Author: orwellianblue

As I sit here on Alicante’s fine esplanade, struggling to keep my eyes open, I realise that this looks like being the last blog post. Although I don’t fly home for two more days this first trip since the…the thing happened has taken a bit out of me and I only have energy left for soaking things in from a sedentary position with cerveza in hand and street scene in front of me. I am hopeful that I’ll have more energy on my next trip. Of course it’s getting accustomed again to walking around on hot city streets which has drained me – not the cervezas in hand.

So while I spin out my remaining time here, as usual I’ve rummaged through my photos to tick off anything I haven’t covered yet. And this time, let’s get the grim history bit out of the way first rather than leave it to the end, shall we?

The Stanbrook

On the quayside of the marina stands a little monument to a sailor and his ship. You’d hardly notice it, rushing past to spin the wheel at the grandiose Casino Mediterraneo in the distance or stepping onto the jetty to clamber down to your yacht. But stop awhile, and discover another important story from this city’s past, one that deserves a moment of remembrance and respect.

The sailor is one Archibald Dickson, captain of the SS Stanbrook, a British cargo steamer. During the Civil War much of that cargo was destined for the Republicans and the Nationalists actually managed to sink it, only for it to be repaired and  carry on the blockade-running.

Captain Dickson had taken over command just as the Civil War was concluding in a win for the Nationalists. Thousands of Republicans now had to get out and flee for their lives. In March 1939, Stanbrook was lying at anchor in Alicante port, and you may remember from my previous post that Alicante was a Republican city. With so many refugees here desperate to escape, and against the orders of the ship’s manager Dickson decided to see what he could do to help and take on as many as he could fit. If his manager wasn’t happy, the Nationalists were even less impressed. The now cramped and overloaded boat managed to avoid the incoming fire from Franco’s ships and, with the help of the Royal Navy it made it to Oran in French-held Algeria.

That wasn’t the end of the story. Franco wanted the men back, and there was a diplomatic spat with the French who eventually put them up in a dismal concentration camp in the Sahara where they were treated badly. Meanwhile the Stanbrook went on its own way – a road which led to the Second World War. On 18th November that year, she was en-route from Belgium back to Britain when a single torpedo from a U-boat sent her, the heroic Captain Dickson, and his crew, to the bottom of the sea.

A little spot that deserves at least a couple of minutes of reflection.

They could be heroes

I had promised to find out some more about these statues close to the Stanbrook memorial.

But as you can see it’s on a traffic island slap-bang in the middle of a busy road, and there’s no easy place to cross. So I had no choice but to yield to G…e after all.

It turns out to be the Monument to the Replacement Soldier, commemorating conscripts in the Civil War.

A warm welcome

As the declension of the verb “to travel” goes:

I travel

You are a tourist

They are lager louts staying in Benidorm

Alicante has not been immune to the growing resistance to over-tourism across the popular European hotspots like Venice, Barcelona and Lisbon. This July some locals here held a protest against the impact they say tourism is having on the town, such as driving up local house prices and driving down job security.

Much of the ire is focussed at house-lets, which takes a significant amount of property out of the means of local people. I tend to stay in hotels anyway (“I am a traveller…”).but hotels bring their own ecological footprint and anyway wherever you’re staying, if you’re a visitor you are adding to the problem that the place you want to experience in an “authentic” way has in fact turned into an over-crowded theme park.

It’s the end of the season, and although I’m guessing that most of the people gliding down the esplanade are foreign tourists, it’s busy but not packed and I have been to places where you literally cannot move (back to Barcelona’s Rambla). However all the food outlets on this popular street seem all set up for the (undiscriminating) tourist trade, in other words not very good, and if it’s not a restaurant it’s a souvenir shop, and so on. I’ve not seen any organized aggro towards tourists while I’ve been here, and the whole experience this week has been a delight. But the cruise ship came in yesterday and things are a little busier…let’s keep an eye on things.

Oh, and the beach is packed.

Some more pics

What’s it got on?

Finally, a puzzle to keep you going until my next trip.

It’s back to the Bonfire Museum, and every big event such as Alicante’s Feast of Saint John needs a self-important committee deciding that they really need a silly mascot. So here is Foguet, a flamy thing bearing various references to the town and its surroundings such as the local dress, and the blue and white of the local flag.

But what’s that wavy thing? You’ve already seen it, I’ve posted a photo of it during this trip. But which one? What is it? Hit the comments and let me know. Until then, hasta la vista!

Alicante then.

An extremely pleasant place to spend a few days, a mixture of beach holiday, old town wandering, castles, cervecarias, museums and whatnot. It doesn’t have quite the range of sights as a Valencia or a Málaga maybe, but you’ll always find enough places to go to keep you occupied. And as we’ll see, there are some compelling stories to uncover away from the beaches.

