Goodbye to Spain

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It’s a positive news day: we now have our Russian visas! We popped by Madrid a few days ago to pick them up at the visa office, at the exact date and hour they specified, of course. This means that I can now tell the visa story without jinxing things (though I suppose we still have to actually be let into the country – twice – which is not a given).

But first, some more contemporary updates. We have now officially ended the Spanish leg of our journey, as we crossed the border back into France yesterday afternoon. We’re now staying on the beach (again) near the Spanish border, and we’ll be spending the next week travelling across southern France.

Literally off the beaten track in Costa del Sol

We were warned not to go to Costa del Sol, which you’ve already heard me talk about a little (I wrote our last blog from there.) We were told it was a soulless, non-Spanish wasteland whose formal coastal beauty had been demolished to make way for high-rise apartment blocks to house Brits.  Largely, we found this to be true, though we just couldn’t find it in our hearts to hate it. Whatever, if people want to hide away in dodgily built condos and eat fish and chips all summer, that’s their business. We did, however, try to avoid it. So, when we required groceries, we were not too excited to leave our campground oasis to go into town to get some. 

We decided a bicycle ride would make the trip tolerable or even pleasant. We were told to go to out to the main road, cross it, and immediately turn right. We thought we did this. We did not. We cycled happily for ages (the shops were only supposed to be a couple kilometres away), on a dirt track, through banana groves and fields of recently cut sugar cane. We started to wonder where we were. Litter was strewn across the path and chain link fences guarded the few derelict properties we saw. A dog started barking menacingly, and my life flashed before my eyes. (Shut up, I’m dramatic, leave me alone.) It turned out to be a chihuahua, but there were others we could not see, so I’m sure my fear was totes justified. Also, a horse followed me along the path for a while, on the other side of its fence, which was friendly. We finally decided we were absolutely not headed towards the market, and veered off the path. And before you accuse me of being an irritating millennial who insists on misusing “literally”, as in the title above: we ended up on a track through a banana field that was not actually a track, but a bit of an irrigation ditch/trash collection point. We had to get off of our bikes and semi-run to avoid being eaten by the pack of rabid dogs in my head that were just trying to protect their property. Anyway, we eventually made it to the store and bought beans and carrots. The end.

Valor 

Perhaps the lovely Nick and Louise invited us to visit them in southern Spain before they realised that we would be overstaying our welcome in Louth by at least thirteen days. Perhaps they are masochists, or maybe just love the thrill of a risk. Whatever the case may be, they welcomed us into their lovely holiday accommodation in the Sierra Nevadas for a night, and, no less, on their 15th wedding anniversary. This is fitting, I think, because my family and I also went on their honeymoon, so infringing on their personal moments seems to be our schtik. Anyhow,

we had a fun and pee-inducingly hilarious reunion in the small white village perched precariously on a hillside, a world away from the grossness of the coastal high rises. This village – Valor – can only be reached by terrifying mountain passes (more later), has the most fabulous little tapas bars, and, to top it off, has beautiful sparkling water just pouring out of a spigot down the hill from Nick and Louise’s house. It’s seriously fizzy like Perrier but far more delicious, and you just fill all of your bottles with it. Magic.s

During this visit, Luke was hanging out the laundry and decided to see what it would feel like to repeatedly brush up against a big ol’ cactus, because he’s a guy who’s open to new experiences. It was VERY FUN for me to pull the pricklies out of his arm with tweezers, once he realized his painful mistake. I even got to use duct tape to peel out the little suckers. So satisfying. Nick and Louise were disturbed by my joy.

But about those roads: I thought the Pyrenees road was scary. This one, this one. In places, it was one lane, with traffic going both ways. There was no shoulder- the road fell straight off an inch outside of the line, down a cliff on one side and into a huge ditch on the other. On the switchbacks, there were signs to honk your horn to tell invisible oncoming cars to slow down. This was not fun for me, but we were lucky. We saw few cars, and those that we did see were going slow, and happened to appear on segments wide enough to slip past each other. We live to tell the tale.

The beauty of Islam

Some of our dear readers may be aware that I’m a bit of a fangirl of Islamic architecture. The tile mosaics that are symmetrical on up to 8 axis, praising the perfection of God. The ornate plaster carvings with beautiful Arabic poetry. The white buildings that seem to float in air, the gardens that are a delight to the senses – smell, sound, touch, sight, and taste. Nowhere in the Western world is this stuff demonstrated better than the Alhambra (at least to my limited knowledge). The Alhambra, nestled in Granada, southern Spain, is a royal city that’s been constructed, added to, demolished, re-constructed, constructed differently, forgotten about, restored, and so forth for at least 1,000 years. It’s got palaces, theatres, churches, fortifications, houses, baths, monuments, and hordes of overheated American tourists. This particular overheated American tourist took ten million pictures and has included them below. I’ll skip the history lesson this time, but I will direct enquiring minds to the wikipedia article.

