The Adventures of Guapo

Monday, 3 September 2007

La Tomatina

The last Wednesday in August was La Tomatina, one of Spain's messiest festivals. It's held in the town of Bunol, 40km west of Valencia, and attracts a crowd of close to 30,000 people to a town of just 9,000.
The locals covered their balconies with plastic, stores were boarded up, and the streets swelled with tourists in all manner of dress.
Just before noon 5 truckloads of ripe tomatoes were dumped into the crowd and for the next hour everyone joined in a frenzied tomato battle. The air was ripe with the smell of tomatoes and we were up to our ankles in tomato mush by the end of it.
At 1pm a rocket signaled the end of the battle and we headed down to the river to wash off the tomatoes and don fresh clothing.
It was absolutley incredible!! Words don't even come close to desribing the feeling that was in the streets. Crazy!

Valencia - Home of the Paella (apparently!) and Nasty Beach Girls

Valencia is an amazing city. The mix of old and new architecture around the city is absolutely breathtaking. It would have had to have been one of the most beautiful cities that we have visited while in Spain.Valencia recently hosted the 32nd America's cup, and many parts of the city, especially the port, had been re modeled.
Susie and I had a great time. Armed with our Lonely Planet each day we would discover something new and exciting about this city. We ended up spending a whole week here d we were never short of things to do and see.
We started at the Jardines del Turia(Turia Gardens). The gardens actually used to be a river that flowed through the middle of Valencia. After record flooding in the 70's, the river was diverted and dammed, and the riverbed made into 9km stretches of gardens, cycling, jogging and walking paths, fountains and gardens.
La Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias is a massive 35,000 sq meter section of the former Turia riverbed. Most of it is the work of architect Santiago Calatrava. It comprises of the planetarium, science museum, aquarium and opera house. The opera house is covered by translucent mosaic tiles and looks a little bit like the Sydney Opera House, which by the way is the only other Opera house that has more seating capacity than this one.

We then made our way into the old town. The old city lies in a haphazard manner of jumbled backstreets in the centre of the city. Two imposing stone towers, Torres de Serranos and Torres de Quart, are all that remain of the old city walls and were once the main exits to Barcelona and the North. Look closely at the second photo of the Torres de Quart. You can see the pockmarks caused by French cannonballs during the 19th century Napoleonic invasion.

We then spent the afternoon wandering through the many backstreets of Barrio del Carmen in the old town. The Cathedral and Plaza de la Virgen were particulary beautiful. We spent a few late nights here drinking Sangria or Agua de Valencia (a local white version of Sangria) and watching the world go by.

We met a girl who was staying in our Hostal from England called Lara. She was as mad as a cut snake so Susie and I adopted her for a few days on our travels. Between the three of us there was never a dull moment.

Our first outing together was to the city beach alongside the port.Playa de la Malvarossa is a broad beach that is bordered by the promenade Paseo Maritimo.

On the afternoon that we went the European Volleyball Championship were being held. The volleyball was action aplenty, one player even got a blood eye when a ball was spiked into his face breaking his sunnies, calling for a time out. That was when the real fun began.

Nestea was a sponsor, and they had the 'Nestea Beach Girls'. They would scramble onto the court in between sets to entertain the crowd. In their tiny bikinis they would gyrate provocatively to music, looking to each other to see what the other was doing as they constantly forgot their limited dance moves. When in doubt they would revert to a sort of mambo, swinging as much butt as possible and making rubbing moves over their breasts. What made it even more hilarious was that the sports caster's English was really bad, and every time he announced the 'Nestea Beach Girls' it came out as 'Nasty Beach Girls'.We couldn't stop laughing as that was what they looked like...Nasty. Priceless! Lara and Susie got in the act and mimicked their dance moves at every opportunity they had. This continued throughout the week whenever one of us would say 'Nasty Beach Girl', the others would start gyrating dance moves and rubbing themselves suggestively.

10 km south of Valencia is La Player El Saler. Being the good tourists that we were we had to visit that beach too...

15km south of Valencia is La Albufera, a huge freshwater lagoon separated from the sea by a narrow strip of dunes and pine forests. It's a breeding ground and sanctuary for many species of birds. The views are spectacular. Local fisherman wait at the dock with their boats to run you out onto the lagoon to enjoy the sunsets.

A few days were real stinkers, 38 degrees in the shade. It was so hot that you couldn't do anything. We felt sluggish and uncomfortable and sweated constantly. Susie and I headed for cover at the Mercado Central to buy some local produce (jamon, bread, queso). Then we spent an afternoon in las Jardines del real (Royal Gardens), stuffing our faces and napping in the shade of the trees.

We were also lucky enough to see a live Flamenco show at Radio City one night. The guitar was beautiful and the singer was incredible. Not only did she have an amazing voice, but they way she played the castanets and danced was out of this world. I've seen Flamenco on TV before but to see a live show was something else.

