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Hola amigos!
Having just arrived back from Spain, I thought it about time to compose a second postcard. This seemed like our first real travelling experience - our previous efforts were just a couple of days here and there. The itinerary was Madrid for 2 nights, train to Seville for 3 nights, sleeper train to Barcelona for 3 nights and then back to Madrid on the day train. So lots of train travel, and nothing prebooked. (I don't think you can book too much ahead in Spain).
Madrid
Our first taste of Spain, and it is a magnificent city. The roads are wide and spacious, the place is full of restaurants, cafes, parks, and the weather was brilliant. I found Spanish much easier to speak than French - despite the fact that I had virtually no vocabulary. Hola, dos cerbeza por favor, muchas gracias. Not hard really is it. Not knowing the numbers was a bit tricky, but I think the Spainish are bit used to this and seem pretty relaxed about writing the number down on the piece of paper. The menus are completely baffling - you could probably work them out if they corresponded to dishes that you had heard of before. This is not the case. Actually, I found tapas and paella to be the best things to eat - the rest of the meals looked a bit iffy. Try working out what some of those tapas are, though! We found the Prada museum in Madrid - I think it is the best museum I've seen so far (better than Paris - cest impossible!). It would was good to see some paintings that were different to the usual Renaissance stuff - I get bored with cherubs, crucifixes, the virgin mary and the saints after a while. The Goya exhibition showed real life scenes which you could spent heaps more time looking at - he was even prepared to paint peasants (No!). We also went to a modern museum called The Museo de la Reine Sofie, which had some great Picasso and Dali paintings.
Sevilla
Maureen liked
Sevilla best of all - it seemed quite tropical with all the
orange trees growing down the main streets. We ate outdoors
the whole time we were here - I don't think the temperature got
below 20 degrees. (I guess this sounds irrelevant to you
people cooking downunder). Senor Don Carlos served us our
best paella and the visit to the Real Alcazar (the home of the
Spanish royal family) was unbelievable. Seville is a bit
strange because there is all this 
hitech modern architecture across the
river where the World Expo site was. Some of this stuff is
decidedly adventurous and weird, but no-one ever bothers to go
and see it because it is nowhere near the city. The
bullfights don't start until April, so I was spared this
questionable delight. We also went to their Museum of Fine
Arts, which would be a good place to put a couple of the photos I
am waiting for.
For a bit of a change we made
a side trip to Cadiz - I wanted to go there because the
book claimed that it was the oldest city in Europe. Most of
the older buildings were closed, the market square was pretty
busy (there were some things there that I could not identify -
but for sure I would never eat). It was also on the
Atlantic Ocean, which was our first sight, so it felt sort of
worthwhile.
Barcelona
We travelled on the sleeper from Sevilla to Barcelona (the trip takes about 10 hours), and were a bit tired and cranky when we hit Barcelona. This wasn't helped when we found out that some irrelevant medical congress had booked out all the accommodation. We found that it was more expensive than the other places and was overrun with tourists. They have a main street that everyone has to walk up and down at least 4 times a day (The Ramblas - should I compare it to Rundle Mall in Adelaide -why not!), and there is a set of seats at the top which you have to pay 50 pesetas just to sit on. (A peseta is worth about one cent - the Spanish obviously never discovered larger denominations such as a dollar). Anyway, we found a fleapit for the first night (which at least saved us some money), and tried to find a way to like Barcelona. A night cruise on the Mediterranean helped. By day two, when we found ourselves a hotel that didn't leave your skin with that creepy feeling, things had started to improve. We decided that the major attraction here was the architecture of Gaudi, and so checked out a few of his places.
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A Gaudi Window |
Rooftop of Gaudi's La Pedrera |
I thought
his buildings were great to look at and seemed to stand upright
and look comfortable inside. I wonder why other architects
of the twentieth century didn't follow his inspiration - it's
hard to work out a line between the Modernist buildings of
Barcelona and the 20th century skyscraper. Maybe it is
something to do with cost. I was most impressed with his
"final" work - the Sagrada Familla. 
This cathedral is still largely
unfinished - 110 years after it was started (and about 70 years
after he died). When you see it you can understand why they
are having trouble finishing it. It is intricacy on a
grand scale. Still, when I see cathedrals in England that
took 100 years to build in 1210, it is nice to know that there is
one thing in the world that is being built now that will compare
with those major earlier works. I doubt whether any of my
photos can give you any idea of this place.
Our side trip to Montserrat was a complete disaster (my fault). I blindly went along buying train tickets and associated cable car and funicular and it wasn't until we got there that I realsised what was going on. I immediately realised that there was no way I was going on the cable car, so we stayed on the train to the next stop (thinking that the train was going up the hill the respectable way). We ended up in a dusty pueblo which exhausted any curiosity in about 15 minutes, and Maureen decided that she needed to head back to Australia immediately (and most assuredly without my company). We caught the next train back to Barcelona and lost each other for half a day. I've heard stories about the pressures of travelling together... Maureen found out later for me that there was a bus to take you up the hill if you didn't like the cable car. We then spent a 7 hour train trip back to Madrid in a very comfortable first-class cabin. The trains in Spain are mainly on the plains, so they were is pretty smooth. Actually I just made that up, but it sounded good. Like getting my haircut in Seville (that bit's true), even though I have no love for Gilbert and Sullivan. I now have 4 more plane flights under my belt, the latest assisted by a friendly steward who said three stiff gin and tonics were the answer. It seemed to work.
Adios, amigos.