When we arrived in Firenze we took a taxi to our hotel as we usually do. Unfortunately our hotel was only about 300 metres from the train station and the man charged us €13 for it! We had booked a single and a triple, but dad got the single as it was quite a large single bed and mum, Rhys and I bunked in the triple.
Rhys wanted to have some internet (Frankie, WiFi is wireless internet) time and so mum, dad and I went to have a look around. It was beginning to get dark-well coming close to-so we didn’t look around for too long. We wanted to check out the Duomo first.
Well it was incredibly impressive! The whole cathedral is completely made from marble, white, pink and green. Personally I didn’t like the colour scheme but I still found it unbelievable! Near the cathedral was a Baptistry with golden doors. There were two doors facing the entrance to the cathedral, and two other doors on all the other walls too. Those doors weren’t gold though. Apparently there was a lot of competition for the design of the doors including Leonardo DaVinci. I remember one of the double doors told the story of John the Baptist.
Next to the Cathedral is the multi-coloured marble Campanile. I read a book called The Medici Curse (thankyou ajslp!) and in it Leonardo DaVinci jumps off the top of it with a parachute on. Then all the Christians want to kill him but it was fantastic to see where the author was describing and how my imagination fit to the real thing.
We weren’t very hungry as we had been eating on the train and other than a small amount off walking around the Duomo, we hadn’t done much exercise to make us hungry, so we just got some ice-cream for dinner. This was my first taste of Florentine ice-cream. Wowee. Fantastic!!! I got lemon gelato and yogurt and mm mm mmm… if you ever get to Florence, you must try some!
Well to bed and a reasonably early morning tomorrow as we are going to see the Leaning Tower of PISA!!!
Next morning we were up and on a train by 9ish. We arrived in Pisa and followed the crowds to the world’s biggest architectural cock-up in history. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is 4.1 m from the perpendicular. It was originally 5 metres until they secured it as it would eventually fall over. Some blame it to the movement of the soil underneath, but I can’t be one to judge. When they were building it they built four stories out of six and realised then it was beginning to tilt, so they then built straight up. This means the tower actually has a sort of kink in it!
Near the leaning tower was a cathedral and a baptistery, just like in Florence, they had a tower (campanile), cathedral, and baptistery. We didn’t go in any, we just sat on the turfed area and ate lunch and played ball. I was practising throwing with my left hand and really wish I hadn’t. I really hurt my shoulder and it hurt for the next few days.
We went for a walk around Pisa and saw many stores selling Pinocchio. I’m not quite sure why we saw so many Pinocchios for sale in Florence and Pisa, but maybe Pinocchio and Gepetto lived here. Should find that out…
We saw the Scuola Normale Superiore which is what it is now, but I think it used to be something to do with Cosimo Medici, one of the main powered families of this time. It was then covered in old time Graffiti, which looked amazing! It was sort of grey pictures painted all over the front building but in a very detailed and ordered way. We saw a few more things before buying an ice-cream. On our way back, we saw a little curved metal snake head where they people from Pisa used to tie their horses up. Then we walked along the Arno River until we came to a white church that was very detailed and ornate. Not quite sure why it was there but it was and it was very pretty.
Then we hopped back on the train and headed back to Florence. We then took Rhys to the Duomo as he hadn’t seen it before, and we went looking at shops until it was dark and we needed to sleep.
Next morning we headed for the Gallery dell’ Accademie which is where David, Michael Angelo’s most famous sculpture stands! It was amazing to walk through the huge hall and see him standing at the very end, his huge hands and head slightly out of proportion, his pounding veins across his neck, the tendons tight behind his knees and forearms, and his luscious curls falling delicately around his forehead. Michael Angelo really is a genius to make a block of marble, that was originally going to become part of the Duomo (but they didn’t need it) into a statue that looks so brilliantly like a human being, his features reflecting the human body in all its splendour.
I loved seeing David, and so did Rhys, he thought it was fantastic. Unfortunately we couldn’t take any photos so that you had to buy them at their shops but lots of people go photos anyway, us not included.
After seeing the magnificent David, mum and I left for the next museum. Dad and Rhys stayed behind and did some other stuff through the day. The next museum was called the Uffizi, and here we saw Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.” That was incredible to see. In year 8 history we had to know three paintings names and their artists. All three I have now seen; David, Birth of Venus and The Mona Lisa. Two in one day! It always means so much to me seeing a piece of art I have heard of, seen in a picture or studied in school. It means I somehow have a connection with the art, rather than just judging whether I like it or not.
