Spain

Spain! Just over a couple of weeks ago I said goodbye to Spain but not forever as it is a country I intend to return to next year in order to witness Las Fallas – an extremely over the top Spanish festival which culminates in an evening of burning effigies. That should give you an idea of the type of grandiose and extravagant behaviour that can sometimes be exhibited by these sometimes baffling, sometimes arrogant, but always passionate people.

Our stay in Spain was spread over a three week period with a break in the middle while we danced away at the Boom festival in Portugal. Throughout the three weeks there were many highlights, with the biggest perhaps being the food and wine. This is a country where wine comes in prima (juice box) packs and is almost as essential at the dinner table as water and bread.

While on the topic of food I will have to start with our favourite destination. We decided to keep our trip focused on the North of Spain and began by crossing from France straight to the Northern coastline, starting with San Sebastian. Ironically the first place we stopped ended up being our favourite.

San Sebastian is a gem on the Northern Coast of Spain. The beaches have fine golden sands and beautiful turquoise waters. The city is well laid out with lanes also for cyclists to enjoy cruising along the promenades that line the town. San Sebastian is laid out along the beach with soaring mountains as the backdrop behind it. Scattered in the waters of the bay are little islands that are lit up at night with cafes and restaurants that can only be reached by boat or by swimming across.

The most enjoyable part of a visit to San Sebastian is the bar hopping through the Old Town in search of Pintxos (Tapas) and also just as exciting the best Txakoli (Cider poured from high above the glass). I’m sure most have seen Tapas served in Melbourne but for those that haven’t, Pintxos is a fantastic array of finger food sized portions that can be found along the counters of the bars in most Spanish towns. In many places the way to try these delectable morsels is to ask for a plate and then proceed to place what you like on it. The bar staff will grab from your plate those that need heating and if you wait patiently they will somehow be returned to you while the bar man/woman simultaneously serves four other people in the chaos of a tiny bar. A note on bar etiquette in Spain. There doesn’t seem to be any.  Don’t sit and wait patiently. On many occasion I had to remind Bob to ‘be less English’ and muscle in as it seems the Spanish don’t really line up as we do in Australia and England. So as soon as a tiny gap appeared toward the bar I was in there, shouting across the noise for a plate and assertively helping myself to portions before they could be whisked away by other equally keen patrons.

Perhaps the most extravagant Pinxtos we tried was actually found down the road from San Sebastian in Pamplona. These dishes below actually came in as runners up for the best pinxtos awards in 2013 and 2012. One featured grated Foie Gras over raw tuna steaks in a caramelised balsamic dressing. The other was an Egg white mouse of white asparagus with a smoked salmon centre. Unfortunately I cannot convey the flavour adequately except to say if that was the runner up the winning dish must have been extraordinary! At only two euros each it was a very cheap price for such a delicious and extravagantly made dish.

The custom of ordering and paying for pinxtos also varies greatly. In some places you help yourself as I described then pay straight away or in some areas, quite often the northern parts of Spain and honesty system still exists. One bar Bob and I visited had an honesty system. You helped yourself to as many as you wanted and at the end told the bar man how many pinxtos and how many drinks you had taken then paid for the total.  In smaller towns many tapas are often included free with a drink with only the larger “Racion” servings requiring payment.

So why am I calling the Pinxtos instead of Tapas? Well in the region that San Sebastian and Pamplona are found it is actually Basque country which is a region that is extremely proud of their heritage and adamant in their not being labelled Spaniards. Basque is actually a non latin language that is spoken in part of northern Spain, it is also considered one of the most ancient languages of Europe. The most likely theory of its origins is that it was once spoken widely across Europe but was wiped out by Celtic, Germanic and Roman conquers. Somehow it survived very close to its original form in this area.

The Basque region extends from the western end of the Pyranees and along the Bay of Biscay – from Bayonne in France to Bilbao in Spain and then inland almost encompassing all of Pamplona. Not only is Basque very different to Spanish to compound the difficulty for travellers there are also the dialects of Basque such as Bizkaian, Gipuzkoan, High Navarrese, Aezkoan, Salazarese, Lapurdian, Low Navarrese and Suberoan. So what did we do? Well I spoke Spanish mixed with as many Basque words as I could manage and the lovely people of this reason chuckled at my terrible attempt to fuse the two before helping me with whatever I was trying to ask them. I found that the Spanish people were very forgiving of us stumbling over our words because we made the effort. 

