Springboards

Journeying towards home

We are home. Back to reality. We left Barcelona in early January heading by train for Marseilles via Montpellier. From Marseilles we travelled through the French countryside to Paris, across to London and up to Ipswich. The snow was everywhere, especially in England where the temperature was -20C in places. We had prepaid accommodation booked in Dublin but flights were cancelled. It seems to arrange for a refund on the tickets that we can’t use from the cancelled flights we must pay almost the same amount.  We didn’t want to pay for more accommodation in a frozen London so we headed for home via Los Angeles earlier than planned, staying at Santa Monica beach. This thawed us out and prepared us for a return to a New Zealand summer.  And then there was the little adventure of a lost passport …

The best-laid plans…

30^th December. Almost the end of 2009. Looks like we are changing plans … again. We had decided to head for Basque territory – a town called San Sebastian at the western base of the Pyrenees – just for a day trip, but in light of the latest news we are having more than second thoughts http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/3199365/Spain-raises-terror-alert  

Yesterday we went up Montjuic to the castle – a fortification to protect the city of Barcelona in the event of an attack from the sea. Nowadays one gets there via funicular and then cable car. It is a stone structure built like a stockade, now-waterless moat (saves using taxpayers funds to clean the thing), draw-bridge and all. It is certainly built for battle with its canons, ramparts, outer walls and inner walls, and windows sloped ready to pour boiling oil down on those who would climb the walls. It looks the part yet there is something about it that makes me wonder how old it is really … and whether it’s just a good tourist attraction. It lacks something … character? Heart?  It’s easy to see the outer walls are recently built. I almost get the feeling that the rest of it is not so old either, yet the brickwork seems authentic….

Evening – and a visit to Barcelona’s oldest pub, Casa Almirall,  which is reputed to be a hotbed of radical left-wing politics.  Unfortunately we couldn’t understand a word spoken … which just left some of us having a beer. As a pub it had a great atmosphere and old-time decor. We then headed into the El Ravell area lookinjg for some live music. We were probably too early at 10.30 pm since nothing much gets going before midnight so headed home to our apartment in Esquerra de l’Eixample.

Today the flea market. We came out empty-handed, not even a flea. Everything imaginable for sale, origins and quality all dubious. There were a few interesting items, particularly old toys. We puddle about today, some shopping, tram rides, a planning day.

The Ramblas

28^th December.  The Ramblas is Barcelona’s most famous street that used to link the harbour to the old town. It is lined with cafes, shops and restaurants and also the famous Boqueria food market and the Liceu Opera House. The main part of the street through the middle is for pedestrians, largely tourists, and the traffic gets a narrow strip down each side of it. The middle section also has artists displaying their works for sale or drawing a person’s portrait while they wait, newspaper kiosks selling postcards, key rings and fridge magnets, and stalls selling jewellery, leather goods, hats, scarves, and other items. The jewellery is unique and usually made by the stall-holder. There are rabbits, goldfish and canaries for sale. Every few metres, human statues come alive when you walk near or put money in the bucket. Some of them are very clever, using facial epressions to tell a story.

We went into the Boqueria food market – a crush of people all looking, some buying . Every food one could imagine is for sale. Large hams hang barely above my head, cheeses by the hundreds, and many types of fruits and vegetables that I have never seen before.

Madrid

December 27^th. Today Madrid. The distance between Barcelona and Madrid is … kms, further than the distance between Auckland and Wellington, but we went there for the day, and back again, on a high speed train. The journey to Madrid is over a lot of stony, arid ground, some covered in low scrub. Other parts of the journey were over cultivated land, vineyards, or land covered in trees. And it occurred to me … I hadn’t seen a single animal in a field. Not one. Not on any of our trips to Valencia or El Vendrell nor in all the travel we did through France. France is colder, but the temperatures in Spain are not so different than New Zealand. Are all their animals kept indoors?

