Hola,
We are currently on a bus meandering its way towards the French / Spanish border. I can’t believe we actually feel depressed about heading to Southern France, but Spain has been amazing and it is sad to leave it behind. Although given the issues in just catching a bus out of Spain it looked like we could have been trapped forever in a life of tapas and wine (and if it continued for much longer, as models for the ‘before’ shots of weight loss commercials).
Anyway, when we left you last time we had just arrived in Mallorca. Mallorca was quite interesting – again the mental imagery did not quite match with reality. We had expected a small, beautiful island dotted with little coves and beaches awash with crystal clear turquoise water. What we got was a huge island dominated by one major town (Palma) that again had me reaching for the phase book. I couldn’t find the actual English meaning of ‘Mallorca’ but my guess would be something along the lines of ‘over rated, charmless hole’.
The main town is big, dull, dirty and lacking in any real presence (can’t complain too much – guess I share those characteristics). And the good beaches are a solid hours drive away. Why on earth Christopher Skase would fight extradition from that place is beyond me. But this is what happens when you break one of the Travel Rules. We have been adding to them as our trip develops, but the core Travel Rules are:
- Never travel to a coastal location where discount UK airlines fly direct (means you’ll find a place over run by bogans who demolish the local charms)
- Never eat at a place where the menu has pictures of the food or the employees are forced to wear hats
- 3/4 pants are unacceptable on anyone other than women over the age of 45.
Anyway, all we could do was make the most of it (and drink). So on our next day we decided to have some fun by hiring a car to drive to the beach. Ordinarily this would be an uneventful exercise, but in Mallorca this meant driving a manual on the wrong side of the road. As we picked up the car and I detailed my manual driving experience to Krys (all of about a week around 10yrs ago) I got that ‘look’; the one representing a mix of disappointment and fear. But it wasn’t as if we could hang around town for the day, so we set off on our little adventure anyway.
The fun started about 10 minutes in. I was too busy internally congratulating myself at how naturally gifted I was in driving a manual to notice that I was floating in the overtaking lane, and had an agitated cab driver up my tail desperate to get past. I pulled into the slower lane to let the cabbie past but he still wanted to wave a fist out the window and yell in Spanish what I can assume was not ‘you are doing very well driving a manual car young man’. Anyway, our angry Spaniard was so focused on exchanging pleasantries that he seemed to forget that he wanted to take the next turn off. And when he did he had to dive across 3 lanes and almost collided with a truck. His conclusion seemed to be that his mental lapse was again my fault so before his lane finally took him off to the anger management centre he decided we’d play ‘let’s see how close we can get the cars to each other while having a little chat at 100kms’. The fact that Krys and I found his little display amusing only added to his frustration.
Anyway we finally made it to one of the remote beaches with the car paint job intact, and it was very pretty. A beautiful little cove surrounded by rocky hills that channel the clear water to a narrow strip of sand. Our frolic was only interrupted by a plump, creepy man in dark glasses who seemed to coincidentally decide he needed multiple photos of the surroundings whenever a bikini clad Krys came into view.
So after a day like that, when we got back to town we needed a drink. Found a small student bar and was ordering the usual ‘dos vino tintos’ when a raggedly young Spanish girl came up and ordered something that came in a large flask with a cork top. The barman said it was the locally produced gin and was nice so I decided to be ‘local’ and order one too. When I said the large flask was for two people our raggedly friend laughed and said ‘you will get veeery druunk’. It seemed Krys and I were about to take on the local Mallorcan rocket fuel.
It was actually quite nice. I don’t really remember much of dinner though. And I can’t substantiate Krys’ claims that she beat me 3-2 in games of pool while we were at the bar. We couldn’t even finish the full flask so when we left we gave what was left to our raggedly friend and her group. The loud cheer we got seemed out of proportion with giving up our alcoholic leftovers…..
To complete the Mallorcan experience, on our check out morning a friendly maid decided to ignore the ‘do not disturb’ sign and come barging into the room without knocking. What she found was a startled Australian man laying naked on the bed (Krys was in the shower). In amongst her torrent of ‘pardons’ again I could see the familiar look that I get so much from Krys – the look of disappointment and fear. That look knows no cultural bounds.
