak, and it definitely sounded like the singer was voicing a complaint.

As for the dancers, they were fairly throbbing with feeling; they seemed to feel the music deep inside, and to have a deep well of pain that compelled them to move. We'd seen some reviews for this place where they mentioned the dancers' passion, and we saw what they were talking about. It looked like the lady, especially, was engaged in a complex interplay with the guitarist and singer sitting off to the side, like a conversation through music and dance. The dancers seemed to direct the speed of the music by tapping their feet, and I found it hard to tell how much was rehearsed vs improvised, it all seemed so organic. We would be remiss not to mention the skill involved in their rapid footwork, too; their feet were flying so fast, yet still in time with the beat. The only downside and distraction was the male dancer's gross oily hair that hung down to his shoulders; the lady had tied hers back in a ponytail, but he just let it hang loose and it went over his face and looked gross.

From left to right: Mr Greasy Hair dancer, singer, lady dancer and guitar player. At least two of those should have been pretty obvious.

The guitar player also performed a delicate solo item about halfway through, which was beautiful, and which we would have appreciated more if there hadn't been an elderly gentleman a few seats down from us who didn't seem to realise how loud his sotte voce comments were.

All in all, we appreciated the performance, were impressed with the talent on display, and the audience was certainly happy, giving them rousing applause at the end.

We rounded off our sevillian visit with a first experience of tapas, at a restaurant – you guessed it! – recommended by our hostess. She gave us many helpful suggestions. This place was called Coloniales, and we would also highly recommend it to anyone planning to visit Seville. We were warned it is always full, so made sure to arrive before the normal dinner time, which is 9-11pm. Yes, that's right, and lunch is normally 2-4pm. Not so hard to arrive beforehand!

We were given free entrees, some little packets of dried bread, as well as a fresh bun. Then we quickly chose 4 tapas, as well as a lemonade each. The little meals came really quickly, were delicious, and we went from feeling ravenous to feeling satisfied, but not over-full. And the whole meal cost a mere 13 euros for both of us! What a pleasure!

We left Seville glad we had decided to extend our trip to include Spain as well. It was proving most rewarding!

Barcelona

Spain is a place that I didn't really have any interest in visiting. I didn't really see the point of it, sitting there on the Iberian peninsula along with Portugal.

Anna managed to squeeze it in though, and so we found ourselves trundling along to Barcelona from Lyon (Note: when booking trains to and from Spain, Leon does not equal Lyon).

We hit Barcelona in the afternoon, and then Barcelona hit back. It must have been around 30, which after France was a nice change to warmer temperatures. Also happening at the same time was (you guessed it) another festival! This time it was La Mercè, a religious holiday commemorating Our Lady of Mercy. That evening we walked around a local park which had some of the festival events happening. There were puppets, kids' rides, fairground games, buskers, dance routines, comic shows and acrobats who, as far as we saw, were only ever perpetually warming up - fun for the whole family.

Here's a video of a musical fountain in action. It's quite long though.

Some things to be aware of about Barcelona (and I suppose Spain in general):

Siesta is a thing; most shops will be shut from around 2pm till at least 4. With the temperatures we've been experiencing, even in autumn, I can see why.

Catalunya (the part of Spain that Barcelona is in) has its own language, and a very organised secession movement. There are Catalan independence flags everywhere. Perhaps this is due to the fact that they're going to be voting on it soon. Since we're not sure about how people feel about the Spanish language, whether or not it's analogous to the Russian language in Lithuania, I thought I'd save my tiny smidgen of Spanish until we're in a place where they speak it, although it sounded to me like a cross between Spanish and French.

One thing we normally do in a city is wander around the old town. This one had opera buskers, old churches, and plenty of tourist shops with overly attentive (read pushy) salespersons. After a few of those encounters we decided to avoid those shops.

One of the important things to see in Barcelona is the Magic Fountain. Normally this involves standing in front of the fountain with a group of other tourists watching as the fountain twists the water into different shapes, morphing as the coloured lights and the directional nozzles change the fountain from looking like a frothing blue mouthwash golem, to a seething mass of blood red sea serpents, or a geyser of orange juice. All of this while accompanied by the sounds of whatever series of pop songs are popular at the time.

Apparently there's a tradition in Barcelona of a big fireworks spectacular accompanying the fountain on the final evening of the festival. We were sold.

9:30pm rolls around and we're sitting in the middle of the road along with thousands of other people waiting for the show. There is one road that gives the best view, and we managed to get a spot about halfway down the road, and about in the middle.

Waiting for the show.

The show started with the face of an old man, presumably telling the story of Catalunya.

It felt a little like 1984.

Of course with a story of any place there is always talk of war.

You can see everyone's cameras and phones.

Big Brother is watching you. Or is shouting at you or something.

At the end of the show there was a point where everyone pulled out sparklers and lit them. I think this might have been during a national or regional song.

All in all I feel that it was a better fireworks show than the one in Disneyland.

Oh, all the while this was happening the fountain would do various things adding to the show.

Another thing about Barcelona is the Art Nouveau movement that has contributed many buildings to the city. We visited two of these, and while they're amazing, and you should definitely check them out if you get a chance, I don't really dig the aesthetic.

Casa Batllo is one such building. It's amazing to think that such a thing was designed in the late 1800s but not only designed, actually built too, and it was lived in.

No straight lines. The audio guide kept telling us that it was a jewel of Barcelona.

The Lightwell - basically a skylight that goes all the way to the bottom floor. The tiles are lighter at the bottom than the top to make it look bright all the way down.

The other building is the Sagrada Familia. If you're going to visit the Sagrada Familia, make sure that you book ahead of time, or it might be difficult to get access.

The Sagrada Familia is a church building designed by Gaudi in the late 1800s. Its construction has been a bit stop and go, due to funding difficulties, so you can see the parts that are recent and the parts that are over a century old. It's still under construction, and seen from a distance it looms over the city. It'll be much taller once it is complete. I hope to visit it once it is finally finished, although at the historical rate of construction it might be for my 100th birthday.

As for the building itself, it's something you'll have to see pictures of to appreciate. Here are some I prepared earlier:

Under construction.

the Nativity facade

inside, with pillars designed to look like graceful trees

the ceiling, in the distance

stained glass windows

The details were amazing. Here's a door.

So far on this trip we've tried to keep costs down by doing free things. The problem with this is when things cease to be free. I'm assuming it's to do with economic reasons (“Well duh,” I hear you say. “Macro economic reasons,” I reply, “Global Financial Crisis et.al”) but out of the three free things we'd decided to do that afternoon, all of them have recently started charging an entry fee. Since we were still on the whole Gaudi kick, we visited a hospital that he designed (and found out that they now charge for entry) and Guell park (another Gaudi design, they charge for entry for some of it). We're not such huge fans of Gaudi that we'd pay the entrance fees (these things add up), so we walked around in the park and managed to see the main sights in the paying section by peering over the fence, then decided to go to the Castle Montjuic, and got hit with the prospect of another entrance fee. Lame. We got to see the Mediterranean though, so that was nice.

One more place that we went to: Poble Español. It's a collection of buildings which replicate some of the different regional styles of buildings in Spain, with restaurants, clubs, and souvenir shops populating the inside of the buildings. We paid the night rate to get in, and wandered around the streets looking at all the buildings.

That evening we saw the regular version of the magical fountain, and while it was magical, it didn't really come close to the one we'd seen the night before.

That about wraps it up for Barcelona. We really enjoyed it, and would recommend that you come some time that's not during the heat of summer, like we did.