It turns out that Alicante’s Rambla doesn’t quite have the exciting nightlife options of Barcelona’s, it’s really just another thoroughfare in the centre of town, chock-full of the usual Spanish and international shopping outlets, some eateries, et cetera. Still a good point of orientation as you climb away from the beachfront and into the main town. Which is what we’re about to do.

Alicante followed a similar historical path to many cities in these parts – Roman, Visigoth, Arab Muslim, Christian Reconquest, various dynastic wars, Civil War. In the meantime a port developed under the Arabs and hit the boom times during the Golden Age of Spanish empire. That there by the way is the Castell de Sant Barbera, built by the Arabs, maintained and fought over during Christian times, essentially dominating the city and the region, high up on the Benacantil mountain.

You can’t miss it.

Where there are temples to power, nearby you usually find temples to even higher powers, and at the bottom of the outcrop there used to be a mosque. When the Christians took over it was bye-bye mosque and over the ruins they built Alicante’s main church, the Basilica de Sant Maria.

There must be something obvious I’m missing. How do you get in to have a look at the churches here? Whenever I’ve turned up they’ve all been closed. Except for Mass, and it would be rude and disrespectful to take lots of pics then.

So it also seemed for the Co-Cathedral a bit further down, but it does offer some fascinatingly-austere external shots.

Up we go, past the Mercado, and we reach the monument dedicated to one Trini González de Quijano.

Quijano was the local governor in 1854 when cholera broke out in the fast-growing city. He became famous for his tireless efforts in helping the sick – sometimes cradling them in his arms – while making sure medicines were free, shopkeepers didn’t speculate, and priests didn’t run away. We’ll see how he got on a little later.

On we go.

Another closed church! This time it’s the Parish of Mercy. Completed in 1752 to care for the poor, and 1900 would see it open for wandering travel bloggers like me.

That’s 1900 as in “7pm”. Aha! Maybe it’s the same for all the churches here.

You may be wondering, it all looks lovely and all that but it’s kind of, modern-looking for 1752? Good spot.

In my last post about the Italian Fascists bombing the market during the Civil War, I rather gave the populist far-right a bit of a kicking. If you’re a bit of a far-right populist yourself I apologize for offending you and to try to make up for it, here’s some balance.

The port city of Alicante had a rather liberal, open-minded view on things dating from Napoleonic times and naturally it sided with the Republicans during the Civil War against Franco’s Nationalists. However the Republicans weren’t exactly squeaky-clean santos themselves. Their coalition included communists and extreme anti-clerical groups, whom the liberals struggled to control. Atrocities were committed on both sides, and for the hard left the Church was in the firing line – literally. Many churches in Alicante were destroyed and this one had its main altar and its chapel knocked about.

I hope that makes everything clear. If nothing else my blog strives to be fair and balanced, a good read whatever your opinions may be. Anyway, the temple we see today was inaugurated in 1952, as the Spanish church regained its status and power under Franco – who had by then had his opponents locked up in concentration camps, abolished democracy and emboldened his mate Hitler to see how far he could take this genocidal fascism thing. Yes. Fair, and balanced.

A lovely little Spanish place, the old Post Office. It’s not on our route, I took the pictures a day or two before but I thought I’d throw it in to raise the mood as it all just got a little…heavy. Evocative of Spain, I thought at the time, but it was only when I reached the next part of today’s tour that I felt I’d finally reached the heart of the country, with probably the first aspect of Spanish culture that I was ever aware of as a child.

Bienvenido, one and all, to the Plaza de Toros. The bullring.

And all of a sudden Spain begins to feel more alien to the English-speaking visitor, more deeply spiritual, more – more Spanish?

Spain, like many places, has become more and more conscious around animal rights and some cities have banned bullfighting. Not in Alicante. There’s a museum here but this is still an active stadium, tickets going for over 100 euros for the best i.e. shaded seats. According to my limited Spanish comprehension there was due to be another session this weekend.

They give you an audio guide for the stadium tour and, whatever your views on the sport/”sport”, I’d thoroughly recommend it if you’re staying here. It’s a revelation. (Best not come if you have problems with mounted bulls’ heads though).

The Plaza de Toros, with its fine Mudejar-style interior, dates back to 1847. Forty years later it was renovated by another local architect, José Guardiola Pico, who added a second terrace. The bullring now holds 14000 people. You could say senor Guardiola gave the place a proper, ahem, pep-up.

But hurry! the toreadors are nearly ready, the bulls are feeling bullish, it’s showtime baby!

Before the corrida, say a prayer. Just in case.

