A potted summary of Spain
Trip Start
Jun 25, 2008
1
Trip End
Jul 08, 2008
Madrid, Madrid, Spain and Canary Islands
Monday, July 21, 2008
We flew to Spain via Miami. Photos to come.
Miami
It meant arriving in Miami at about midnight, with our flight out the next afternoon. Obviously that meant staying the night at the airport, which was one of the more uncomfortable nights spent on the trip so far. But that was only once we had cleared passport control, which was unbelievably slow. We picked the super slow line somehow and it was 2am before we got into the arrival lounge where we could sleep. Most announcements were made only in Spanish, so it didn't really feel like we had left South America.
We found some hard narrow couches to sleep on. They would have been about the width of two gymnastic beams. The loudspeakers regularly updated us on the local time: "local time is ... 2.15 am", "the local time is ... 2.30 am" and so on every 15 minutes, interpersed with warnings to "maintain control of your luggage at all times", as if luggage was a wild animal that might escape, and greetings on behalf of the mayor. Overall it makes the top three uncomfortable nights of the trip along with the night I froze on a Venezuelan bus and the night we froze and were not allowed to lie down in the bus terminal at El Calafate. Welcome to America.
The next morning we went to South Beach. Much raved about, this beach is white sand and pleasantly cool water. The comical aspect of the thing is the grader they have running up and down the beach to smooth the sand out, and the dedicated sun worshippers out even at 9am. We lay around for a while, before I commented on what an inferior beach it was - no seals, no turtles, no sharks. Not even 2 mins later, four sharks swam by. They were fairly small and cruised along parallel to the shore for a long time, clearing the water as they went.
Miami to Barcelona takes just 7 hours. It seemed absurd to go so far so easily. On the morning of 24 June I swam in the Caribbean; in the evening of the 25th I swam in the Mediterranean.
We found the accomodation horrendously expensive, and took the cheapest option possible. This was camping at a place by the beach in the second metro zone. It cost us 21e a night.
Barcelona
We walked ourselves ragged in Barcelona looking at the beautiful buildings.I am not sure that the city overall is beautiful, but it does have many fine buildings.
We spent the first day wandering past churches and old mansions, and remnants of the Roman wall that once surrounded the town. The cathedral was being repaired, a common experience for us on this part of the trip, but nonetheless had neat gargoyles often in the form of farm animals. The gargoyles here and elsewhere seem to be a way of disguising water spouts, and they have open mouths to facilitate flow. They are an attractive guise.
On our second sight-seeing day we started with a visit to the unfinished church of the Sagrada Familia, started in 1883. It is quite impressive, but better appreciated from a distance. Up close I felt that it was a bit kitsch. It has 8 towers at present (12 when finished to symbolise the 12 apostles) which reach about 70m, narrow and round. They have tacky writing on them repeated three times (symbolising the trinity) - things like 'hosana' and 'santos', and are crowned by brightly coloured ceramic tiles creating balls on top. It looks silly. Symbols of evil (snails, lizards and snakes) flee the down the towers. Two of the doorways are finished. The first is the nativity and was completed while Gaudi lived. There is not a flat surface anywhere and the effect is quite striking but cluttered. Scenes are carved into the stone, and it climbs towards a tree that rises out of the face of the church, its roots sheltering (I think) Mary and Jesus. On the other side, crucifixion scenes have been sculptured in a blocky concrete style that seems to fit the rest of the church very ill. It is one of the most visited sites in Spain, but it is strange rather than beautiful.
After that we walked to Parque Guell that is decorated with Gaudi's buildings. His eccentric taste seems to work better in this context. Houses are almost like gingerbread houses, a huge wavy concrete platform is supported on pillars that aren't quite straight. On top of the platform is a low wall decorated interestingly in more ceramic tiles. A ceramic iguana (or something) forms a water feature.
We wandered back into town past more Gaudi buildings, always featuring ceramics. One was wavy, but regular; Batllo (the most famous) has balconies like the skulls of predators and ceramics all up the face of the building. I liked it best.
On day three we discovered that we could get a bus ticket out that night, so I went back to the campsite and packed while Nancy saw some sights and then we went to the Picasso Museum before before having a quick swim and collecting our bags. We saw Spain's arc de triomph, a very red structure in the traditional style and the Picasso Museum.