Valencia is known as the home of the Paella. La Albufera is surrounded by rice fields. So naturally one would think that you would be able to get a good Paella in Valencia...
Nearly every place offers Paella on it's menu, and it's even included on Menu al Dia at some restaurants. Susie and I tried many times different Paellas and most were pretty poor. However the place we ate at our last night in Valencia would have had to have been the worst Paella in the world, hands down. We'd walked past this restaurant all week, and it was always full (a good sign no?). First we were told that they couldn't make the paella that we wanted and had to choose one from the pre selected menu. Susie had a seafood paella, I wanted the Valencia Paella (it's a chicken paella). I had to have Vegetarian (as apparently they had no chicken. I couldn't have the Valencia Paella in Valencia..go figure?!). I was presented with a pan of greasy rice with saffron thrown over it that had absolutely no flavour at all. Then to add insult to injury the whole debacle cost us nearly €50.
I couldn't eat it. After dinner I was still hungry obviously, so we stopped at a Kebab shop and I had a meal for €3.50. I can't believe that I ate a kebab while in Spain, but at one in the morning it as the only thing open and I was hungry.

Valencia was far better than I had ever imagined in so many ways. But as for being 'The Home Of The Paella I was sorely dissapointed. Then again, after eating my father's paella, nothing else quite shapes up.

Thursday, 23 August 2007

An apple boob job and discovering my inner nudist in Alicante.

We packed our packs and heading for the train station. It never ceases to amaze me how everything fit in at the start of the holiday back in June. I haven´t bought anything, I´ve actually lost and thrown clothes out on the way, but it´s always a hassle to fit in all back in again. Susie is having even more trouble than me, we had to get an extra bag just for her heels!!

We had a 5 hour train ride down the coast to Alicante. It was amazing sitting back and watching the countryside change as we headed further South. It´s extremely dry and a lot more mountainous than I first expected.

I couldn't have been hypoxic, maybe I was just tired, but to pass the time and to amuse myself I started to play around with a pair of apples that I had in my backpack. I was being quite juvenile but I had both Susie and myself (and quite a few other people around us for that matter) in stitches of laughter. I was laughing so hard that I was crying and we were drawing attention to ourselves as we couldn't´t stop. Susie decided to get in on the act and is now considering a boob job after the popularity with the apples.

Alicante is beautiful. Initially when I was planning this holiday I had about 3 or 4 days free before we were going to Valencia, so I just looked at the map to see what other cities were around. I spotted Alicante, saw that it had beaches and was sold. I never imagined it to be as beautiful as it is.

There is a main city beach, Postiguet, which is overlooked by Castillo de Santa Barbara. This is the main beach frequented by tourists. Even though Alicante is a tourist destination, it is still beautiful and hasn´t lost it´s soul to the ravages of tourism as Mallorca has.

The most famous beach in Alicante is Playa de San Juan. It is to the North of the city and has to be reached by either car or train. The beach is amazing, wide, clean and is over 9 kms long. The views of the surrounding mountains from the beach are simply spectacular. We spent our entire second day lazing on this beach working on our tans.

That afternoon we decided to take a look at the Castillo de Santa Barbara. It was a bit of a hike to reach the top but the views of the coastline and city were superb.

On our final day in Alicante, Susie wanted to visit Playa Saladar-Urbanova, which is 5 kms south of the city of Alicante. It´s an uncrowded beach that is quiet and boasts several kilometers of golden sand and has sign posted areas for nudists!!

I never knew that Susie was a nudist. After travelling with her now for nearly a month we´re like an old married couple. Now there´s literally nothing that we haven´t seen of each other.

Back to Barcelona

Susie and I spent the next few days in Barcelona in the familiar surroundings of Wayne´s apartment. It was so nice to be back with friends in a comfortable setting where we felt relaxed (and there wasn´t drunk German tourist yelling outside our windows at all hours of the night).

Rather than spend the days running all over Barcelona trying to fit all the sights in, I decided to show Susie mainly Gaudi´s sights of interest. I have been to Barcelona on 3 previous occasions, but I never tire of seeing his works. I was also interested to see how much more work had been done to La Sagrada Familia.

So the first afternoon we took in some of Gaudi´s buildings in the city before heading to Park Guell to watch the sunset over Barcelona.

That night we headed out for dinner and drinks with Wayne, Pepe, Valerie and a few other of Wayne´s friends. Susie and I were tired from a day of sight seeing and things quickly got quite silly. We started putting our drinks change down Susie´s top for laughs and she would entertain us with each round....

For our last day we spent it wandering along Las Ramblas, taking in the sights and sounds of the markets.There is a fountain at the start of Las Ramblas, that as tradition has it, if you drink from it you will be sure to return to Barcelona. It´s worked twice before....

