Spain 28/6

Hola, off to Barcelona on the extremely fast train.

Last breakfast at the wonderful bakery in Plaza Mayor, Le Pain Quotidien, then off to the station to sit among the palms until train time. There is a wonderful sculpture of a pile of luggage and I went to take a photo of it but felt that I couldn't do so while the elderly asian woman seated in front of it was screeching at (I presume) her husband and hitting him on the arm with her clenched fist. He had his head down and was doing nothing to protect himself.

We are travelling at over 300K through country where the agriculture and the rural towns are so very different from our experience, yet at times seem familiar.

Picturesque towns of sturdy clay baked looking houses dominated by church towers, in valleys or on hillsides - and the occassional fort atop a mesa. Wow. Olives, olives, olives everywhere (except for the vines and orchards of course). All as dry looking as home.

Contrary to popular misconception you can see something other than a blur as the train rushes along. It is a very smooth ride and quiet. The only indication of just how fast you are moving is how very little time it takes a train going in the ther direction to go past.

Barcelona - meeting Kate outside MacDonalds - she was right you cannot miss it. It is like meeting under the clocks at Flinders Street. Kate heads out to her conversation class and we settle in awaiting Stig's return from his Spanish lesson. We take the Metro (why can't trains in Melbourne run as frequently as they do here) to meet Kate and head of to lunch, before home and the siesta.

We arise to head out again and join the promenading Barcelonans to have a glass or two in a nearby small plaza, which houses 8 restaurant/bars. It is cool and shady sitting in the middle of the plaza as people gather and children play at the fringes.

Home for delicious Catalyan chilled tomato soup and Tortilla. I watched Kate cook the potatoes for the tortilla and she must have read my mind, telling me not to worry if it seemed like an excessive amount of olive oil - it wasn't.

The flat is on the longest shopping strip in Europe and the shops do seem to be all farmacia, shoe shops and banks. That is, if you don't count the seven read shops which appear to be in sight of the Jensen abode. Tomorrow we start looking round in earnest ... and there is so much to see. It is always a treat to stay with someone who knows their way around.

Spain 27/6

How soon before the days start to merge and you have trouble separating them? Our days are starting to fall into a pattern. Today, however, we ventured further afield to see the temple of Ebod which is a gift to Spain from Egypt when they flooded the Aswan Dam. We don't have a topographical map and didn't see that the park was Parc de Montana until we were up there. I think it was worth it. Rob said things like never going there again and oh god more stairs. This on top of walking up hill and not enough down dale through some parks. Misled by the map that didn't include road closures for construction we ended up at the magnificent Palacio Real again. We went into the same bar as the day before to recover and were delighted to discover that the dreadful food we had ordered from the menu sitting outside the day before gave us no hint of the delicacies now laid out behind the bar. Lesson learnt. On our perambulation we came across a very jolly though also seeming serious demonstration - we are not sure what it was against, but it was linked to money so it may be a protest against the enforced reduction in pay for civil servants which is going to cause the public transport strike in Madrid this week - three days. We actually started the day with a trip to the Rastro market, a mix of crafts, cheap imports and trash & treasure. The most remarkable thing is that it is in ALL the streets and lanes of the whole suburb. Everything is there from a man standing offering a single pair of sunglasses through goods on blankets to hardware old and new, souvenirs and the same imported clothes you see everywhere. All similar to a blend of St Kilda esplanade, Byron Bay and Bentleigh t&t. In a small plaza at the end of the market was an extraordinary swap card exchange - conducted standing up with everyone looking through albums and piles of cards in hand. Our plan - post siesta - was to go to the Prado, but siesta took precedence so we will save that for our return. Argentina won the soccer and just around the corner from our chosen dinner table we could hear the fans celebrating in the Puerta del Sol. Sounding noisy and cheerful among the police sirens as they gathered just in case I suppose. Madrid was promenading again, but in nothing like the numbers of Saturday night. Having walked up high and overlooking the city we know we will always have something else to see when we come again - which is only a few weeks away after all.

