So it is time for the annual or semiannual blog post here. Michi and I haven't taken too many trips in 2017, especially compared to 2016 or even earlier. Some of that is due to lack of will. In the past, we'd head out on a day trip no matter what the weather was, but in recent years if the weather looks bad, we'll stay in, watch a movie, go shopping, or otherwise occupy our time.
Compounding that is lack of funds. Michi switched jobs about halfway through 2017 after a several month job search, and I've been working part-time since January. So even if we wanted to go somewhere, monetary concerns might have prevented it.
Anyway, enough whining. Lack of will and lack of funds had nothing to do with our trip to Spain for New Years 2017-2018. We flew over to Barcelona on December 30th, arriving around 10 or 11 PM. The flight itself was pretty smooth, only one brief stop in London's Heath Row Airport, and the service on the plan beat the socks off our previous flights. I will say that British Airlines has really great service staff, but could use a wider selection of on-board entertainment.
On December 31st, we woke up bright and early and dropped off our luggage at our second hotel in the Eixample district, then headed over to the Sagrada Familia. For those not familiar (ha ha) with this site, it is a huge cathedral designed by Spanish architect/homeless person impersonator Antoni Gaudi. He started work on it in 1883, and spent the last years of his life focused on it. After he died in 1926, work has continued on it and it is planned to be finished on the centenary of Gaudi's death, 2026. Although I am not religious, I love this building. The exterior is too busy for me, especially the facade which illustrates the birth of Jesus, and the facade which illustrates his death is simply too grim, but the interior! The ceiling seems to go up forever, and the tall slender columns draw the eye to explore the forest-like branches and leaf patterns on the arched ceilings. The curves are graceful and could have been taken from a page in Thompson's On Growth and Form, a another masterpiece that explores and celebrates structures of nature at all scales. Stained glass windows let in tons of light.
After exploring for about 2 hours, we got some lunch and went over to the Casa Mila, another of Gaudi's works. Although not as spectacular as Sagrada Familia, this still features a lot of Gaudi's design hallmarks and weirdness. We walked back to our hotel, and actually passed out for a few hours, then went to El Yantar de la Ribera, a nearby asador (barbequed or roasted meat restaurant). There, we ordered cochinillo, which is the Spanish equivalent to roasted turkey or chicken, except of course they use suckling pig instead. Not a bad way to finish 2017. We again returned to the hotel and passed out until around 1 AM, having been exhausted from the flight the day before, and the walking and exploring of Gaudi's buildings.
We spent January 1st at Park Guell, another area which features structures designed by Gaudi. In the evening, we returned to the Sagrada Familia to see it illuminated at night, and for dinner we had some tapas and paella at an outdoor restaurant near there. And yes, even though it was the middle of winter and quite cold, we still ordered sangria.
January 2nd was a busy day. We left the hotel in Eixample, left our luggage at Barcelona's main train station, then headed up to Figueres to see the Teatro Museo Dali, where Salvador Dali actually lived during his final years. I went here before in 2004, but I wanted Michi to see it as well. After lunch, we picked up our luggage at Barcelona and flew down to Grenada and checked into our third hotel.
Although I won't name names here, the hotel we stayed at in Granada was really crap. The rooms were cold and unheated, and there were not enough blankets to really stay warm. The staff was unhelpful and lazy, and did not provide us with the WiFi code until we requested it in the morning, and seemed really disgruntled that we had disturbed him at 8:31 AM to ask for such a trivial thing.
January 3rd was spent on a tour of Alhambra. To be brutally honest, Michi really disliked it and has said that we should have just skipped the whole excursion to Granada in the first place. For my part, I really enjoyed the classical Arabic architecture and learned a bit from the tour, but the tour service and access to different areas of Alhambra were really poorly managed and could have gone a lot smoother.
At the Granada train station we learned that Google Maps and Spain's transport system need to do some communicating, because there was actually no way to get from Granada to El Chorro by the time we finished the Alhambra tour, despite several showing up when I had checked the route earlier. So we had a slow lunch and then got on a bus and then a train to the closest we could get: Bobadilla. By the time we got to Bobadilla, it was after 8 PM and there were no taxis at the station, so I called one and we got to pay 74 euros for the 25km ride to El Chorro.
From January 3rd to January 6th, we stayed in El Chorro. Why, you might ask, would we spend three days in a dinky little town with a name that sounds like the famous Spanish donut? Three words: Caminto del Rey; in English, Path of the King. Besides sounding like a cheesy fantasy novel title, Caminto del Rey is a several kilometer hike through forested valleys and along walkways literally built into the sides of and crossing over chasms and gorges. But let me go back. We hiked Caminto del Rey on January 5th. On January 4th, we hiked Escalera Arabe, the Arabic Staircase, which is another fantastic hiking trail in the El Chorro area. For dinner, we had a traditional bread and vegetable porridge, roasted rabbit and roasted chicken.
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| The view from our hotel in El Chorro |
After hiking Caminto del Rey on January 5th, we relaxed in the room and had lamb chops, and some more traditional Spanish desserts for dinner, including a raisin pudding and a huge mug of Spanish style hot chocolate, so thick and heavy you could use it as mortar.
Unfortunately, January 6th was quite rainy, so we stayed in most of the morning and hiked the Escalera Arabe again after the rain had cleared. We then chilled at a restaurant near the train station for the daily train to Seville.
And that is about it for our trip. We spent the night in Seville, then headed over to the airport for our flight first to Madrid, then back to Narita Airport, Japan.