The last stop before the matadors head out into the ruedo is a tiny chapel on the concourse. Here they follow the advice offered in this old bullfighting proverb, maybe honouring the figure you can just see on the wall of this little room. And suddenly you remember that this is a deadly occupation, for toreador as well as bull, a challenge and an opportunity for both sides of the swishing cape to show their bravery and face the fatal possibilities with nothing less than dedication, nobility, and honour.

The image on the wall? It’s the Santa Faz, the Holy Face of Alicante, a much-revered icon of the city. Created when a woman called Veronica wiped the face of Christ on his way to his crucifixion, the cloth made its miraculous way to Venice, which it saved from the plague. In the 15th century a priest from hereabouts was in Rome when he was given the Faz. (Wikipedia says nothing about how the Romans felt about losing something so utterly useful – let alone the Venetians)

At this point the story becomes real to me. You’ll have noticed that I travel a lot. So that means a lot of packing. And unpacking. It can be a right pain when the bag doesn’t close, or when you actually need those clothes you left at home because you thought you might need the space. (Not to mention that time I left my pyjamas in Cologne). It’s always helpful to have a system, where to put the socks, the undies, how to roll the trousers to make them fit, etc. Father Pedro Meno’s carefully-designed system involved putting the Santa Faz in first, and then putting everything else in on top. So Padre Pedro, wherever you are, I can sympathise with how you must have felt as you did your pack, headed back to Alicante, and at every stop you opened the bag and found the Santa Faz had made its way to the top.

After stopping a drought on the way, it reached Alicante and a church was built to house it, the monastery still stands. Over time such was the devotion that people started taking strips of it and they had to do some reconstruction and stick it in a reliquary. Meanwhile look closely around the city and you should see depictions of it – like the one here.

On the walls here we get a close-up of the Mudejar tiling. The Mudejar style is essentially a continuation of the Islamic style from the Moorish era. For example, there are no human forms on the tiling, they are instead a riot of geometric form and the stylistic imagination.

And so another layer of Spanish identity reveals itself, or maybe multiple layers. The scene is unmistakebly Spanish, but the scene of Catholic devotion inside might have happened in Sicily while the wall tiling outside could be in Samarkand.

No time to ponder, we need to go somewhere else. Because prayers aren’t always answered, and bulls are dangerous.

Incredibly, according to the audio guide the stadium infirmary is the oldest such medical facility in the whole province of Alicante – stadium or not! And despite being something of a museum piece, and the tour allows you to go inside to take a look, it is still in use! It is possible that someone might be wheeled in here in future corridas. Touch wood that doesn’t happen.

The principal danger to the matador is being gored by the bull. At the time the audio guide was recorded the last goring at the Alicante corridas was 2016. Alicante has only seen one (human) death, and that was in the 1910s.

So suitably focussed, mind completely on the job, the toreadors enter the ring, in a procession suffused with meaning and symbolism, and there they go through entrance no. 2…

Good luck!

That just leaves the other stars of the show. They are penned in just along the way, waiting their turn…

Alicante is a Category 2 bullring, which means the bulls must weigh at least 435kg. Categories lead to all sorts of subtleties about what can and can’t be done, indeed the rules of bullfighting – the matador’s passes, the handkerchiefs of the ring president, what the bull must do to be allowed to live, etc etc – is so mind-bogglingly complex I invite you to do a quick G..gl. to find out more.

Because I’m off to my seat. It’s time for action!

Well that was fun. I think that guy there won.

A quick spin through the actual museum bit reveals lots of great photos, cloaks and other memorabilia of the greats who’ve performed here down the decades. Including this cloak.

One hopes that Santa Faz performed its magic and the toreador got out unscathed.

Incidentally, the stadium is also used for concerts and other sporting events. It even staged the Davis Cup semi-final between Spain and France in 2004. On the Spanish team that day was a certain Rafael Nadal. Considering the career he went on to have, do Fed, Nole, Murray and the rest ever wonder if someone should have checked Rafa’s bag that day? He might have had a face towel that, somehow, kept appearing at the top of his kit bag whenever he needed a new racquet…

Time to leave this fascinating and evocative place, controversial maybe but also storied, and with a touch of Mudejar grandeur to it, senor Guardiola’s second terrace resting proudly on that Moorish-influenced base.

You might even say, Guardiola could not have achieved what he did without support from the Arabs.

Out we go, back down again, back into town.

Like many Spanish communities Alicante celebrates the Feast of St John in June with a great fiesta of bonfire lighting. But here it’s the biggest event of the year. We’re now in the Museum of the Bonfires, which displays the specially-sculpted figures, or Ninots, that were so good they weren’t thrown into the flames after all. In fact there’s prize-giving for the best ones every year.

There are handy plaques around the museum describing how the Ninots developed over time, what they represent, and so on. They’re in Spanish, Catalan and English. I can read a little bit of “museum Spanish” but the English was so garbled, clearly G..gl. Translate at its worst, it absolutely did my head in and I just took a look at the figures for myself. I gathered that they were in general comical, satirical, historic, a little surreal and sometimes philosophical.

