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Published: August 1st 2010
Cathedral Seville
Huge Gothic cathedral looming out of the cityA Taste of Andalusia - and a Bite of Barcelona
Now that we have finished our quick and easy lunch here in the Suspiro Del Moro Camping about 10 kms from Granada in Andalucia, it is time to ponder what things rate a mention in this post. There are a few things that come to mind but, I have to admit that at the top of the list at the moment is food. Our lunch, and it was nothing out of the ordinary, consisted of Serrano Ham ( I don't think they sell any other kind around here), a very nice extra virgin olive oil “Fuentes de Dios” (because it is produced by 'God's Fountains' - and we now know exactly what that means), a soft white goat's cheese (just perfect for those who don't much take to cheese and not bad for cheese lovers either), a baguette still warm from the oven, fresh cos lettuce and some fresh, ripe and tomato-tasting tomatoes. Nothing special but very nice on this hot sunny day.
We have been back in Spain nearly two weeks now and possibly haven't seen a lot of what you are supposed to see if you are
a proper tourist. We have avoided the beaches and a lot of the bars and nightlife that seem to be what you are supposed to focus on here. On the other hand, we have seen some interesting and sometimes beautiful country, visited what will eventually stand out - we think - as among the very best buildings we have ever had the good fortune to visit, met some delightful people and, all in all, taken a taste that will have us back here in due course to enjoy the full banquet.
Everyone has heard of Seville. A lot would undoubtedly know more about it than I. We didn't get to see matadors in flat black hats swishing capes over bulls, opera singers carolling about barbers and flamenco dancers clicking in seedy backstreet bars to the excellent guitar work of lean dark men, who,earlier in the day, may have been in the bull ring. But we did walk past the bull ring on the way to the Museum of Contemporary Arts (suggestions were made and rejected), almost bought a matador hat (too expensive for the real thing and the copies were duds) and did visit a few bars where they
sold very cold beer and where, I am sure, flamenco dancers would dance late at night.
For bulls we made do with the many silhouettes on hillsides.
Wandering through the old town area and former Jewish Quarter we chanced upon an amazing Gothic Cathedral. It is, we are informed by the brochure, the largest in Spain, and who could doubt that. A truly amazing edifice. The good people of Seville at some time centuries ago wanted to build a cathedral that would cause people to stop, stare and say 'the people who built this must be mad'. They succeeded. I do wonder why they thought it was necessary but they did build an amazing building. In the Cathedral we found the tomb of Columbus. If we are to accept the material provided, poor old Christopher travelled further in death than he did in life with his bones being moved at least 9 times since he shuffled off this mortal coil.
The Alcarza Palace should also receive a mention. It was cool. On a day when the temperature exceeded 40 degrees that was undoubtedly its most significant feature. Some beautifully tiled rooms and ceilings that would have you laying
around on your back if you lived there - probably ideal for a palace. But the take-home impression was definitely large and cool.
Seville has its fair share of art galleries and museums. We are becoming more picky and selected just 3 to have a look at. The Central Andalusian Gallery of Arte Contemporaneo was a fair walk from the bus stop in the middle of the city so we had a nice walk along the river front, passing four bridges and the bull fighting arena, to get to the Gallery. It is housed in the former 'La Cartuja' monastery that was transformed into a ceramics factory and retains elements of its past. When we were there it featured exhibitions of the work of feminists in an exhibition called Nostratos. Artists particularly featured were Carrie May Weems, and Candida Hofer. Some interesting and occasionally confronting exhhibits. The first only women exhibition of contemporary art in Spain. Disappointing that they spent the majority of their space doing the gender definition thing. I was left thinking 'OK already. Can we move on now? Have you anything else to say?' But then maybe the message has to keep being repeated for a
Ceramic Factory
Leftovers from the old days. while longer.
The Archives of the Bureau Dos Indies had been the trading house when Seville was the official centre of trade with the New World. The Archive provided a very Spanish view of the settlement of the New World by European powers - which is hardly surprising - the only words in English in the entire operation were 'No Photos'. No suggestion here that some of the 'New World' hadn't actually realised that it was lost. We picked our way through some of the signs. Many reflected a less than charitable view of those romantic privateers and pirates. One mentioned Johnny Depp and the 'Pirates of the Carribean' movies but, beyond what seemed like disapproval, I couldn't translate. Walking the halls though you could almost hear the traders and ship captains organising voyages and haggling over deals. Great place and free but very hard to find the entrance for some reason.
