If you read my entry about Portugal, then you would know that the decsion to include Spain into my itinerary deviated from my original plans when deciding to travel in Europe this year. I had sort of umm’d and ahh’d about my decision to go to Madrid and how long to go. I had originally told myself that I wanted to spend this trip with more days in each city to allow for proper exploring and perhaps day trips to neighbouring villages and towns. I had already booked a flight from Barcelona to Dortmund; but I actually had more interest in Madrid than Barcelona. Finally, I just booked three nights in Madrid, two in Barcelona and decided to hell with the original plan – looked like I might be doing my trip the ‘wrong way’ to experience cities and cultures properly – ping ponging from city to city.
Madrid, Spain
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| The symbol of Madrid. |
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I felt very welcome upon first arriving in Spain – literally
just walking into the country. Maybe flights coming to Spain from Portugal
arrive in a domestic area, I’m not sure. But there was no security or customs.
It kind of concerned me, to be honest. Maybe I just don’t set off any security
flags, but after the UK barely glanced at me when they let me in, in Portugal
the only question was ‘which flight did you come in on?’ – I didn’t think it
could get more lax. Spain proved me wrong. Maybe it’s not that things are lax
in Europe; maybe it’s just that the USA is extremely strict (I’m sure largely
response to 911) and Australia... well... we’re strict too, but I guess it’s
only at the customs area that I’ve had to deal with this. Someone who has come to Australia as a non-Australian or NZ citizen may be able to comment better on this contrast.
Anyway. The instructions to get to my hostel involved three
metro changes. I’ve become pretty good at navigating metro systems –
really, once you’ve figured out one you’ve figured out all of them, it’s all
about what line and what direction. The problem which I consistently have is
once you arrive at the designated stop, that the directions to the hostel will say, to leave at X station and walk down
X street. Not all hostels will specify which exit to take and when you emerge, and most metro stations have at least two exits. They will not specify that once you emerge from X station, to look to the right and you will see a pizza shop, the Lidl is on the left, you want to walk toward the pizza shop... So you get out at a metro stop which is often at a four way cross
street or a plaza or square (such as my Madrid hostel) with multiple streets
coming off of it. I was standing staring at my directions, hoping something
magic would materialise so I wouldn’t have to wander around the whole area
attempting to figure out which of the seven streets is the street that I
needed. A Spanish lady came up to me, spoke in a string of Spanish and gestured
to my sheet of paper. I pointed the street name out on the paper to her. She
said, “ah, ci” and pointed in the direction I needed. She was like a beacon of
wonderful light. I said “muchos gracias!” – cross cultural communication at its
finest.
Madrid is not a city to try and cram into two days, however
this was effectively what I had to do. Ultimately I had to make the decision to
just get a taste of key things that I was interested in rather than attempting
to do everything, because that is just silly. If I had tried to do everything,
I would’ve been literally dashing around taking photos and not actually
experiencing anything. Among this, I also had to get laundry done – yes
backpackers have to deal with these sorts of boring life things too!
I chose to
take advantage of the Sandemans walking tour on Friday morning – our hostel ran
one too, but I wanted to do Sandemans to find out more about one of their other
tours. The tour was about three hours long and allowed for a compact,
interesting and informative overview of the main city centre area.
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| A typical day in Madrid, with all the locals milling around, including Minnie Mouse and Sponge Bob |
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| Very cool imagery with Catholic, Muslim and Jewish religions all represented. |
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| The Palace |
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The tour I’d wanted to find out more about was an evening
tapas tour, run by a tour guide and being taken around the La Latina area,
sampling sangria and tapas at a few different style of tapas bars. I decided to go along and when I arrived at the meeting point, a sister and
brother travelling duo who I’d met at the walking tour were at the tapas tour
and we were chatting to a few of the other people on the tour throughout as
well, including a German girl doing an internship in Spain, a Brazillian
backpacker and a group of Americans touring Europe together. It was a really fun night, nothing too wild but lots of laughter, travel discussion, and a healthy amount of Spanish/tapas history and info intermingled by the tour guide.
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| My first tapa! And a sangria, of course |
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| Paella at the tapas tour |
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As we were on our way from the end of the tapas tour to find
our way to somewhere we could navigate from, we literally stumbled across one
of what was a series of protests/rallies being held across various Spanish
cities over a number of nights, in the middle of Sol Plaza. Miraculously, we
made it through the crowd without losing each other and unharmed, though it was
a pretty hectic experience. I’m not sure how many of the people there were
actually there for the rally, and how many were just there to be social and how
many were tourists accidentally caught up in the midst of it all.
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| Rally/people socialsing/milling around |
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On Sunday, I spent the morning hanging out at the park.
Sundays are apparently big family days in Spain and this was really evident at
the park. Just like in Lisbon, in Madrid there are lots of people trying to get
money from you – by selling things, street performing, begging and the like.
There was a healthy amount of this at the park but more so a focus on the
street performers. There was one trio who were singing Somewhere Over The
Rainbow and did it in Spanish and then in English – the English reminded me of
the Bulgarian Idol Without You – Ken Lee (if you haven’t seen, go YouTube this
NOW). I found a shady bench and laid back staring at the leaves in the trees
while someone played an instrument in the distance – it was very relaxing!
During the walking tour we’d had a little place pointed out to us that I’d
noted down, and headed back to have churros and this deliciously thick hot
chocolate for lunch. Amazing! I did some more wandering around the city centre,
which was really packed, wandered around the shopping strip and succumbed to a
Starbucks mostly to use the bathroom.
