Monthly Archives: September 2013

Europe, Spain, Travelogue

Travelogue Iberia 10: Madrid

MADRID

21-23 September 2013

It was always one step forward, two steps back. On the bright side we found Atocha Station in Madrid surprisingly easily (once again without Google Maps); on the downside dropping the car off turned into a nightmare!

We found a petrol station right outside Atocha Station and filled up the car, as instructed. We had no problem finding the Europcar depot or passing the checks. The big fight started when Europcar wanted to charge me SIX HUNDRED Euros for the car when my total according to the online booking I did months prior was €278.

They were saying we had opted for insurance, we definitely did not – and distinctly said no – because the insurance was more than the rental and our online booking contract included the major theft/damage waivers so we didn’t actually need it. That brought the total to €400. Then they added a whole bunch of other admin charges like one way fees (already covered in our booking contract) and fuel surcharges (not applicable because we’d filled the car up).

Two hours of back and forthing, phoning the Barcelona depot where we got the car and the online agency that rented us the car etc until I eventually had had enough and asked for a complaint form. I put my sorry story on paper and told the man at the counter that they could call me when they had the correct paperwork ready and I’d come in to pay. Needless to say, despite a post on their site, a series of Tweets and an email to their central customer services, I still hadn’t heard from them. So, it was as yet unresolved, but all my correspondence stated they could not take a cent over €278 off my card so hoped like hell that they were consumer litigious like in the US and that was scary enough for them not to just deduct the €600!

Anyway, that was enough to ruin the first impression of Madrid, but fortunately there was much more to come.

We caught a taxi to our apartment since we were now very late to meet our landlady and there was no wifi at the station or Europcar office for us to reschedule. Fortunately, she was very understanding and showed us around our digs. While our entire apartment (bedroom, living room and bathroom) totalled about the size of my bedroom at home, the space was very well allocated and the flat newly upgraded and clean, so we were very pleased. And we could not have asked for a better location – a quiet street with a festive café at the bottom of the road, a small plaza at the top with a shop a restaurant and a pub and a short trot to all the action on Gran Via and surrounds, which is where we headed first.

It was early evening and the place was teeming with people! Restaurants and cafés full; wide pavements a throng of people moving in all directions. It made it slow-going to get anywhere and since we didn’t have a specific plan to get anywhere, we stuck with what always worked and entertained ourselves with caña, tapas and, for a change, a nice sit-down dinner with lasagne, seafood pasta and good Rioja.

SUNDAY

On Sunday morning we were once again grateful for Lonely Planet guide since there was, surprisingly, not a tourist office to be found. Having breakfasted at the apartment (boiled egg and soldiers) we planned on a vigorous sightseeing walking tour (of our own design), starting with the museums Christian wanted to see, then the a few key monuments and buildings, leisurely lunch and an evening of tapas touring.

Spanner in the works when we got to the first museum, the Museo Del Prado, only to find they have free entry in the afternoon from 17H00. Quite a saving on the usual €18. So we went to the next one, the Reina Sofia art musuem. Same story, free from 15H00.

Not to be deterred, we did a walk around and took in some of the other sights. The Puerto del Sol, which is where the city gates once stood and was now the official centre and “heart” of Madrid; the Plaza Mayor, which might be every bit as lovely as its Salamanca counterpart were we not so biased; down this road and that to churches, monuments, old buildings, arches, statues and fountains… stumbling across less famed treasures in between.

We of course stopped for the obligatory refuels and lucked out in crossing another aim of the day – an authentic Spanish paella – off the list quite by accident when we were served it as a tapas at Los Madroño in the Plaza del Angel and a huge bowl of it, also as a tapas, at Boñar de Leon on Calle de la Cruz Verde. Both recommendable depending whether its quality or quantity (respectively) that you’re after.

We returned to Reina Sofia and had no trouble gaining free access. Our primary mission was to see Picasso’s Guernika, so we went to that hall first and worked through the rest of the Picasso, cubists and Dali exhibits from there. Quite a thing to have seen such famous works up close – especially Guernika since it was so relevant to the regions we’d just visited.

We then made our way back to the Prado, but weren’t as lucky. The queue was out the door, round the corner and up the street. We made do with a photo of the statue of Velazquez outside (since it was the exhibit of his works that we’d primarily wanted to see) and went back to our informal wanderings.

Madrid is a great city for that. Even though it was criticised for being younger than most of the other main tourist cities in Spain, having only been capital since the 16th century and most of its buildings being from 19th and 20th centuries, there was a distinct elegance to its layout and a healthy enough representation of enormity and grandiosity to have us impressed! It had all the wide avenues and beautifully manicured street gardens to equal the most sophisticated European cities as well as a lively energy and the constant hubbub that gained the city its reputation for character and unsurpassed nightlife and entertainment. Madrid was not a city that never slept, but certainly one that didn’t sleep at night!

MONDAY

Monday, being our last day, we covered the other half of the city, starting with the Mercado Marvellas. Even though well after midday, lots of restaurants and cafés were only starting to open for the day – and even more were still shut tight. By sharp contrast, just as many people were drinking beer and wine as were drinking coffee and OJ!

The crowning glory of the day’s tour though was the Real Madrid stadium, Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, which is predictably enormous! Similarly sized to our FNB Stadium with a seating capacity of 90,000 people, it must cause chaos when there’s a match on seeing as the stadium is right in the middle of the city!

Last stop was a fond farewell caña and tapas (lomo, pork loin) at our corner pub. It was quite something to watch those barmen operate. The pub was about the size of my lounge (maybe 20 x 6m) with a wide bar counter running lengthways along the middle. The barman was on one side, with his hard tack and barrels behind him; the counter had tapas cases on it on one side, a sunken sink built in on the other and draught taps facing the barman in the middle.

There were customers sitting on barstools, standing leaning on the counter and milling about… and 1 barman serving the lot! And by serving it means taking orders, pouring drinks, serving the tapas, keeping tally of who has had what, sorting out bills and even washing glasses and tapas plates! One guy! It was amazing – and a little exhausting – watching him juggle everything! Maybe we’d been on holiday too long! 😀

Europe, Spain, Travelogue

Travelogue Iberia 9: Toledo

TOLEDO

20 September 2013

We must have gotten quite an amount of good luck from spotting the frog in Salamanca as our trip to Toledo started off with a nail-biter. We left Salamanca with 20km worth of fuel according to our digital fuel gauge and wrongly assumed there would be a service station on the outskirts of town. It was only with the dumbest of luck that we freewheeled through a little town about *thirty* kilometres from Salamanca… having been holding breath since the range number tripped to zero several kilometres earlier!

From there we could at least start to enjoy the scenery. Not that there was much to see as a drive through the Spanish heartland is akin to a drive through the Free State at home.

AVILA

We’d initially considered an overnight stop in Avila based on recommendation in the Lonely Planet guide, but it wouldn’t have been justified. The town is so small that it was easy to crisscross and see all the sights in half an hour (assuming you were happy with a “walk past” the churches and monuments and a few snappies of the prettier relics, as we were). It was definitely worth a stop though, since it was so well preserved and looked every inch a fairytale.

Its real history sounded a little more dramatic than a “once upon a time” though, tributing the foundation of the town to obscure Iberian tribes, who were then assimilated into Celtic society, Romanised, Christianised, changed hands regularly for 300 years, and then became an important commercial centre after Alfonso VI took Toledo in 1085. Things then got controversial with the nobles picking fights with the Muslims and in the imperial escapades in Flanders and South America, then expelling the Jews in 1492 and a century later trying to get rid of the Christianised Muslims. No wonder Tomas de Tourquemade chose to retire to Avila after organising the most brutal phase of the Spanish Inquisition!

The city walls, built in the 12th century were still perfectly preserved and offered a 2.5km walk including 2500 battlements, 88 towers, 6 gates, 3 wicket gates, the apse of a cathedral and a singular belltower. That was thirsty work! In a town with more than proportionate watering holes!  Had we not been driving, Avila would be lovely setting for a caña and a tapas, and there were many pavement cafés and restaurants that looked very alluring.

If we had done an overnight, it would have been nice to visit neighbouring Segovia, which is supposed to be just as wonderous but on grander scales with the extraordinary engineering of the 728m aquaduct and the Rapunzel-like Alcazar towers, turrets topped with slate witches’ hats and deep moat around (said to have inspired the Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland).

TOLEDO

The countryside changed quite radically when you entered the province of Castilla-La Mancha with its harsh dry southern plateau, as immortalised in the literary classic, Don Quixote. There was little else to see beside Toledo (its capital), so the region was often skipped by tourists.

I’d tussled for quite some time trying to figure out where we wanted to be based in Toledo. There are so many websites giving info and flogging accommodation that it was info overload and increasingly difficult to make decisions. Toledo was a tricky one since the town was contained within old city walls, nestled into a U of the Rio Tajo. This city particularly was known for the labyrinth-like maze of roads, so I logicked that this was one place worth sacrificing the authenticity staying in the old town and the beauty of a view of the river for the pragmatism of staying just outside the upper city gates, parking the car at the hotel and managing the rest on foot. Paydirt! I could not have done better as the town was super confusing, even with a map, and the roads were the kind you’d have to be born to navigate!

We stayed at the Hotel Martin, which could not have been better. Off the main drag but only one road from the Toledo old city gates, the hotel was rated (and priced) a 2 star, but our suite was big and beautifully decorated with white linens and curtains, wooden wardrobe and furnishings, a bathroom big enough to have a party in – and terraces off the bedroom and the bathroom. Add the location, big fluffy white towels, free toiletries and big flat screen TV and it was madness that we only paid R400 for the night!

Being about 17h00 by the time we were in and settled, we rationalised it best to leave the hard work tourist stuff for the next day and just focus on a dinner in the old town… but despite ourselves we got swept up on entry, approaching the Bisagra Gate with its triumphant arch flanked by semicircular towers, impressive imperial 2-headed eagle coat of arms, the insignia of the Golden Fleece… appearing as magnificently to today’s visitors as it did to visitors approaching from Madrid in 1550!

We’d been given a tourist map at the hotel so blended a “best of both” tour of our own, smattering some sights and cultural stuff in between a caña and tapas crawl (an art we’ve perfected) and even upping the ante with paying for a round of tapas since there were 2 local dishes I really wanted to try.

First was a Carcamusas de Toledo, a rich blend of pork cubes stewed in tomato and herbs that was equal portions tender and juicy – absolutely delicious. The second was a peculiar local favourite called Migas Manchegas that I was more curious about than anything – white bread lightly toasted fried in garlic and oil to make sort of croutons, served with diced sausage and ham and topped with a fried egg and bacon. The result was a sort of breakfast dinner.

We also managed to log a pint on our Guinness Index at an unexpected Irish pub called O’Brien’s, that was on the windiest, steepest street that was just begging for a wettie-stop when you were neither up nor down!

FRIDAY

Day 2 in Toledo was made that much easier since we already knew where everything was and what we wanted to visit (properly) AND we knew what and where we wanted to breakfast on – although we have adapted to Spain time, so breakfast was scheduled for midday!

We entered by the same Bisagra Gate – now fully appreciating what we were seeing – and up the entry road to the next attraction, the Puerto del Sol inner gate, built in the 14th Century and so named because of the sun and moon on its tympanum. There was a modern art statue in front of it that, from its label, claimed to be a bull. Personally I thought it was a load of bull because frankly it looked more like a big metal speech bubble!