After we looked at heaps more paintings, we had lunch and then went outside to walk along the Ponte Vecchio. The whole bridge is covered with shops selling jewellery and leather for extremely high prices.
For dinner, we found a self service restaurant called Leonardo’s which had really cheap, good food. The guide book recommended it but we found it before we read that. The man at the counter was very nice to us and happily welcomed us. This became our favourite place to eat very fast.
After dinner we went back to the hotel and slept soundly.
Today we did another day trip out of Florence, but this time to Siena. Here is where the colour, “Burnt Siena” gets its name from. This colour paints the town. All the roofs and buildings are this colour and we could see it everywhere when we were up the tower.
After lunch of a very nice pizza, over looking the Palazzo Comunale (which is an open courtyard that sinks to make a sort of swimming pool but with no water in it) we climbed the Torre del Mangia. It was a long way up and we had to wait a long time before they would let us up too. So after an exhausting amount of steps going up and up and around and around making us all out of breath and dizzy, we looked out to the town. Often swifts captured my attention and I watched the hundreds of them fly around creating shadows on the roof tops making the number of birds seem doubled. We could see where the town ended at every direction and saw the green hills in the distance.
On our way down we saw lots of fig trees growing out of the walls near large bells.
After the bell tower, we (but Rhys) went inside the museum in the same building at the bottom of the tower. Inside we saw magnificent rooms, decorated ceilings, and battle scene painted walls.
We entered a Chapel and suddenly a rush of people came pouring in all dressed up so quickly left. We then saw a bride and groom walking up the stairs and heard the cheering when the ceremony was over.
After we left the museum we decided to go back on the train, but we would walk there so we could still see more of Siena.
On our way we stopped at the nearby Cathedral which was made out of marble the way the Duomo is, with pink green, and white. The tower is just green and white and I liked that more than with the pink. The tower of the cathedral we could see from the tower we previously climbed and it looked very stripy with just green and white.
We then found our way back to the train station after a long time if walking through streets and streets of shops and locals.
Rhys and I played some games on the train like I spy and Relations until we decided to go home.
We were going to go to Leonardo’s for dinner but they closed L so instead we went to a place in the square close to our hotel. We met some lovely English people there and had a beautiful meal.
Today is our last day in Florence and we are going to see as much as we can. Well not Rhys, we wanted to go to the Bargello museum but he wasn’t really interested in it. Instead he went to the train station and organised our tickets from Naples to Brindisi in about a week’s time.
In the Bargello were lots and lots of sculptures which I liked. There was a little exhibition on someone who created marble portraits, as apposed to portraits, or a bust. They call them this because the likeness is unbelievably accurate.
One of the other permanent exhibitions had a sculpture of Adam and Eve. They had these in a cathedral at one stage because the statues were “too nude.” Personally I think that is a little ironic…
Upstairs were more sculptures, and some things like jewellery and other little things on display. In the last room was Donnatello’s David made from Bronze wearing hat and shoes and nothing else.
After the Bargello we went into the Medici’s palace which was completely filled with frescoes and paintings, sculpture and decorations of all sorts.
The main hall’s ceiling had so many paintings on them. In the middle of the ceiling was a painting of Cosimo’s profile on a godly body, portrayed in the clouds and surrounded by little cherubs. This was the room they invited international visitors so he impressed them by the artworks displayed all around the room like the godly picture, and also the two enormous ones covering the two long walls, with battle scenes of when they conquered Pisa, and when they conquered Siena. In the painting of Pisa we could see the leaning tower in the background.
We walked through the whole palace and saw some amazing rooms. One was of maps which dad loved. They had places like Giapan (Japan) marked on them and we could see how the names had changed, not to mention the perspective on the world like how Australia exists and how the countries shapes really look. There was a huge globe placed in the middle of the room but it was very faded or the continents have but the rest of the globe was very dark so we couldn’t really see anything on it.
The map room was a branch off from another larger room which was my favourite. The walls were all blue with the gold symbol of Florence patterned over it. The ceiling was separated into gold squares with flowers on it. On one of the walls was a very large painting of a priest in his chair. Above his head was a little alcove of blue and gold that I was convinced was real as the perspective was perfect. It must have been painted when the light was exactly the same as when we were in the room.