Barcelona beats Madrid hands down as a destination. Our opinion may have been influenced by a small number of things, Madrid’s inadequate and unkempt toilets facilities, and a fleet of old hop-on hop-off buses called Madrid Vision, where the sound system doesn’t work (so we couldn’t find out just what we were looking at). We flagged the whole exercise away. Bored and freezing cold, we were rescued by spotting a green leaf in a window. We retired to the James Joyce Irish pub for the next couple of hours. The decor and atmosphere is welcoming and suitably Irish, the staff incredibly helpful and friendly with information on a variety matters www.jamesjoycemadrid.com

Valencia and El Vendrell

27^th December, 4.30 a.m. Over the last few days, apart from Christmas shopping and Christmas Day here in Barcelona, we have had a couple of excursions out of town. On the Tuesday we took a day trip on the train to Valencia. Three hours on the train heading down the coastline of Spain and we were there. As is our habit, we took the hop-on hop-off bus to see the sights of the city. For part of the trip we missed the historic buildings, we were too busy watching to make sure the mad bus driver hadn’t run down the people of pedestrian crossings etc. A couple of close calls with other vehicles as well.

Yesterday we took a couple more train trips. The first was to Tibidabo where we took the cable car to the top to see Barcelona spread below us.  A magnificent view. The finicular goes higher but wasn’t working today, but we wonder how the view could possibly be improved by going higher anyway. We thought then we would go to Tarragona to enjoy an afternoon at the beach but the train apparently was to stop just before that at St Vicenc de Calders so we thought we would head for there. But the train kept going and going, and we wondered just how far it would go so we got off at a town called El Vendrell.  It felt like something of an adventure just taking a spur of the moment punt and getting off the train in an unknown town. We discovered El Vendrell is considered something of a tourist town but we can’t quite work out why, exactly. It turned out we were only another 5 minutes train ride from our intended destination.

Felice Navidad

25^th December. Merry Christmas. As in many parts of the world Christmas here is a family time. For Christmas dinner (1.30 pm) we found a restaurant that was quite some distance away that was open for Christmas, and booked. Turned out to be an Italian restaurant, just their regular menu on offer, and we had a hard job picking anything we fancied.  Later we went for a walk and enjoyed watching the people of Barcelona enjoy the holiday mood in the streets. Then this evening we found a tiny tapas bar a few steps from the apartment – and found it opens out at the back and had a special Christmas menu on offer as well as the regular menu – anything from traditional Barcelona fare to roast lamb.  But of course having had our main meal at 1.30 this afternoon a very small nibble this evening, plus a glass of wine/beer was all we wanted.

The sights sounds and smells of Amsterdam

December 11^th – Amsterdam. We arrive at Central Station which is the best point to use for navigation around the city. Last time I was here it was a January and the temperature was minus 12  ̊C, and the cold sucked at your knees (or any lightly covered place) the minute one stepped outside. Today could be described as refreshingly cold. The hotel room is a welcome relief of cool space where you can even open a window, sheer luxury after the hothouse tiny boxes of Tokyo, London and Paris. Why do hotels feel the need to wind up the heat, sometimes unbearably, day and night?  It must cost as fortune to keep the heat up in winter and it makes sleeping (and breathing!) difficult.

 Out and about the streets of Amsterdam. I would call Amsterdam the city of sounds, or the city of music. There is music coming from the Dam and the sound of trams, ding ding, and an old man along Damrak Street plays the Xylophone, while music filters out from the different shops. This afternoon I explored the area between the Central Station and Dam Square.  Running parallel to and in between Damrak and Nieuwezijds-Voorburgwal Streets is a foot-traffic only street. Criss-crossing between Damrak and Nieuwezijds-Voorburgwal are many little lanes.  These and the foot-traffic only road are filled with restaurants (Italian, French, Chinese, McDonalds, KFC, Burger King), cheese shops, souvenir shops, places you can get a piercing, a Chinese massage, cannabis tea, smoking paraphernalia, sex toys, sex T-shirts, sex ashtrays, even a salt and pepper shaker set each in the shape of a penis, and clogs, clogs, clogs, clogs, clogs. Interesting smells waft around. Young men move in groups of up to eight or ten. Police also cruise through on foot and in groups of four to six. 

Amsterdam is an intriguing, stimulating and somewhat sleazy city. If you are looking for a city in Europe that is a little different, this is it – although of course I have many, many cities still to see.