Then it was on to Barcelona. If Mallorca was a disappointment, Barcelona made up for it and then some. One of the most beautiful and brilliant cities in the world. The sites of Gaudi, beautiful churches, palaces, fountains and parks, and all embraced by a culture of food and wine that does not end until very late at night. It is also a city of passion; I lost count of the number of exhibitions of kissing I saw that more closely resembled a mother bird trying to feed a baby bird rather than any normal lip contact.
We started our visit with a walk down Las Rambla, which is a sprawling, straight pedestrian road that acts as a vein to Barcelona’s activity. Its full of street performers and stalls selling an assortment of tourist gifts such as postcards, flowers, birds and chickens. It is also apparently the home of the Spanish pickpocket – luckily for us my pants have become so tight (must have been the washing) that the chances of anyone being able to fit their hand in my pocket, let alone take something out, is remote.
Gaudi has had a huge influence on Barcelona, and our first day was a ‘Gaudi day’. We went to his Sagrada Familia which is an imposing, gothic style church in the middle of town. Unfortunately (for Spain and Gaudi), Gaudi died when it was only partially completed. And it looks like the construction team is looking at a set of plans and trying to work out what drugs Gaudi was on during the design phase, let alone devising construction methods for its completion. It has been under construction for 100yrs, and the estimate is another 20yrs until it is complete. Given progress in 100yrs vs what is still to do, I would not be making a forward booking for a completion party in 2030. Our wait in line to climb to the top came complete with a rundown of US employment policies from an overheard discussion between 3 US girls behind us in the queue. Apparently in the US you can ‘be, like, so, like incompetent. But as like long as like you are like hot, then you like don’t get like fired’. The fact that they were discussing a law firm and not your local Dunk’n’Donuts gives a scary insight into the depth of the current US economic issues.
While in Barcelona we also did the expected Picasso review. Walking into the Picasso Museum I was telling Krys about Picasso’s fascination with painting this one particular family and their dog over and over again. It was only half way through the visit that the penny dropped – it was Picasso’s interpretation of one of the most famous paintings in the world; Valequez’s ‘Les Menina’. Obviously the depths of European culture had not quite made their way into Engadine High School’s art curriculum during my time there.
We gave some of our Barcelona time over to some recommendations of the waiter at a local cafe which we had been visiting…. a lot (I think we demolished their monthly croquettes supply). In an understated way he had talked about a garden with a nice lake, and another place that had a small fountain with a light show on at night. He said ‘some people think it is just ok, but I think its nice’.
Those people saying these areas are just ‘ok’ must also think that you need 6 beers before having a crack at Jessica Alba. The lake was beautiful, complete with magnificent fountain and a lake upon which it seemed unco-ordinated people could hire row boats. Given the paddling displays I saw, I’m convinced that the managers of the lake could have a side business retrieving drowned tourists from the bottom of the lake like golf balls for resale at the local tourist office.
As for the small fountain with light show, it is one of the most beautiful things we have seen. Small fountains line both sides of a wide boulevard that leads to a huge central fountain. The central fountain dances with different shapes all the while morphing into different colours. Set above the fountain is a massive cascading waterfall that frames a beautiful palace, which at night had fingers of light shooting from behind the roof into the Barcelona night sky. Words can not do the view justice, and sadly neither will photos – we had chosen this night to leave the camera at home on account of visiting an ‘Aussie Pub’ on the way to watch the World Cup soccer match. And in true Aussie Pub fashion, the pub had been described online as dodgy, where you were lucky to escape with only losing money by over paying for crap beer while being served by impaired English bartenders.
Our final day we hired some bicycles and cycled down and along the beach. The beach in Barcelona is only average; yellowy, brown sand is carved up into discrete sections through man made rock walls. Our accidental arrival at the nudist area was clearly announced by an elderly Spanish man, resplendent in all over tan and a very large gut. He was standing proudly, hands on hips, facing towards the promenade of people as if to say ‘look at me’. But who could blame him; the man looked like he had tied a hessian sack around his waist, within which he was carrying two watermelons. No wonder he wanted to share his gifts with the world. It almost made Krys fall off her bike….
And so now here we sit on the bus heading into France. It has been a bit of an ordeal to get to this point today, and a lot more travel today lies ahead. But more on that at another time.
Adios.
Trent, Krystal and some vastly inferior watermelons
smallthoughts 