The beauty of Catholicism

I saw La Sagrada Familia while travelling with my friend Mikaela over 10 years ago. We didn’t go inside, maybe because we were poor student types or maybe disorganised or maybe lazy? In any case, I was prepared to be blown away again by the outside of this church in Barcelona. It was designed by Gaudi, the Spanish architect famous for being the most austere Christian guy producing the most wacky of buildings. It’s been under construction for about a century and is still a long way off from completion – at least another 10 years – but it is already mind-boggling. It’s got completely different architecture on the outside for the stages of Christ’s life, especially contrasting for his birth (organic shapes, animals, plants, realistic people) and his crucification (hard, scary lines and almost cubist people).

But the inside I was not prepared for. The light and the feeling are totally unlike any other church I’ve been in, and I’ve been in a few. It made me cry a little. Also, it made the goth couple at the entrance make out really intensely while blocking everyone’s paths into the church. Actually I won’t do any guesswork as to the inspiration for their extreme version of PDA, but it was definitely inappropriate (maybe their goal?). In any case, I won’t try to describe the church, I’ll leave it to the photos below.

Gaudi’s architecture is dotted throughout Barcelona. He has about 16 works in the city, ranging from sets of lampposts, to a failed housing estate-turned-public park (Parc Guell), to La Sagrada Familia. We did a very long touristing day, all on foot, to an apartment complex, office building, La Sagrada Familia, and Parc Guell. Luke was extremely impressed with Gaudi, which was a relief for me, having planned a whole day of the architect. He loved how the buildings lead your eye from one place to the next, and lack reference points as we normally know them (corners, sharp edges, defined points of view, etc.). Every element – down to individual columns or windows – is unique, and are often arranged asymmetrically. He also commented that Gaudi is one of the only architects he’s seen who produces not only beautiful, but highly practical and excellent feeling spaces. The architecture works with light and air beautifully, it’s very holistic. I’m sure Gaudi would be happy to know he has Luke’s approval.

OK, finally the Russian visa story.

In order to help you properly understand our pain in this situation, I require that each of you, prior to reading further, must list, in the comments, places and dates for everywhere you’ve been in the last 10 years, the full names of your parents, any organisations you’ve ever been affiliated with, the technical specifications of the cars you own and the names and contact numbers of every boss you’ve had.

We actually had to tell Russia all of this. We spent a day preparing the information. We went to the visa centre, me with my overachieving student posture fully deployed (back straight, chin up, neatly organised folder of paperwork clasped in my arms, judging gaze towards others who look less prepared). It did not go as expected, because I did not understand Russia. I’ll do this in bullet form:

• Wait. Reach the desk, only to be told by the frenetic Russian gatekeeper, in Spanish, repeatedly, that it was 100% impossible to get a visa in Madrid, or Spain, or anywhere in Europe, in all cases, because we are Australian. There was absolutely no way, ever, to get a visa, other than actually flying to Sydney. So I cried. She called the embassy, and voila, she was telling us to take a number and sit down.
• Wait. Reach the paperwork-taking desk, where we were told we had the wrong visa invitation. There was no way they would accept it, lo siento. Of course, we were supposed to have read the Russian letter and seen that it said “tourism” rather than the required “auto tourism.” We retreated to the car park, where we arranged for a new invitation online. Wait.
• Wait. Arrive at desk again, where we were told the car paperwork was all wrong, all wrong, there is no way they could accept it. Go gather this long list of paperwork, lo siento, we cannot accept this. We retreat to gather the paperwork.
• Come the next day, wait. When the frenetic front desk lady sees us, she tells us we must leave. Turn around. They are closed, no longer seeing customers. Today is Friday, she tells us to return Tuesday, maybe Wednesday. Lo siento, she is sorry, we must leave, no choice, goodbye. I cried. This is where our English-speaking angel stepped in to translate for us, and we were told to sit down and wait. We waited there until after closing, until they called us to the front desk. They looked at our paperwork briefly. They handed back almost all of it to us, without recording any information or taking copies. They took an enormous chunk of money out of our bank account and told us they would submit the visa to the embassy, no promises. We left, our spirits broken despite our half-hearted victory.
• Despite all this, I’m still quite excited to go to Russia.

That’s all for now, folks. We love you all!

Granada (including the Alhambra)

Churros in chocolate to kick off a day of intensive tourism in Granada

Entering the gardens of the Generalife, a palace complex connected to the Alhambra.

Still fresh-faced before a day of sticky tourism.

Note the oranges – the Islamic royalty could stroll through these quiet gardens and pick them off the trees as the walked.

A view of the Alhambra from the Generalife.

The palace in the Generalife, giving the Islamic kings respite from the work to be done in the Alhambra.

A lovely view.

Gardens in the Generalife. The Islamic kings preferred more gentle, low fountains. The Christian romantics added the big boisterous fountains in recent centuries. (1800s, I think?)

Lovely plaster carving.

Gardens in the Alhambra.

Inside the palace complex in the Alhambra.

Beautiful columns inside the palace.

Tourist time! Whoo!!!

Look at this ceiling! As all of this Islamic architecture, there’s heaps of symbolism in it. For example, the stalactite shapes represent the cave where Mohammed received the Koran.