After the palace we went back to pick up Rhys for lunch. We tried to go to Leonardo’s but they had stopped serving food there, so we went to a place and got toasted sandwiches.
Mum, Dad and I had booked to go into the secret passages of the Medici palace on a little tour which we had to go to after lunch. When we arrived back at the Palace we couldn’t get in because there were twelve or so girls dressed up in old-Florentine costumes.
Once we finally made our way in, we met up with the group and started our tour. We were given a large fan to have when it gets hot upstairs, but where we were was quite cool at the time because we were in a smallish room surrounded by stone.
We had to walk up a lot of stairs and then finally got to Francesco Medici, Cosimo’s son’s study. It was very small and stuffy as there were no windo ws and the only door was never opened unless a tour group was coming in… or so I thought.
Each painting was different and of a large-ish size. I would say as tall as half my height and as wide as two of my widths. Suddenly the tour guide takes out a key and shoves it into the side of one of the paintings. It shocked me, until I realised he had actually out it in a key hole and had unlocked a cupboard door.
One of the paintings had a faun and a centaur on it and also lots of flowers, so they believe he may have kept medicines in there. Francesco was a scientist and loved doing chemistry things so when the guide asked what do you think he kept behind this cupboard? We all expected his experiments, for the painting was of Cleopatra, attempting to impress Marc Antony by sacfificng some of her money, by dissolving one of her pearl earrings in vinegar. Strangely there wasn’t even a cupboard behind this painting but a secret door. We climbed the stairs and found ourselves in another little room with painting all over the roof. There was a little window that we looked out of and saw a procession go past. The guide told us that the first of a season of tradition rugby matches was about to begin. Four parts of Florence fight like this every year and have been for a long time.
This room also had cupboard doors but without paintings on them or any thing but a wall behind them, except two which hide two secret doors, one which we just came through, and another one which took us back to Francesco’s study.
When we came out of that room we headed back to the main hall I described when we first visited the palace. He then took us up to a balcony that overlooks the hall then took us up another secret stairway that took us above the ceiling, in the roof. From here they take paintings out and can out new ones in, we could see where a few were but we couldn’t see very far in front of us as there was too much wood holding the roof up.
When the tour was finished we talked a little with the guide then headed back to see if we could go to Leonardo’s tonight which we did and it was great J
Mum got sick again this morning but got over it pretty quickly, well, by the end of the day anyway.
We took a train to Rome from here and so starts a new blog.
6/22/09
Nice 9/6/09-10/6/09
Up early this morning-and we took a train to Nice, well three. Supposedly they cancelled the one we were hoping to get on, so we took a train to Cerbère from here we got on a train to Montpellier. Most of this trip I slept, and so did Dad, and so did Rhys.
Next was to Nice. We were in first class here and had the best seats, they were soo comfortable! The whole trip, all the way from Barcelona we travelled along the coast.
When we arrived in Nice, we settled into our hotel room for a bit, and then went for a look around. It was cold and cloudy and we wanted to hurry before it started raining. We saw a mini Notre Dame, and then went to the beach. On our way, Rhys saw a nice hat sitting on a park bench (earlier today I had started to like wearing Rhys’s hat). I didn’t really want to pick it up, whether it would be stealing or scabbing, but of course, either way dad went and got it. I’m so glad he did, because now it’s my favourite hat and what’s best of all is that the pattern on it, it the word NICE written over and over again! So now I have a nice Nice hat!
So when we went to the beach Rhys was soo happy. He seems to get a high from the sea. The colour of the water was beautiful; a sort of clear green, a bit like the one we went to on the way to Alexandria, but the rolling dark grey clouds above it didn’t entice me to enter the water.
We then went and found some historical places but it started spitting at this point so I had no idea what importance these historical buildings had. We saw some guys busking with a tambourine, drums, voice and acrobatics. They were doing flips in the air and karate kicks. It looked like fun.
We went home after this, we were getting tired and it was raining, so we found a kebab shop and went back to the hotel.
Next morning it was still raining and today we were heading for Florence! On our way, we mainly played cards and ate. The whole way to Genoa we were travelling along the coast line. We met a nice woman in the cabin, we didn’t get her name though. She told us some good food to try but I can’t actually remember what they were. She got off at Genoa and afterwards we met another nice lady. She was sort of weird, but she told us that one our way we can see one of the most important cathedrals.
Then we arrived in Firenze (what they call it in Italian)…
Next was to Nice. We were in first class here and had the best seats, they were soo comfortable! The whole trip, all the way from Barcelona we travelled along the coast.