And sometimes just very weird. Maybe more so if you’re a visitor to this city, or maybe even if you’re a local. Still a bit of Charlie Chaplin will always lighten the mood a little.

Which is handy because the Ninots can be very sad as well.

Yes, sorry to say it’s our good friend, Governor Quijano. His battle to defeat the cholera epidemic was successful, but just as the plague was on the wane it seized the opportunity to settle a personal score. Exhausted by his efforts, Quijano succumbed easily. He was only 47 when he died. The monument we saw earlier is actually his mausoleum.

A heroic figure. And that’s something I think we can all agree on.

Most would call it “a week of sun, sea and sangria on the Costa Blanca”.

Me? I call it “unfinished business with the Spanish-speaking world”.

The knee injury from my last post had its complications, and it needed a second operation back home. Now I’m into a second bout of recovery and physio, and although the fix seems to have stuck this time anyone who has been through something like this knows that it takes a good while and a lot of work to get it properly moving again – whatever “properly” will mean in the future.

At the moment I still can’t do all the things I used to take for granted, or at least it takes longer to potter through them than it used to. The good news is that there has been good progress since the brace came off and I’m much more mobile than at any time since the accident. Touch wood, and anything else I can reach with my crutch (just the one now, and rarely used except for the odd step).

So I’ve been getting out and about a bit more recently, and being able to go to the normal places and see people again has been a thrill and reminded me that you only really notice the simple pleasures and joys of life once they’re taken away. That stuff has all been great. But (and I apologise if you’re one of the lovely people I’ve met up with in the last few weeks), there’s one activity that I was really hoping to do once it made practical sense. One thing that I love so much, I even started blogging about it…

Just two hours flying time from London, the sun-kissed city of Alicante is perfect for the rehabilitating traveller who had to let the wet, cold English “summer” of 2024 wash over them but is a bit worried about how their legs will get on in an economy seat (fine, as it happens). My thoughts had turned to this region not long ago after a friend spent a lovely time nearby – somewhere that wasn’t Benidorm!* – and in my research I discovered that Alicante looked a bit like Valencia and Málaga from last year – a vibrant, authentic Spanish city, great beaches, nice winding streets, a castle or two. So here I am, slowly getting to grips with it, and I mean slowly. It will take me a bit longer than usual to get a feeling for the place and have enough information about the photos I’ll be sending, so apologies if I repost a couple once I do a tour or two and get more information (yes, yes, I know I could just Google it all, but where’s the fun in that?)

*He says he didn’t spend much time in Benidorm, if any at all. I suppose we have to believe him

We’re looking inland from the marina at the moment, and we’ll cross the esplanade and head up into town via a little avenue.

Alicante is Alacant in the local language of Valenciano (it’s part of the Valencian Community). Valenciano is a distinct language, and previous research has led me to in no way confuse it with Catalan!

As in Barcelona, where they speak a completely-unrelated language, by complete coincidence a tree-lined avenue here is also a Rambla.

Fortunately no-one seems to realise you have lovely relaxing Rambla strolls in other spots on the Spanish Mediterranean, not just Barca. So it’s not as crowded.

Don’t tell anyone. I said nothing, Ok?

The Rambla climbs up to another centre of things, the Mercado Central, the market, the final stop on this opening blog post.

Built in the early 20th century to replace a rather rickety street market, the Mercado is still the place to get your local meats, your fruit and veg, maybe sit down to have a cervesa or two once the ingredients for today’s cena are in the bag. During the Spanish Civil War the Italian fascists so appreciated this temple to old-time indigenous European traditions and values, they did what the far right so love to do whenever they get the opportunity.

Kill as many people as possible.

At the back of the market is the Plaza 25 de Mayo, which commemorates the bombing of the market on 25th May 1938, and the 300 people who were killed that day.

Alicante was probably expecting an attack, so much so that there were air-raid sirens in place. But some of them failed just when they were needed, and people were caught unawares. One of the sirens is kept in a museum case at the entrance, along with an old clock that stopped at twenty-past eleven that day.

The time of the attack.

Frozen in time, for ever. There have been moments this year that I’ve wondered if my personal clock of recovery has stopped. And if Europe’s own clocks are being re-wound back to the Thirties, as if the fascists are seeing their time come again. It looks like the hands on my own clock-face are moving again, gradually moving away from my moment of crisis.

But what about Europe?

I suppose one of the benefits of abolishing your standing army is having all that extra money to spend on public services. One of the most prominent beneficiaries is Costa Rica’s health service, so much so that a quick Google for “medical tourism Costa Rica” will show how attractive the standard of healthcare here is to outsiders looking for affordable, high-quality treatment.

