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Published: November 3rd 2007
Sorry guys, we are writing this from Argentina and are catching up on a pretty hectic month. So this is going to be a long blog but please give it a read and check out the photos, it's worth it I promise.
Leaving Alicante (sob)
Our return to sightseeing in Spain after beach-bumming was becoming addictive had a tough start. We had to catch the bus to Alicante to then catch the train to Madrid. So we hoisted our packs, locked up the house (which had about 5 padlocks as well as the locks on the door)and then trundled off as fast as we could in the hope of catching the right bus! The bus system is quite sporadic, as the bus can either be half an hour early, and an hour and a half late (as was ours), or just not come at all! We had about 12 buses zoom past us at our little bus stop (each driver shaking his head and waving a finger to indicate he wouldn't stop). We even places bets on how many buses would pass us before stopping for us. Eventually one did, and it was the right bus to Alicante. Excellent! So
we hauled our packs into the luggage compartment below and then lined up to get in. It wasn't until that point that we realised that we didn't have much money on us, and there was panic in the air when we thought we didn't have the right change to actually get on the bus! We came close to being a few coins short, but we managed to find all our lose change.
Once we made it to Alicante, we located an ATM so Malin could get some money out. However, she seemed to have lost her cards. And she then had to unpack most of her gear out on the street in front of the bank whilst it was raining in the frantic hope of finding her cards. But unfortunately they weren't to be found. So we got her a ticket to Barcelona, where she had a friend to stay with and she could contact her banks more easily from there. Thus we bid our farewells to our wonderful new friend Malin, and headed off to Madrid by train.
It was in the Alicante train station that we felt our first effects of the Madrid bombings. We were
all forced to have our baggage X-rayed before getting on the train. While I did not mind, it felt a little odd as we were not X-rayed or searched at all. So obviously the terrorists they were looking for were not the suicide bomber kind but the ones that cherish their lives. Also it seemed that the Spanish rail system was only worried about terrorists attacking Madrid. Acceptably pragmatic but a trifle unfair to Barcelona, Sevilla and Granada I thought.
It also prompted what will probably be a controversial question, but one I want to ask nevertheless. Spain at the time was a member of a coalition of countries bombing Afghanistan and invading Iraq. The civilian casualties were astonishingly high. This was a war unsanctioned by the UN. A terrorist group bombs Madrid trains and Spain pulls out of the war. Why is this an act of terrorism and not an act of war? Why do we find it so heinous when war comes to our doorstep but so acceptable in our countries? One difference could be that the terrorists targeted civilians outside the war zone, but did they ask for their country to become a war zone and
the US still has not signed conventions prohibiting the attack on civilian targets in war... I guess my question is how different are we?
Want to taste my Toledo steel?
We didn't actually get to see much of Madrid, as we only had a day there before we had to be in Seville and so decided to skip it entirely. Sorry Madrileños. We decided instead to spend it in the nearby town of Toledo. It used to be the thriving capital of Spain, but suffered depression when a king decided to move the court to Madrid. It was a trade town, specialising in silk and its fine swordmaking which has resulted in suits of armour and great big swords standing in the windows of everystore, even coffee shops and tobacconists. The central part has fort wall built around it, and has a river running along one side. It's quite easy to get lost there, even with a map (though many people know that it's not hard for me - Ana - anywhere!), as there are so many narrow, winding cobblestone alley ways.
It was lovely, getting lost among these beautiful old buildings and then popping up randomly
next to the fantasic cathedral or on the city's edge and looking out over river-fed gorges to the very Spainsh countryside. We would recommend Toledo to anyone, you can walk the whole city in twenty minutes if you had to. The Cathedral was amazing, beautiful paintings, chapels, wood work and stained-glass windows. Sadly though, it was the church that broke the camel's back. After that, we simply did not wish to see churches for a while as they were melding together and often causing a religious guilt as much as inspiring holy awe.
We took in a museum that was exhibiting Castilla's most famous artist, El Greco. Which means the Greek, as he was greek and very much
not from Castilla. But I mustn't poke fun as Australia seems to claim anyone remotely related to Australia (such as Tom Cruise and Russel Crowe) and England always becomes Great Britain when referring to Andy Murray. His paintings were very good and he seemed a bit ahead of his time, stylistically; his hands especially made me think of impressionism but I am sure some know-it-all is going to read our blog and publically humiliate us again for our ignorance.
As
(almost) always, there was a bit of panic in making it on to the train to Seville. We had already pre-booked the train, and so had to get on the right one. As soon as the train from Toledo pulled into the train station, we sprinted across to the metro to get back to our hostel. From there we collected our packs, and tried to jog back to the metro line, and over to the train station. I think we made it with about 3 minutes to spare, so not too bad!
