The rain in Spain
Trip Start
Feb 10, 2008
1
22
43
Trip End
May 13, 2009
Barcelona,
Spain
Saturday, June 7, 2008
There's not a huge amount to write about my time in Barcelona (but there's lots of photos)- I re-visited Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia and this time climbed one of the spires, from which you get great views. It has been under construction for 100 years (started in 1882) and it looks as if it's still going to be many years before it's finished, as massive building works are still in progress.
This time I also visited La Pedrera and Casa Battlo, 2 buildings designed by Gaudi - last time I only saw the exteriors.
When I went to re-visit Parc Guell, the park on the hill behind Barcelona the car felt funny and when I got out to see what was wrong I found it had a flat tyre - it was mid-afternoon, the sun was beating down mercilessly, I was on a steep hill and parking was virtually impossible, I was far from any place to get the tyre fixed, and because my car has flashy mag wheels, not the standard metal ones, I didn't have the right size tool to undo the wheel nuts to change to the spare tyre.
Fortunately, when organising car insurance my cousin in Italy got the international roadside service option for me, and amazingly it worked
Spires, La Sagrada Familia
. I rang a number, a nice lady who spoke Italian answered, I told her my problem, and half an hour later a nice man turned up and changed my tyre.After Yvonne left, I went to Sitges for a few days to have a beachside break. Sitges is a pretty sea-side town, very popular on weekends, and as I unexpectedly found out last year also an international gay hangout.
Apart from relaxing, swimming, and catching up on editing and sorting photos, I had some very nice meals in Sitges. Many of the restaurants are large and noisy and cater to the tourist trade, but I found a nice place called Raimundos, where I had fantastic razor clams broiled over embers (but I couldn't have their special dish of pig's ears baked in the oven as it wasn't available that night).
I also had a memorable meal at La Marinada: Piquillos rellenos con sepia (peppers stuffed with minced squid, with a rich black ink sauce); Merluzza (hake) with the white neck meat thinly sliced and draped over and small white shellfish; Crema catalana helada (a semi-freddo of a rich catalan pudding) and a glass of orujo to finih off (the Spanish equivalent of grappa).
Another interesting experience was on the Saturday night when I saw people drinking beer from long tubes of glass at a bar, and as it was hot decided to have one myself. The large size was called a yarda of beer (but was actually about 500ml), and I had the mini-yarda of beer (about 375ml tall) - Bob Hawke, a former Australian Prime Minister in the 1980's at one time held the world record for drinking a real yard of beer (about 900ml) - though not as far as I know while Prime Minister, and the record now is 5 seconds.
There's a bit of technique required in drinking because of the shape of the glass - it's a long narrow tube tapering lightly outwards at the top and with a bulb at the bottom - when you tilt it to drink, initially the beer doesn't want to come out, then it comes in a rush as air go downs the tube
Crucifixion, La Sagrada Familia
. There were quite a few people with beer over their faces and clothes. As I wrote last time there are several beaches in Sitges, and on the one furthest from the centre of town (only a couple of hundred metres), many people swim and sunbake nude - the first section is almost exlusively men, but the larger part is couples, families, etc, both in costumes and nude. I went there one day and it felt great swimming and sunbaking nude.
A little while before I had received an email from Alison, a friend from Australia, saying she was going to a couple of music festivals in Morocco in June, and to meet her there, and as I had been planning to visit Morocco and was already in Spain (but at the opposite end to Morocco) I decided that was my next port of call.
The drive from Sitges to Algeciras (the main ferry port for Morocco), was more than 1,200 kms and took 9.5 hours. The title of this entry refers to this last day in Spain - for the whole distance heavy rain fell, not only "mainly on the plain" but also in the valleys, on the mountains, and on the coast - virtually the full length of Spain that I traversed.
After arriving late at night in Algeciras, I had a good sleep and caught the late morning ferry for Ceuta, a tiny piece of Spanish territory on the coast near Tangier (there is also another called Melilla some distance to the west.
I was very excited during the ferry crossing - Algeciras receded, then the rock of Gibraltar came into view under a massive dark cloud, then we saw the first outlines of the other coast from the strait, and less than an hour later I was in North Africa.
It was amazing to imagine all the peoples that have crossed this strait - initially Phoenicians setting up trading stations, then Punic navigators (from what is now Tunisia), Greek colonists, Roman armies (Morocco was a province of the Roman Empire), the Visigoths in the 6-7th century, then the Moslem armies that invaded and conquered most of Spain )followed by settlers), and who re-crossed nearly 800 years later when they were finally driven out.
After a quick look around Ceuta for an hour I drove 2kms to the Moroccan border, excited, but very apprehensive at the same time ... sorry to leave you in suspense but all will be revealed in the next exciting episode.
