Barcelona

October 16. 2009

We get up at 8:30 am even though we didn’t get to bed until 2 am. Understandably we are a bit tired but we are in Barcelona, pronounced Bar…the…lona if you want to sound cool, and excited to see the sights. Spaniards pronounce “c’s” as “th.” The first thing that we do is get our normal Spanish breakfast, desayuno, café con leche y tostada for Emi and Americano café y croissant for me. Breakfast over, we head for the tourist center to sign up for the Gothic walking tour. It is a zoo at the center, but somehow everything is arranged and around 35 of us tourist head out into Barcelona. The tour is OK, just OK. After all of Nancy’s talks we are quite knowledgeable and find the information somewhat repetitive. The most exciting part of the tour was the pickpocketers who attacked us like sharks.

We went to a museum that was an excavation of the old part of town. It was located beneath the bishop’s palace. It was quite a huge undertaking. It was like a city below the city. Remarkable, just remarkable.

After the tour we took the “underground,”aka subway, to the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s infamous cathedral. It is a wonder to see it…for about 5 minutes. After that, I’m ready to go, but Emi’s wants to see the inside and we pay the 11E each to get in. There really isn’t anything inside. The interior is empty except for all the construction they are doing. It’s been over 30 years of work and they don’t know when it’s going to be finished. There is a liftthat goes up into one of the spiers, but the wait is over 30 minutes. There is a nice display explaining Gaudi’s thoughts of architectural design and a museum of his design of the Familia Sagrada and his replacement designer. My only consolation is that our fees to get in will help to complete the monstrosity; oops, I mean cathedral.

Not satisfied with the Sangrada Familia we walk to Park Gruell, a park that Gaudi designed. The walk was more interesting than the park. The park is like a cross between Disneyland and gaudy. And then there are the throngs of tourists that are at Gaudi’s creations. His works attract tourist like ____ drawing flies. I am running out of patience and stamina to be with the crush of humanity.

After the torture of too many people we decide to walk back to the hotel. It is far but I have a plan to make it endurable. We will stop at several tapa bars on our way back. That way we will not suffer. We only make it through 2 bars before we reach our hotel’s district, which meant 2 beers and 2 wines, fuet (pork sausage tapa) and beef/croquettes/patata racione tapa. We were planning on more stops but our stomachs were satisfied. We were also tired, walking about 10 miles or more for the day. The fatigue must have dulled our brains more than normal because we could not find our hotel without calling for directions. Thank goodness for today’s technology.

I'm a traveling man...

October 15, 2009

It’s a traveling day. I’m beginning to dislike the process of moving from one place to another. You lose time and it’s stressful.

But we still have the entire morning to tour Granada more and we use it to walk up the hill across from the Alhambra. There are guide posts along the way with an audible number to allow you to play the appropriate information from your rented audio guide. The guide that we do not rent. If they had one for life’s journey, I would have gladly rented one. Can you imagine having a guide like that? For instance, if you run your car into a fire hydrant there would be a number printed on said fire hydrant which you would push and it would say, “This is the site where you did not pay attention. It will be a sore spot for the rest of your life because the city will charge you a fortune to pay for the repairs.” Along the way we stop at a history museum and an old palace. Don’t ask me their names. They are pretty and their inner courtyards are cool and they have benches. Have I talked about benches before?

We take a right at the top to view the Sacramonte barrio. Many of the homes are just holes dug into the side of the hill, sort of like a hobbit’s home. There are many flamenco and classic guitar cafes located here. We enter one of these caves not as a tourist but only to buy drinks and potato chips by Lay, my favorite, but the chips are not like ours back home. These are cooked in olive oil and they are crunchier, so yummy it’s good for my tummy. They are called Artesanas.

We retrace our steps and cross over to the left side of the main road. There is a cathedral and small village located on the top of the hill. It is called Albayzin. Can you recognize the Moorish name? Moorish names begin with AL. We have our “dinner” there and then slowly walk back down the hill. Once in town we sit on another bench. We have time. We have lots of time. In two hours all we have to do is collect our bags from the hotel and walk 3 blocks to the bus stop. After a long sit we decide to get our bags and spend the rest of the time waiting at the bus stop instead of the bench. Good thing. No sooner had we reached the bus stop but the bus shows up. The schedule indicated it wasn’t going to show up until another 35 minutes, but then again the schedule was in Spanish. Obviously there was something lost in the translation. We could have avoided all of this trouble had we caught a cab but the cab fare would have been 30E compared to the bus fare of 3E and we are Lonely Planet travelers, cheap, tuff, and dumb.