A great deal of our stay as I mentioned was spent driving through the North and in particular through the northern mountains of Spain called the Ancares Leoneses national reserve.  Having never seen many photos of Spain except the typical tourist destinations I was surprised by the harsh and unforgiving yet strikingly beautiful landscape. In many ways it reminded me of Australia with its deep red, orange and yellow soils, the harsh spiked and thorned plants and the low scrub like vegetation that would suddenly give way to forests mixed with evergreen and deciduous plants alongside rivers and lakes.

Nestled between the mountains in this region are many small towns with buildings that look like they have existed there for many centuries.

The following are from a little town called Burbia that we came upon purely by chance having placed a finger on the map, hoping for the best when in search of a place to wild camp for the night.

 This northern region is also home to the famous Camino trail.  I’m sure many of you know of La Camino as a Christian pilgrimage. Well I’m about to let you in on a secret. It predates Christianity. It was actually a pagan ritual.  Long before the birth of Christ, pagans would walk across northern Spain finishing at La Fisterra (the end of the world).  Once they reached there they would burn their clothes and throw the remains into the sea next to La Costa del Morta (The coast of death). This ritual was symbolic of a pilgrims death and rebirth. The Christians later claimed this pathway as their own after claiming that the remains of St James had been taken to Santiago de Compostela and that they should follow La Camino to reach them. The trail unfortunately is no longer the rustic pathway that pagan pilgrims would have followed. 90% of the pathway is now tarmac roads as when the trail became less popular in years past the Spanish government converted them to roads as they were the most direct route across the north. Its only since Paul Coelho published his book ‘The Pilgrimage’ that there has been a resurge  in popularity for this trail.  When Bob and I arrived in Santiago the square outside the Church was packed with those that had walked the last few miles or perhaps even the entire 780km trail. I wonder how many are actually aware of the origins of the path they had walked or had even walked it for religious and spiritual reasons. Many seemed keen to get their completion certificate and perhaps it was just the achievement of walking the distance that they celebrated. While I relish the idea of long distance walking, Bob and I are travelling in our van and instead drove along sections of the Camino. For the most part it is hot and dry with very little shelter. If walkers walked the full 780km then it is still an achievement regardless of the reasons.

Here a few photos from Santiago:

Speaking of wild camping in Spain. For the most part we found it very easy while in the mountain region as long as we stayed out of the towns or villages and kept to mountain passes. If you find yourself looking for wild camping in Spain be aware that if you see a rectangular sign with a diagonal line diving the rectangle where one resulting triangle is black – do not park! Friends of ours told us about being woken in the night surrounded by police bearing guns and telling them to move on. Another tip if wild camping is to be cautious in selecting the Aires (free motorhome sights) on major motorways. While these are plentiful there are many stories of people being robbed, including one story we heard of a couple that woke up with terrible headaches only to find that during the night they had been gassed and robbed while they were unconscious. The A7 motorway is particularly notorious also for people creating loud bangs in order to make you think you have done your engine and then helpfully assisting you to find the problem under your car while another member robs you blindly.

Thankfully Bob and I did not encounter any of the above as we mostly stayed away from tourist roads and also parked as conspicuously as possible to avoid detection and harassment.

Unfortunately we did not come away from Spain completely unscathed as our van was robbed during broad daylight on a main road in Barcelona when we left the van parked in front of a five star hotel. I know! We thought that surely this would be a safe place to park while we checked into a hotel and had some coffee but seems the stories of the crime in Barcelona perhaps are justified. Thankfully every valuable electronic item we owned had been packed into a backpack and left in the hotel we checked into so nothing of value was taken. We did however very promptly move our van into the exorbitantly priced (30 Euros per night) hotel car park and parked in the direct line of a camera in case they decided to come back for our bikes or perhaps even worse the van itself.

Don’t however let the chance of crime deter you from Barcelona however. With a little extra caution perhaps it is still a city well worth visiting, with one of its biggest highlights being the works of Gaudi.

