SPAIN - Part 1 - Travelling South

We arrived in Barcelona after short but squishy flight with WIZZ AIR from Bulgaria. If it hadn't been for the back missing from the centre seat in the row in front of us we would not have had anywhere to put our knees.

Anyway after a few trials & tribulations with the car rental company, the GPS that couldn't find Barcelona & a couple of phone calls to the hotel for help, we finally made it to our room ready to collapse in a heap & watch a bit of TV before going to bed. Great if you speak spanish or french, as all the channels were in spanish with french subtitles, perfect!! We plan to visit Barcelona after we return the hire car as we will use public transport then anyway so will tell you all about it towards the end of the Spain Blogs.



Thousand year old Monastery ruins on the side of the motorway, why you
would want to live on top of that lump of rock baffles us

Next morning we headed off towards Madrid but planning to stop half way for the first night & to give us a chance to see a bit of the countryside. First things first, the motorways here are just amazing, quite new, excellent condition, with a 120 kph limit but expensive to use. It cost us over 30 Euro to get to Zaragoza (that is $A40), you are issued with a ticket like at a parking area & when you get to where you are going they scan it & tell you how much you owe, it's lucky we were sitting down!



Lovely church bell tower & the narrow old
city streets of Zaragoza

We had rented a small apartment in Zaragoza for the night as we had hoped to prepare our own food, we chose it also because they had underground parking available. Street parking in these old cities is impossible so we got a chance to use our first ever car lift to take us down to the two levels of parking spaces, pretty flash really. As it turned out it was a public holiday & there was almost nothing open so we ended up just grabbing a carton of Leche (milk) for our cuppas & had pizza at a cafe. There is a magnificent Basilica in the centre of town as well as several other lovely churches, a huge pedestrian plaza with a wonderful modern fountain, photo opportunities of course.



The cathedral right in the central Plaza, beautifully lit too

Next morning we walked to the palace, Grant went to the fire station & I waited at the tourist information for him then we picked up some fresh fruit, tomatoes & bagettes (for lunch) at the city markets then hit the road to Madrid, only 335 kilometres away.



The palace, now used as government offices so it wasn't open for a walk round

The 'rain in spain falls mainly on the plains' must be true because we drove across the plains & it rained...fancy that!

Wonderful geological formations & not much else

The countryside is barren, with almost no natural vegetation, just grape vines & olive trees & little else. Every available flat surface has been farmed & there is quite a lot of broad acre farming too but I am not sure what the crops would be as the land is fallow at the moment. The geology is very interesting though, every road cutting exposes something new in the way of rock layers. Mesas were visible regularly in the moonscape, another thing that we saw plenty of were giant black metal cutout bulls....I wonder why?



The Plaza `de Toro, Madrid

Madrid was a great spot, lots of bustling nightlife, not that we stayed out but we did walk to the bullfighting stadium which was only 15 minutes from us, lovely stadium with huge statues & plaza out the front. As luck would have it we passed a fire station on the way, Bomberos to be correct. Grant went back the next morning & had a lovely chat, fortunately several of those on duty were able to speak English which wasn't the case in Zaragoza. He came back with a stash of goodies!

Plaza Major, the spot from where all road distances in Spain are measured

Then, despite the rain, we caught the Metro into the city for a walk round the major sights. We were both quite tired so we knew it would only be a cursory visit but we had to be able to say we went to Madrid. We arrived at Plaza De Sol, walked to Plaza Major, then to the Opera House, the Royal Palace, the cathedral, the roman wall remains then back to the metro station at Sol. On route we managed to fluke seeing the changing of the guard at the Palace, there was lots of activity so something important must have been happening there. There were celebrations of some sort going on in the Cathedral so we couldn't go inside but that was OK. I can see me spending lots on souveniers here in Spain, they have some great T-shirts, long-fringed shawls, lace fans, Gaudi style mosaic bulls etc, it is lovely to see some imagination in the souveniers rather than the same old stuff all the time.



Just got to love these massive cast iron gates,
no crook is going to get into this building



Just to prove we were there, outside the royal palace

Cordoba was our next stop & here we learnt that you should never completely rely on a GPS....ours wanted us to drive up a set of narrow stairs to a pedstrian walkway to get to our hostel, fortunately I had read some online reviews about this place that had suggested parking near the river & walking, so we did that & all was OK. We even flucked a park first try, just as we were turning around at the road works that had closed the street a car pulled out of a parking bay, how lucky was that!

This is the 'road' or should I say set of stairs
the GPS thought we could drive up!

After settling into our room in the converted convent with its 20 foot ceilings & cute juliette balcony overlooking the pedestrian walkway, we got the 'low-down' from the owner & map in hand headed out for a sightsee! The mosque was first, amazing as they always are, then backstreets & lanes, into the world's smallest plaza (or so we were told), Grant paced it out & it was less than 3m by 5m & housed a drinking fountain, street light, a tree & 4 doorways to homes. It would have been a challenge to swing a cat in there. Then the heavens opened & we had to seek shelter in the entrance to the School of Arts (at least that's what I think it was judging by the information I could glean from the sign).



World's smallest plaza...could almost touch the opposite walls with your
arms outstretched

We hightailed it back to the hostel, found some wet weather gear, had a warm drink & set off again. We went over the Roman Bridge which has recently been turned into a pedestrian way, overlooking the river which was rushing passed after recent rains, you could see multiple historic water mills on small islands in the river, only one of which had been restored.

One of the beautifully tiled mosque entrances

Roman stonework holding up the newer
bridge, over 2000 years old & still functional

We made a full circuit along the far bank which had recently had work done on it, nice lawns, boardwalk & paths, then back over the vehicle bridge. We wandered the streets looking for somewhere to eat dinner but none of the suggested taverns opened until 8pm so we had a frappe, watched the passing parade in one of the large shopping plazas then went back to the tavern closest to our hostel. Grant had the bull's tail & I had the fried aubergines with honey. Both local specialities, both interesting, both quite tasty although I had expected honey not treacle which is what they drizzled over the floured & deep fried sticks of eggplant.



Fountains & gardens down the centre of one of the main roads, lovely
for a stroll or a bit of lunch

After a good night's sleep we had breakfast at the hostel, they offered a nice meal for a good price so we had juice, local pastries, toast & jam, yoghurt & fruit, good start for the day. Then we packed up our gear, put it in the car & did a circuit of the outer areas of the city as last night we had stayed inside the UNESCO World Heritage area. The first port of call was the city gardens, then a stroll towards the old city wall, the Royal Stables (where the breeding of the first andulucian horse was supporsed to have taken place), the palace then back to the car. All nice & neat really, a circle back to the car & we headed off.

When the romans built a wall, it was designed to last

A sneaky photo taken through a broken window of the inside of the royal
stables, where andulucian horses were bred, obviously not in use anymore,
too clean ....