First stop was the famous central square, Plaza Zocodover, to try and get an English tourist map, which we did. The legend made it easy to narrow our hit list. Nix the 7 museums, 4 churches, 4 convents, 2 mosques, 2 synagogue and a monastery and it was easy – 3 gates, 2 bridges and a Roman Baths (we could have had a partridge too since it was a local delicacy, but without the pear tree it was just a bony little bird really).

The bridges were so worth seeing! Enormous arched structures spanning deep gorges to connect the multi-volumed brick outer walls of the city to the green valley banks on the far side of the Rio Tajo, with high towers and arched gates flanking either side. It was quite a job getting up and down the slopes and stairs toward the gates, but perfect if you were working up an appetite for Salamanca Charcuteria, where you could get the *best* jamon bocadilla and lomo and chourizo pie, which was made like a Beef Wellington so the cheese melts into the pastry and the lomo is soft and tender.

Since we’d already done the gates, all that was left was to check out the Roman Baths, which turned out – bonus – to be a free exhibit. Beautifully preserved since the Romans had used cement to build them. This wasn’t the only ingenuity they’d used – they were really clever and had made all sorts of thermal aquaducts to heat the water for their steam rooms.

All said and done, Toledo was a ‘must do’ stop – and it was only 79km from Madrid so can easily be done as a day trip or overnighter.

Europe, Spain, Travelogue

Travelogue Iberia 8: Salamanca

SALAMANCA

19 September 2013

After a 314km uninterrupted drive from Coimbra, we were pleased to arrive in Salamanca – and the first impressions on driving into the town further warmed our welcome.

As usual, Google Maps had successfully guided us the bulk of the journey, but we once again found ourselves left hanging as we approached the town and found the directions for roundabouts and exits not matching up.  At least Salamanca was a less complicated layout though, with 4 bridges crossing the Rio Tormes on approach and most roads in the town directed toward the central square, Plaza Mayor (right upon which was the pension I’d booked us into). Rather than messing about, we parked the car in the first parkjng garage we saw (€14.40 a night!) and attacked the finer directions on foot.

It was really easy to find our accommodation (Pension Los Angeles) since it was literally on the Plaza Mayor, a little door wedged among the bars and restaurants leading to the apartments upstairs. The perfect location! Our en-suite room had a balcony overlooking the square. The perfect view!

Plaza Mayor, with its harmonious and controlled Baroque design, impressive size and symmetry, built-in matching City Hall and arcaded square, was noted as being the most beautiful in Spain – and this was fact, not opinion!  The Plaza was much bigger than others we’d seen (roughly 80 x 80m) and the combination of its “squareness” with uniform rows of balconied rooms mirroring each other and the monochromy of the use of golden-hued Villamayor stone (same colour and texture as sandstone) from floor to ceiling, would send poor old Gaudi into apoplexy! But the result was breathtaking and literally awesome.

Having garnered a tourist map from our landlord, we realised it wasn’t worth plotting a formal walking tour route around Salamanca as almost all the sites (all bar the Roman Bridge) were contained within the old city and there was something to see on almost every corner – although with 11 churches, 4 convents and 10 historically relevant mansions it can get a bit samey-samey.

Salamanca was home to the oldest University in Spain, founded in the 13th century, and most of the old buildings house university faculties museums. It was understandable why young people would relish spending time here – and their presence was definitely felt in the price and value offering of the glut of restaurants and bars and the overwhelming amount of entertainment options, more or less 24/7.

We did visit the one university building, the Universidad Civil, to do some “frog-spotting”. It is said that if you can spot the frog on the elaborately carved facade, then you’ll enjoy great luck. We both managed to see the frog… but with a little direction from the info boards!

Hard work aside, we were able to settle into an evening of tapas hopping…

  • Meson La Dehesa – baguette with jamon (cured ham) and Iberian cheese
  • O’Hara Irish Pub – kettlefried crisps, chourizo on baguette
  • Bambu – lasagne, bolognaise tortilla, sourdough with prawns on garlic cream, Iberian ham and sweet tomato pizza
  • La Perla Negra – no tapas, but a free boys Guinness t-shirt
  • Casa de Vinos Doctrinos – sourdough with lomo cabecero (combination of lomo and jamon) and Iberian lomo (marbled)
  • Catalina’s – bacon and cheese croissant and ham, cheese, cream cheese  and onion crepe
  • Cervesaria Gambrinus – (poor) sausage and quail’s egg on baguette; pork dumpling in phyllo
  • Disfruta de Todo  – jamon croquette
  • Irish Rover – crisps and a free girls Guinness t-shirt
  • Gastro Taberna El Reloj – calamari strips and tuna lasagne ; meat lasagne

All of the above served free with our orders of caña or fine local Rioja, never over €2!

Europe, Portugal, Travelogue

Travelogue Iberia 7: Coimbra

COIMBRA

18 September 2013

Coimbra, 119km south of Porto, has been a settlement since Roman times and was the capital of Portugal in the Middle Ages. Archaeological structures and relics still remained – and were open to view – in Conimbriga (18km southwest of Coimbra) and buildings from its era as capital in the 1100s still stood in the city. In the 1200s Coimbra got its university – the first in Portugal and one of the first in Europe – for which it is best known today, making it the “Oxford of Portugal”.

Coimbra was in Beira Litoral (litoral meaning coastal) province and was the third biggest town in Portugal after Lisbon and Porto. Between its lengthy history and modern university life, there was a good blend of sight-seeing and (economical) entertainment to be had.

Because the centre of the old city was the warren of narrow cobbled streets you’d expect, it was really only feasible to explore on foot, although there was a hop-on-hop-off tourist bus that made circumnavigation of the perimeter a bit easier since the city was built on a steep hill – university on the hilltop with the tangle of old town around and below it, spilling all the way down to the river.

We managed to avoid this congestion, staying minutes out of old town, but still on the main Avenida Fernao de Magalhaes, which was mercifully simple for getting into and out of the city via the main onramp/offramp roundabout. I’d booked us at the Comfort Inn Almedina, which turned out to be nothing like the pictures, but perfectly adequate anyway in City Lodge style.

Planning a walking tour route was easy (using the tourist map from the hotel front desk) since the main sights did a snail’s shell spiral from where we were, up the hill and through the old town, spitting us out at the river, leaving just the monasteries on the other side of the river… and hopefully a curry dinner since the tourist map recommended an ‘Indiano’ restaurant on the riverside.

We whipped around all the requisite squares, statues, monuments and churches (hastening to breakneck speed to pass the dreary Fado folk singers) with the highlight being lunching on a bifade, which was a cheese and pork sandwich on fresh soft Portuguese roll (they probably just call them “rolls” here though) with a creamy mustard and dill sauce.

With renewed humour, we slowed the pace a bit and (almost) visited a museum, took some pics at the Arco de Almedina (the city’s Moorish gateway) and sourced a fridge magnet and a Coimbra soccer shirt for Christian on the main pedestrianised shopping streets, Rua Visconde da Luz and Rua Ferreira Borges. This brought us out at the Largo da Portagem, with the city behind us, the riverfront Avenida Emidio Navarro stretching out right and left of us and the Rio Mondego and Ponte de Santa Clara bridge in front of us .

River Rio Mondego’s source was in the Serra da Estrela (Portugal’s highest mountain range and main geophysical landmark), making it the longest exclusively Portuguese river, since most of the others source in Spain. And of course, the main bridge is named after my saint, Santa Clara, who Pedro in Porto told us gained acclaim for forming the Clarist nuns (the female version of Francis of Assisi’s Franciscan monks). Reassuringly since she was so high profile with so much named after her, the rolling Portuguese accent lifts the ‘a’ in Clara so it is pronounced correctly.

Across the river cluster 3 former convents, most prominently Mosteiro de Santa Clara-a-Velha. Commissioned by Queen Elizabeth in 1314, the monastery housed a convent of Clarist nuns. The waters of the nearby river Mondego gradually encroached and it was eventually abandoned on 1677. Archaeological works and extensive excavations in 1995 enabled the semi-submerged cloister to be retrieved. You could pay to walk around the site, but we didn’t bother since you gotwere a perfect view from the outside.

Considering all the sights done, we took some time-out and had a little sit on the riverbank walls with a beautiful view and shaded by the gorgeous rows of trees that line the pedestrian avenue alongside the river. There were lots of benches provided and it looked like a popular meeting place for lovestruck couples and small cliques of students to hang out. Nice to note that it was appreciated and kept neat, tidy and almost graffiti-free.

Wanting to drop off our shopping before embarking on sundowners and dinner, we took a trot past Guls Indiano restaurante since it was en route and found, to our immense dismay, that the place looked locked up tight. There was a notice in the window, presumably explaining the situation, but since the only bit in the long Portuguese message that was fathomable was the words “force majeure”, so prospects looked bleak.

We’d been quite sold on the idea of a curry so, when back at the hotel we did a quick Google search, which turned up 2 other leads for Indian restaurants. We weren’t optimistic since they didn’t feature on the tourist map (which meant they likely either didn’t exist or weren’t good enough to mention). Either way, their positions and the route between made for as good a sundowner trail as any, so we decided to go with it.

First hope was quickly dashed as the supposed site was on one of the little cross streets a couple of blocks up from the hotel. Luckily though, mid-September is Magic Festival time in Coimbra and there was a big show happening on the square, which distracted us for a bit.

We again climbed the hill up toward the University as this is where the biggest cluster of pubs and cafés (predictably) was and were horrified when we found our second stop, Tapas Bar, only opened at midnight!  … but there is another Tapas Bar branch further up the hill and around the corner that is open normal hours, so we went there instead and had a lovely time.

Our walk from there to the second curry house took us past the Botanical Gardens, which we’d discounted from our sightseeing initially, but which I’m now grateful to have seen, with its beautiful manicured terraces and imposing Great Expectations pillars and wrought-iron grids.

Needless to say, the curryhouse had been replaced by a kebab shop, so there was little else left to do than concede defeat and walk the length along the river front from where we were on the extreme East side to the Plan B options (recommended by the trusty Lonely Planet guide) sitting slightly west of centre… which took us right past Guls… which was open!

We had a really delicious feast of onion baji to entrée our chicken makhani, lamb kahari, pilau rice, garlic and sesame naans. Everything very good, although quite different from what we’re used to getting at home (or what we had in India for that matter) and portions half the size (although still more than enough).

What a delightful, if not a little unconventional, farewell to the Portuguese leg of our trip!

Europe, Portugal, Travelogue

Travelogue Iberia 6: Porto

PORTO

16-18 September 2013

Porto started in Roman times as twin city settlements on either side of the Duoro river mouth. When Cale on the south bank grew to be an important crossing on the Lisbon-Braga road and Portus on the north bank established itself as a harbour, the cities merged (much like Buda and Pest in Hungary) and became Portus-Cale, the capital of the county of Portucale. This land was given to Henri of Burgundy on his marriage to the daughter of the King of León in 1095 and it was their son, Alfonso Henriques, who ultimately founded the independent kingdom of Portugal.