When we arrived in Nice, we settled into our hotel room for a bit, and then went for a look around. It was cold and cloudy and we wanted to hurry before it started raining. We saw a mini Notre Dame, and then went to the beach. On our way, Rhys saw a nice hat sitting on a park bench (earlier today I had started to like wearing Rhys’s hat). I didn’t really want to pick it up, whether it would be stealing or scabbing, but of course, either way dad went and got it. I’m so glad he did, because now it’s my favourite hat and what’s best of all is that the pattern on it, it the word NICE written over and over again! So now I have a nice Nice hat!
So when we went to the beach Rhys was soo happy. He seems to get a high from the sea. The colour of the water was beautiful; a sort of clear green, a bit like the one we went to on the way to Alexandria, but the rolling dark grey clouds above it didn’t entice me to enter the water.
We then went and found some historical places but it started spitting at this point so I had no idea what importance these historical buildings had. We saw some guys busking with a tambourine, drums, voice and acrobatics. They were doing flips in the air and karate kicks. It looked like fun.
We went home after this, we were getting tired and it was raining, so we found a kebab shop and went back to the hotel.
Next morning it was still raining and today we were heading for Florence! On our way, we mainly played cards and ate. The whole way to Genoa we were travelling along the coast line. We met a nice woman in the cabin, we didn’t get her name though. She told us some good food to try but I can’t actually remember what they were. She got off at Genoa and afterwards we met another nice lady. She was sort of weird, but she told us that one our way we can see one of the most important cathedrals.
Then we arrived in Firenze (what they call it in Italian)…
Barcelona 5/6/09-9/6/09
5/6/09-9/6/09
Barcelona
We arrived in Barcelona train station and took a taxi to find our apartment and paid the man €10 as that’s what his metre said. We had paid a little extra for internet in the apartment so we could get Rhys’ flight details for the next morning. The internet didn’t seem to work so dad was calling and calling and in the end had to find an internet café. While dad was doing this, mum and I went shopping for food in the supermarket just down the road because now we had a kitchen we could cook meals in and save a lot of money. We bought everything we would at home but I was surprised seeing legs of cows curing in the store and people with these legs in their trolleys… that wasn’t too pleasant.
As we went outside we noticed the train station at the exit. Our apartment was just around the corner from the train station and we paid the taxi man 10 euros! He took us a sneaky way and made us pay more. Well that’s something I might have expected in Morocco or Egypt but not in Spain!
When we got back we ate some rolls and went to bed as we were so tired. I took the top bunk in our room J
Next morning I woke up nice and late… was fantastic to have a sleep in ‘til 10! Though I was still tired. Even though I was dressed I went back to lie down while a man called Christian helped Mum with the internet. Dad would have been the one organising but he had gone to meet Rhys.
Suddenly I had to get up because Rhys and dad were back!!! I was sooooooo happy so see him! After a while it felt like he had never left!
We waited until the internet was working again and after Christian left for the second time (we had to call him back as it didn’t work) we went out to see Barcelona.
We started by seeing a sculpture in the middle of a park/square by Miro. From our apartment we could see the sculptures reflection in one of the sky rise buildings.
Opposite the sculpture was the bullring. It had arch windows and sort of looked like the Colosseum. The arch windows had arches like the Mezquita in Cordoba; red and white stripes.
We continued walking and went to see some sort of palace thing. On our way we saw two huge pillars that looked like a mosque tower that then had a mini Pantheon on top crowned with a Pyramid… very multi cultural I thought!
So anyway we didn’t go inside the palace thing as it cost a lot of money so I didn’t actually find out what it was but it had lots and lots of steps going up to the entrance where big statues stood surrounded by scaffolding. Yes, it seemed to be in reconstruction of some sort, not quite as impressive as I’m sure it usually would be.
We retraced our steps and felt a moment of panic as mum thought she had lost the camera but it was alright.
In Santiago de Compostella, Dad and I both bought new shoes. Dad was wearing them for the first time and he found they rubbed.
On our way we decided to buy dad some cheap plastic thongs so he wouldn’t cut his feet on something (because he decided to go without shoes rather than stand blisters) we found a little Asian shop and found the discount shoe box too, though the only shoes in there were tiny tiny pink and blue things and MASSIVE black crocks. The crocks were too big for dad so we came up with that dad would wear Rhys’s thongs and Rhys would wear the crocks. But even the crocks were too small for Rhys so found it uncomfortable walking for the rest of the day.