Then finally we took in La Sagrada Familia. It has been two years since i was last here in Barcelona and I could see that more work had been completed on the roof inside. However you are no longer allowed to climb the turrets as we were previously allowed. They have been closed to the public for the past 18 months. The only parts that are accessible are the main chapel and the surrounding area outside. It´s a shame that I couldn't´t show Susie the view from atop, but the Church is still breathtaking from whichever angle you are able to view it. It will not be finished until at least 2020.

Saturday, 18 August 2007

Mallorca

Susie and I spent our final afternoon walking around the old town in Ibiza. It's set up on the hill, overlooking Ibiza and it set behind city walls. The views from atop are amazing.

We then caught the ferry to Mallorca. The ferry was MASSIVE and the journey took nearly 3 hours on the open Mediterranean Sea. We landed in Palma De Mallorca, the capital, and took a bus to Arenal.

Arenal is the resort beach town of Palma. We were expecting a bay and maybe a few resorts, and tourists...

Susie and I got off the bus into a tourist hell hole. Everything was neon and loud. Even Ibiza seemed tranquil in comparison. We were accosted by guys out front of bars trying to get us to go in for jugs of booze and table top dancing. It was awful. Susie and I looked at each other wondering what we had done. We had planned on coming to Mallorca for a few days after Ibiza to recover from our time in Ibiza. The party seemed to be going here too, but on a pub scale - full of drunk twenty something German tourist package holiday tours.

We found our Hotel with a minimum of fuss and settled in for the night. We wouldn't make any rash decisions until the morning....

Palma de Arenal is beautiful, but it has been ravaged by tourism on a scale that I haven't seen anywhere before. I thought the beach would have to be beautiful for all the tourism that surrounds it, and in the daylight, it is truly beautiful. But the sheer volume of people around, and the trashy tourist shops selling cheap souvenirs are hard to ignore. We were expecting secluded beaches and palm trees, not neon lights and Germans.

We went for breakfast in one cafe and I asked to see the Menu in Spanish. The waiter looked stupidly at me. So I asked in English. I was presented with a menu in German, full of German Frushstuck. It was too much. After one morning in Arenal, Susie and I decided that we would spend our remaining 2 days discovering other parts of the island.

We caught the bus into the old part of town in Mallorca and went to an old cider house for dinner. The food was very traditional and the wines amazing. I had suckling pig for dinner.

Afterwards we went for a walk to a bar that had been recommended by my friends Dani and Jose, and it had also been written up in the Lonely Planet Guide as a "Must See". It's Called Abaco. It's an old Palace, that has been converted into a cocktail bar. On the street, the entrance is nothing more but a massive set of wooden doors. Once inside your senses are assaulted by flowers. The entire inside has arrangements flowing from everywhere. Classical music plays softly in the background, and the waiters are in Black Tie. The artwork on the walls is amazing. We ordered a Margarita and sat back and took in the ambiance. This was definitely more us...

The next day Susie and I were determined to find a beautiful, secluded beach somewhere. So two bus rides and 4 hours later we found ourselves in the north of Mallorca in Porta De Pallenca. It was quiet, secluded and calm.

We then caught a boat to a secluded beach called Formentor. It was surrounded by mountains and accessible by sea. Lovely. We spent the day lazing in the sun.

That afternoon we made it back to Arenal just in time for a beer and to watch the sunset. It was spectacular!!

Our last day in Mallorca we decided to see the central inland island and the and a few Western Coastal towns. We caught a train to Soller up through the middle of Mallorca. Away from the coast the island is quite mountainous, it reminded me slightly of the Pyrenees.

Once in Soller we caught a tram down to the Port de Soller. It was a lovely enclosed cove, calm and full of boats with a small beach.

We then jumped back onto the bus and headed along the coast to Deia. Michael Douglas owns a villa here and it is considered the prettiest town in Mallorca. It was blazing hot, so Susie and I found a quiet place in the shade overlooking the town. It's quite amazing as the village has been cut into the rocky mountainside around it. This is also where Susie confessed that she dragged me to Mallorca as she saw Claudia Schiffer on a beach in Mallorca in Hello magazine!! Now the truth comes out. She was probably staying at La Residencia, a 480 Euro a night Hotel located in Deia. The Lonely Planet said it's the place to go to rub shoulders with the rich and famous. We could only look over at it from our perch on the hill.

It was back on the bus again, this time inland to Valledemossa. This town must have been having a festival, as all the streets were lined with streamers and there wre people out in droves. We spent the afternoon wandering the streets getting lost in the weaving back streets. We settled finally in a square with a bottle of wine and watched the world drift by.

Then it was back to Arenal to grab the packs and then out to the airport for our flight back to Barcelona. It was with a low cost carrier, Vueling. The flight was delayed nearly 2 hours, so we didn't take off until after 2am. I fell straight asleep, but Susie said that we flew through all this turbulence and the lights were flickering and everyone was panicked. Missed it all.