I am not a medical tourist, but I can vouch for how good some of the facilities are here. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in the interest of research for this blog. There are much, much more fascinating things to write about regarding this stunning, vibrant little country.

But I won’t be able to blog about any more of it, because of the accident I had the day after my walk to El Miro in the previous post. The accident where I fell awkwardly on the road and bashed my knee so badly I had to have surgery. That one.

Well the hospital sent me on my way the following day, but there’s not much exploring you can do when you’ve just been given a brace and are learning how to pootle around on crutches. Let me clarify; yes, of course there are countless travellers out there with really life-changing conditions managing to go into the world and tell us great stories, and my admiration for them all has just gone up several notches. But as for me, I had to rest, stay around the hotel, and let nature take its course.

Which means a rather sudden end to these Costa Rican blog posts I’m afraid. No more rainforest, no crocodiles, jaguars, volcanoes, no boat trips out to beautiful islands, a great trip cut short in its prime. Well, stuff happens I suppose and there are plenty of travellers who have had worse things happen to them – much worse. So I have much to be grateful for. And a quick scan of this blog’s menu will show that I’ve been lucky to have done many, many trips over the last few years where the worst thing that happened was me knocking out one or two allegedly funny and insightful posts about them. I’ve had a great run to this point, and hopefully this knee will heal in time and soon I’ll be out there again to find more stuff to enjoy and write about. And until then…well I’d better have a look at all those posts for myself!

Over the mountains we go, heading westwards to the Pacific coast and the resort town of Jaco Beach. There are a string of resorts on the Pacific, and apart from the wide beaches and the lively bar scene, the big draw is their proximity to the magical rainforests and their unique diversity of fauna and flora.

I’ve lined up a couple of tours away from the beach for later, don’t worry, but you couldn’t help think that a week spent walking up and down the samds would not be wasted. And Jaco might not even be the best beach in the stretch, that honour probably lies with Manuel Antonio about 70 km to the south, a white-sandy beach enveloped by rainforest, an actual live national park. Unfortunately I won’t be able to fit it in this visit.

After a splendid day walking along the beach, I spent this morning making my way up the promontory in the second photograph. There is a viewpoint along the coastal road, a mirador in Spanish, but we’ll be hiking up to a higher vantage point, confusingly called El Miro. I’ll explain later, so for now get your hat, your sunnies, strap on your walking shoes – and for goodness sake get your water bottles! It’s 32C out there, I know I know, I should have gone a little earlier. My bad. Anyway, vamos! Let’s go!

The story goes that many years ago a local man called Miro wanted to build a mansion on the hillside, a place to take in the stunning views of the bay. Or it might have been a hotel. Or a restaurant. Sadly Miro died before the work was complete, and the place was abandoned, its ghostly ruins succumbing to the rainforest as the decades passed.

True or otherwise it’s a poignant, haunting tale, and fortunately it’s more likely than my own version. The one where the hotel’s reviews were awful and the tourist authority had to close it down. Why? Well for a start there’s the shocking absence of maintenance of the property…

…the unreliable gardening contractors…

…the irresponsible approach to emergency exits in case of fire…

…and the less said about the infinity pool the better!

Fortunately it’s all worth it when you reach the room with the view.

Glorious. A fantastic reward for twenty minutes of hard hiking.

Oh, I forgot. That’s the economy room. The presidential suite is another twenty minutes climb…

Note the graffiti art. This is the most substantial part of the complex, and the artwork on the walls  (indeed on the retaining walls near the top) has become a destination in itself.

But you’ve come for the views, haven’t you?

Let’s turn around.

It might be worth opening up a map of Costa Rica for this first bit, if you’re not familiar with the geography. There’s a stumpy little peninsula running south-eastwards down from the Nicaraguan border, and on the horizon you can make out the edge of that stump. Further up the peninsula, by the way, you’ll find other famous destinations such as the ones in the Guanacaste region. With any luck we’ll be getting closer to that stump in a couple of days time.

The tree gets in the way of the rest of the view so we need to shift over a bit.

Jaco Beach is a surfer resort, as you can see from the breakers. This gives it a low-key, fun feeling, although it’s a well-developed resort with, as you can make out, some unsightly high-rise hotels. One of which, of course, I am staying in.

It was a spectacular view, the silence of the sea, the sky, the headlands only broken by the distant,  timeless, roll of the breakers onto the ancient shore, and broken by the distant but piercing roar of the trucks on the main road that passes the entrance to the hike. I guess you can’t have everything.

Time to check out and head back down to the first viewpoint and a complete view of the bay.

Blue sea, blue sky, green forest, teeming with life, endless shore, super-friendly people in the bay. Pure life – Pura Vida – as the Costa Ricans say.