Our introduction to Porto was complicated. We’ve found the Google maps to be a bit vague at times and to leave out a vital instruction here or there that complicated things no end. Porto was one of those and a simple “first roundabout” instead of “second” sent us on a wild goose chase, entering the city from the wrong side completely – and consequently being nowhere near where we needed to be (and quite disappointed with the look of the city, since it was the quite grungy industrial side). Matters were made infinitely worse by the Porto drivers, who were far more aggressive than any we’d encountered anywhere else on our roadtrip – and who reminded us of home with their “stop anywhere” double-parking and zeal in taking gaps that didn’t exist!

Some angst later, we managed to rectify our course and find the road that ran along the river and into the Centro through the Ribeira, which in turn allowed us to find our road with relative ease. Challenge now was that our road was closed to cars and wedged between 2 parallel roads… but not in a grid system, so circling back from overshooting the road the first time proved to be challenging at best (and very frustrating). Of course our Google Maps were of no use, so we were left trying to patch together our directions using the few maps in the Lonely Planet guide, which were clearly not designed for this exercise, and street name markings, which were few and far between.

We spotted an Info office – coincidentally across the intersection from our ‘hidden’ road – and pulled a Porto, double-parking outside. Christian ran into the Info office; I ran across to our road to confirm our hotel.

Christian hit paydirt with an English-speaker, a free city map and instructions on where to find free parking; I found our road in turmoil, with the whole road blocked off as a construction site, with narrow walkways caged off on either side. I followed one of the walkways halfway down and couldn’t find the hotel, so turned around and made my way back since it was slow going and we were double-parked.

The plan was to circle around back to the bottom of the main road (Rue de Mouzinho da Silveira) that ran parallel to our road (Rue das Flores) to find a free parking spot. But that proved to be more difficult than anticipated as the town planner apparently went to the same school as Gaudi since he seems to have been incapable of a straight line. In fact, if you looked at the city map topographically, you’d think that there are hidden hieroglyphs in the floral arrangement of streets since they are so uniformly ununiform! Very frustrating for newcomers!

Eventually we caved and parked at an Underground pay parking an indeterminate distance from our accommodation. Fortunately though, we had each packed an overnight bag so were able to lock the suitcases in the boot of the car.

Turned out it was much easier to move around Porto on foot and we were at Porto Alive only a few minutes later and checking into our “penthouse terraced room with a view”, which really translated into a room on the 3rd of 3 floors, with a square metre of balcony that of course has to look onto something, namely the back of the Cathedral (of which, in such long-standing Catholic territory, there are many).

On check-in we were advised of free daily walking tours at 10h30 and 15h30, so we decided to join the afternoon tour since it was 14h30 already so it left just enough time for lunch – and we wouldn’t have to where or why of what to see in Porto.

What to have for lunch was an easy decision, having read that Porto’s claim to fame was a mega sandwich called a Francesinha. Filled with cheese, steak, ham and two types of sausage, the behemoth is then topped with a fried egg, has cheese sauce poured over it and then a layer of light yellow stringy cheese melted over the top of that, enough so that it melts down the sides to form a sort of cheese case around the whole parcel. It is then served in a soup bowl with a thick, rich gravy poured over the whole lot and an optional portion of fries packed around the sandwich on top of the gravy. You can see why we opted to share one (and nixed the fries).

We met up with the tour guide and group at the “man on a horse” statue in the middle of Avenidu dos Aliados for our walking tour. We found out that our guide’s name was Pedro, as was the fellow on the horse who was Pedro I of Brazil, having been the son of King Pedro of Portugal who went to Brazil (being a Portuguese colony) and loved it so much that he convinced his dad to give it to him, thus giving Brazil independence under his reign as King Pedro I of Portugal.

When his dad died, the Portuguese wanted Pedro I of Brazil to come back and become Pedro IV of Portugal, but he wasn’t keen so he instead sent his daughter to marry his brother, Miguel, and in so doing unintentionally set in motion quite a malarkey since since Miguel then dissolved the Parliament and made Portugal an absolute monarchy.

Obviously, the people were less than pleased, so Pedro came back from Brazil to Porto, whereupon Miguel laid siege on the city and for over a year not a person was allowed in or out. The people of Porto held out and Miguel was overthrown in 1833. Pedro was so overwhelmed by the solidarity of the people of Porto that he wished his heart to remain there (conjecture as to how literally he meant this) so when he died, his body was laid to rest in Brazil but his heart is in a jar of formaldehyde in a local church in Porto (which apparently sounds more romantic than it looks).

Having a tour guide was great for depth of stories like that – and he even had us going that the swarms of young people in black and white uniforms with black capes were Harry Potter fans, which was verified as feasible by one of the tour attendees who knew that JK Rowling had lived for some time in Porto. Turned out that they were also actually second year university students, who earn the right to wear the uniform by passing first year.

There was some credence to the Potter link though as Rowling is said to have drawn inspiration on the uniforms and some elements of the book from here. Bearing testament, we visited the glorious bookstore, Livrario Lello, with the staircase that was said to have inspired the moving staircases in the books. The bookstore was voted the third most beautiful (after ones in Buenos Aires and Maastricht, housed in an old church and theatre respectively) and it was easy to see why with its towering double volume floor-to-ceiling shelves and the magnificent staircase that occupied the whole of the middle of the floor, with split elevations that boggled the eyes and gave the appearance of motion.

The guide then took us to the Park Municipal das Virtudes with its beautiful fountain and terraces, which flowed from the now long-gone Cristal Palace, which looked like it must’ve been breathtakjng. The gardens alone were pretty spectacular and it was reassuring to see the locals enjoying the space.

We concluded with a series of look-out points and while the views of the bridges, waters and landmarks were awesome, the look-out points themselves were a mess and there was a lot of squalor to be seen as well. Pedro went into great detail about the chronology and history of the bridges, but the important thing is that it was the Ponte Luis I bridge that was the main one (train on the top part, cars and pedestrians on the bottom). Interestingly, the bridge was launched with a toll attached, but as soon as the cost of the bridge had been covered, the toll was removed. That would never happen in South Africa!

It was at the Porto side of the Mont Luis I bridge that our tour came to a close at about 18h30, with Pedro advising that the best next step was to cross the bridge over to the Vila Nova de Gaia on the other side to enjoy sunset with the perfect view, of Porto. That side of the river is also known for port wine production, for which the region is world famous. One of the producers, Wiese & Krohn, hosted free tasting until 20h00, so we decided to do that first since they’re positioned at the far end of the promenade.

We were given 3 varieties to try: white, tawny and full-bodied. They were awful! Not just Krohn’s, but port in general. It’s sweet and syrupy with a very strong taste – not our thing at all! That put a spanner into the itinerary since the whole of the next afternoon was supposed to be dedicated to this side of the river and sampling at a selection of the many producers! Nevermind though, always something else to do.

We left Krohn’s, deciding we needed a palette cleanser and got drawn in by a 5 ’til 8 Happy Hour (clearly not ones to be constrained by the literal), at a front table with perfect unobstructed river view. We’d already decided this night to be the one that would sate our quest for Bacalhau (codfish) and we’d come to the right place! Taberninha do Manel served an excellent Bacalhau com Natas (codfish with with diced potatoes in a cream al forno) and Bacalhau á Braz (codfish with diced potatoes, egg and onions) and we were very happy our choice… and appreciative of the gesture of the complimentary port wine that came with the bill. We forced it back to be polite.

TUESDAY

Schedule wide open post premature port wine tasting the previous night, we decided to join Pedro for his Tuesday morning walking tour which he had assured covered completely different ground to the afternoon tour. Having walked the city flat the day before, we easily found our way to the meeting spot at the Pedro monument.

Pedro again opened with a story relevant to our location, this time telling the story of why the Aliados avenue is actually a square and not an avenue at all. Apparently it was planned to be a 5km long avenue that stretched up the hill to from the site of the old town square, to celebrate prosperity and Portugal joining the Allies in World War I (hence the name Aliados, meaning Allies). The plan was thwarted however by a little old Catholic church in the planned path, which the Catholics said under church law could not be demolished. After lengthy back and forthing, the plans for the avenue had to be scrapped so to get even a big city hall was built in front of the church, exactly the same shape but much bigger so as to hide the offending building.

We also visited  Sao Bento station, which is famed for its elaborate exterior, interior pressed the ceilings and its extensive Azulejos (handpainted blue on white tiles) telling the story of transportation evolution in Portugal on the one level and stories of great Portuguese victories on others. The other point of interest is that the architect got so wound up in the design and decor that he forgot some key functional elements, like ticket office and waiting rooms, so adjacent buildings had to be bought to annex for the station to be practically operational.

This intense decoration is visible in some of the (many) churches we saw. The Santa Clara church is decorated (so that it looked like it had been dipped) in gold leaf from Brazil and the Sao Francisco church was decorated with 600kg of gold, which at current prices was about 25 million Euros of gold, which in turn with patrimonial value included brought the value of the church then to 250 million Euros!

Besides the opulence, Pedro encouraged us to enjoy some of the simpler pleasures, taking us up to a section of the Old City wall where we could get excellent photos both up and down the river and of Porto and Gaia. There are only small sections of the walls that remain as the majority was demolished in the early 18th century when Porto had outgrown the city space within the 2.6km perimeter and the wealthy living outside the city were complaining that their assets weren’t being protected. Using warped logic, they demolished sections of the walls… only to have the French invade the now vulnerable city and take everyone’s stuff!

Pedro ended off the 3 hour tour with advice on where and what to have for lunch. First he told us about the Francesinha, the epic sandwich that has been Porto’s claim to fame for 60+ years, since it was invented by a chap returning to Porto from his studies in France. He had had more luck with the more liberal French lasses so he devised a cunning plan to improve his chances with his Portuguese conquests.

Contrary to popular belief, the Portuguese don’t eat spicy food and there are no traditional meals like the peri-peri ones they’re internationally famed for – in fact, an Australian in our group asked “What about Nando’s?” and had to be corrected that it was a South African chain! So, the Francesinha guy concocted his meaty offering to appeal to all tastes and then added the spicy sauce so that the ladies would get hot and remove layers of clothing – and quash the burning by sipping on beers, which would make them more amiable. They must have been real ninnies because we didn’t find the sauce to be burny at all!

The second story was about Tripas da mota do Porto, a tripe stew. Henry the Navigator was born in Porto and was quite popular with the people. When he decided to go seafaring, he realised the sailors would be at sea for a very long time and would need nourishment for the journey. He appealed to the locals to provide food and they gave him all the meat (salted) that they had, leaving the people only with less noble meats (innards, stomach, giblets etc). With necessity being the mother of invention, the people of Porto learned to make what they had palatable – and even into something they loved and preferred. When Henry’s sailors returned with rice and spices from Asia, and beans and spices from South America the recipe was enhanced and improved to what it is today. This is also the source of the options derogatory nickname the people of Lisbon have for them (Tripeiros or people who eat tripe), but the Portos in turn called the Lisboetas Alfacinhas or “lettuce eaters”.

To end off the day, we caught the 500 bus to Foz, Porto’s beaches at the rivermouth. We enjoyed a long stroll along all of the beaches  from Praia de Molhe (claiming to be a Blue Flag beach) where you find the Pergola da Foz, one of Porto’s most iconic postcard images. It was a lovely sunset walk, easily managed with the wide and even promenade, and highly recommended to round off the Porto experience.