La Sagrada de la Familia is perhaps one of the most visited churches in Spain with millions walking through its doors everyday. In summer it is so busy that you have the choice of either waiting in line for up to an hour to enter or buying viewing time allocated tickets online. La Sagrada is in fact not finished and has been slowly progressing toward completion since its commission in the late 1800’s. Originally started by another architect, Gaudi was brought in when the foundations had already been laid and what was planned to be a fairly typical and not very ostentatious design was promptly remodelled into the extravagance that we see today. Gaudi then in his thirties is reported to have said that as he had no family, no friends and no other commitments he was able to dedicate his life work to his faith and to the construction of a church for all the people. La Sagrada is funded solely by the people and is built for the people is what Gaudi intended, however the finely tuned operation that is the ticketing and entry process leaves me wandering if Gaudi would be disturbed by the way his creation has been marketed.   Never the less, this is one sight in Barcelona that is simply breath taking. For the mathematicians out there the geometrical shapes including the use of hyperbolas in the ceiling create a beautiful and elegant finish. The use of light is also a priority to Gaudi’s creation with beautiful stained glass windows filtering soft coloured lights into the church.

Another favourite for many is walking through the Gothic area and along La Rambla. A visit to La Rambla is not complete without also pushing through the lanes of the undercover market, sipping a fresh juice or sampling some tapas at the many bars scattered throughout.

While walking through the narrow lanes and into the wide plazas of Barcelona’s Gothic area we were lucky enough to encounter the Catalan festival and witness the building of a Castell and also watch giant mannequins dressed in traditional costume dance.

The mannequins were easily 5-6 metres tall and carried by one person. These giant dolls performed tradition Catalan dances for the audience as an opening display before a Castell group formed together to produce a tower.

Castells or ‘human towers’, are a one of the most unique cultural displays I have ever witnessed. The traditional motto for these human towers is “strength, balance, courage and seny” (a Catalan expression which encompasses virtues such as good sense and calmness. So unique is this display that on November 16^th 2010, Unesco admitted Castells to the Representative list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

In preparation for the tower, long wide scarfs and tightly wrapped around the waists of those participating. Long discussion and pep talks then prelude the start of the tower.  It is then the base of a Castell where the foundations are set. Many hands are clasped to the wrists and arms of the people in front of them to create a solid circle of people in which the tower is grown on top of. Lighter adults and then finally children, climb up each other until the full tower is created. The final child possibly only about seven or eight then climbs the tower and in an awe inspiring show of bravery climbs over the top of the highest level, waves to the crowd and then proceeds down the other side.  Watching this display, I could only imagine the parents looking up at their child with their hearts in their throat! I know I certainly held my breath in anticipation.

Probably the majority of our time however was spent in the middle northern mountains and one of the most beautiful towns we came across was a tiny little place called Riano nestled next to a lake surrounded by mountains.

Riano also featured a cute little museum, which aimed to show some historical displays of life in the mountains. My mother once said that northern people can be quite hard and its no wonder when you consider the landscape they lived in.  It seemed however that some people still lived a very traditional lifestyle.  After taking us off road onto a track that not even a 4WD would drive down Bob somehow drove us to a little settlement that had been converted into animal pens. It however didn’t look much different except for being run down from the houses and farmlands in Tudes just a kilometre up the road.

This is the view from that settlement looking toward Tudes:

One of my favourite experiences in Spain is quite a strange one however. In a place called Villafranca del Bierzo we came across a river that had been completely squared and concreted like a canal. The water was crystal clear coming straight off the mountains and also ice cold. It was a super hot day though and I really wanted a swim so I braved and dove in. I have never experienced such cold water. Not even when I swam in the lochs in Scotland.  It was so cold that when I got out of the water, my skin felt on fire from the shock. It was probably one of the loveliest swims I had in Spain.

By far the nicest place to swim however was just as we were leaving Spain on the boarder to France. It was of course on the Mediterranean coastline. We decided after our time in Barcelona that we needed a more relaxing, slower paced few days so we headed for the Parc Natural del Cap de Creus. Nestled on the boarder with France there were just as many French as Spaniards enjoying the clear blue sea in all sort of activities from Swimming in the beach to riding Jet skis and cruising on millionaire dollar boats. Bob and I being on the meagre budget of 40 Euros a day or less, we off course enjoyed a free swim in the beautiful bays and some pleasant walks along the cliffs overlooking these bays.

Spain is definitely a place of contrasts and somewhere quite unique. The food is amazing the people are extremely passionate and the vistas are stunning. By far the best of Spain is off the beaten track. I highly recommend you get out of the cities and see more that Spain has to offer.