A new traveller joins our merry band
We got into Seville in the evening and then collapsed. I don't even think we managed to have dinner before we sank into a deep sleep. A deep sleep which was then abruptly interrupted at about 3am when after our dorm mates came back from partying, the guy in the corner proceeded to snore so loud that it felt like the room vibrated as he tried to breathe. It was incedible, incredibly loud and frustrating! This guy was an Olympic snorer. It was not just the volume, it was his lack of pattern. Just as you get used to
Street flamenco
These girls looked like they were having the time of their lives and the huge bearded guy providing the Spanish deep, operatic vocals had a T-shirt claiming he was not an alcoholic, but a drunk. Gold street entertainmenthis high powered chainsaw, it became a blocked drain with a touch motorbike staring engine. Aargh! One of the few downfalls of staying in dorms in hostels.
The next morning, we went back to the train station to pick up our very good friend, Rachel Norman, who was coming in from Madrid after travelling 30 hours from Japan! Rachel was meeting up with us in Latin America as well but as she was going to be in Europe first at the same time as us we decided to join forces for 10 days in Spain and Portugal. Rachel is the perfect travelling companion for us (we have already travelled through Brittany and the north island of New Zealand together): she feels like chilling out when we do, she is happy to see whatever we want to see, she is lots of fun and, most importantly, she loves her food.
This is an important point: a lot of people travel cheaply by saving on food. This is a fantastic idea as cooking your own bulk-bought food saves a lot. We talked to people in hostels that can live in Europe spending 5 euros a day on food. I (Chas)
just cannot do it. Part of experiencing new cultures is experiencing their food. Food is great and every town or region has its own delicacy. Especially when you are flying through places, two days here two days there, food is often the only way to experience what it is like to be a local. I am not saying trying all the tourist-oriented and very expensive cafes but at least going to local dives and ordering stuff that you have never heard of before. I would crack if we only ate noodles or pasta for a week in a country teeming with tapas and sangría.
Sadly, we rather mistimed Seville. We had Saturday and Sunday there and, as Rachel was knackered on Saturday, we took it easy; went for a long walk taking in the sights (getting wonderfully lost in the narrow alleyways of the neighbourhood behind the Cathedral) before heading back to the hostel for a nice dinner. One great thing we saw was finding this plaza where there were hundreds of people drinking cheap beer and sangría outside. All the cafes had tables that you could stand at way out into the plaza. I had a chat to
some locals and they say it is a weekend tradition to meet up with friends in the plaza for a drink, some tapas, before siesta and then a night out. Now that is a lifestyle I pledge my full support to!
That night we went out, which was a little disappointing as we had heard a bit about the Seville nightlife. But maybe because we were knackered it tainted our view a bit. But the Sunday was great. I say we mistimed our visit because the Cathedral (third biggest church in all Christendom) and the Alcazar (the castle that was going to make up for our missing the Alhambra) were both closed early. However we did get to check out the Plaza de España which used to be a government building a now is just this beautiful aging building covered with handpainted blue and white tiles (
azulejos) which had been seeing increasingly more of the further south we were heading. They were amazing, as were the tile paintings showing image of every city and region in Spain. We then cruised around the parks and caught some street flamenco which was great because, despite being amateur, the women were having
Mosaics in the Plaza
They had one for every city and province of Spain and quite a few for Seville. the time of their lives entertaining us so well that we were all nearly wiped out by trams.
The day ended really well though: an amazing tapas dinner in a plaza featuring pheasant paté, cooked cheese, traditional croquettes, cod fish salad, etc to be followed up with watching Argentina lose in the World Cup semi final to the Springboks. While I was not happy at the result, it is amazing that a non-professional side got so far and did so much for the sport in their country.
Lagos: home of the chicken man
So it was with a mild hangover that we got up early to catch a bus to Portugal; to Lagos, a lovely port town. We did not know what to expect as we were largely going on the recommendation of
Sof and Zac but it was great. We would like to continue the promotional campaign for
Carlos' House, the hostel, and
the Chicken Man, the god of chicken. We arrived and Arthur, the first mate of the hostel, gave us the best welcome to a hostel of all time. He walked us through the hostel, through every part of town, everything, with good humour
The Lagos coast
Each beach was accesible through caves from the previous beach. The further you went, the prettier and calmer it became and a charming portuguese accent. What we did not know is that he gives the exact same speech every time; one of the other guests has actually caught it on video the 30th time she heard it and promises it will be on youtube at the first possible opportunity.