(incessantly. On every T-shirt, souvenir hat and bar front the Ticos can get their hands on…)

The isthmus of Central America, sitting slap bang over the meeting point of tectonic plates, is essentially a volcanic mountain range and San José is rather prettily surrounded by a few of them. Some might say they’re the capital’s redeeming feature, given the lack of an outstanding city centre or picturesque old town. One pleasant exception is La Sabana park to the west of the city centre, a good place to check out the surrounding mountains and prepare for the natural riches outside the city as well as escape the ceaseless traffic that clogs this place.

What interesting buildings there are in San José are down to coffee. After independence Costa Rica finally got its economic act together and developed coffee as a major export. The previous capital of Cartago became overshadowed by this upstart home of the coffee merchants, who splashed their cash on fine establishments and monuments to various political struggles.

I’m guessing this is an old coffee merchant’s house. The coffee trade was so critical that an American billionaire called Minor Keith had a railway built from San José to Limon on the Caribbean coast, in order to get the coffee to the crucial European market. Our friend Minor was actually very Major in many ways, not just his bank account, but for example in his impact on the country’s demographics. Many Jamaicans sailed over to help build the line, and their descendants form a substantial and distinct minority in Costa Rica, mostly around the Limon area.

The impressive Post Office, although San José hasn’t much to write home about in terms of historic sites. The real buzz is in the street life, the market stall holders shouting the odds on the scrappy side streets, the Latin music booming out from the little bars on a Friday evening, the narrow crowded pavements being the only thing stopping you from sashaying down the streets to the rhythm…

The National Museum, at the centre of the Plaza de la Cultura. Over to the right…

…the Plaza Juan Mora Fernández, named after this impressive chap, who became the country’s first elected head of state in 1824. A man of liberal persuasions he was also responsible for a series of wide-reaching land reforms. Enough to get him his own plaza and an arresting statue, maybe. The fact that, according to Wikipedia, his reforms accidentally created the coffee barons in the first place may have also had a hand in settling the matter.

The Parque Central, in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral. And…that will do for San José. There were a couple of other museums I could have gone to but in all honesty, I didn’t feel there were any must-sees that I missed. As I sort of implied at the top, some of the popular tours on offer take you out of town to the surrounding volcanoes like the famous Arenal, so it’s time for us to take their lead and head out and away. We leave behind a city that has its points of interest but has just enough to detain the traveller for one or two days, max. Do I know the way through San José? Well, a little better than before, enough for some useful insights, but it’s time to tick it off the list and head through the mountains and to the beach!

Round objects. Round, stone spheres. Perfectly circular, mysterious and monumental, very, very round. As round as the moon, as circular as an argument, going round in circles. So stony, so…round.

No-one is quite sure why they were created, but there they were, large stone spheres carved about fifteen hundred years ago in the south of what is now Costa Rica. And here is one of them, sitting in the National Museum in the capital San Jose, representing the very heart of Costa Rican cultural identity.

There’s another reason to start a blog about Costa Rica here, because the general advice to visitors to this country is to go around San Jose as quickly as possible to get to the glorious natural treasures waiting for you in the rainforests, the mountains and the lovely beaches. But I usually like to make sure I feel the pulse of a country’s great urban centres before I head to the nice bits so I decided to spend a couple of nights here first, indeed, have a look, ahem, around.

Some history to begin with. Costa Rica’s story is similar to their Central American neighbours, well up to a point. First up were the indigenous Mesoamericans, and as we’ve seen they were handy with their stonework though there are none of the great pyramids that Mexico and Guatemala can boast. There are more wonderful examples of these peoples’ handiwork inside the museum, and if you’re in the neighbourhood they’re worth a look

Christopher Columbus was in the neighbourhood in the late fifteenth century, but lovely carved tables wasn’t his thing. And so began the Columbian era, in which the region was claimed for the Christian god and the Kingdom of Spain. Furthering the divine interests of God and Spain of course meant dispossession and forced labour for the locals on the new plantations and down the goldmines. Alongside the new diseases this had the unfortunate effect of killing a lot of them. But the blessed mission of Christ and Europe could – must – not be stopped, so unwilling replacements from Africa were dragged over in shackles and into enslavement.

Well that’s the usual story, but there were slight differences in Costa Rica. There apparently weren’t enough native people here to make the system work, not enough gold either. So the province slipped into poverty and relative obscurity, with the mestizo class (mixed Spanish and Amerindian) having to literally dig out a living for themselves. It’s said (well Wikipedia anyway) that this led to Costa Rica being more egalitarian and democratic than its neighbours.

And to see what that led to, we’ll skip the rather complex evolution of Costa Rican independence in the early 19th century, and end up inside the Museum, right by a wall.