The Seville Museum of Popular Arts and Costumes brings me to a point that I have been meaning to make for a while. Spain does tourism very well. In some other countries tourists are welcome but the welcome is not always backed up by good signage,
interpretive material and helpful staff. We may just have been lucky but everywhere we have gone we have found Spain to be pretty much the pick so far of places that deal well with tourists. And their facilities are cheap. Many places are free or cost just a few euros. There are places that cost more but, generally, are very good value. This museum continued the trend. Good displays and the experience was enhanced by the relative lack of tourists. I suspect some don't get past the mind blowing cathedral.
We had a better camp in, or rather near, Granada. In Seville the place we found was very large, nice enough but congested and with very hard ground. Suspiro Del Moro Campground, on the other hand, was small, had a massive swimming pool, good facilities and very pleasant and helpful staff. We intended to stay for 2 days but ended up staying 5.
Granada retains the old deal on tapas. They come free with every drink. A very good custom to keep in place and I hope that they still have it when we come back for another look. It was hot in Granada but it cooled down
at night. We were told that this was the effect of the wind off the Sierra Nevada mountains - and yes I do know that 'sierra' means mountains and 'nevade' means snow-capped
The Alhambra! When we eventually go back home to Australia we will build a house. Everywhere we travel we pick up design ideas. Roof-top hot weather sleeping (India), courtyards (Turkey), clean, minimalist lines (Scandinavia), etc, etc. But now we may put it all to one side and use the Alhambra - or bits of it - as a model. Perhaps not quite so large. The buildings and the gardens have to be up there with the best in the world. The Nasrid Palaces and the gardens of the Generalife were the pick for us but the overall package was very impressive. You could easily lose yourself there for days.
Enough of buildings though, now back to food. We have driven through mile after mile of olive trees, first in Italy, then in Portugal but now in Spain the plantings are massive. The world wide appetite for the stuff is clearly growing and they are doing their best in this part of the world to meet that
Woman in Forest
Museu of Contemporary Arte, Seville demand. Our knowledge of olives is pretty much restricted to eating the olives and using the oil so we have spent a lot of time speculating on the age of the trees, wondering why farmers cultivate so close to the trunk, wondering whether green and black ones are different varieties and marvelling at pruning methods for older trees. The olive oil tour offered by Juan and Giuletta near Granada promised an answer to our questions and it delivered very nicely.
Turns out that the trees in Italy - which I had speculated were hundreds of years old - could easily have been a thousand, and quite possibly more. We stood next to a 350 year old tree that had a trunk that looked positively middle aged and healthy. Apparently, they bear the largest quantities for the first 150 years and then production levels tail off a little. The quality remains though, perhaps increasing. The pruning arrangements probably stem - to coin a phrase - from the capacity of the trees to generate growth. Hit them across the trunk with a chain saw and they will shoot. Root pruning provides cuttings for the new plantings. We were told that the
saying here is that you plant grape vines for your children, olives for your grandchildren.
We tasted and were instructed in the way to determine the best extra virgin olive oil, that being, of course, the oil extracted from the first cold pressing of the olives with different olives, treated differently during their growing period, providing quite noticeable, even to my abused taste buds, difference in acidity and pepper along with the difference between blends and single variety oils. Oh, and they had some wine too, so we tasted a few and came away laden.
And for Trish, and anyone else interested in a quick and delicious breakfast. Take a piece of fresh bread, baguette is good, cut a fresh tomato in half and rub it onto the bread. Pour some good quality olive oil onto the bread. If you have toasted the bread then stick some holes in it so that the oil penetrates. Then eat.
There was one other interesting event on the Olive Oil Tour. They apparently have a little wasp over here in Europe that is much the same in looks, builds a similar nest and has similarly aggresive tendencies when its home
is threatened, as the good old paper wasp (not the scientific name) that is prevalent in the Northern Territory. The particular nest we found was not build by the most intelligent of the species. It was on the low leaves of a small shrubby plant on the roadside. Not a good place to nest when a keen photographer is looking for that special shot of the wind turbines through the olive trees. They stung her many times all over one foot, even getting between the sole of the sandal and the foot. Very clever and persistent little blighters. I think that is what she called them. I am not convinced that our little group had previously been introduced to the niceties of good old Anglo Saxon descriptions of small biting things before. They seemed impressed.
Balloon Foot was incapacitated for a few days but the swelling eventually subsided, along with the jokes, so that now there are just a couple of bubbly bits.