So we walked the whole town (which took about 20 minutes if you take out the bit where we got lost following deceptive Spanish signs; 1 minute my arse!) and got back to the hostel to make friends. Apparently, this sleepy port town had an amazing nightlife with bars and clubs open all hours. But before I explored this, the chicken man beckoned.
Unfortunately, the torrential rain provided and obstacle. Water was ankle deep sheeting down the narrow cobbled streets. Thankfully I did not have shoes on so I only had to worry about slipping and being washed away out to sea. The chicken man has his reputation for doing good, cheap, portuguese, spicy chicken. We had heard some high praise but nothing could be worth how wet we were getting. Oh how wrong we were. He is truly the provider of the best, most succulent, juicy, lightly spiced
chicken of all time. Go to Lagos and eat chicken!
We spent the rest of our time eating, drinking (only Chas sampled the nightlife on two nights and paid dearly for it, damn cheap caiparinhas!) and hitting the beautiful beaches. Lagos is definitely worth a stop, if only for Arthur and the chicken man, but it just made us want to explore more of Algarve which, to our chagrin, we did not have time to do.
Lisbon and Narnia (I mean Sintra)
The bus ride to Lisbon was extremely painful, mainly because Chas has a hangover from being the only one in our group to go out both nights in Lagos. So it was with relief that we stumbled into the Libon Lounge Hostel. This place was great, location, feel, staff, everything. Dramatically overpriced in peak season but we missed that by two days and so got to benefit from the cool tunes, the 70s furniture and Toninhos cooking.
But after spending the afternoon and night wallowing in self-pity, a new day came and Sintra was calling. This town, about an hour out of Lisbon, was heralded by none other than Lord Byron as the most
The chicken man himself
Or should I say chicken god? beautiful in all of Europe. I have to disagree with him. Sintra is cool, but not that great. What was amazing however was the UNESCO protected estate of the
Quinta de Regaleira. This place was designed by an Italian opera set designer and has that feel. Amid the sumptuous gardens on a hill is the beautifully melodramtic palace and its chapel. But what is better is the use they make of the hill and its natural tunnels. Check out the sequence of photos below starting at a pond (go to page 2 of the photos). The chapel has a tunnel underneath which comes out at the entrance; the pond has a tunnel under a waterfall that comes out at the bottom of a well. Another tunnel leaves halfway up to come out at another tower looking over Sintra. The combination of use of gardens, statues, striking architecture all combined to make us feel we were in some magical kingdom. Truly special.
After that the rest of Sintra seemed less exciting, especially after we got lost trying to find the Palacio da Pena on top of the highest of many tall hills in the area. This was a funny place,
decorated in gaudy colours, filled with odd bric-a-brac. Finally, we took in the ancient remains of a moorish castle on the way back down before enjoying some coffee and catching the train back to Lisbon.
Our last day in Europe took in Lisbon. This is a great city, complete with castles and churches and more windy narrow streets to get lost in. You might be feeling that we get lost a lot. This is true but I like to think of it as semi-intentional getting lost resulting from aimless wandering and not caring where you end up. Even though I am a pathological map reader. The castle was great for the views over the rest of the city and had an interesting lens in the top which allows you to get a tour of the city from the tower top, reflecting in realtime the city onto a shallow white dish.
A minor highlight of the city (which deserves far more than the one day we had) was the ruined
Carmo Convent. In 1755 there was a large earthquake that wiped out vast swathes of the city not clinging to hills. This lead to a brilliant reconstuction that has
A waterfall on a Sintra road
Complete with complying nymph resulted in many well planned beautiful buildings but they have left the roofless, empty arches of the convent to house an archeology museum and to serve as a reminder of the devastation. The museum was interesting but it was much nicer to stand on grass inside a former chapel and gaze up through gothic arches into a deep blue sky about to set.
Our last night was spent in the hostel waiting for the resident chef (who cooks a three course meal every night for very reasonable prices) Toninho to finish his internet cooking show and to feed us portuguese delicacies. One of the joys of the hostel was that he cooks in the same kitchen as everyone else and so you get to watch him in action, chat and exchange food, recipes and ideas over wine. We were unfortunately a bit short of time as we had to catch the overnight train out of there but rest assured, we will be back to Portugal and Spain for further exploration.
So from here it was on to Rio de Janiero, Brazil!
We wish everyone well!
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Sof and Zac
non-member comment
officially unkitsch castles
that was not a kitsch castle... you need to appreciate mosaics more. we live in China, there is way more kitsch here than in portugal!!!! btw, chas, have a haircut. :)