Europe, Portugal, Travelogue

Travelogue Iberia 5: Chaves

CHAVES

15 September 2013

Chaves (pronounced “Shove-sh” and meaning “keys”) made the itinerary purely on location, conveniently placed between Leon and Porto, 10km into Portugal from the Spanish border. It also held the most promise of the options being rich in history since its fame as Aquae Flaviae in 78AD Roman times, so named by Flavio Vespasiano when he arrived to explore the region’s goldmines and found the hypothermal Caldas of Chaves instead (73 degree Celsius spas, making them the warmest in Europe).

We arrived at 16h30, which turned out to be 15h30 local time – we’d moved so far west that we’d gained a time zone, which we were choosing to loosely translate as an hour extra holiday! Bonus!

The town, being an old one, had the (now) usual maze of narrowed one-ways, so we parked the car (in the, for once, ample parking) and used the Lonely Planet guide city map to locate our hotel, the Florinda B&B, chosen for its central location and inclusion of breakfast.

It would appear that we were staying in the equivalent of the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel as the couches and chairs in the foyer were all occupied by ladies and gents who seemed they might’ve been there for years… with no intention of moving. It was only eyes that followed us as we swanned in from the street and moved deftly through the passage of canes to the reception desk.

The nearest old dear stood up from her armchair and took her position behind the concierge desk, whereupon I showed her our booking form. She studied it intently and then pulled out a folio book with “Reservations” embossed on the cover and started to write something. She hesitated and looked at me, then pointed her pen at me and then the sheet and said “Nome?”. She was pointing at “Double Room”. She thought my name was Double Room!! Trying not to laugh, I pointed at my name further down and she exclaimed “Ah! Santa Clara!”. As effective as RICA!

We deposited our bags in our 2nd floor room. Not bad, with terrace, satellite TV (Portuguese only, no doubt) and aircon (welcome since it was notably hotter this side of the border), but very old-fashion copper chintzy curtains and crest-embossed flannel bedspread. It must’ve been a gem in its day with the big rooms, original hardwood floors, dark wood wardrobe and marble bathroom vanity counters. Very 1960! And in the same colour scheme as our Portuguese phrasebook which, published in 1958, has lots of fun stuff in it about where to send telegrams from, where to buy British cigarettes and insistences on being directed to the Consulate.

Besides that, it also reminded us that wewere lucky to have avoided the 3 day ship journey to Lisbon from London, Southampton or Liverpool (who knows how long it might have taken us to get there!) and secondly, we clearly live in far easier times based on the long chapters dedicated to cashing postal orders, making trunk calls, orders at the tobacconist and managing at the hairdresser when getting a perm or one’s hair set. No mention of wifi or other very useful things. The book also seems to be written by the same people as Fawlty Towers based on its skew to complaining and conducting eloquent tantrum diatribes!

Anyway, hotel sorted, we moved car closer – blissfully to right outside the hotel – and hit the town to see the sights.

Being a Sunday, everything was closed, so we headed toward a big fort thing to see what we could see.

It turned out to be the Sao Francisco fortress, an 18th Century stronghold that was now one of the fanciest hotels in Portugal (or so its own signage said). At least this meant that the concierge spoke English, stocked tourist maps and was eager to guide us.

Map in hand, we trundled toward the cluster of “must see” sights of Chaves. It was another one of those where you can stand in a single spot and knock off the top 5 by pivoting – in this case 2 churches, a museum housed in a former palace, a castle and the square itself, home to City Hall and a statue of Alfonso I (the first Duke of Braganca) who founded here one of the first libraries in Europe.

From there we moved up into the Chaves Castle, so built in the 15th Century, with dungeons and walls still preserved, as well as a terraced garden setting decorated with Roman artifacts and columns, canons and stone canon balls. The view of the Chaves valley between the Mournos and Brunheiro Mountains was photo – worthy, but it was a shame that the locals had graffitied all over the canons and walls, peed in the look-outs, left cigarette butts and broken beer bottles everywhere, which marred the overall experience considerably.

The same theme continued through the Historical Centre, which was quite unpleasant and was such a shame, especially in such a sharp contrast with how respectfully a city like Leon had been maintained. It might be the distinctly political air in the town – such a sleepy hamlet with 6 or more political parties tustling for power with austere billboards and street pole ads and roving politicking by car with megaphones on the roof. Created a really intense atmosphere!

The last sight on our walking tour agenda was the Trajano Bridge, a structure built in 98AD, with 12 arches connecting the 104m from riverbank to riverbank. It was definitely the highlight of the town and they obviously put some effort into developing the area with waterfront cafés on the old city side and a park with walking and cycling paths on the far side. Since we weren’t yet ready for dinner, we took a half hour stroll around the park, but there really wasn’t much to see or do, so we retired to the Sky Bar café  for sundowners instead.

The local beers were both lagers, Superbock and Sagres, 5.5% alcohol which seemed all lot heavier than the Spanish beers we’d been drinking. They were also a lot bigger at what now seemed like a hefty 330ml. And, very disappointingly, not served with tapas. Maybe that explained the graffiti and general delinquencies…

It sure got our sense of humour twitching as Christian used our very useful phrasebook while we waited for our dinner to be served to plan his dialogue with the concierge on our return to the hotel…

Christian: Boa Noite (good evening)
Christian: A que hereoras e o pequeno (what time is breakfast)
Concierge: ??? (likely to be unfathomable)
Christian: Nao percebo (I don’t understand)
Christian: Fazia favior de falar com Double Room (please speak to Double Room)

Hehehehe.

We had a mixed bag for dinner, since the Abude Beerhouse has quite a varied pub style menu. We shared 3 items. A Pasteis Chaves meat pie in a crunchy phyllo pastry, not like the puff pastry at home and a tiny amount – although super tasty – savoury mincemeat filling. A Prego con queijo (prego with cheese) which turned out to be a steak sandwich garnished with ham (genius!) and cheese, no hot sauce or marinade like we’re used to (apparently that’s Mozambican). A Charrola bokwurst hotdog, garnished with cheese, ham (starting to see a pattern forming), bacon and tiny matchstick fries. All very good – and reassuring that our entire bill for beers and food was just over €10! Looked like Portugal was going to be very good at swinging the budget!

MONDAY

Monday morning saw the exciting reintroduction of fruit into our diet, with a banana each and a red apple between us at our (included) continental breakfast at Florinda. The main course was (quite obviously) Portuguese rolls with cream cheese, delicious local white cheese and succulent slices of Iberian ham. All served with a bottle of agua and an enormous jug of piping coffee and an equally enormous jug of hot milk.

Packed up and ready to go, with Porto in our sights!

Europe, Spain, Travelogue

Travelogue Iberia 4: Leon

LEON

14 September 2013

With a 2 and a half hour (265km) drive from Santander to Leon, we decided that we would break the journey with a stop en route. Originally planning on breakfast in Santander before handing the apartment keys over at 11h00, we were bemused to find that we were likely the only people awake in the city at 10h00, let alone a supermarket shopkeep or open kitchen in sight! Fortunately we had our trusty chocolate mousse protein shakes on hand, so good humour was still intact as we hit the road.

It was quite a straightforward route along the A-67 South, then the A-231 West, both of which passed directly through a number of small towns. Consulting the Lonely Planet guide, we selected Aguilar Campoo and put foot on the journey to get there.

AGUILAR CAMPOO

A small town of only 7700 people, Aguilar has been around forever and a day, being a settlement of the Cantabrians, the Romans and Visigoths, a bulwark during the Arab occupation in the 700s, and then being rebuilt, restored and expanded from 820 to become a very important town in the Middle Ages. King Alfonso X declared the site a Regal Town and the fiefdom of Aguilar de Campoo exercised jurisdiction over one of the most extensive territories of Castille at the time, stretching across current day Cantabria, Burgis and Palencia.

Long history aside, it’s a small town easy to circumnavigate on foot, best begun at the central Plaza de Espana where you can get a free local map. From the doorway of the tourist office you can already see 5 of the town’s 19 top sights! The most impressive of these is the Collegiate Church of San Miguel, elevated to the rank of Collegiate by Pope Paul III in 1541.

We had little interest in touring the town – and seeing the likes of its 120+ shields and coat of arms adorning palace fronts and house facades – until we had eaten, so we headed along the Paseo de la Cascajera running alongside the Rio Pisuerga which is lined with bars and cafés. We couldn’t find anywhere serving off menu – everything being pintxos and raciones, so we chose Nuevo del Rio to have a club sandwich (cheese, ham, egg, tuna) since it was the most substantial looking and ordered Cokes to accompany. The Cokes were served with a snack each – a long crunchy straw that looked like a springroll on the outside and turned out to have a prawn on the inside. Delicious!

We’d studied the map and the Medieval Castle on the hill overlooking the town was the only thing we wanted to see, so we walked down the Calle Modesto Lafuente which took us to the foot. A short steep climb had us at the Chapel of Santa Cecilia at the base of the Castle’s much steeper hill, so we made do with a photo and moved back to the car.

LEON

Leon was gorgeous! We got lost as we entered the town and – frustrated by a series of pedestrian roads blocking us from where we thought we needed to be – parked the car first opportunity. We found the tourist office to be closed so couldn’t get a map, didn’t have a street address for our destination and couldn’t find anyone who could speak enough English to understand our request for a payphone (messages not going through on cell phones).. and we still weren’t put off the town in the slightest!

We found help in a hotel where the receptionist spoke English, called our host to extract the street address and arrange our meeting. They even provided a tourist map and marked simplest route, easiest on foot through the old city.

We had 15 minutes to kill so stopped in the plaza closest our destination, which is called the “wet district” because it has the highest concentration of bars and restaurants in a very bar and restaurant intensive town! The bar we picked, at random, from the 12 or more choices clocked from our pivotal point in the centre of the small plaza, served our beer with a wedge of cheese and a strip of deep fried calamari each. Apparently this is a major cheese producing area, and the mild light white creamy cheese served bore testament that it was indeed their specialty!

We were in top spirits when we met our host, Fran, some 20 minutes later, having arrived at our square to find that it was equally beautiful to what else we’d seen of this wonderful old medieval town, with its authentic uneven cobbles on winding warren of streets, but with the added appeal of being alongside the monastery overlooking the central water fountain monument. A quiet square, with only 2 tabernas!

Fran was very pleased to see us and offered to walk us back to the car so as to navigate us to closer free parking. This chore doubled as an impromptu tour since we’d managed to park all the way across town (still only a 10 minute walk) and we passed almost all of the major sites en route. Fran’s English was about as good as our Spanish (which was coming on quite nicely, thanks to the in-car tutorials), but we managed to communicate quite effectively with slow simple speak and animated hand gestures (and Google translate for absolute fallback).

It was quick ‘n easy to find our digs, now that we knew how, and a free parking right outside Burger King seemed a good omen.

Our apartment was incredible. All the finishes were shiny and new and this apartment was an absolute bargain and highly recommended on facilities and location for anyone visiting Leon! It was enormous, with a living room (large kitchenette against the back wall, 4 seater granite table against the far wall, couch and big flat screen TV unit occupying the remaining space) as big as both our San Sebastian and Santander apartments combined! That, and a big bedroom also overlooking the square and a bathroom big enough to have a party in!

But partying in town was likely to be more fun, so we headed out.

It was very early by local standards, being around 17h00, so we took the opportunity to go back to the Tourist Office (that had reopened from its 2-5 siesta) to get a map and cover some of the sights. The first was a neo-Gothic Gaudi building (Casa de Botines) right opposite the tourist office, which delighted me since I fancied myself to be Gaudi’s newest fan.