It is not clear sailing yet. While we are waiting for the plane, Emi discovers that we are actually flying into Girona, a city outside of Barcelona. We run back to the check-in in a state approaching panic, but all is not lost. The people working for Ryanair calmly state that Barcelona is close by and with each flight there are buses waiting to take people into the city. It doesn’t cost much and it only takes about an hour. They were right. There are many others like us. We all file out of the plane, collect our bags, walk the block to the ticket booth and voila we are in the bus and on our way. Within Barcelona we catch a taxi and within 15 minutes and with the aid of the taxi driver’s gps we are at our hostel. Our room is three flights up with no lift, but the room is apartment-like and comfortable. It is past midnight and we are beyond tired. Just a normal day of traveling.

Alhambra

October 14, 2009

It’s a long uphill walk to the Alhambra. It’s visible from below. It doesn’t look as far as it is when you’re walking. We had made the reservations via the internet. Good thing. As we were in the process of getting our tickets, there came an announcement that the morning tickets were sold out, but you could buy tickets for the afternoon. Poor them for all those waiting in line and lucky us. The first thing that we did was to head for the Palacios Nazaries. It is a 20 minute walk from the entrance and they warned us strongly not to be late. The palace is outstanding, over the top, overwhelming. This is the first real Moorish structure that I have seen and am truly impressed. There were so many impressive sights I don’t know how to start but let me describe one visual that caught my attention. In one room there were no windows but they had large domes pushing out in the ceiling and in the concave depressions there were located 8 sided star shaped areas to let the light in, in other words skylights. So cleaver. The Alcazaba is the fort and it’s just as impressive in its own way. I don’t like to go to the “must see” sites, but I must admit I’m glad that I’ve seen the Alhambra.

Later, after dinner, we have a 6pm reservation at an Arabic Bath, Banos Arabes, called Hammams. It is exotic to the max. It is a catacomb of baths of various sizes and temperatures. We are there for a long time before we have our aromatherapy scrub and massage. It was like a dungeon of physical pleasures. So if you ever come to Granada be sure to wear flowers in your hair and have a reservation at the Hammams. I am only sorry that I wasn’t silly enough to bring my camera.

Dinner was at 10pm. We must be getting to be more Spanish as the days are going by. But all we have is the house tapa, gratis. It is a salad with 2 croquettes. A funny thing about those croquettes, they’re just like Japanese croquettes. I wonder who got what first. I would think the Japanese got it from the Spanish. I’m pretty sure that they got the word button from them. In Spain and in Japan it’s boton, and I know that boton is not a Japanese word. I always thought that they got it from America. How Americacentric can I be? I digress. Besides the house tapa we ordered a Spanish omlette, a tortilla de Espana, and no they don’t cook it with bell peppers, etc. They cook it with potatoes. Anyway that was it. And now to bed. Tomorrow we will get up when we get up. It is the first day in 2 ½ weeks that we are not committed to anything but to follow our whim.

Madrid!

October 13, 2009

This was the day for the Prado Museum. We were there from 10 to 2. We could have been there longer. We could have been there days. There is so much to see. The place is huge and the paintings so numerous it’s as numerous as leaves falling in autumn. I personally like the paintings with a historical theme. Many were quite morbid but interesting…like the story of Isabel. She was forced to marry a man other than her true love who was of fighting for fame and glory. When he came back, she refused to see him considering the circumstances. He dies with a broken heart. Isabel comes to see his dead body, kisses him and dies herself. The painting depicts her dying as she kisses him. Heavy. There were many, many others with similar heavy themes. I also liked two watercolors done by a master oil painter, sorry don’t know his name. There were the only watercolors in the museum. They actually looked like oils. Emi liked a portrait done by El Greco. It was actually the only painting by El Greco that Emi or I did like. It’s very famous. I’m sure you’ve seen it, a man dressed in black with ruffles around his neck and hands and his right hand is in the same position as Christ in another famous painting that he did; it looked sort of like Spock doing his "live well and long" gesture.