The elections in 1948 were disputed and ended up in a civil war. A local businessman called José Figueres Ferrer joined in, and ended up on the winning side. This museum was originally a barracks, and after the victory Ferrer walked up to this spot, and swung a hammer at the wall to signify his big idea.

Abolishing the army as a standing institution.

Now, the reasons are complex and he didn’t come up here dressed like a Woodstock hippy with his peace pipe and lack of soap. But even today the Ticos are proud that, in a troubled region with a history of brutal coups, all they have is a police and defence corps and a stable, progressive democracy which has had no civil war since 1949. It’s the one thing you might have heard about Costa Rica, and I’m hoping to show you a few more things about the place in the next few posts.

So, Costa Rican history. From a stone to a wall. In a roundabout way, of course.

WARNING: this post contains some surprisingly uncomplimentary comments about the life and work of Pablo Picasso. If you are a particularly sensitive Arts person, read it at your own risk.

A good place to start a walk around Malaga is where Alamada Principal, the city centre’s main artery, meets its most fashionable street Calle Marqués de Larios.

The Marquis made his money out of textiles and sugar and the Larios family became instrumental as Malaga industrialised in the 19th century. And their money was also instrumental in financing this street, possibly the most notable in the city when it was built.

Let’s turn around.

And there’s the old man himself, looking rather smug-serious as he admires his city while a grateful populace reach out and offer their praises. Or maybe they’re passing him the suncream and water bottle he’s irresponsibly left behind in the mansion. It’s touching 30 degrees Centigrade today. If that’s a hat in his hand he’d better put it on.

Walking up the Calle Larios we eventually reach Plaza de la Constitución, another important centre of city life.

A short turn down an alley eventually leads to Malaga’s monumental Cathedral.

Unlike in Seville and Cordoba, the new cathedral bore no trace of the grand mosque that was here before. So consider it to be a new build, a new massive Baroque pile. Much of the work is 18th century, and it continued into the 19th until the money wore out. That’s why the south tower we see here isn’t topped out.

The presence of the old great mosque would suggest we’re at the centre of power in old Malaga, and indeed we are right at the edge of the hills on which rest the great Moorish redoubts of the Alcazaba and Gibralfaro Castle.

Rising out of the plaza is the Alcazaba. There is evidence that the Phoenicians had established trading settlements right here, also that the Romans used the site too. Well in the case of the Romans, more than evidence, just take the theatre in the shadow of the battlements.

The Alcazaba itself served as a fortified residence and administrative centre for the various Arab rulers that were here before the end in 1487. As you ascend through the site you pass through a number of gateways that betray the Arabic heritage and the syncretic use of Roman columns from the old regime.

There has been a fair bit of restor byation over the last hundred years, so you have to do some thinking about whether you’re seeing something authentic or a reconstruction. Take the Door of the Halls of Granada here.

Spectacular, but much of it is a reconstruction by the great Malagan architect and sometime mayor Fernando Guerrero Strachan. I think you’d agree with me though that not even brother Gordon could have made a better job of it.

At the very top are complete rebuilds of the old palace residences. Not exactly Granada, but still well done.

The Moors used to have a parapet that led up from the Alcazaba to the Gibralfaro up on the top of the hill, but it’s gone now and you have to come all the way down and start again. However buses and cabs are there to help you avoid the steep 130 metre climb to the top, a very good idea if it’s hot. So I headed for the bus.

You can see the path to Gibralfaro to the right here. Well I saw the path as well and just thought “sod the bus’. Twenty hot, heavy-breathing minutes later I was there!

If anything Gibralfaro looks to be even more of a rebuild job than the Alcazaba. The name comes from Jebel (Arabic -rock) and Faro (Arabic-Greek borrowing – lighthouse), testifying to the presence of the old Phoenician lighthouse. The Arabs built the castle to house the troops who were defending the bigwigs down the hill. Once they were kicked out the place was sort-of used, then Napoleon’s hommes moved in during the Peninsular War. When they were kicked out in 1812 the French decided to destroy as much of the site as possible. Reconstruction, real, a-bit-of-both, whatever, it’s a fine place to wander around, a good place to recognize Spain’s links to the Arab world, a great way to burn off those cervezas, and it offers fantastic views.

Back down to earth, and it’s all happening around here. Opposite the Roman theatre is a museum dedicated to local boy-made-good Pablo Picasso whose childhood home is around the corner. The day before the ascent of Gibralfaro I paid it a visit.

Big mistake. I wasn’t as impressed as I thought I might be. Turned out I wasn’t the intended audience.

And being a simpleton, all I could see was lots of pornographic drawings of his many mistresses with lots of triangles and circles in there.