We then headed for La Rambla, the main street in Barcelona. There was this fantastic time when a huge group of people past us on scooters. At least a hundred people went past. They all looked like they were having such good fun!
We then went got to La Rambla. Before we got to the main drag we looked in a bookshop while we looked for a guide to Italy in English. I spent most of the time looking in Twilight books in Spanish. I can’t remember what twilight is in Spanish but New Moon was written as “Luna Nueva” and eclipse was the same. I looked in the book with the film pictures as I am hopeless at Spanish!
It was reeeeeeally hot in there so we finished quickly after realising there wasn’t a thing in English which of course is useless for all but Dad.
We eventually reached the main drag and saw many people dressed up like weird things pretending to be ghosts, vampires, skeletons, angles, statues… all asking for money, sort of like a busking thing. The vampire entertained people by scaring others, but when you give him money he’ll scare you and make others laugh… I didn’t want to be scared so I decided to keep going.
Next we came upon a pet store (remember these are in the middle of a street so they’re all set up stalls). In the pet store there all sorts of birds and finches like Gouldian finches. They also had tiny little hamster babies and chinchillas! I’ve never seen a chinchilla before. They were so cute!
Next we found a market on the street opposite of the centre street. It was called “St Josep La Boqueria” Inside we saw fish shops, veggie shops, nut shops, fruit shops, lolly shops, chocolate shops and heaps of other types we saw and heaps I’m sure we didn’t see as well.
We bought some nuts and tomatoes, and tried some chocolates. Mmm mmm mmm they were so yummy.
We were all very tired by this time, Rhys had only had 3 hours sleep in the past 30 hours or so and was almost dead on his feet and my feet were really beginning to ache too. So we headed home for an early night… of course I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3 so, no, not an early night for me but I didn’t mind… until the next morning.
It wasn’t an early morning but it was still painful to get up at 9! I have no idea how I’m meant to get back into school routine! Anyway, mum wanted to leave early so we could go and see the Picasso museum as it was free on the first Sunday of the month (today) but dad also wanted to go to a market that’s every Sunday morning (today), so that was first.
We took the metro (I felt so comfortable with it!) to the first stop on our day plan.
The market seemed just a place where geeks would hang out. It was an octagonal bulding but the market was on the outside of the building, so you would go around in a circle (well octagon) and end up where you started. It was just filled with books and was plastic Disney toys. It was interesting to go and watch but I didn’t find anything good to buy. I think dad bought a book and mum some gift for someone.
We then headed for the Picasso museum. A lot of the stuff there I dint find that interesting until we came to a particular part of the exhibition. Picasso was taught in Madrid and painted copies of other paintings. We saw a copy of Philippe the IV which we saw in the Museo De Prado. But this exhibition was all Picasso’s really strange style paintings of another painting. There were so many copies and it was of the painting with perfect perspective that we saw in Museo de Prado, and in the science museum of Paris. That was incredibly interesting.
Afterwards we went and had lunch and then back on the metro to Gaudi’s cathedral. Sagrada Familia is a cathedral designed by Gaudi and still isn’t finished. We walked up the stairs out of the train station and turned around. Rhys mouth dropped and I almost fell backwards! Its sooooooo tall for one and then the decoration is stupendous! There were four spires reaching to the sky with bauble bits on it, the front of the cathedral looked as if it was all the religious stories coated with grey icing as their concrete borders looked like they had been dripped all over it.
We walked around to the entrance on the opposite side of the cathedral to go in. Dad and Rhys didn’t go in, they thought it wasn’t worth the money to see inside when you can see all the amazing decoration on the outside for free, plus the inside isn’t finished yet.
So mum and I went in and saw brilliant stain-glass windows. Nothing like St Chapelle or Notre Dame, it was more of a mosaic of colours in the arched windows. The colours blended together to make a sort of rainbow in each triplet of arches. The ceiling looked as if it had flowers carved into it, and a spiral staircase that got smaller as it went down, so if you take a birds eye view of the staircase, it looks like a nautilus shell.
It was amazing but the edge was slightly taken off with the amount of scaffolding inside.
When we came out we met up with Dad and Rhys and we went looking around the nearby shops. Mum bought some more jewellery and also some postcards.
We had seen enough by this time and we went back to our apartment where I cooked tuna casserole for everyone.