We found the Picasso Museum a bit disappointing and confusing. It had few works from his important period, although it was interesting to see works when he was still being naturalistic. It had his blue phase works and then a bunch of very cubist pictures from 1915 which were said to 'already show' some cubist techniques. Later, a timeline attributed the launching of cubism to 1906-1908. There was little cubist work present, apart from a large number of his takes on the Meninas by Velazquez, which seemed to me to go beyond innovative and into the merely childish. In contrast, some of his other cubist works retain the essence of what he was painting, albeit misassembled, and are interesting. But he reduced the Meninas to stick figures and boxes, except for one complete piece done in dark colours that was all angles, but more complex. It also featured some truly terrible pottery, and some screen prints which were said to revolutionise techniques (for example by using the single block but working from dark to light instead of the normal light to black).
Basque country
Bilbao is the capital of the Basque region, which may be the prettiest area in Spain. It is cooler, greener and gently mountainous. I liked it, altough we did have an empty bag swiped at the bus station. We wandered along the river, admiring the prettiness of the town, some old buildings, and a slide that children entered through a giant's mouth. The old town has some very old buidlings in it, but nothing to pull you up short. Then Nancy went to the Guggenheim museum, while I went to deal with the police over our bag. I had thought that it would be good to see the gallery, but it sounded too modern and expensive for me in the end. We spent that night in a campsite well out of town, but with a lovely view over the sea. We heard great cheering as (we presumed) Spain scored in the European Cup final, but naturally missed all the festivities.
The next day we left for San Sebastian, a sea side town with a nice beach, a castle on a hill that can be clambered over with good views, a couple of handsome churches and very expensive accomodation. We paid 50 e for a very ordinary hostal. We had a nice time though, and went out to try some pintxos (Basque tapas), where we met up with some locals who took us around some of the better eating options. We had been told that San Sebastien is a great party town, but we were among the last in. That felt very strange. We had a bus out at midnight the next night, so we spent the day and most of the evening on the beach. This bus was to Madrid, where we didn't want to go, but we were too late to get the bus we wanted, which left at a decent hour and arrived in Cordoba. Either way a connection was needed for Granada which we easily caught from Madrid.
Granada
The highlight of Granada is the Alhambra, which is a Moorish palace complex, started in the 11th century and occupied until 1492. It survived conquest, and French attempts to blow it up, and now impresses beyond words with its faded glory. The fort, or alcazaba, is the oldest part, and the plainest - simple brick walls and towers that dominate the area below. The real treat though are the royal retreat of generalife and the Nasrid palaces. Both sites make use of amazing concoctions of plaster to create gorgeous arches of very fine intricate patterns. These also decorate the walls with great delicacy. The designs are geometric mixed with Arabic script. Ribbons of plaster create create detailed relief patterns, giving the walls a gorgeous three dimensional look, while the key-hole shaped arches are decorated with a frieze in the same manner. Often the top of the arch is decorated with little grottoes. All of this was once painted, and traces remain in places, but I am not sure that the painting could have improved the appearance. There were often little niches in walls, also decorated with the plaster, which I guess would have been used for offerings - they were like miniature chapels.
Some of the most beautiful work was in the museum - I was particularly impressed by the way they worked wood. There was a beautiful door of dark wood, covered in shallow grooves forming parallel tracks, stars etc. A folding chair was gorgeously inlaid with white (ivory or shell); a marble basin was carved with lions catching antelope ...
The baths next to the mosque were interesting too - skylights in the form of stars let light in. Fountains were very important and tended to be 8 sided - sometimes 4 sharp and 4 rounded corners, and occasionally 8 sharp. Eight seems an important number.
Charles V built his palace over the old mosque. It too is quite impressive. The outside is pitted stone, with iron rings depending from the mouths of eagles and lions. Inside is a large two level theatre surrounded by columns. But it cannot overwhelm the way that the Muslim work does.
On our second night we climbed the local hill to watch the alhambra as it was lit by floodlights - a very pretty sight. It would have been nice to have made it earlier to see it in the late afternoon light too.
Ronda
Ronda is one of the famous white villages, and is highly scenic because it sits on top of a sheer cliff, and straddles a deep gorge. It is an important town in bullfighting history, being the home of the modern version of the practice. An old defensive wall still runs through town, and the muslim perimeter wall defending the approaches stands too. Ronda was another moorish stronghold that fell only in 1485, and the cliffs must have made it extremely hard to approach. The patent history, and the whitewashed walls seemed to exude Spanishness. There is not too much to do here, but I would have liked another day just to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the views.