SPAIN 26 JUNE

Started the day with coffee at the local cafe in what we now feel is "our" Plaza de Santa Cruz. One could spend all day just sitting watching the world go by here - or just wandering from place to place along the variety of streets and lanes. Everywhere a view, everywhere something to see. We moved off eventually heading more or less towards the Prado and museos. We stopped to admire the Edifico Espana and the Don Quixote statue nearby, fully appreciating the shady park and the magnificent magnolia trees and gnarly olive trees. We had a look at the Sabatini Gardens adjacent to the Palazio Real and decided that the queue in the sun was just too long for us. There was to be a "religious observation" of some magnitude in the Cathedral Almuneda but we had time to have a good wander round. Rob found the opulence a "bit scary" but I thought it quite wonderful. I couldn't find out what the observations was but from our observation point across the road at another cafe in the shade we saw some very smartly dressed people arriving to attend. Down more streets, this time a little bit down market filled with wholesalers of cheap imports towards the Centro de Artes Reina Sofia. We decided to go to the Estacion de Atocha on the way to buy our ticket to Barcelona and to organise a gold card for the senior in our midst (which gives him quite a saving on the ticket price). The system is to take a ticket and wait your turn, and when we arrived ticket number 273 was being served. We took ticket number 640 and waited. We waited outside the ticket sales area sitting on a stone wall under some wonderful palm trees and ferns which are planted in the centre of the biggest rail hall I think I have been in. Fantastico! This is where the pictured turtles live. Going in search of an icecream for us Rob found a huge shopping mall at the other end so we went off and bought local sim cards at the phone shop. Not wanting to miss our turn, which came along a bit over an hour after we arrived we decided against a shopping spree. The wait was really quite a pleasant one after all and the service good when we got to the counter. We now have the said gold card and the tickets on our train. We are also now able to book future trains online. Off to Reina Sofia - and Guernica. Admission is free on Saturday afternoons, and quite a few people were taking advantage of that, but not so many that it was really overcrowded. couple of school groups, and plenty tourists. The temporary exhibitions were all exhibited in a huge open space, not quite jumbled up but an weirdly esoteric mixture. But we were on a bit of a mission - Guernica called. Off we went making our way through the collection which is sorted primarily chronologically. That makes for an interesting look at the works of various artists at the same time and seeing their progression through the years. But Guernica - you approach it through an arched doorway from where they allow photographs to be taken (no flash) which we found extraordinary. I can only suppose that they expect all the photographs to include the people standing in front of the painting and so to avoid any misuse in the future. All I can say is it lived up to expectations and is very moving and impressive. There is a series of photographs which officially record the progress of the painting during its creation and they are particularly interesting as they give an insight into the way Picasso approached the project. More walking to a cafe in the shade, a cold beer and then a walk home for siesta - only to be followed by more walking and more cafes .. we walked around the back of our hostal this time into Plaza Mayor which is obviously where it's at on a Saturday night. We found the Mercado San Miguel which is fascinating. It is open all day past midnight and contains bars and food stalls of all sorts. Customers wander around with a glass in hand tasting at the various stalls or find a space to at least put your plate and glass down for a minute to eat. It is rather like a huge party, or perhaps more like one of those opening night parties where people don't really know each other but are all there together anyway. We meandered off and then finally made our way back to Plaza Mayor via Puerta del Sol (another place to be on a Saturday night) for a final galss of wine. When we got there Rob decided on an ice cream instead. That meant that he couldn't bring his icecream to my table and I couldn't order a drink from his table - damned incosderate I say. Unfortunately he go t the icecream first so I decided to forgo the wine and off to bed. The whole of Madrid seemed to be on parade last night, and perhaps we will find it like that again tonight .. hope so as it is a great feeling to be out amongst it all on our eternal quest for good food. We have had a couple of dissapointments to date, but there will always be the mercado ...