I wasn't originally going to include Barcelona in this post, having started it in Granada, but have spent the last couple of days looking after an invalid (she says I didn't but that's my excuse)
so didn't have time to complete it before we made the long drive - around 800 kms - from Granada to Barcelona. Great camp this one in the Three Estrellas Campground. Looks good and shady. Pitches are hard and dusty but we are learning to live with that. And then comes this massive roar as a low flying plane buzzes the camp. That big patch of empty land is explained. Barcelona Aeroporte is busy but at least it has a curfew. And Friday night is when the party kicks off with the music nice and loud so that all parts of the campground can hear. Great stuff. At least the music wasn't too bad. All of this added to the Spanish habit of eating nice and late, and finishing even later. You really need to sleep in but, hey, we are tourists and have things to see.
Barcelona has more than its share to see. We covered as much as the crook foot could handle, initially on the HOHO bus and then on foot. In common with most cities, Barcelona is keen on its home grown heroes but it also gives room to those who lived here for a
while. I think Antonio Gaudi was born here but it doesn't really matter - he made his mark in a big way. Modernist buildings are everywhere in the city, the most impressive being the Sagrada Familia, which everyone will tell you is not yet completed. When that finally happens it will be an even larger and more spectacular structure.
I was impressed with the spectacle provided by Gaudi's work, and dutifully took the photos that you take of all things weird and wonderful, but, without wanting to offend any Barcelonians around, I suspect that the fame of Gaudi's work owes more to the spectacle than to its beauty. For me, just for me, it was definitely on the ugly side of the equation. Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder here.
A different story with Picasso. I have never been as completely impressed as I should apparetnly be with his cubist paintings and drawings. The Picasso Museum - he spent time here but wasn't born here - houses a collection that deals extensively with his early work. As I have noted before in the course of these writings, they call them masters for a reason. Even
his very early work looked pretty good to me and, as he develped his skills to match his talent, the product became more impressive. Still don't think that his cubist material added much to artistic develpment but there you go.
And back to food again. Walking tours are often a good way to gain an insight into aspects of a city for us and, on the list of offerings was one dealing with the gastronomic culture of the city. Our guide, Oliver, deserves a mention. Guides are obviously very important when you take a walking tour. Oliver was one of the best we have struck. Intelligent, humorous and very well informed. During the course of the tour he made sure we picked up aspects on the history of the old city - the Barri Gotic - the Modernist Period , the Barca culture and just a smidgin on politics, along with good information on the gastronomic culture. We were even accompanied for an hour or so by the news film crew from Barcelona's Catalan channel. We missed seeing ourselves though because of a little detail of no access to a TV that evening.
The tour was interesting enough
For Adam
No problem finding him here really. for us to return to some of the places we had visited. One was a great success. The Gispert family have been drying fruit and roasting nuts for 157 years in the same venue. We picked our way through some lovely treats and are still doing so. We did intend to add them to our home made muesli but they are too good for that. We will pick up that stuff at the supermarket. We also decided to try some of the hot chocolate - apparently invented down the road at Valencia - along with Catalan Creme and a gooey chocolate looking tart thingy. Wending our way home with serious chocolate and cream overload it was very clear that we had been unkind to our systems. Luckily nothing that a couple of drinks a little later on didn't cure.
You meet a lot of people as you move around. Most we know we will never see again, although many you would like to. At our camp in Seville, for instance, there we were looking at one of the only vacant sites wondering aloud where this rock hard, sunny expanse started and finished. From the shade nearby comes the voice
'She's all yours mate. The whole lot.' There were Australians and Kiwis everywhere that night. On the walking tour of Barcelona we met Lesley and Stephen from South Australia who turned out to be almost the same vintage as us, even down to the month and year we were married. Had a couple of glasses of wine and a tapas or two at the end of the tour.
But you come across lovely people of all nationalities on the road. Irish, English and Dutch are everywhere and of course then there are the locals.. One of the loveliest we came across was Maria-Jesus who was the daughter of a lady who worked in the post office at Santa Fe, not a long way from Granada. We were strugging to communicate our need to pack a load of gear into a box and send it by the cheapest means to Australia. The mum's eyes lit up as her daughter appeared 'She speaks English' and away we went. Maria-Jesus is a credit to her parents and the Spanish school system. She handled it all very well and spoke English well and, importantly, a great deal better than our Spanish.
This
has turned into a much longer post than I had intended. The next instalment is likely to be from further north as we make our way through France (again), Switzerland for only a few days and into Germany before ending up in Antwerp in mid-August.
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adamasao
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fountains
I just watched a doco on the Alhambra all about how they get the fountains to work, so I reckon we can sort that out up at the block. The 'Out of the Alhambra'photo is impressive too - we can talk to your neighbours and ask if they can start building so the view is similar from your place by the time you get back. Keep an eye out for solar - I saw on the spanish news that Spain now has the highest amount of solar power generation in the world (which, as an Australian, is embarrassing).