Sevilla
I remember reading that the Spanish were so impressed by Tulum (Mayan town in Mexico) that they compared it to Sevilla. The setting is prettier in Tulum, but surely Sevilla's buildings are the more impressive. We could only fit in an afternoon here, which was a pity. But it was fun getting lost in the absurdly small winding medieval streets that never go straight and change names every 20m or so. And there are so many grand buildings. There are royal palaces that we did not enter, hidden behind great walls. The cathedral is one of the largest in the world, but closed when we were there. It was still an impressive sight from the outside. The torre de oro is a remnant from the Muslim occupation, a round tower with a narrow tiled turret on top. We eventually found three columns from the Roman occupation. They would have easily been 20m high but started well below street level and without any sort of explanation.
Madrid
Wihile in Madrid I felt obliged to have a look at the Prado Museum, onet of the great art collections in the world. This poses some problems, because the place is huge and simply covering the ground in a single visit while still enjoying the art is a challenge. We tried to manage this by only looking closely at works that particularly caught our eye, or which were signposted as masterpieces. There were whole rooms devoted to Spanish masters like Velzaquez and Goya and pieces by practically everybody else.
The pieces that made most impression on me were:
grim atmospheric works by Goya of a giant, and Saturn eating his child.
detailed humane pieces by Ribera, real face studies often against a black background
a death scene (the triumph of death) by Brueghel with armies of skeletons mowing down the people
a weird painting by Bosch (the garden of earthly delights) showing paradise, debauchery and hell.
crossing the styx by Patinir
In addition were works by Rubens, Rembrandt (Artemisia featuring amazing detail on the gold ebroidered white dress) , Raphael, Titian, el Greco ... And it was interesting to see Velazquez's work the Meninas, showing the royal children and dog plus entertainment, as this was much copied by Picasso and featured in his museum in Barcelona. I was puzzled though why some works were designated masterpieces over others. I wonder what the criteria were. For example, El Greco's adoration of the shepherds appears no more technically proficient to me than anything else in the room, and while it features very sharp clean colours (thereby different to other works), so do all of his pieces. So why this one?
On our last full day in Spain we went to the royal palace. Also one of the biggest in Europe, it seemed to get under way in the 18th century (perhaps following the Bourbon accession) and has been in constant use ever since. Ceilings were usually painted with angels and what not and the walls tended to be busy with detailed ornamentation, mostly fabric. It was kind of interesting to see the excesses perpetrated on the building, but none of it worked. It was like a noveau riche house - everything expensive and ornate, but too much and not in good taste. We saw:
- the dining room (chandeliers, ceiling mural depicting the apotheosis of the
Spanish monarchy, tapestries);
- throne room (much red everywhere, mirrors)
- the drawing room (mirrors, sofas)
- porcelain room (small, white and green porcelain covering everything)
The royal pharmacy was interesting though with several rooms of drawers and vases for every herb imaginable and much distilled water.
The clear highlight for me was the armoury. I was interested to see a mounted knight from about 1510 to get an idea of what the Incas were up against. It was a pretty formidable figure. I loved the armour for the horses, especially the little ear shields. I was amazed at the art work, especially on shields but also on armour. Perhaps these were only for parade suits but I don't think so, as I read that Charles V had a suit commissioned for wars with the turks replete with images of Christian victory. He lost anyway. The entire first room seemed to be filled almost entirely with the armour of Charles and Felipe II, most belonging to Charles. One shield was etched with scenes down to the detail of a little dog crossing a bridge. In the second room, most was parade armour, including full suits of mail for children.
Nearby is the temple of Debod, an authentic Egyptian temple in the middle of Madrid. It was given to Spain in 1968 as a gesture of thanks for Spain's help in saving other templs from the Aswan dam. No doubt in future years this will be portrayed as another example of theft of natinal heritage. It was closed of course, but we read that Augustus prayed at this temple.
After lunch Nancy went to a modern art museum. I despise modern art so didn't go, but it sounds like they had some interesting things on display after all, though perhaps not art exactly (mercury responding to a ball magnet for instance). I went to the botanic gardens which was pleasant enough without being particularly special. It had NZ plants though. One section is supposed to show the evolutionary history of plants from most basic to most advanced (starting with ferns and ending with palms), but although it described each garden a little, it did not say why certain features were to be regarded as advanced, nor when they first emerged. So it was not especially useful. It did have a baby Wollemi pine though (a dinosaur era plant, thought extinct but recently discovere din New South Wales), which was interesting to see.
And that pretty well covers the sights of Spain, or at least those that you can reasonably cover in two weeks.
