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  • More (cautious) Spanish steps

    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

    Hoping to find out a bit more about this memorial without using G..gl.

    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?

  • And that was it

    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!

  • Pura vida

    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 way through San José

    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!

  • The Stone and the Wall

    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.

  • Off the beach

    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?

  • Costa living

    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.

  • Toledo shuffle

    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.

  • Spanish steps

    First of all, we need to deal with that bat.

    Here we are inside the Lonja de la Seda, the superbly elegant silk trading hall that stands as a monument to mediaeval Valencia and its power and riches. But wind back a bit. Like all three of the great Spanish cities I’ll be visiting, Valencia had a Roman period, a Visigothic period, a Moorish period, and the post-Reconquista Christian period we are more-or-less seeing today. Let’s go towards the windows, turn right and stand by the gate.

    At the top of the wooden frame stand three representations of Valencia’s coat of arms, and one has a bat on top.

    In the 13th century, James I of Aragon fancied extending the Reconquest to Muslim Balansiyya, (the Arabised version of Roman Valentia). James seemed to have some sensitivity about him; during the siege a bat landed on his tent/head/storyteller-specific, and he pardoned it and let it go, claiming it to be a good luck symbol.

    But he was in no mood to extend his good will to the Moors of Balansiyya, and they weren’t in a mood to be conquered, reconquered, whatever. One night, drums alerted James and his fellow besiegers to a surprise attack by the defenders. The surprise element was thus lost, and so were the Muslims, and Balansiyya became Valencia, and the final element in this beautiful city’s rich multicultural history was in place. All thanks to those brave drummers.

    Drummers? What drummers?

    None of James’ soldiers discovered the incursion, let alone alerted the rest of the army. The Muslims wouldn’t have given the game away of course. Surely there were collaborators within the city! A good shout, but no. James looked far, and he looked wide, until someone found out that the drumming came from the walls of one of the tents – made by the little feet of a very astute and very grateful little bat…

    That’s one possible reason why the bat sits on top of the symbol of Valencia. Another, more boring, answer is that the bat evolved from an earlier depiction of a dragon.

    The third option is my own. The figure represents the fact that you’d be batty to spend your time in Barcelona instead. Valencia has the sites – silk hall, a great market, magnificent cathedral, lovely old town – an elegant city centre, and great beaches. Even its language is very much like Catalan. But, although there are quite a few tourists here it doesn’t feel as overwhelmed as Barcelona, and all this without an overrated, overcrowded Las Ramblas or an increasingly overrated football team (Valencia’s two teams were never much rated in the first place). People are beginning to discover this little Mediterranean jewel so if you want to discover it for yourself, now’s the time to come, before the rest of us come over and ruin it for the locals. Here’s some evidence to help convince you (as long as you promise not to tell anyone).

    I thought the very splendid Central Market was an old train station until I took a closer look. Barca has a nice wrought-iron market on Las Ramblas as well, but, y’know.

    The market is on the edge of the Ciutat Vella, the Old Town, and it’s a delight.

    That’s the Plaza de la Reina, and at the top is the Cathedral. Usual Spanish story, built over the old great mosque which was itself probably built over a Visigothic site. And this was always the centre of things in town, because the site is right next to the old Roman forum of Valentia, brilliantly preserved by the L’Almoina museum and absolutely fascinating.

    On the edge of the old town is bounded by the Turia river. A number of old bridges attest to the times when various notables would live across from the city in their palaces

    Now I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. That last river bridge is a bit younger. I don’t know how old it is.

    …oh, hang on, you’re on about how the river looks very…green and gravelly…

    Well there really was a river here once, but it was prone to flooding and in 1957 it really burst its banks with much loss of life. The city had had enough and over the next ten years they’d diverted it to run outside the town centre. They did a brilliant job of turning the old waterway into a park with walkways and cycle paths.

    And there’s no better way to get to Valencia’s modern masterpiece, probably its jewel in the crown.

    Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias. The City of Arts and Sciences.

    The Opera House
    The science bit

    Designed by star architects Calatrava and Candela, this complex of opera house, science museum and – I wasn’t sure what the blue thing was meant to be, except super-sized gift shop – this magnificent futuristic fantasy is apparently Valencia’s most-visited site. Honestly I don’t know from where they got the whole idea of dumping some science-fiction idea of an opera house into a harbour city. (This might help. https://wp.me/p7aqDB-38)

    From Roman roads to Galactic Premier League player’s personal spaceship, Valencia has got it all. Oh, I forgot the beaches…

    S’not fair. Drives me batty.