Our whirlwind tour included all the Palacios (palaces), mercado (markets), plaza (squares) and Iglesias (churches) as well as a walk around the outside of the old city walls, admiring the merge of medieval inheritance with modern growth… and working up quite a thirst.

Beers were served in a variety of common sizes: corta couldn’t be much more than 100ml for €1.20, caña about 200ml for €1.60, cañon at 350ml for €2.20. They know about pints (pinta) but don’t stock the glasses because there is no demand. The only place that had was Molly Malone, which had Guinness pints as standard, for €2.50.

Leon followed the doctrine of free tapas tasters with drinks orders – no matter what size drink is ordered. We found caña to be optimal and spent the evening pub crawling by pinxos:-

  • Casa Miche – cheese and deep fried calamari
  • Cervesaria Gotica – baguette with cheese/jamon and jamon croquette
  • Molly Malone – corn, peanuts, olives and gum sweets
  • Jamon Jamon – sour dough, salchichon (greasy sausage), chorizo, cheese
  • Bar La Noria – deep fried mussels; patatas with jamon York (fried potato with wedges of boiled ham)
  • Enburidos Caseros – sourdough, chorizo, cecina (dried, uncooked, like biltong)
  • Nuevo Racimo De Oro – sourdough, chorizo, salchicon (and all served in a lovely cellar Bodega with original 2000 year old Romanesque walls!!)
  • Bacanal – homemade kettlefried crisps sprinkled with bacon
  • Taberna Orienta Media – chourizo server on a flaming skewer
  • Vinos Serveca – jamon and cheese on sourdough (seemed a bit dull after the rest)

We learned to pick and choose according to tapas offering. Bearing in mind we were ordering about 175 ml of beer at a time at an average of about €1.50 a pop… It was working out cheaper to feed-and-water in Spain than at home! We couldn’t work out how they make any money from customers with the decadent offerings and generous portions of the tapas, but a local in the one bar said it was a matter of bars being compelled to offer tapas to draw customers (locals flatly refuse to support tabernas that offer no free tapas). There was an endless number of options so competition was stiff despite the café terrado (party til dawn) lifestyle; the bigger and better the tapas, the more customers they attract. Especially the student market since Leon was also a major university town.

It would seem that this combination of choice, economy, locale and air of festivity made Leon Spain’s bachelor and bachelorette destination of choice and we encountered several groups in custom t-shirts with a comically-dressed guest of “honour”.

For such an old town, steeped in religious history as it was, even the churches were good sports and the churchbells mercifully only start their Sunday morning tolling at 11h00!

Europe, Spain, Travelogue

Travelogue Iberia 3: Santander

SANTANDER

12 – 14 September 2013

We negotiated our exit from San Sebastian Donostia like seasoned professionals and were soon on the tollroad heading for Santander. I’d downloaded free Learn to Speak Spanish tutorials onto my phone, so we plugged it into the car stereo and the 2 and a bit hour journey passed quickly.

We’d initially wanted to go via Bilbao to see the Guggenheim Museum and Guernica to see the war memorials, but with the horror stories we’d heard about parking, we decided to give it a skip. While I’m sure we would have enjoyed the planned sights, the drive alone was a pleasant one seeing as Cantabria (the province that Santander is in) is one of the greenest and lushest in Spain, with a beautiful coastline along the Bay of Biscay on the one side and a patchwork of green meadows on the other. So, with a rich view – and €12 in tolls later – we arrived in a lovely sunny Santander.

We’d made loose arrangements with the landlady of Patricia’s Place (our rented apartment) to meet at 14h00, but committed to sms through confirmation when we left Guernica. Of course the networks chose to play up and the message didn’t reach her, but fortunately there was a pay phone shop across the road from the apartment and she only took a few minutes to get to us.

Patricia, our hostess, was very friendly and helpful, enthusiastically giving us the tour around our single room apartment like it was an estate!  The apartment was easily twice the size of the Carmen’s Place in San Sebastian, with most of the extra real estate allocated to a proper kitchenette and granite peninsula counter separating the kitchen from the rest, with chair on the kitchen side and barstool on the living room side to balance the split level design.  The bed was still small, but as a bonus we had a row of storage shelves beneath the mattress and another pull out bed right at the bottom – that we decided to use as a sort of daybed couch. No complaints, the apartment was brightly painted and decorated and all the peculiarities somehow add to its charm.

We had apparently been lucky in our choice of arrival time in Santander as parking is free from 14h00 to 16h00 (usually € 1,70 per 2 hour block and the car has to be moved every 2 hours!) but Patricia offered to show us options for longer term and free parking. We headed out the door so that Patricia could drive us around the neighborhood and I almost literally heard angels singing as there it was… a proper free parking bay, right on our doorstep!! Christian hustled to get the car while i did a really literal dance of joy, much to Patricia’s amusement.

With renewed vigour, we dumped the bags and headed off armed with a tourist map that Patricia had provided. The plan being, since it was already 15h00, to start with a walk along the waterfront, circle back and do the sights in the Centro and conclude with a seafood dinner in the Mercado del Este at any one of the number of highly recommended restaurants and bars in the Lonely Planet guide. Day 2 would then take us across town (on a bus since it “is very far”) to the Palace complex and to explore the 3 beaches.

Of course, as usual, we did very little according to plan… but had a great time doing it.

I’d been quite worried about my choice of home base location since our requirement for parking and preference for economy left few options from which to choose, with Patricia’s flat meeting the base requirements at the expense of being neither in Centro (town) nor El Sardinero (beach) as are the 2 main choices for optimal stay on Santander.

But, once again, scales were on our side and what appeared to be quite far from the action turned out to be at the bottom of our road and 2 blocks right (and that must be the start of the good stuff because that’s where the Burger King was!). We had saved literally thousands of Rands booking a block or 2 out of the premium blocks in each city – and once you were out it was all new stuff to see anyway, so I’d do it again if had to be done over.

We cut through the Centro to the Antonio Lopez main drag that ran along the waterfront and 20 minutes later had far outwalked our plan for the day and were more than halfway to the Palace (day 2’s plan) so figured we might as well get all the sightseeing behind us and have a full beach day ahead of us the next day.

The walk was simple and pretty, with wide pavements running along the sea’s edge all the way from the Barrio Pesquera (fishing quarter and seafood restaurants), past the ferry station, alongside the Zona Comercial (shopping area with impressive Santander Banco headquarters building) and all the way to the Playa de le Magdalena, which was a quieter beach facing the bay.

The water on this side is calmer mostly because it is protected from the Cantabrian Sea by the extension of land on which the Palace is built and the view across the water is of Somo, the seaside town on the opposite side of the bay that can be reached quickly and cheaply from the ferry port. It was quite a bit cheaper to stay on the Somo side, parking was more plentiful and it was easy to access from the road from Bilbao so this had been a strong contender for where we’d stay.

Having not dressed for the beach, we carried on with our walking tour and moved into the La Magdalena Royal Palace complex. There was a museum in the Palace itself (that we didn’t go into), but the grounds were free to wander around and there were some exquisite viewing points. We did a stop past the Museo del Hombre y La Mar (Museum of Man and the Sea) and the little zoo to see the Sea Lions and Walruses, which led us out to La Playa del Camelloso named for the big rock in the shallow waters that looks like a camel sitting down.

Completely outdoing even our revised walking tour itinerary, we decided to stop at the Terraza BNS cafe perfectly placed between the two premium beaches, offering views of both. We ordered Cana beers, which are served in red wine glasses, ice cold, but only about half full. We’ve debated whether this is an issue of economy (since half a glasses is already €2,50!), being fancy (like serving double espresso with a tumbler of ice to pour it into) or the Spaniards’ very responsible attitude toward alcohol. Alcohol, like food, seems to be plentiful and often, but in micro quantities – and most often the two together. While struggling to adjust to the portion sizes with firmly entrenched Western “more is more” thinking, we’re completely embracing the frequency of the feedings!

It was now just the timing of meals that was a big conflict. Both being fans of (very) early supper, we left the Terrace just before 6 with the romanticised notion of finding somewhere to have a lovely bacalao (cod) and/or lomo (pork loin) meal overlooking something interesting, sipping on something wonderful and watching the last of the sun go down.

No such luck.

Not even with deciding to walk along Menendez Palayo (beautiful long road with gorgeous houses and some spectacular parallel parkings!) instead of taking the bus… we were still 2 and a half hours early for dinner, which only opened at 21h00.

No mind, we ordered a Rioja (red wine) from Canadio (where we’d intended to eat) and watched the kids playing soccer in the Plaza de Canadio, in the shadow of the beautiful old Iglesia de Santa Lucia. Most of the other restaurants and pubs were only opening their shutters and putting out their tables and chairs, so we should have counted ourselves lucky we even got the wine!

It was at this time that Christian suggested we “join ’em” and embrace the nibblybits lifestyle, which I conceded to do on condition that we didn’t sink to canapés and stuck with heartier options.

Our compromising spirit paid off and we found a gem of a place called La Dolores. For €2,50 each we could get a rioja or a cana AND a pintxos! We figured there must be a catch, but decided to give it a whirl since the place looked nice and the deal was as good as any even if there was no deal.

Turns out there was a deal though and we got our (chilled quarter glass of) Rioja and a choice of any of the pintxos on display. We chose a half club sandwich (cheese, omelette, fish and garnish) and a ham and cheese patatas tortilla (wedge of potato bake) and both were delicious! As is customary, Christian finished when I was half way and when he ordered a top-up Rioja, it was served with a small bowl of potato salad (very creamy, very eggy, but fresh and lovely). The next round was served with a (mandatory) small bowl of chorizo paella (maybe 3/4 of a cup, with 2 cake forks).

And it was hard to tell whether it was timing or beverage choice, but when we switched to beer (to sample the local Mahou), we got cheese croquettes. The barlady (who spoke not a word of English) was starting to enjoy the game as much as we were… which earned us a bonus round of croquettes and another bowl of potato salad. We were honestly sated when we eventually left (again being the only stayers, seeing many rounds of customers turn).

FRIDAY | EL SARDINERO

Sightseeing behind us, we upped and outed (post a weird dance with the plastic shower curtain in a tiny 60×60 shower that turned every movement into a curtain magnet) for a day at the beach. I’d been worried that the very grey sky we’d awoken to made our prospects bleak, but by the time we’d made our stovetop cheese toasties, the sun was out. Presumably their early morning rains feed the greenness of the region, leaving the afternoons still for fun in the sun. Perfect really for the nocturnal Spaniards!

Since we were in no hurry, we added a visit to the Barrio Pesquero (the fishing quarter) to our route. Our planning was a bit off since, even though it was close to midday, restaurants were only just starting to wake up. Pity, because there are quite a few restaurants that looked good.

Not a problem though, having mastered the city layout the previous day, we were easily able to revise the plan, opting to cut through the Mercado del Este straight to El Sardinero, grabbing lunch en route. Santander is a compact but charming city, easy to navigate and pleasing on the eye, with a good mix of buildings new and old (despite the old city burning to the ground in a huge fire in 1941) and wide avenues and narrower cobbled streets. It’s easy to walk around and a pleasure to be in.