Symmetrical tiling.

Plaster carving. Arabic words in Islamic architecture is roughly equivalent to the religious pictures we Christians put in our churches.

Tiling and plastering in the palaces.

In the palaces.

Beautifully carved wooden ceilings.

And painted ceilings.

Ceiling detail.

Many of the plaster carvings would have been painted in bright colours. Here’s a recreation.

A vision of Granada.

Overlooking Granada.

Looking over the military section of the Alhambra from the top of the highest fort tower.

Frogs in a lily pad in palace gardens.

In the Alhambra

Meanwhile, outside the Alhambra…

And we got to see some super nice street art!

Girl playing the violin: not your average street art.

Lots of Moroccan wares to be had in the winding tourist alleys of Granada.

Also, lots of dark “arabic” tea rooms that pay homage to Granada’s North African heritage and also get lots of money from tourists.

Lanterns in the tea room.

A nice quiet way to finish the day.

Valor and the Spanish countryside in/near the Sierra Nevada mountains

Nick and Louise have a pool!

Tapas in Valor

Hi Nick!

The view from that tapas place.

Paparazzi shot, very flattering, thank Nick 🙂

This is the drive down. You get to see our dirty windshield too, lucky you. Do you see how this is only one lane? And it drops into the end of the world!

We tried to drive to this castle at the foot of the Sierra Nevadas. There was a half-hearted sign, but the road just kind of ended. We think it might be a private castle.

Gum trees liver everywhere, don’t they? A beautiful lake we drove near.

A similar, but different lake, with a weird thingy. We do not know what it was.

We decided to drive through a little town, and it was little. We had to pull in the mirrors to get through. Bonus: our dirty windshield again!

A nice view in that white village again.

Sierra Nevada mountains.

More Sierra Nevadas (the same vista)

They have these bull sculptures all over Spain. It’s like a warning to all bulls: You just wait, we will eventually put you in a ring and stab you in the neck repeatedly with barbed spears until you are so exhausted that we can stab you in the head and kill you, while crowds cheer.

In and around Barcelona

Tourist shot in Parc Guell! This is a view of what was to be the entrance of the housing estate, which was never completed.

Gaudi was known to have his workers collect tiles from building rubble. Recognise this pattern? It was in the Alhambra.

Look at the roof on that puppy!

We had to wait for tourist hordes to clear to take this picture.

That’s La Segrada Familia towering in the background there – and it’s only about half as tall as it will be when it’s down.

This is my awe face. I use it often.

In the roof of what was to be the covered open-air market. Notice the broken plates.

There were over a dozen of these details, all different.

A view out of the “market” area, to a non-Gaudi building.

We asked to get our photo taken. Tourists are nice.

This was a display home for prospective buyers, the only one constructed in the estate. It was designed by Gaudi’s close friend and colleague. Gaudi lived there for 20 years.

Homeworld Kellyville, you got nothing on this display home.

An example of practical and beautiful – a floor in the display home. Beautiful and very slip resistant, to minimise the possibility of big aussies breaking people’s wrists by falling on them.

Gaudi is great with natural building materials, too.

Mosaics at the entrance. Mosaics everywhere.

We’ve left Parc Guell, but Barcelona is still funky. Someone feels really strongly about the automotive arts.

Gaudi’s take on an office building. Each balcony has an unique railing.

And again, lest you think Gaudi is the only part of Barcelona that’s nice, here’s an unheralded pretty building.

We walked by an organic vegan juice bar filled with rainbow hammocks, so naturally we bought the place and have now moved in and are never leaving.

Luke enjoys an iPhone and an organic vegan smoothie. I had kale, because of course I did.

Gaudi alert!

Just look at how he clad a building in colourful asymmetrical mosaics! That’s my boy, Gaudi!

The tourists hordes gather for the Gaudi building to the right of this one, but this one is quite lovely too and probably feels really inadequate.

This is also not Gaudi, but it is pretty.

And so we arrive at La Sagrada Familia: The Passion facade, not yet complete, showing Christ’s crucifixion.

The Passion facade.

Detail of the Passion facade.

Around the corner from the Passion facade, we see grapes representing the Eucharist.

Look at them grapes. On a cathedral.

The Nativity facade, Christ’s birth. There’s a tree with doves up there. It’s the Tree of Life.

On the Nativity facade.

Gaudi put chickens on the nativity facade. Apparently they took plaster casts of actual live animals to do this. I think our chickens would have performed this job admirably.

And we get inside. The light on this side of the church is warm for the afternoon sun; the otherside is cool for the morning sun. The columns are indeed meant to look like trees, as they do. It’s spectacular.

Heavenly light shines through the columns.

The main altar.

The roof of the cathedral, with egg-shaped tributes to various figures, mainly the four evangelists.

But this section is pure, angelic white.

Looking towards the main altar.

The side of the cathedral with cool light. None of these lights are electric, it’s all sunlight and coloured glass.

And the warm side.

The central altar.

One last parting glimpse of Barcelona as we head back to our campground.