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| Parks in Australia don't look like this! |
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| Look at the opening hours - major supermarket. Why didn't we get a siesta at Woolworths?? |
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Sunday evening, our hostel had organised to take a group to
a Flamenco show. I don’t think this place actually does Flamenco shows
normally; I think it’s normally a bar/art gallery and they just do Flamenco
shows for hostel groups. I don’t know what the big proper Flamenco shows are
like but I was actually really glad to have this experience. These guys
had raw talent and it was real, not manufactured for tourists, there was no
hiding in that intimate setting – no bells and whistles with backing tracks or
trick lighting. It was a lovely way to finish my Madrid experience.
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| She was dancing so fast, she ws a blur for the camera! |
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Barcelona, Spain
I took the bus from Madrid to Barcelona, it was reasonably
cheap and although it was a long day, I enjoyed the nap and the scenery. The
bus stopped a couple of times to pick up and drop off people and had two rest
stops – so one up on Megabus by stopping so we could pee/buy refreshments, although it was not as cheap as Megabus. My
instructions from the bus station involved a
trip on the metro so I found my way to the metro station, managed to
find the line and the station they wanted me to depart at. This hostel had
instructions to walk ‘toward the water’ but from where we were, you did not
know where the water was so it wasn’t particularly useful. It also had
instructions to watch out for the ‘palm trees’ but they were kind of hidden
away down an alley. After much, much annoyance on my part and wandering up and
down this same strip of the city, I found where I was supposed to go, found my
hostel and went through the check in and settling into room process. I had a
bad impression that I was going to hate the hostel but decided it was just two
nights and not to let it get me down, and emerged ready for a
few hours of wandering.
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| The palm trees of Plaza Reial which my hostel was situated on |
I was able to see quite a lot in a few hours – it felt like
it was light until so much later in Barcelona. I think it might have been
because it felt more ‘open’ in terms of the light being able to reach in
properly, I don’t know. Or maybe I was just feeling like with only two nights,
I did not want to waste away day light hours sitting in a hostel that I did not
have a good feeling about! I went for a walk toward the docks, along the water,
then back up the main tourist strip, including a detour through the market place.
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| Go to a Spanish market place and you will see stalls and stalls of this - the Spanish love affair with ham! |
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| Down at the docks - gorgeous! |
I headed all the way up the tourist strip to the main square – Catalyna Plaza – where
the protests going on from Madrid continued. The plaza was taken over by people
who were gathered in groups, sittign down mostly, with someone with a megaphone or a loud voice
talking to the eager listeners. Other people just loitered around drinking
beer. There were stalls with information, drinks for sale, what looked like the Spanish variety of a
sausage sizzle, and lots of signs, with statues and monuments ‘decorated’ with
protest items.
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| The people listen to the guy in the middle who has the floor. |
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| Pretty sure this monument is generally without the signage! |
I wandered through the gothic area with narrow winding streets
which I know become pick pocket central once nightfall comes. I had a slice of pizza
for dinner, eating as I walked and continued on my way, finding the cathedral
and the town hall. The main tourist strip and the surrounding streets are
definitely walkable, no need to worry about the metro, trams or buses. The
whole area is tourist driven – tourist cafes, people selling stuff on the
streets, these really annoying guys with these high pitched noise making
devices they are trying to sell and demonstrating and disturbing the peace,
souvenir stores. All you need to do though is walk off that main strip to see
some more authentic feeling surroundings. I arrived back at the hostel, later than planned but satisfied with how I had used my time. My suspicions about party hostel central were confirmed that
night, but all I need is one other person in my dorm being a nerd and sleeping
early and I feel much better – which I had, so it was okay.
To start my only ‘full day’ in Barcelona, I headed to the
metro and got my day ticket, ready to jump around and see as much as I could.
Stop number one, I headed toward the beach – I don’t like the beach much (shock
horror, I know, especially since I am from the Gold Coast, Australia) however
it seems to be one of those compulsory experiences, to see the beach in
Barcelona. I was pretty disappointed, I must say. I have since spent a little
time talking to a fellow from Barcelona in a hostel in Frankfurt and he tells
me that the other beaches in Spain are beautiful and you need to go away from
the city beach because it is manmade. I did a self-tour of various Gaudi
architectural sites, blown away by the monstrosity of this massive building,
still unfinished. I spent some time in the Spanish market in the city centre,
wandered around the shopping district, got on the metro and headed out of the
city to a mall where I went shopping at Primark – it feels comfortable and
familiar and what can I say, cheap!
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| Cut out the yucky looking sand and the beach looks prettier! |
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| Unfinished Gaudi, sitting there ostentaciously. |
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| Lunch - tapas and sangria at a Chinese Spanish cafe |
I have to say, I know that other people rave about Barcelona
but I cannot say there was much about the experience for me to rave about. I
suspect that it is one of those cities which is more about the social life than
anything else, however there were enough tourists around who didn’t have the “party
animal” look for me to assume that people come to Barcelona for more than the
beach, sangria and night clubs. On the whole I much preferred Madrid, although
this may have been about the activities I was able to take advantage of which
in turn, gave me a better overall experience.
The flight from Barcelona was absolutely gorgeous – flying
over the Mediterranean and seeing the views as we flew over the coast of Spain,
flying over snow capped mountain ranges. I think the scenery of the flight,
along with the protesters, were the highlights of the city.
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| Where the Mediterranean meets France |
I enjoyed my Spanish experience enough to think that there
would be a lot of value in coming back and seeing more of the area, being able
to truly get to know the cities and the people and the culture. It is a
beautiful language and one which I think I would consider studying one day. I
think what I loved most about Spain was the passion of the people – something
which I have seen in other Spanish people I have met around the world. However
there is so much fascinating history and there is something fascinating about
the cultural divide between Catalan and the rest of Spain – almost like how the
Bavarians in Germany are like a cultural subset. I am actually looking forward
to going home and doing some more research about some of what I have learnt and
discovered about Spain.
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