The Sardinero seafront is gorgeous and elegant, not dissimilar to Biarritz – although on a smaller scale. The beach sand is soft and thick; the waters (the Bay of Biscay) deep blue… but freezing! The view is captivating, with the Palace on the right of the panorama and the old lighthouse on the left. Perfect backdrop for a day on a lounger (€4), reading books and grabbing a lomo bocadilla (baguette with spiced juicy roast pork loin).

Amazing how quickly time can pass even when you’re doing nothing – and the conditions are perfect with clear skies, moderate temperatures, forgiving sun (that doesn’t sting like it does at home) and cool breeze coming off the water. Before we knew it the whole afternoon was frittered away and it was close to 18h00 and time for our evening forage.

We followed our route from the previous day to deposit us in the restaurant quarter, stopping for a sundowner at an atmospheric pub called Cervesaria Cruz Blanca, surveying the map to weigh up the various dinner/pintxos options we marked down that morning. All things considered, we decided that La Dolores was too hard to beat so we headed in that direction.

True to form, we had a few beers and were provided with delightful accompaniments each time: potato salad and paella with the first, tortilla wedges (cheese & ham and chicken mayo) with the second and croquettes with the third. We marvelled at how different this socialising was – very small drinks each time (a cana of beer can’t be more than 100ml, served in little glasses like we get at breakfast buffets at home), little bowl of food with each drinks, no more than one or two drinks then move on, dinner from 21h00. Our South African “boerewors and braaivleis” mindset doesn’t compute 2 guys in a bar with with a thimbleful of beer each, picking at a shared miniature potato salad with a little cakefork!

SATURDAY

Adding merit to the theory, we again awoke to light rain, which had turned to grey skies by the time we left our apartment at 11h00 and which were brightening further as we moved out of  Santander and on to Leon. It’s a great formula – after sunny days and extended nights (including recycling trucks working the streets at 03h00!), we’d been sleeping longer and deeper in the early hours of the morning, cooled by rain and its gentle soundtrack.

Europe, France, Travelogue

Travelogue Iberia 2: San Sebastian

SAN SEBASTIAN

9-12 September 2013

We picked up “Negrita”, our black Seat Ibiza, at the Europcar without complication – and I was worried with how casually the date change had been handled sans paperwork – and took the first motions into our road trip experience.

It wasn’t the easiest of asks, having Christian execute his first left hand drive experience in amidst the bustle of Estacio de Barcelona-Sants, with me having to navigate using a city map (why oh why didn’t we bring Lixi and her mad maps skills?!)… that didn’t show the one ways!! Fortunately though, more by dumb luck than design, the station was toward the edge of town so there wasn’t too much to endure to get onto the highway out of Barcelona. And soon we were on our way – the 573km from Barcelona to San Sebastian.

It was slow going at first, while Christian found his feet (on the wrong side of the car), but at least the open road offered fewer challenges while we got used to our new appointments.

There wasn’t much of interest in interior Catalunya – although I’m sure that there must be more to offer slightly off the beaten track since Lleida (about 2 hours inland from Barcelona) is a relatively successful wine district, that we’d intended an overnight in on some of our earlier draft itineraries.

Amazingly, the landscape changed dramatically as we left Catalunya and travelled through Aragon, which was sparsely populated and known for its mountains, castles and ancient stone villages. We’d contemplated a stop in its capital, Zaragoza, which Kate (our hostess in Barcelona) had told us feels like a town out of an old Western, but were keen to get to our destination so decided to keep moving.

Our last intended stop was Pamplona but, on reading up and realising it was only really famous for Running of The Bulls on 6 July, we again decided to skip it and keep on trucking.

What might’ve been a good overnighter, had we had more time on this trip, is La Rioja, where the best red wines in Spain are produced. It would be good to enjoy an afternoon of wine-tasting on the Basque side as an introduction to Basque Country… but clearly not with driving to do afterwards!

We had some difficulty entering San Sebastian as the Google Maps I’d downloaded was quite vague and the road and offramp numbering didn’t seem to correspond with the signage. (Oh, and I’d managed to accidentally throw the print outs away at the first truck stop… but got free wifi and redownloaded them at the second). Everything made infinitely more confusing by the reference to San Sebastian suffixed with “Donostia”, its Basque name. We took a wrong turn initially and ended in the thick of a suburb completely the wrong end of town, but managed to navigate back onto the highway and instinct our way into town correctly.

I’d booked us another apartment called Carmen’s Place through www.airbnb.co.uk since we had 3 nights in San Sebastian, so the logic was to have a bit more freedom to eg make a light breakfast or just a cup of coffee (not for me, clearly). This meant we were placed in the slightly more suburban part of town, across the dividing waterway from the central sights and main beaches. Of course, this turned out to be a matter of only a few blocks – with several bridge crossings – as commonly happens when maps make cities seem bigger or more complicated than they are in real life scale.

I’d selected our location (in Egia) largely based on the promise of it being the only neighbourhood in San Sebastian with free parking (costing up to €20 per night elsewhere!), both on our one-way downhill  road (Calle Virgen del Carmen) and the parallel one-way uphill road (Avenida de Ametzagana). It was clear, however, that this was not a well kept secret! I have never seen such expert parallel parking! The kind of level of expert that is only achieved through constant necessity! Cars that had wheedled their way into a bay with mere single digit centimetres of space front and back! Worse still was the number of cars with bumpers touching both sides! What if we got parked in?? Or someone bumped us and we were liable for the hefty €780 excess on our rental?? And why oh why had we let Europcar upgrade us for free, when we could have had the halfloaf Fiat 500 to park?!

Anyway, we couldn’t worry about all those things at once, so we decided on focusing on finding our building first, a parking (big enough for an amateur left-hand driver and reasonable parallel parker) second and the courage to leave the car there last.

Fortunately, the very blurry seemingly-not-to-scale map got us to the right apartment block, where Christian parked in the loading bay across the road to offload our bags and then set off to hunt down a parking while i sorted our check-in and induction.

There really wasn’t much to induct since our “apartment” was little more than a room. Obviously our landlord had converted a room of their apartment into a flatlet by adding a built-in kitchenette unit and a minute bathroom. But, it was lovely and modern and new, with clean and soft bedding on the 3/4 bed, so no complaints.

Christian took some time to find a parking, but in the meantime I managed to get some great advice on local sights and eating spots from residents on their way into the building. By this time it was well after 21h00 and, on the good advice of our new neighbours, we nipped straight out to a bodega called Beti Boga in the next road to grab a quick bite.

Tapas has now been replaced with pintxos (nibblybits), racions (bigger portions of nibblybits) and bocadillas (baguettes). The bocadillas were very good with generous amounts of meats and grilled cheese, with fresh garnish for crunch. All washed down with a cervesa, of course.

It had been a long day on top of a short night so we were finished and hunkered down (relatively) early, comparatively.

TUESDAY

It was disappointing to wake up to grey skies, especially since Tuesday was supposed to be our San Sebastian beach day. Christian had popped down to the shops to get supplies so he made us scrambled eggs on fried bread (genius, since we had no toaster) in our kitchen (which is also our bedroom), while I started plotting a walking tour at our desk (which was also our dining room, coffee table and bedside table).

We crossed the bridge and made our way into Centro, did a turn through the Parte Vieja (where the old and famous buildings are) and were heading for a stroll along the waterfront at Playa de la Concha when the heavens opened.

We sought solace in Garagar… the local Irish pub… and listened to not very  Basque international chart tunes while we sipped not very Irish Cokes and played cards.

Luckily the rain ebbed long enough for us to find the tourist office so we could source a local map to organise our walking tour further and another to prepare our day trip to Santander in France the following day… and get to McDonalds to do all that over a McBacon!

With renewed energy and ambition, we took on Mont Urgell, climbing the steep hill to get to the bastions, castle walls and enormous statue of Christ that overlook the city and, best of all, Isla de Santa Clara (700m into La Concha bay, that I fondly refer to as “My Island”). It was a hefty climb, but so so worth it.

San Sebastian was really easily navigable once you had a tourist map, so it was easy peasy to then wander over to Playa de Zarriola and back again for a promenade stroll and some very civilised sundowners at La Perla overlooking Playa de La Concha.

It was a great section for people-watching. It was a far more glamourous and sophisticated city than Barcelona, probably largely due to an older population. The hotpants jeans shorts from Barcelona are replaced with lots of beige and twin sets in San Sebastian. And all the old ladies have dogs – Yorkies, Maltese, Boston Terriers… – which has made me very houndsick for the Sausages!

And sausages make me think of food…

Which makes me hungry…

So we went in search of food…

Which is an odd affair here.

Restaurants and pubs had their pintxos displayed on the bar counter and you picked and chose what you want. Hot pintxos were either displayed in “raw” form on the counter or listed on boards. It was sub-optimal thinking for me. I disliked the idea that the baguette open sandwiches are left lying around to get stale and I couldn’t reconcile eating a mouthful at a time at €2 – €4 a pop! So… we only had Txakoli (local wine) and moved on.

… finding a rock bar called Minuto Y Medio.

A tiny little place at the edge of town that caught our attention with their heavy metal themed menu and endless complimentary crisps. If it hadn’t been for the Kantxa (a shooter cross between Jagermeister and Sambuca) we might still be there!

WEDNESDAY

We were relieved when Wednesday morning was cloudy but bright, concerned that another day of rain would ruin our planned daytrip to France.  We celebrated with homemade boiled egg and soldiers, innovatively served in carved-off sections of the egg carton and prepared for evac.

HONDARRIBIA
We entered the city quite blind since we didn’t have a detailed street map, but instinct told us to stick to the marina, which we did and it paid off with a brilliant parking bay perpendicular to the road, that we could drive forward into! Simple pleasures indeed!

We’d seen a Turistico sign when we entered town so headed off on foot in that general direction. The town was very patriotic, with lots of houses, shops and apartments displaying the green, red and white Basque flag and the Hondarribia red cross and crest on white flag. This might not be a year-round phenomenon though as we found out later that 8 September sees the commemoration of victory over the city’s worst siege in history (in 1638), still celebrated annually with the Alarde parade.

There remained an air of festivity,  especially as we approached the old city, where there were families being entertained with music and people dressed up in strange caricature costumes with quite dramatic overgrown head masks.

Although this area has been inhabited since the Paleolithic Age,it only started fortifying in the Middle Ages after being granted its town charter in 1203. It was during the Renaissance that the city took on the form still showing (in part) today – the robust walls, strongholds, drawbridges and moats – and was so sturdily built that it resisted nine major military blockades, with a well preserved grid of cobblestone streets, stately buildings, wrought iron balconies and finely carved eaves to show for it.

It was well worth the half hour or so trot around the old city and, having secured a free walking tour map from the tourist office on Arma Plaza, we easily navigated around the narrow cobbled streets – and the bitesize snippets of info on the map tell you what you’re looking at.

As luck would have it, the exit gate at the end of our tour was right near our car so, all in all, it was quite an effortless stop!

BIARRITZ
Christian masterfully negotiated a seemingly endless series of roundabouts to get us on the road to France. A €1,70 toll (bringing tolls from San Sebastian to France to a total of €4,30) saw us cross the border with 25km to go to Biarritz.

It was a beautiful town with big elegant buildings lining a spectacular seaside, with a warm blanket of shops cushioning the shore – enough that there was everything you’d need; not so much to intimidate the day-visitor.