Next morning started late. We were heading off to all the houses that Gaudi had designed. We took the metro and started climbing. In front of us was an enormously steep hill. We must have climbed over 500 stairs to get to the top, well I did. Mum and dad took the escalator which was strangely located in the middle of the street, but Rhys and I were determined to climb all the stairs!
When we finally reached the top we had the best view out of the whole of Barcelona. We walked down some curvy little tracks that then lead us to Park Guell, an open courtyard of gravel that roofs a pillared market area underneath. The courtyards boundaries were lined with snake like mosaic covered back rest, for all the benches that sat along the edges.
All around were people busking, and selling things the way they did in Egypt at the pyramids, with their displays laid out on pieces of material on the ground. Though it was unlike Egypt because there was no hassle.
The buskers were the best. There was a Chinese woman on a… a stringed thing that made beautiful traditional Chinese music. There was a band playing, a brilliant man on the clarinet and sax!
Mum and I went into where Gaudi lived, but again, Dad and Rhys didn’t join us. Afterwards I’m glad they didn’t. it was very expensive and not much to see. Gaudi obviously designed incredible things but not for himself so much. Inside was his bed, toilet, furniture, some of the furniture was interesting. The chairs would seem separate to each other, though the chairs would share arms, one between two.
Afterwards we looked for somewhere to eat. We found a nice grassy area and had our sandwiches. Next we walked through the market section, but I don’t think a market has ever actually been held there. On the roof were more mosaics of white tiles, and occasional circles of colour with pictures in it.
As we came out of the market part, we were on-top of a hill, and to get down to the road we had to walk down a path with fountains in the middle. One of these fountains had a lizard on it made from all different colours.
Near the road were two houses. The looked like Hansel & Gretel houses, with gingerbread walls, and iced towers.
We needed to get back to where we began, but I asked if we could go a different way, rather than retrace our steps and see everything we had already seen. So we took a path that seemed to just take us around the edge but we came to a playground. The playground seemed like a normal playground and as simple and boring as a normal playground. We thought, in Parc Guell, they could have come up with something more imaginative!
We kept walking and came to a… a… hmm how to describe it. A walkway I guess, a path that snaked around the side of the hill and had brown pillars. The walkway’s walls sloped which sort of made you walk sideways.
After walking through this great part, we came to the gravel courtyard again so then retraced our steps from there.
We went back on the metro after a long descent down the stairs of the really steep hill as the escalators only go up. We were on our way to Casa Pedera.
Again dad and Rhys didn’t go in so mum and I experienced it on our own. The house is located on a corner of the streets. Inside it was a big loop. When we walked inside we could look up at the sky, but see all the stories of the house circling us.
We took the lift to the top level and looked at the exhibition at the top. The room looked like a spine, rib sections coming into the room forming little rectangular coves against the wall. The exhibition showed us Gaudi’s inspiration, like corn (which was on top of the cathedral), a spine, like the room we were in, and many other things I can’t remember.
We climbed a spiral staircase to the rooftop. On the rooftop was lots of helmet like things. There were squiggly things that looked like blobs of soft serve ice-cream. I looked over the edge to the road and saw Rhys and Dad crossing it.
When we went downstairs we went into an apartment. It wasn’t nearly as good as the roof, it was just beds and furniture. But it was still nice.
To finish our Gaudi trip, we headed to the last house; Casa Bailto. And again, Dad and Rhys didn’t go in. Instead they went to the museum of Eroticism… hmmm I’m glad I stuck with Gaudi…
The whole building was designed according to nature. There wasn’t a single straight line in the whole thing, just curves of water. The courtyard of light was my favourite; it’s a square sort of upright tunnel, a square area surrounded by the building, with an open top. The whole area is tiled with blue tiles of different shades. Standing at the bottom of the courtyard, the tiles are much paler than the ones at the top (which you can get to by stairs of lift) because the natural light struggles to get to the bottom, so it feels that the light is evenly spaced out.
Afterwards it was back home to clean up the kitchen for the boys to start cooking.
Tomorrow we are heading to Nice…
Barcelona
We arrived in Barcelona train station and took a taxi to find our apartment and paid the man €10 as that’s what his metre said. We had paid a little extra for internet in the apartment so we could get Rhys’ flight details for the next morning. The internet didn’t seem to work so dad was calling and calling and in the end had to find an internet café. While dad was doing this, mum and I went shopping for food in the supermarket just down the road because now we had a kitchen we could cook meals in and save a lot of money. We bought everything we would at home but I was surprised seeing legs of cows curing in the store and people with these legs in their trolleys… that wasn’t too pleasant.
