Graeme & Vicky go travelling

After our adventure with the Granada Police we settled into our excellent hotel room - which we could not have found without them just by the way. A short sleep followed by a wander into the old town, characterised by little lanes, plazas and surprises at every corner. The shops in this part of town have a very north african feel without the spruiking and harassment. The rest of the evening was tapas, excellent local red wine and coffee with amoretto.

The Alhambra Place is built on the hill above Granada and was begun as a moorish castle about a thousand years ago. It is a magnificent complex of buildings and gardens featuring tiles and water. We spent about five hours wandering through everything. The gardens were spectacular and are very well maintained. They are made up of beds fringed with hedges and filled with every sort of flower and water features of every type. The buildings are reminiscent of many we have seen in Morocco and Tunisia. They are made up of chambers covered in tiles and arab script inscribed into plaster that lead into each other and then suddenly into a courtyard. There is no furniture, artwork or adornments, just the walls and ceilings.

Another evening of tapas, red wine and amoretto and we were off to Toledo. This place is as gorgeous as the walled villages in Italy but quite a bit bigger. We visited the cathedral which is absolutely magnificent with the highest ceiling we have seen. The choir stalls were a high point. In a side room they have cardinals robes going back for 1000 years and in another a few paintings collected over the years. In this one room, about the size of a double classroom, they had about 10 El Grecos, 3 Titians and even a Raphael.

We drove to Madrid yesterday and are ensconced in our hotel in the busiest street in the world, The Gran Via. Last night we revisited our little Mushroom and Sangia bar and then the Fish and beer bar and were very pleased to see they had not changed at all. Today we revisited the Reinier Sofia Gallery to see Picasso´s Geurnica. This was just as fabulous as last time.
We resisted the temptation to go to see Real Madrid play Valencia last night. We met some English chaps in the Plaza Mayor who had come over for the game. The tickets were 93 pounds which is about $220!!! and the game started at 10. It was live on local TV and ended at about midnight. The stadium, which holds 83 000 was a sellout.

Tomorrow is our last whole day in Europe and we plan to do a bit of shopping and try to bring our luggage down by about half to the requisite 20 Kg. We are both going to have to wear 18 layers of clothes to get away with it.

We are in Benidorm. a quaint little Spanish seaside village turned into a haven for thousands of overweight sunburnt poms. It is like Surfers Paradise only larger with every shop selling cheesy souvenirs and every restaurant selling delicacies like Cornish pasty, Baked beans and Chips for €5, and every club featuring someone like Wee Willy Matthews, Britains King of rock and roll or Peatloaf, the Irish Meatloaf show.
Everyone seems inclined to take their shirt off to grab a bit of Spanish sun to show off to the mates back in England. In most cases it is totally unacceptable behaviour for the blokes and in the case of the women it is even worse. The telling factor is that the shirtless people of which we speak are not from the Supermodel convention down the road, nor the Under 50 and Still Buff Club, of which most of you dear readers belong, but the blobby, aging, smoking, boozy type with all body parts heading south.

We had a pizza for dinner tonight which seemed like a good decison until both of our meals turned up with tuna on them - probably as a result of Vicky´s request for cheese.
Most disappointing, however, is the complete failure of the highly anticipated Fred Flinstone Theme in the hotel. A seedy Bam Bam and Pebbles child minding centre seems to be the sum of it.

Valencia (yesterday) is a large industrial city trying very hard to keep up with its much more attractive sisters Barcelona and Madrid. The big deal in Valencia at the moment is the America´s Cup. We visited the harbour area which is a bit like the pits at the Clipsal track, only a bit more upmarket. For example the Italian team is sponsored by Prada. Souvenir polo shirts there were €72, about $100, so needless to say we didn´t buy anything.

Our last days in Barcelona were fantastic. The weather cleared and we picked up our rental car - a red citreon C4 - and hit the road. We spent a day travelling to Monsterrat, a monastery in the mountains about 60K out of town. Strangely, it was a bit commercial but the physical beauty of the place was more than enough value for the drive and walk. We took a funicular to the top of the tallest peak and just as we looked down the clouds opened and sun streamed in on the monastery nestling in the valley below. Strewth!
We also visited the Joan Miro Gallery and the site of the Olympics, all on a large hill overlooking Barcelona. Our visit concluded with a visit to a park overlooking the sity that featured designs, building and mosaics from Gaudi, the bloke who designed the church we mentioned in our last posting.