Again we easily secured a tourist map (available at any of the many hotels) and saw that there aren’t many formal sights per (discounting the naval museum and aquarium), so we busied ourselves with a review of the esplanade and an enormous filled baguette lunch in the Port Vieux enclave. This tiny beach was a genuine natural swimming pool with high rock walls on 3 sides facing the open sea. Napoleon III opened baths here in 1858, but subsequent the bathing huts have been replaced by the stairs and a horseshoe of freestone for bathers and sunworshippers to enjoy.

We opted to take on the more ambitious sights to work off lunch, including the best vantage points at Belle Vue and then top of the lighthouse – all 248 steps to the top of it! Built in 1834 and standing 73 metres above sea level it offers exceptional views over the Basque coast the sea and the mountains, but is very windy. Worth the €2,50 entrance fees, but not for the faint of heart with the number of stairs and the stairwell quite dark at the bottom and snug at the top where the lighthouse narrows.

The other option for similar views is then to walk across the footbridge to Rocher de la Vierge, which is a big rock in the sea that Napoloeon III planned to use to anchor a port he planned to create. He apparently didn’t get that far, but at least built the bridge so there was access to this peninsula from which you can admire the vast ocean in front and the landscape behind.

We’d planned our time well and as our 3 hour parking (metred at €4) was up, we were done. A very pleasant roadtrip all in all.

Back in San Sebastian, we deposited the car in the same neighbourhood it had been parked the night before – at the top of the hill near a grand old cemetery. It was a beautiful sunny evening so we decided to redo the walking tour from the previous day, with more patience and for better photos.

We didn’t even need to follow the map and as we now seemed to know our way around San Sebastian, even being able to find our favourite pintxos spot in the heart of the muddle of crossroads in Parte Vieja!

Back at Astlana 1960, we had txakoli and Keler and made an attempt at pintxos, ordering bacalao croquettes and bacalao with onions (bacalao is cod, which I’d never had before). The place was as full as the previous night, but luckily we got a table (well, a keg barrel and barstools). We seemed to be the only people that lingered and in the time it took us to have 3 drinks and pinxtos – which we ordered one at a time with our drinks – the clientele had turned over several times.

With the food all laid out on the counter, the experience seemed unlike any restaurants we have at home – people walk in and join the queue that runs the width of the bar; when they get to the front they load up a side plate with cold tapas off the platters on the bar counter and order hot tapas and drinks from the barman; then they move away and stand (mostly) around little cocktail table peninsulas affixed to the walls (some inside, mostly on the outside walls in the street; barman delivers hot tapas; eat, drink, move on… and presumably repeat. It didn’t seem like a whole lot of food was eaten in a meal – and it was a very expensive way to eat (although there is no obvious price displayed so this didn’t seem to be an issue). It also seemed to follow the Spanish disregard for mealtimes and as many people were filtering in at 22h00 when we left as were there when we arrived two hours prior!

Europe, Spain, Travelogue

Travelogue Iberia 1: Barcelona

BARCELONA

5-9 September 2013

The trip started with a giggle  as an old dear struck up a conversation with us on the ramp to the plane as we had just cleared passport check at the boarding gate at ORT. She passed comment on how difficult it must be to travel with children, prompted by a man distracting his sobbing son by pointing at planes on the runway through the bay windows on the ramp. We nodded and mumbled vague but agreeable response.

When there was a second child further down the ramp *wailing*, the little old lady leaned in and told us proudly that her kids have never acted like that, not “to this day and they’re 59 and 54, mind.” She was quite conspiratorial when she shared the wisdom that in her day children were taught manners and “to be seen and not heard” and her kids were good as gold and always been complimented by people they’d visited. Just when we thought butter wouldn’t melt in the mouth of this sweet-as-sugar super-mom granny, she concluded the exchange with a “they need a bloody good klap, these little shits! And the shitty parents too!” You could have bowled me over with a feather!

The flights (from Joburg to Dubai for 8 hours and Dubai to Barcelona for 7) were easy, as they always are with Emirates – undoubtedly the best airline in the world at the moment. Their planes are all new, there’s more legroom, the entertainment is abundant and the food compares to real life meals. We had an excellent chicken fillet in creamy paprika sauce with baby potatoes on the first flight and shared a herby cajun chicken and a delicious creamy lamb curry on the second, with desserts like blueberry cheesecake and banana tart with apricot mousse. They do unnecessarily fussy concoctions of this and that, but still manage to please a limited-list eater like me.

Sadly, they do continental breakfasts, which really let down an otherwise flawless execution… especially when accidentally served the Arabic mese (olives, artichokes, hummus and tapanade) instead of the deli platter (ham and cheese with croissant and preserves), which still wasn’t very exciting… but much better!

Lixi and RoRo were at the gates and waiting when we landed at El Prat. They’d flown in from London Stansted and the hour delay on their side had worked in their favour as they’d ended up landing just before us.

We decided to grab a cab to take us to our digs rather than brave the public transport system with all our luggage. 30 Euros later we were deposited at our home for the weekend – “Kate’s Place” that we’d booked on www.airbnb.co.uk for a bargain price bearing in mind its view of the very famous Sagrada Familia. The special rate was offered so that Kate could vet her prospective tenants in their willingness and ability to look after her cat, Muffin. After some back and forthing – telling the story of who we are, why we’re coming to Barcelona and our views on flat life and pets – it was quite a sense of achievement to have passed the audition and been granted the reservation.

Kate is an extremely gracious host and had even been so kind as to provide a bottle of Cava (sparkling wine), ice cold beers, plate of jamon (Iberian cured ham), bowl of olives and bag of kettle-fried crisps for us to snack on while she inducted us to the flat, the cat and the sights of Barcelona, which she circled and highlighted on a city map she had for us. She really went above and beyond, spending well over an hour giving us advice, answering our questions and sharing her travel stories.

Armed with a plan and a map, we hit the streets of Barcelona. Kate chaperoned us to the corner, where we got to see Sagrada Familia up close, right there on our corner… with a Burger King and a KFC manning the opposites. Two major To Do items so close to home… oh yes, and that famous Gaudi churchy thing. 😉

Not often referred to by its full name, The Temple Expiatori de a Sagrada Familia is a massive privately-funded Roman Catholic church. Considered to be the master work of 19th century Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi, it is one of Barcelona’s top attractions with its interesting detail, Christian symbolism and 18 striking spindle towers.

There are 2 major roads that run inland vertical from the seafront – the beautiful Passeig de Sant Joan and the vibey Las Ramblas. Being about 16h00 – middle of the day Barcelona time – we opted for a leisurely stroll down Passeig Sant de Joan. It’s so easy to find and, being a gentle downhill, so easy to do that the daunting length of it on the map doesn’t translate in real life. It’s a really lovely avenue, enjoyed by many on foot, bicycles and rollerblades, and dotted with interesting monuments along the way.

The furthest inland is the Monument of Doctor Robert, which is open for children to climb and play on, which is far more laissez faire than most places where precious landmarks are kept arms’ length from appreciative eyes lest they be damaged or defaced. This open policy seems to have paid off as there appears to be a mutual respect from graffiti artists, who only tag on gates and grills and not on the beautiful brickwork. Very civilised indeed.

Next milestone down Passeig de Sant Joan was the Arc de Triomf, which was the same sort of archy thing as the one in Paris, but much smaller and it was pedestrians rather than cars that passed beneath it on the wide road, which wound all the way downhill to the Zoo at the t-junction at the bottom. In the Zoo Parc de Ciutadella was a huge statue of a mammoth (called, rather uncreatively, ‘Mammuth’), whose curled hanging trunk makes a perfect nest for a photograph. Around the corner from that was the Cascada Fountains, with their enormous wishing pool and winding escalier on either side leading up to the enormous arches with gaudy chariot and charging horses orange-gold statues on top. It was a bit much, to be frank, and would be easily and forgettably housed in the Lost City!

In desperate need of a rest from the long walk, Villa Olimpica glistened like an oasis! We grabbed a table sea-side at Vitaminus and settled in for a local cervesa and some of the tapas we’d been told needed most urgent attention – patatas bravas (fried potato wedges with spicy garlic cream) and  pa amb tomaquet (toasted bread rubbed with garlic and fresh tomato). Incredibly, the sun was still in full force even though it was well after 6pm and the beach was still full of people sunbathing and swimming. We left at about 20h00 and the sun was only really then starting to set properly.

Our plan from there was to wind our way back to the apartment through Born, which is known for being Bohemian and teeming with restaurants and bars. This was no understatement and we were spoilt for choice as we wound our way through charming roads, alleyways and placas, stopping for a cava here and bits and pieces of tapas there (most notably jamon and nachos in La Ribera). Of course, when we got home our road was still quite lively so we had to stop in and support the local shopkeepers.

We washed down the jamon, pimento padron and calamari rings with ice cold cervesas and soaked in the lively atmosphere, with people eating dinner around us, as normal, at 23h00. All the while our holiday cat Muffin surveyed us from his spot on the balcony overlooking the central placa. Sadly, I had a headache from the cava (and likely the long day on top of a long journey) so headed to bed, but Lix and RoRo did us proud for a little while longer.

FRIDAY | BARCELONETA

Day 2 began, as every day should, with a natural awakening and a gentle ease into the day with couch time and some laughs with good friends. High on the list of priorities was a breakfast forage (seeing as we technically hadn’t had dinner the night before… although we had had sooo much tapas). The day had been declared Beach Day, so the only requirement for breakfast spot was that it had to be en route to the sea. Super simple seeing as half of Barcelona seems to be restaurants and cafés!

We took a turn past Sagrada Familia (already having to decided we were not going to bother with the hours-long queues and hefty entry fee) and stopped at a pavement café to share a selection of bikini (toasties) and bocadilla (baguettes) at La Pedreta. The ice cold bottled choc milk stole the show though!

Kate had advised us that the smartest idea was to get a Metro T10 pass (10 trips for 10 Euros) seeing as there was a Metro station on our corner and the whole of the inner city is comprehensively covered by the network of lines. The ticket entitles access on busses and trains too. There were loads of other intricacies that add benefit – like each journey being open for 1 hour 15, so if you’re doing a quick to and fro, you can get it count as a single click – but really the economy and convenience were a strong enough proposition on their own.

We took the yellow line down to Barceloneta and started our walking tour (downloaded from the internet, what did we do before it?!) with a visit to the Barceloneta Mercat (market). Quite uninspiring inside with all the fresh fruit, veg and seafood you’d expect, but quite impressive outside with its rooftop bank of solar panels that provide 40% of its power requirements.

Barceloneta wasn’t given good recommendation anywhere – neither Internet nor personal references – so we were expecting cramped and dirty streets, smelly and noisy. This was actually what put us off staying in Barceloneta, when our original envision was a beachy weekend in Barcelona. It was not like that at all. It was charming, had broad pedestrian-only roads with trees and benches and was definitely a strong contender to house me on future visits.

The beach was also much better than it was painted to be, with a perfect stretch of powdery (if not a bit chalky) sand and lovely shoreline… which we admired from one of the cafés dotted along the beach. Prime table right on the sand, the view was perfect… well, except for the people.  This part of the beach – Playa de Sant Miguel seemed to be more touristy so the bodies were mostly white and dimpled, in stark contrast to the slim and trim orangey-brown Spanish ones. Heaven only knows how they all stayed in such good shape with all the tapas being perpetually consumed, but their brazen victory over modesty (and more jean shorts hot pants than can be believed) leaves no doubt whatsoever.