People observations

11th December. At last I am back online and can post the previous blog. Again we are on the Thayls, this time travelling from Paris to Amsterdam via Brussels, Antwerp and Rotterdam. It’s 8.45 am and just coming light as we pull out of Antwerp, Belgium, having caught the train in Paris at 6.25 am. After dinner last night with friends at a lovely little French bistro, we were wide awake at 4.30 am so it was no effort to be up and off on another adventure. We will be back in Paris Sunday afternoon – a chance to explore further.

Some observations of the people of Paris:

The people of Paris are friendly and helpful. This is in stark contrast to my last visit (the northern winter of 2002-2003) where I found the men especially, rude, surly and unhelpful. What has changed? Have they realised the importance of being friendly to tourists? Is it an effect of the recessionary times? Or is it just that I have encountered different people?

The drivers in Paris (and Brussels) are very, very aggressive. It’s like a game of chicken. One can almost hear them shouting inside “GET OUT OF MY WAY!” Our taxi driver in Brussels took on buses, other cars and a child on a skateboard. Our taxi driver in Paris also challenged buses, pedestrians on crossings with the Walk signal, and of course other cars. There is this jostling for position and the need to dash into any space before someone else does. Is it a sign of a highly competitive society, I wonder.

The teenage pout seems to be non-existent in Europe and Japan. You know the one. Thirteen or fourteen year old girls in particular who look as if they don’t want to be here (wherever ‘here’ is, especially if accompanied by a parent), that the world owes them something and that life, generally, sucks! Some manage to retain the look for quite a few years but most outgrow it quite quickly. Yet in Tokyo, Brussels and Paris I have observed large groups of children and teens, some on school outings, and not a pout to be seen anywhere. The teens are actually smiling and appear excited by life.

We are now appoaching Rotterdam, Holland.

The Attractions of Paris

9th December – Paris. Paris is a beautiful city. Today I went on the hop-on hop-off bus around the sights of the city with the plan to specifically visit places of interest at a later time. I travelled up the Champs Elysées – that famous street in Paris of haute couture where the Arc d’Triomphe, commissioned by Napoleon, stands proudly at the end of the long straight street. He never saw the monument but his ashes were brought back to Paris from his exile and buried at the monument. Arc d’Triomphe is also the site where the unknown soldier is buried. We saw the Eiffel Tower – that iron structure built for the world exposition of 1889, it was very controversial at first with many Parisians disliking it intensely. Sacre Coeur, the basilica built on the highest point in Paris, and The Notre Dame Cathedral with its magnificent Gothic architecture. We passed the Louvre, the home of all those famous paintings and sculptures, and the Musée d’Orsay with its collections of modern and classical paintings. The bus went through the Latin Quarter where the Sorbonne is found – one of the oldest universities in Europe founded in 1257 for just 16 poor theology students.

What was also interesting was what was ignored, that is, anything modern. I also was fascinated by the commentary, the ignoring of any mention of anything related to the rulers of France, royalty or the Emperors before Napoleon, as if none of this had ever existed, the obvious pride in Napoleon and his achievements and especially I noted that 14th July was not described as Bastille day, it was described and “an annual bank holiday.”  Pics will follow.

Give us this day …

Well I can’t quite believe this. I have trouble getting online while in a hotel room yet here I am on a Thalys train hurtling along at 300 kms/hr (or we will once we really get going) between Brussels and Paris and I am online.  Isn’t that just awesome? Oops, we’re on a bit of a lean at the moment, that feels a little disconcerting while typing.

Time to reflect back on my time in Brussels. The things I liked most – the buildings in Grande Place with the magnificient architecture, looking around the touristy novelty shops, the nice food, the crisp cold, listening to all the different languages being spoken, observing people and their different behaviours, and oh! The bread! The bread is absolutely delicious.  It’s how bread should be, scrummy with butter, absolutely fresh, real bread that will be stale the next day, not last on a supermarket shelf for a week.

A break for a meal there, it’s like being on a plane. Another piece of delicious bread as part of a meat and salad dinner. Roast beef wrapped around some unfamiliar vegetable that looks a bit like onion but certainly doesn’t taste like it, has a slight taste of aniseed. Any ideas on what it is anyone? Send me a reply