What you thinking?

Barcelona.... (apologies to SS)

Well we’ve been in Spain for nearly two weeks. The first week was spent in Barcelona and we’re currently in Madrid. It’s a challenge not being able to speak a word of Spanish other than what we can read out from the phrase book (i.e. practically nothing). It is also a change being a tourist again. Going to the language school meant that we didn’t feel quite like tourists because so much of the day was typically dedicated to being at the school and then doing homework. It sounds wanky but we felt like we were just going about normal daily life in Aix.

Barcelona seemed like a very nice city. It reminded me of Melbourne because it had all the amenities you’d need, was very well laid out and has nice suburbs. By the same token it wasn’t necessarily uber exciting for the tourist – not unlike Melbourne I suspect. We stayed in an inner suburb called L’Eixample (which also has the nickname Gaixample). It was developed about 100 years ago when Barcelona started to expand and as a result it is laid out in a grid and has lots of interesting ‘modernista’ architecture. We ended up being upgraded to a fantastic large apartment for the same price as the smaller one we’d booked. A similar thing has happened here in Madrid. The hotel we’d reserved has given us an apartment around the corner for just a little extra. Perhaps now is a good time to come to Spain, particularly with the Australian dollar recovering against the Euro. Fruit, vegetables, groceries and meat all seem to be cheaper here than in France although restaurants are just as expensive.

Typical tile and balcony facades in L'Eixample

The weather was very warm in Barcelona so we seized the opportunity to head down to Sitges 3 afternoons to swim and sunbake. Sitges has lotsssss of gay bars and restaurants so it was also fun to sit around and have a kir royale or a beer, after the beach, and do some people watching.

In Barcelona we loved wandering around Montjuic and Park Guell. Montjuic is where the Olympic stadium is and, most importantly, the Olympic diving pool. I’ve always remembered those amazing images of the divers on the platforms, and in flight, with wonderful views of Barcelona in the background. I loved the live view every bit as much.

We dedicated one day to Gaudi by wandering around La Sagrada Familia and Park Guell (thankyou A & K). There is a good gallery dedicated to Joan Miro, but there are better examples of his work in Madrid at the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (see below).

The southern set of towers are almost complete

The sculputures on the Southern towers are less rococco and more abstract like this

At Park Guell; love all the tiling

Madrid is amazing. I think it has the most concentrated and non-stop night life that I’ve ever seen. Dale feels that the nearest place he can think of is Soho (London), but Chueca, the suburb we are staying in, just seems to be so much larger. There are lots of gay bars, nightclubs, fancy restaurants and really basic eating places. Furthermore, at midnight the bars are all full but so are the restaurants, with many people still in the middle of their main course.

You seem to just end up slipping into this lifestyle of being up late and getting up late, particularly since there are so many daylight hours at the moment. We find ourselves cooking dinner at about 7.30-8, having dinner between 8-9, then watching a DVD (in French for practice) until about 11, then going out for a drink or 2 (sometimes just cola if we’ve already had a couple of glasses of wine with dinner). This means that you’re never in before about 12.30. It doesn’t seem to matter much if you’re up a bit late because nothing opens before 10 and all the main museums and galleries are staying open until at least 7 and many until 8 or 9. The other interesting feature is the way everything closes between 2 and 4 in the afternoon. In France we were in awe of the way everything stopped like clockwork between 12.30 and 2 – but that is at least a lunch hour that makes sense to us. The lovely man at our hotel/apartment reception said that you just have to get used to everything being 2 hours later in Spain.

Whilst on the Madrid lifestyle theme, I just keep being reminded of Almodovar movies, particularly by some of the women you see around. And I don’t mean that they all look like Penelope Cruz. It’s the sassy girlfriend, the plain neighbour and the battle axe (often a drag queen) characters that you see around. We were on the metro the other morning and there was a shortish skinny woman with short black hair, wearing a green nurses uniform and runners and just a little lipstick and eye liner. We both immediately remarked that she would be the nurse in the hospital, because there are always hospital scenes in Almodovar movies, and she would be the tough no nonsense but caring type. Then the following morning we were walking quietly along Gran Via when we saw the drag queen character ahead of us, although she was more of the sassy girl friend, drag queen combo rather than the battle axe, drag queen combo. Anyway Dale whipped his camera out and here is the photo below.

We spent one day “doing” lots of art. We visited the Prado (PF - that’s Prado not Prada) and the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. We liked the latter more than the former. The Prado seems to be rated in the top few art galleries in Europe but there is a LOT of dark religious art that we don’t find all that exciting. There are lots of works by Reubens – which Dale dismissed as all cherubs and naked women!! There were a lot of works by Goya and I did like the 2 that commemorated the Spanish uprising against the French and the general futility of war. There was one piece by Caravaggio which was amazing but there are more in London.

The Reina Sofia gallery focuses on modern art and there were some superb masterpieces by Picasso, Dali and Miro – much more interesting to us. They have an early Dali painting of girl looking out a window that I’ve always liked. It’s quite realistic unlike most of his later surrealist work that I also like.

A Miro statue from the Miro Foundation in Barcelona

I think that’s just about enough of our uninformed art criticism, although it will hopefully be amusing for JK. My last word on the subject is that I’m not looking forward to the number of El Greco paintings that I’ve clearly yet to see.

We have also run and walked around the beautiful Parque del Buen Retiro in the middle of Madrid. It has a running track around the outside that reminds us of the Tan in Melbourne, and is about the same distance. There is a beautiful lake in the middle of the park but, unlike another friend of ours, we weren’t able to find any colourful characters to take us for a row.

No spanish film stars here :-)

We have also been to Segovia but it was a little disappointing given that it started to rain heavily just as we got to the top of the Alcazar, which is a beautiful palace that Disney used as the model for Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Nevertheless we got some good photos, which is what it’s all about. There were some magnificent ceilings inside the palace that were also a highlight. There is also an impressive Roman aqueduct that was built without using any mortar to hold the stones together.

Romulus and Remus suckling in front of the aquaduct

Alcazar in Segovia

From the top of the front tower

We are in Madrid until Friday, when we head off to Cordoba for a couple of nights before meeting up with Julia and Dominie in Seville next Monday.

PS from Dale – Thanks to those of our friends who should have but did not tell us Liza Minelli is coming to Melbourne in October. Thanks to the internet we now have tickets regardless.