So by the time we were finished it was time for dinner and we had the daily menu at a restaurante Cubano called Tocororo. It was totally full. Remember the rule, “Don’t go into an empty restaurant.” Well we didn’t.

Then it was a 15-20 minute walk to the rail station. The train ride was nice, nothing like an airplane, but it was long. It took 4.5 hours to get down to Granada. In Granada it was a short taxi ride to our hotel, check-in, then eat, then sleep. Another day down. Tomorrow it’s the Alhambra. Don’t know what it is, to tell the truth, but that’s why you come to Granada.

Moving along in Spain

October 12, 2009

This was a holiday and most of the stores and the museums are closed. We know they are closed because we walked to the Prado only to find it and the rest of the town closed. No matter. We walk through the park and the botanical gardens. On the way we see the Spanish air force fly overhead to verify the holiday. We are not alone on our walk. All of Madrid is walking through the park. You’d think they had had enough walking. I say this because last night they were all out and walking the streets during the paseo (walking at night time) since it was a Sunday night and before a holiday. It looked like New Year’s Eve at home. Not my cup of tea. But we endure the flood of humanity. We walk slowly and stop frequently to sit on the benches to let the world pass by. We did the same during the morning while having breakfast in a plaza, acting as if we had no place to go, nothing to do. In reality, we didn’t. We were slightly tired and quite satisfied to do nothing but sit in the cafe. Be forewarned that it costs 30% more to sit outside of the restaurants, but in this case it was well worth it. Sitting on benches and in the café was one of the better things that we have done.

We had lunch/dinner at a local ceravecia…sort of a bar/restaurant. It is very common. The daily menu is the way to go. You get the wine, beer, or water, the starter, the entre, bread, coffee or dessert. This time the cost was 7.5E. It’s a deal. We are finding that the daily menu meals run from 7 to 15E. You must remember that this is dinner. For the 8:30 pm dinner, all you eat is a small appetizer. In this particular eating establishment they didn’t speak English but it’s not really a problem. It does help to know some Spanish. Emi had empanadillos and I had veal. I’m so glad that I took high school Spanish, and my Spanish phrasebook helps a lot.

The Final Day on the Camino

October 10, 2009

It is a short walk to Santiago de Compostela, our final destination. It is a sad moment; the trip is over, at least the walking part. We time our arrival so that we can attend the mass. It is a zoo. There are so many people there. Not very holy if you ask me. Later I went to see the relic of Santiago. I couldn’t even see it because somebody was standing in front of it. Oh well. The camino is the important part not the relic, cathedral, or the completion. So do you understand this pilgrimage? You probably don’t. I didn’t until I got here. The camino is an historical route where pilgrims from all over Europe travel to pray at the body of Santiago. Santiago is also known as James, James the apostle that was beheaded. Well as the legend goes his body floated in a stone boat to Spain where it was discovered, and people from all over come to pray to Santiago. This pilgrimage goes back to the 10th or 11th century. Recently there has been a real upsurge in its popularity. Tonight we are staying at a parador; this is the second parador that we are staying at. Paradors are converted historical buildings turned into hotels. It is as if Fort Point is transformed into a hotel. They are so unique. This one used to be a hospital for the pilgrims, but hospital like hospitality and some medical care. It is right next to the cathedral. Any closer and I wouldn’t even have to leave my bed to attend mass.

The final dinner is held in a private room in the basement. It is so touching. No one wants the walk to end but we all must go back to our lives before the camino. As difficult the walking can be, many times our real lives are much more difficult. That is why many people do the camino or 88 temple walk over and over. I understand it, so does Emi. But life is not a pilgrimage. I just hope that we can take the knowledge gained from the walks back to our real lives. Thank you Nancy and Jose for a truly remarkable experience.

Day 10 on the Camino

October 9, 2009

This is our longest walk but it was harder yesterday. We walk through the Galician countryside. It is beautiful and the slate covered cottages make me feel like I’m walking through a hobbit story. They are so quaint looking, but I think they’re a bit cool on the inside. Tonight we stayed at Pazo de Andeade, a rual mansion. It is charming but I prefer my own home. Dinner was home cooked style chicken plus many other extras. I didn’t eat very much. My stomach was acting up and had to go light. I think maybe all the wine we are drinking is taking its toll. And talking about drinking, the alcohol here, especially the wine, is good and cheap, a winos paradise.