So it is off with our shirts and on with the sombreros and off to Granada.

¡Hola! from Bacelona - drizzle capital of Spain.

It is the end of our third day here. The first doesnt really count because we spent most of it travelling from Florence via Milan.

Yesterday we ventured out to see the Temple of the Sagrada Familia. This is the enormous church commenced in the 1890s and still quite unfinished. The towers at each end were finished 110 years ago but the central church bit is what they are working on today. It is unusual to be in a church filled with scaffolding and building noise. The place was designed by Gaudi who was very original, so this place is similar yet very different from any church you will ever see. The towers are topped by mosaics. You can see them in the following picture which we took from the top of a tower very very high above the ground.

Today we went to the Barcelona Cathedral which is much more along classic church lines. With all of these church visits Vicky is okay with all of her sins, but Graeme needs to go to many many more churches to be absolved from all of his. We also walked through all the skinny little lanes and corridors of the old city. If you have seen the movie "The Spanish Apartment" you will know exactly what we have seen. We went to the Museu Picasso which displays 3000 pictures from his earliest to last works. We also walked around the harbour area.

The food is great - cheap and interesting. We had a typical lunch today - Graeme a chunk of roasted boar clavicle and Vicky meatballs with peas - which could also have come from a boar. (not the peas) Because we have an apartment we have been shopping to stock up our fridge. Beer and wine are incredibly cheap €2 - thats about $3.40 - for a six pack of 220 ml bottles of beer and wine starting at about €1.50. We can´t remember what else we bought - except for the olives and chips we bought to have with the drinks! We are about to go to dinner at the little restaurant at the bottom of our apartment block where you can buy a very good steak for €8.80. After Italy where the same thing would have cost €18 this is a real blast.

It is late on our last evening in Italy. We have returned to our favourite restaurant. We dined on veal and lamb followed by pecorino and honey. We drank lovely wine from Montepulciano followed by a recommendation from the waiter which tasted like medicine.

Today we finally got to see David. The 2 hour line up was probably worth it because it is wonderful as you walk down the passage towards it - a bit like seeing an old friend. The rest of our day was taken up with wandering the old streets and eating some fantastic gelati.

Yesterday we finally got into the Duomo. The highlight was climbing to the top of the camponile (belltower) and seeing the wonderous views across Florence. We also visited the Medici chapel at San Lorenzo.

Vicky finally bought a bag from at Furla. Bulgari will have to wait until next time!

So it is arriverderci from Italy and Ola to Spain. Hopefully we will have a computer capable of USB connection for more photos next time.

Great news about the crows, the sport news here is all about the soccer game between Roma and Manchester and the preceeding crowd fights.

Arrived here in Florence yesterday after driving from Lucca and Esther we managed to restrict ourselves to 140km/hr this trip, but have topped 170km/hr on previous autostrades! Dumped car at airport and got the shuttle into the city right next to our hotel.

Speaking of our hotel...we have a 2 storey suite of rooms designed to commemorate Paul Anka's last entry into the charts!!! Dated is one word you could use, probably was great 30 years ago, but it's certainly interesting.

Spent 2 days here and walked and walked!! People everywhere - its like being in a Footy Park crowd all the time, but not a Power game of course. Today lined up for two hours to see the Uffizi - every Renaissance painter you would ever want to see, but we particularly enjoyed the Bottocelli room and Michelangelo paintings, unfortunately the Durer room was closed and we only got a brief glimpse of the Rembrandts.

Although Easter Sunday sounds like the perfect time to see the Duomo, the crowds are so huge we can't get near the door, but we are going to try go to a service tomorrow.

Now to the shopping!!! leather jackets all round, trying to avoid the dodgy traders, thanks Kaye for your tips! Vicky is circling - like a shark - ready to bite the bottom of a handbag seller. Bulgari tops the price list at 1200 euro ( $1900 ). It was interesting that we were treated seriously by all the fancy designer shops - no pretty woman situations - to the extent that in Bulgari we got the blokes card and it was handshakes all round!

Eating lots of pasta and drinking cheap grog and watching CSI in Italian. Two more days here - with Michelangelo's David and the Duomo tomorrow - and perhaps a pair of shoes !!