Well I may not know much about art, but I know what I like. And I do like Malaga. Unfortunately I appear to have run out of snaps. So I’d better get on and grab some more, hadn’t I? One more day to go, let’s see if there’s something more to say shall we?

The train out of Madrid takes three hours to run down south, through the great plains and scrubby rolling hills of south-central Spain. As Castille gives way to Andalusia the hills seem to draw in nearer and there are more deep river beds to cross, and even more tunnels to push through. The hills are never far away even as we ease into Malaga itself; the port city is picturesquely hemmed by parched hillsides, some of which pop up in the town itself. A site with a good sized harbour, with ready made high places for fortification and defence. Perfect as a power base for your aspiring empire, if you can stand the summer heat.

First to ring the local estate agents were the Phoenicians, and when they arrived in about 800BC the name Malaka (“fish salting place”) went up on the front door. The Greeks moved in about two hundred years later, and they were still there when the port became part of the Roman Empire and underwent substantial development. The Visigoths came along, but the deepest impression on the city was made by the Moors, who exchanged contracts in the early 8th century. Various Muslim dynasties ruled until 1487, when Ferdinand and Isabella undertook a forced eviction and inserted Catholicism into the title deeds. Malaga then fell into decline, until – rather surprisingly perhaps for what appears to be a laid-back, party-loving city on the Costa del Sol – it became the most industrialised city in Spain in the 19th century. A centre of Republicanism during the Civil War, Malaga suffered brutal repression from the victorious Francoists, but the old fascist was good enough to allow the Costa to develop its thriving tourist economy in the 1960s.

Which reminds me, beaches.

Today’s Malaga has an old town that follows the street plan of the Arab medina, but the buildings are essentially 19th century, and characteristically Spanish with their elaborate balconies and long window shutters. You half expect Carmen to pop out of them at some point and warble her love for the star matador at the bullring around the corner. And someone to accompany her on the castanets. And a bull to run amok somewhere.

Maybe she’s already given it a go, and no-one heard her above the hubbub. Malaga is full of tourists. All here for the weather, the beach, the places to eat, the Irish pubs in the old town, the pulsating nightlife. Toledo is full of old convents but the whole town felt like one vast Trappist monastery compared to this place.

I have to admit, I love it. Ask me again after my next three nights here though.

Three nights in Valencia. A decent period for a city break, but as usual not enough to get beneath the skin of a place to reach its beating heart. I passed through the central market just as it was closing. I grabbed a peak of the cathedral just as they were saying Mass. I didn’t even go into the science museum in the park; it’s quite expensive and online advice suggests the exterior is just as impressive. And that’s how I experienced Valencia, from the outside; exploring the evocative narrow streets, soaking the balmy Saturday night atmosphere as around me groups of tourists and friends (never massive crowds) cheerily moved from place to place along the time-honoured alleyways.

If three nights in Valencia wasn’t enough, try one night in one of Spain’s greatest historical treasures. Come with me now as we leave Valencia, and get the two hour train to north Madrid before crossing the city to get the train out to glorious Toledo.

And now seethe with frustration as we find that it takes an hour to get from Madrid Chamartin station in the north to Atocha station in the south. Well it doesn’t really; there’s a metro and a suburban line and it takes a few minutes. But for some reason I yomped my way to the metro, only to find there was a bus replacement to Atocha from – well from somewhere, I couldn’t work out where, yomped back to where the suburban trains were, and after more confusion about what ticket to buy finally jumped on a train – with what turned out to be the wrong ticket.

Reminder to self: having some basic Spanish while knowing that English will bail you out in most cases is generally OK. But you never know when the English translation will turn out to be even more incomprehensible.

Having sheepishly paid the excess fare at the other end, I waited for the train that would whisk me on the short journey to Toledo and soon I was there.

Toledo. UN World Heritage Site of Toledo. A magnificently preserved walled city on a hill, spectacularly girdled by the River Tagus.

A Muslim city. A Jewish city. A Christian city from 1085, from which time the three communities continued to co-exist for another two centuries or so. Leaving behind a riot of mosques-cum-churches, mosque-like churches, synagogues, convents, too much for just one afternoon.

Toledo, the city where Charles V moved his Holy Roman court a number of times. (We’ve met Charles V before : https://wp.me/p9E0Hz-j3. We’ll probably bump into him again some day). The city that the great painter El Greco made his home. And, apparently, the city that still has a reputation for sword-making.

And here we have a combination of the last two. This El Grecoesque figure is admiring the new spear he’s just purchased from the shop behind. My, look how amazed he is by how long and sharp his pointy bit is.

Toledo of the Alcazar, the power base of Muslim rulers and Christian kings and still used by the Spanish military alongside its museum.

Toledo of power. Toledo of God. Toledo of empires. Toledo of the early start in the morning to catch the train out of town.

Toledo of the Repeat Visit Required list.