9.4. – 15.4.13
Spain feels like one long big beach from Marbella up to Barcelona. You cannot imagine how many of kilometers of Hotels they have built along the coastline. And unfortunately not always really nice looking. We remember only one piece of coast – around 15 kilometers long – without any cities or buildings!!!!
But Spain offers along with Sun, Sea, Beaches and Tapas really beautiful spots, often situated in the back country, so rather away from the coast. And aside of great art and culture the really friendly and helpful people there make travelling really easy and enjoyful.
One Highlight was for sure our first TV appearance in Calabardine, where the local online-TV producer interviewed us about our trip. Very small though, but it was fun and our landlady translated everything for us. We are looking forward to the program (still waiting for the confirmation!!).
In addition to the vast amount of hotels for the million of tourists during the summer months Spain seems to be THE provider for vegetables and fruits for entire Europe. We have seen endless acres of growing plants – all covered with canvas to protect them against the still cold nights. If you stand on a hill and look against the horizon and you see only canvas as long as your eye can see – you can imagine the sheer size. And if you drive up to Valencia the orange plantation take over. By the way the fresh orange juice in this are really tastes delicious – of course as they are full of the Spanish sun.
Together with other traffic easing elements such as high bumps for zebra crossings and roundabouts everywhere there are a lot of policemen in the streets either walking or driving in the car, on motorbikes or on their scooters making sure that everything runs smoothly. Given that, it’s astonishing that I only got one ticket for driving too fast 😉
In Valencia we took it easy, arriving already around lunch time we took the time to discover the old part of the town, but also the very modern buildings of the architects Calatrava and Candela – the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciences – definitely worth a visit. The different perspectives and angles these buildings are offering are a paradise for any photographer and Peter took the chance to take some more pictures than usual.
That’s also true for Barcelona, the city of the great architect and designer Gaudi. It’s unbelievable what a great imagination this man has had, and how he interpreted nature in a new way. The round and creeping forms turning the stone into something very soft. By the way: the Sagrada Familia is still under construction. Seems they will never finish the work there. In the meantime so many different architects have done their bits and pieces, that the composition looks nowadays a bit like a puzzle. Nevertheless the queue at the entrance was as long as the tail of a lindworm.
And to finish our Spain experience we visited another highlight the Dahli museum in his hometown Figueres, which is only a few kilometres away from the French boarder.
At that day we enjoyed the company of about 5 busses of pupils, and you can imagine how that feels and especially sounds in a museum. They were in the age between 12 and 16, so definitely not the age where you are interested in art. But the poor ones were given some tasks by their teachers so they had to go through the entire museum and make notes (I did hate that at the time when our teachers did that to us!). But we made our way through the students and were able to see the fantastic installations and images of Dhali. Was great to see his development over time. I wasn’t aware that he is also a master of light for example, extraordinary what he created.
Looking back the second stage of our journey was full of variation and pampered us with sunshine and temperatures up to 27 degree, ideal motorbike conditions.