  • The last from Lusitania

    So here I am, heading over to Faro airport ahead of flying home tonight. This last post is kindly sponsored by my airline who have given me an extra two hours to get tapping and round off my tales from Portugal. Very good of them to cancel my original flight and rebook me on one that gets in so late I’ll only get home well after midnight. Maybe not the world’s favourite airline after all.

    Still, we are where we are and where I am is rummaging through my photos looking for interesting ones that I haven’t put out yet. So out they come now.

    Portugal on a Wall

    The lively Barrio Alto area of central Lisbon (the western hilly bit) and a nice bit of artwork that neatly captures much of what characterises the country. Next to the guitar is Portugal’s own six strings, maybe some of the dancers are cavorting to its strains. They might be fisherfolk enjoying some well-deserved downtime after bringing in that catch of Lisbon’s famous sardines, out of which the garum, the fish oil much prized by the Romans, has been processed and poured into the urn. And the port wine has been flowing and it’s all going on, some bullfighting is happening too and do I hear the sombre tones of, fado?

    Oh, and there’s a cock. Which you see everywhere. But why?

    Many years ago a pilgrim was making his way to Santiago de Compostela over the border in Galicia, when he stopped off in a small village. The following morning one of the locals reported a theft, and there could only be one suspect, right? The villagers acted swiftly and picked up the outsider and dragged him to the local judge, ignoring his protestations of innocence.

    The judge had protestations of his own once the mob reached his house. There he was, about to settle down to a sumptuous lunch when they arrived. Now he’d have to go off and do something onerous like administer justice instead. Leaving that big succulent roast cockerel to go cold.

    So he decided to make it quick. When the suspect again protested his innocence, the judge was not interested. With the big bird clearly still on his mind, he pronounced “look you’re bound to rights mate, in fact you’re so guilty the only way I’ll believe you is if that roast cockerel you’ve stopped me from eating gets up from the table and says you didn’t do it! Case closed.”

    Case closed indeed. Because as you can guess, that’s exactly what the chicken did!

    As the exonerated pilgrim went safely on his way to Santiago, the figure of the cockerel became what it is today, a national symbol of hospitality and respect to visitors and outsiders, and there’ll be a few at every souvenir shop you visit here.

    Of course it’s all – literally – a cock-and-bull story from more backward, credulous times and today none of that would happen. In these more modern days the judge would be a rightwing populist and as soon as the cock got up to say its piece, he would shout over it calling it a “woke cancel-culture expert who loves these outsiders and hates us” and then have its neck wrung to make sure it was, er, cancelled. Meanwhile, as the outsider slowly roasts on the spit, the mob would dance around it celebrating having “taken back control” and “stopped the visitors”. And all of the souvenir shops would be selling the spit. Yes, we are much, much more advanced these days.

    Lisbon views

    I mentioned in my Lisbon post that the Santa Justa lift is a bit of a tourist trap. There are huge queues to go up it just to get a view you can get for free by other means.

    However I didn’t show you the views.

    The middle of the three rises in the background, all atop the Alfama, is where I headed for the reverse viewpoint.

    A history of the Algarve in electrical infrastructure components

    In parts of the Algarve there appears to be a thing for painting up electrical and telecoms junction boxes with pretty artwork. These two are from the town of Silves.

    Considering that Albufeira is the party town, its artwork is surprisingly more educational. There are some paintings of general life, fishermen, fashion, but most of the ones I photographed captured scenes from the town’s long history.

    Starting off from when Albufeira was an important Moorish fortress and when the Christians tried to take it…

    Albufeira, no stranger to natural disasters, was virtually destroyed by the tsunami that followed the 1755 earthquake. The artwork gives a good sense of the size of the wave. (I think).

    All the buildings along the waterfront were lost, as were around 200 souls when the church they had sought refuge in, collapsed.

    Finally, this fine chap is one Remexido, a key figure of the 1833 Liberal Wars. As you all know, the Liberal Wars was a dispute about whether you should be eating lentil or muesli whenever you read The Guardian. Somehow it metamorphosed from something I just made up into an actual struggle between absolutist and liberal forces in Portugal. The people of Albufeira weren’t laughing, however, when the anti-liberal Remexido arrived in town with his men, executing many of the inhabitants and damaging many buildings. After the liberals won Remexido would eventually end up in front of a firing squad after further intrigue, including the government killing his young son when his wife didn’t tell them where her husband was holed up.

    Hmm, that’s a pretty grim note to wrap up these blog posts on an enjoyable trip through a beautiful, friendly country. So during the two or three hours I was in Faro waiting for my bus to the airport I took some final snaps, this time of the lovely little old town. Unfortunately I didn’t do any research into the background of either the town or the buildings.

    So, if you want to find out more, why don’t you come out here yourself?