From Seville to Amsterdam. One man's story.
After I left my dingy rat hole of an apartment (which was still pretty good, since it was in Andalusia), I got the train to Algeciras. I asked to go to Gibraltar, was given a ticket to Algeciras, caught the train for a few hours and wondered what to do next. Turns out that Algeciras is the closest place in Spain you can get to The Rock, just a scant 40 minutes by Regional buses. I checked into a Pension hostel (basically a 1 star hotel) called 'The Levante' (sound familiar? :) and spent the rest of the day looking around. It's a very small town, with nothing of merit apart from a pub called the Boomerang Bar, which is ot even vaguely Australian, apart from the large colour picture of Sydney Harbour hanging on the wall. Which was nice. Algeciras also houses an interesting bunch of Christians, who work at a coffee shop in the 'red light district' called The International Christian Coffee House. They served great English breakfasts, nice big mugs of filtered coffee (a nice change from the tiny espresso cups you usually get in Europe), along with brimstone and hellfire riddled sermons. Truly something to wake you up in the morning.
Most of my time in Algeciras was actually spent in day trips to Gibraltar, where I was able to enjoy pints of Bass and climb up The Rock to see the Rock Apes who are smart enough to rip open the bottoms of plastic bags containing food and make off with the contents. I saw one monkey eat a whole pack of pasta shells, and another smear itself with a banana. Great stuff. Also saw the siege tunnels that riddle the Rock; some 33 miles of artifical tunnels wend their way throughout Gibraltar, most constructed during and after WWII. There's also a great cave which is large enough to house a huge auditorium with speaker systems, etc.! It used to be a hospital and could hold hundreds of patients.
After Gibraltar I caught the train up to Ronda, a picturesque little town a couple of hours north. Again, there ain't much there, except the oldest bullring in Spain, and a gorgeous gorge over which an amazing three-tiered bridge is suspended. Ronda is where I wrote my April Fool's message...
Ronda was followed by Granada, which is renowned for La Alhambra, and not much else. The Alhambra is a truly amazing Moorish palace, which has been converted to the Christian faith, etc. typical of much of Spain's architecture. It is vastly intricate in terms of its decoration; plaster walls covered with Arabic texts, inventive mathematical tesselations (some of which are REALLY cool and clever), and highly elaborate 'vegatable' themes.
As with the rest of Spain, Granada has many Irish pubs, and I saw a HELP WANTED sign in one which looked quite good, so I shimmied in and asked the bar tender if I could get a job. First question he asked was if I spoke Spanish. No. Well, bugger off then! This discrimination (as Kate put it) took me by surprise, as I've never heard ANYONE speak Spanish in an Irish pub. Ah well.. it strengthened my resolve to get a 'real' job in London.
After Granada I headed to Toledo which is a beautiful walled medieval city perched on a hill. On the way I stopped in Aranjuez, of Rodrigo fame, which is nothing to write home about (so why am I you may ask..). The youth hostel in Toledo is actually in a real, historical castle, just outside of the city. The city itself seems to be mainly held together by Sword and Souvenir shops, which are about as ubiquitous as those camera shops I saw in Hong Kong so many months ago. Whilst in Toledo I got the urge to buy a copy of Cervantes' Don Quixote, which is set around the area. At one point I was sitting in a tavern, and Cervantes mentioned how Don's squire was sitting around in a tavern in Toledo. I got a spooky thrill down my spine...
Toledo was followed by San Sebastian, or Donostia as it is called by the locals, a seaside resort on the northern coast, very close to France. Unfortunately, it was raining for the whole time I was there, which had been typical also of Toledo and most of my time in Granada. Donostia has nothing much to offer except a beach, so it was kind of pointless me being there. I kept waiting 'just one more day' in the hope it would clear up. It never did and I left in a foul mood for Bordeaux one dreary morning.
Bordeaux has two reputations. Firstly, people consider it the prime wine growing region in France and see it as a beautiful secluded valley packed with grape vines. Secondly, people consider it to be a horribly industrialised city, typical of the way the world is going. I have to say that, after seeing it, it turns out to be closer to the former than the latter. It is a very pretty town in many ways, with some nice architecture and a pleasant atmosphere. The vineyards themselved of course occupy the massive region surrounding the city. The best wines are apparently Margeux and those from St. Emilion. I was unable to find a Margeux of any reasonable price, and so I decided I would have to get into the vineyards themselves. Unfortunately, it was hard to get anywhere except St. Emilion, in the off season, so this is where I ended up going.
St. Emilion is a small town about half an hour by train east of central Bordeaux. It's a wonderful stone village with heaps of old buildings, catacombs, a monolith (never did find out what that was exactly), churches, and most of all, wine shops. But instead of forking out the francs in these shops, I decided to go to actual source of it all, and took a 6km walk north of the town to a vineyard called Tour St. Michel. After tasting (degustation) a few of the vintages, I decided on the '95 and '97, offering an informed commentary on both the palette and aroma of each to my astonished hosts (who were desparately suppressing their giggles..)
Paris was the next stop. Two of the friends I made in Barcelona (hey K&R) were finishing up their trip and this was my one last chance to say goodbye. And anyway, I was sick of travelling by myself for so long! We had a nice couple of days seeing the Pompidou again (which is still great), and enjoying the '95 St. Emilion with a couple of baguettes and, yes!, crusty bread! in front of the Eiffel Tower. :)
After they left though, I was sick to death of Paris and got straight out to Mont St. Michel on the western edge of Normande. This is a massive medieval monastery built on top of a solid granite island just off the coast. Until 1897 it was connected to the mainland only by a (quick)sand bridge which was completed covered at high tide. In 1897 a concrete causway was constructed which allowed access any time, although some of the car parks were still under water at high tide. One of the guides told us a story about a tour guide who came there a few years ago, parked his brand new tour bus, and came back to find it floating away. Once you struggle up the hideously narrow path packed with tourists and ghastly souvenir shops (little Mont St. Michel snow balls with dolphins taped on top!! WTF??!), you arrive at the impressive building which has served over the years as a monastery, a fortress and a prison. It was apparently the only piece of France the English never conquered, much to their chagrin. Of the three million tourists who come to the isle of Mont St. Michel, only 800,000 actually bother to go up to the monastery. The rest stay down in the nice cosy crepe restaurants admiring their snow balls and enjoying a ham sandwich. sigh..
It takes only one day to see Mont St. Michel (and far less to see the accompanying town, Pontorson), so I headed out to Le Mans the next day. I admit the only reason I went here was because I know it's associated with motor racing. Not that I saw any. :( It has a very nice cathedral, a fairly nice old town and a great Mexican restaurant. I went to Paris the day after that.
Hung around Paris all d ay with nothing to do (really awful weather) and then caught the overnight train to Amsterdam to meet Martyn Huckerby, which is basically where I'm at now. We've seen the Rijksmuseum again, and amazingly it has been a very nice day today.. the clouds totally cleared up by the afternoon which is really rare for Amsterdam! Tomorrow we're going to the Heineken brewery and Van Gogh museum, then going back to Paris (yet again!). Prolly go to Disneyland. After that I've heading to London to get that oft-mentioned IT contract.
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