In need of tapas top-up, we took a break from our beach-watching to pop into a gorgeous old taverna called Can Ramoneta (a traditional restaurant serving freshly-caught fish and seasonal local produce from its 250 year old house location). We indulged in some jamon, pimentoes fritos and deep fried brie en route to the next beach, Playa de la Barceloneta, where we spent the rest of the afternoon frolicking and basking (under our 6 Euro beach brolly).

Then it was time to eat. Again. We had planned to eat an early dinner at La Fonda on Moll de Gregal, which was recommended by Kate as having decent food and a reasonably priced set menu, so much so that it’s frequented by as many locals as tourists. We got ourselves a table, ordered a jug of sangria, but were put off by our table neighbours, a couple of Cockney girls who were so unimpressed by their food that they were paying up and leaving despite only picking on their meals.

Sounded like they were ill-fated overall though since it was the one’s hen do and their third amigo had broken her collarbone, had stitches in her head and was covered in bruises from their misadventures the previous night. We counted ourselves lucky for the narrow escape (from poor food and these accident-magnets), bid them adieu and headed back to the Can Ramoneta to see if they had fideua (paella made with noodles instead of rice, which Catalunya is known for).

Sadly, the luck had rubbed off and Can Ramoneta was between meal settings so, while they could feed us, it would be amid waiters unlaying day settings and replacing them with night ones. Hardly optimal.

We decided instead to move in the direction of the famous Las Ramblas and seek supper along the way. We found instead an Irish pub called Paddy Lane. It was primely sited overlooking Passeig de Colom and Guinness and Cava were the order of the sundowners! We had such a good time, we even forgot to log on our Guinness Index! 🙁

Wanting to maintain some sense of decorum, I negotiated a pizza from the Italian restaurant next door to be delivered to our pavement table at Paddy’s and we were soon chomping down on mozzarella and pepperoni in not-so-traditional Catalan (or Irish) style.

It did the trick though and spirits were high as we entered the Barri Gotic, stumbling upon a wonderful rock bar called Rock and Rolla. Christian was thrilled when the (at first) taciturn barlady allowed him several requests for his favourite band to be played on the bar’s sound system. The barlady took a shine to us when we upped our 3 shot order of Leche de Pantera (Pantera milk, similar to the milk tarts we have at home, creamy and topped with cinnamon) to a full litre jug and settled in, clearly enjoying ourselves.

We didn’t have much left in us thereafter to fully explore Las Ramblas, but we did crawl the length of it and caught the tube home at Diagonal.

SATURDAY | PASSEIG DE GRACIA AND LAS RAMBLAS

Christian and I awoke, as always, starving. Since the others weren’t awake yet, we had a protein shake (in wildly romanticised “chocolate mousse dessert” flavour) to maintain good humour. Being Saturday there was, of course, rugby that needed watching and the prearrangement was to watch SA vs Australia ( being played in Brisbane, so televised at midday) at the Michael Collins Irish pub around the corner from the apartment.

Unable to do this on an empty stomach, we had to go past Burger King en route for a cheese burger and chips. Worth every penny of the R200 fortune we paid for 2 medium combo meals!

While the boys watched the rugby, Lixi and I missioned to
Europcar at Estacio de Barcelona -Sants to change my car booking. We were supposed to collect the car on Sunday, but at 20 Euros a day for parking, it didn’t make sense to collect the car a day before we really needed it! Having mastered the Metro system it was child’s play there and back – and more fun for me than rugby anyway!

Then we hit the Passeig de Gracia – a veritable shopping mecca and just all round pretty place to be. Wide roads with broad pedestrian island in the middle, tree-lined, lots of pavement cafés, just more of the same awesome we were getting used to seeing everywhere really! We did more atmosphere -soaking than shopping, but did pop into firm favourites like Mango and Zara.

Interspersed between the shops were some Gaudi gems. He was the architect fella who was responsible for really putting Barcelona on the map. It would seem that he initiated a one-man decorating wave and transformed the city with the buildings, trimmings, park and viaduct he imagined and realised. I say “realised” since those things he actually completed, unlike the Sagrada Familia which he designed and which is still being built today, with completion date unknown. He was a busy little bee in Barcelona, to be sure!

We oooed and aaaahed at La Pedrera, which added another tick to our UNESCO World Heritage Site list. Gaudi was very averse to straight lines and this building particularly has a wobbly quality from the wavy balconies that frame the outside of the building. He designed it this way because he wanted everyone in the building to get to know each other, so the exterior construction is such that residents can easily interact and communicate with each other. Obviously things were a little different in 1912 when the building was completed.

We got down the Passeig and stopped for a wettie in the “heart of Barcelona”, Placa de Catalunya, when we got more wettie than we bargained for with the heavens opening. And when it rained, it poured! What a pity we’d chosen a poor spot, with overpriced uninspiring looking food… so we chanced it and finished our drinks when the rain seemed to ebb and dashed out into the road in the direction of Las Ramblas.

It was really only spitting so not terrible to get down the street to our next pit stop… yet another Irish pub! Called Cheers, the pub had the usual Irish charm decor and obligatory Guinness paraphernalia, but the music was so dire that we decided to rather brave the rain than suffer the earbashing. So we made a mad dash past the Colom (which, even as a famous landmark, wasn’t worth stopping in the rain for a photo) and across the bridge to the shopping centre “island” in Port Vell called Rambla de Mar,to seek asylum in a lovely tapas bar (no surprises there) overlooking the old port sipping on cava and nibbling on croquettes.

Dinner had been predecided to be at El Chipirito downstairs in the same centre since it had been recommended to RoRo, so we proceeded forthwith and delighted on a seafood banquet, watching an enormous cruise ship parallel park in the port, which is indeed a sight to be beholden!

Luckily the rain had cleared (we’d been told it would, Barcelona not being one to dwell on inclement weather) so we headed back up to Las Ramblas to find the Fairy Bar, which Kate had told us about. Bosc de les Fades was a bar in the city’s wax museum, that had been decorated within an inch of its life in the theme of a fairy grotto. It was dark inside, with walls that are made to feel like those of a cave, trees with hanging branches and leaves, a pond with a little bridge and little twinkling lights everywhere giving a magical glow to the place. Really nice spot – and cheaper than the other pubs we’d been to, which defies logic.

We wound down the day with a walk up Las Ramblas, stopping only to forage for croquettes (definitely overtaking jamon as our tapas du jour) at Burger King of all places. Divine! They tasted like mini toasted bacon and cheese sandwiches!

SUNDAY | ARC GUELL

Sunday began promisingly, with a delicious homemade breakfast courtesy of LoRo (name revised post revelation that he is in fact landed gentry with official title, Lord Robert Birkmyre Ross III) and we managed to avoid any vodka making its way into the OJ, as had been our downfall at breakfast in Venice 2010.

The day’s main attraction was to be a visit to Parc Guell, which is a garden complex designed by (none other than, you guessed it) Gaudi. Located in our home district, Gracia, the only mission to get there was the trek up El Carmen hill, although the built-in public escalators helped enormously. It was worth it though and highly recommendable as a “must do” in Barcelona.

The focal point of the park was the main terrace, surrounded by a long bench in the form of a sea serpent. The curves of the serpent bench formed a number of enclaves, creating a social atmosphere (which appears to be one of Gaudi’s big drivers). There were lots of good photo opps, including Gaudi’s house (now a museum), the lizard fountain, the mosaiced column hall that supports the terrace, the viaduct and of course the panoramic views of Barcelona and its bay from the large cross monument at the park’s highpoint.

Having only ever heard of Gaudi in passing (and even being artistically challenged, as I am), it was hard not to admire the chap and all that he did. There was not a conventional bone in his body and his ideas were of epic scale, translated ingeniously.

All this trekking and gawking wore off breakfast pretty quickly and a lunch on Passeig de Sant Joan was the next order of business.

Christian and I each ordered a grill platter of sausages and steak, which seemed like a bargain at less than the steak sandwich and including a beer and bread! But, as with most things that seem too good to be true, it was too good to be true and the steak was a translation error and wasn’t supposed to be included. The waiter/chef/barman/cleaner that was serving us was quite flustered, but did bring us a steak anyway, which made for a lovely – if not slightly unconventional – rare beef dessert.

Fed and watered, we were ready for the next round of adventure. Lix and LoRo were off to the Picasso Museum and we were going to take another turn past the Zoo, Cascades and Mammoth. The plan was to meet back at what we called The Antonio Banderas Monument, which is actually a monument to the martyrs of the 1714 revolution that happens to have the word Benderes inscribed on the main message. No matter, we knew what we meant.

Born is a gorgeous part of the city and Christian and I were quite happy to sit on the church steps at Placa de Santa Maria and people-watch to pass the time until our meetback. Being an apartment lifestyle, there are always loads of people out, eating, drinking, socialising and walking dogs. Lots to see and do. Their clocks are obviously very different too since there are kids out playing in the placas until all hours – close to midnight from what we saw while we were out.

We met at a very cool bar/restaurant by the “Antonio Banderas Monument” called Bastaix. We had wanted to go there a few times, but it had always been full, having only 3 keg tables with low milking stools outside and 6 or so tables inside. Downstairs was a gorgeous bodega (cellar restaurant) with 8 or 10 small tables and a skylight onto the placa, which looked like it would make for a memorable meal.

The last thing on the To Do list was to find a bar called the Quiet Man which Christian had spotted in the Lonely Planet guide. Located at the far side of the bottom of Las Ramblas, it was an easy walk through the Barri Gotic to get to the general area, but then a bit more of a challenge to get to the exact location because the smaller side roads weren’t marked on our (tourist) map. We did find it and it turned out to be (yet another) Irish pub. Anyway, when in Rome and all that, so we ordered a Guinness and scoured the local mag for a suitable venue for our last night together.

We decided on a rock bar called The Bollocks in Barri Gotic and decided on a rest and refresh at the flat as the interim plan – easily done by nipping back and forth on the Metro.

Before Bollocks we tried a last attempt at getting in the elusive Fideua (paella with spaghetti instead of rice), stopping in at a little diner on the corner before the bar. The others ordered Cava, which seemed quite ambitious in such a down-to-earth eatery, but not only did they have it, but it came with free tapita too. This included a side plate of Russian salad (peas, egg, carrot, mayo), tuna salad (tuna,onions, potatoes, peppers) and a delicious warm Spanish tortilla (potato bake sort of thing).  In our second ordering mix-up of the day, the fideau never came, so we still haven’t had it!

We did enjoy Bollocks though. Possibly a little too much, which necessitated a taxi home and meant our evac morning started a little later than planned.

MONDAY

We opted to have our farewell breakfast at the placa opposite the Sagrada Familia to take last advantage and feasted on enormous Club Sandwiches and fry-ups.

Then it was home to pack up the last few things and say (long) goodbyes to Muffin before lumbering to the Estacio de Barcelona-Sants (on our trusty Metro) to collect our rental car to begin the roadtrip part of our Iberian adventure.

We really had a good time in Barcelona and while a lot of it was having the ideal flat (and cat) and perfect company, I reckon there was so much to love about Barcelona that anyone could enjoy it. It had made my Top 3 places in the world, alongside Berlin and Bratislava.