As we went outside we noticed the train station at the exit. Our apartment was just around the corner from the train station and we paid the taxi man 10 euros! He took us a sneaky way and made us pay more. Well that’s something I might have expected in Morocco or Egypt but not in Spain!
When we got back we ate some rolls and went to bed as we were so tired. I took the top bunk in our room J
Next morning I woke up nice and late… was fantastic to have a sleep in ‘til 10! Though I was still tired. Even though I was dressed I went back to lie down while a man called Christian helped Mum with the internet. Dad would have been the one organising but he had gone to meet Rhys.
Suddenly I had to get up because Rhys and dad were back!!! I was sooooooo happy so see him! After a while it felt like he had never left!
We waited until the internet was working again and after Christian left for the second time (we had to call him back as it didn’t work) we went out to see Barcelona.
We started by seeing a sculpture in the middle of a park/square by Miro. From our apartment we could see the sculptures reflection in one of the sky rise buildings.
Opposite the sculpture was the bullring. It had arch windows and sort of looked like the Colosseum. The arch windows had arches like the Mezquita in Cordoba; red and white stripes.
We continued walking and went to see some sort of palace thing. On our way we saw two huge pillars that looked like a mosque tower that then had a mini Pantheon on top crowned with a Pyramid… very multi cultural I thought!
So anyway we didn’t go inside the palace thing as it cost a lot of money so I didn’t actually find out what it was but it had lots and lots of steps going up to the entrance where big statues stood surrounded by scaffolding. Yes, it seemed to be in reconstruction of some sort, not quite as impressive as I’m sure it usually would be.
We retraced our steps and felt a moment of panic as mum thought she had lost the camera but it was alright.
In Santiago de Compostella, Dad and I both bought new shoes. Dad was wearing them for the first time and he found they rubbed.
On our way we decided to buy dad some cheap plastic thongs so he wouldn’t cut his feet on something (because he decided to go without shoes rather than stand blisters) we found a little Asian shop and found the discount shoe box too, though the only shoes in there were tiny tiny pink and blue things and MASSIVE black crocks. The crocks were too big for dad so we came up with that dad would wear Rhys’s thongs and Rhys would wear the crocks. But even the crocks were too small for Rhys so found it uncomfortable walking for the rest of the day.
We then headed for La Rambla, the main street in Barcelona. There was this fantastic time when a huge group of people past us on scooters. At least a hundred people went past. They all looked like they were having such good fun!
We then went got to La Rambla. Before we got to the main drag we looked in a bookshop while we looked for a guide to Italy in English. I spent most of the time looking in Twilight books in Spanish. I can’t remember what twilight is in Spanish but New Moon was written as “Luna Nueva” and eclipse was the same. I looked in the book with the film pictures as I am hopeless at Spanish!
It was reeeeeeally hot in there so we finished quickly after realising there wasn’t a thing in English which of course is useless for all but Dad.
We eventually reached the main drag and saw many people dressed up like weird things pretending to be ghosts, vampires, skeletons, angles, statues… all asking for money, sort of like a busking thing. The vampire entertained people by scaring others, but when you give him money he’ll scare you and make others laugh… I didn’t want to be scared so I decided to keep going.
Next we came upon a pet store (remember these are in the middle of a street so they’re all set up stalls). In the pet store there all sorts of birds and finches like Gouldian finches. They also had tiny little hamster babies and chinchillas! I’ve never seen a chinchilla before. They were so cute!
Next we found a market on the street opposite of the centre street. It was called “St Josep La Boqueria” Inside we saw fish shops, veggie shops, nut shops, fruit shops, lolly shops, chocolate shops and heaps of other types we saw and heaps I’m sure we didn’t see as well.
We bought some nuts and tomatoes, and tried some chocolates. Mmm mmm mmm they were so yummy.
We were all very tired by this time, Rhys had only had 3 hours sleep in the past 30 hours or so and was almost dead on his feet and my feet were really beginning to ache too. So we headed home for an early night… of course I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3 so, no, not an early night for me but I didn’t mind… until the next morning.
It wasn’t an early morning but it was still painful to get up at 9! I have no idea how I’m meant to get back into school routine! Anyway, mum wanted to leave early so we could go and see the Picasso museum as it was free on the first Sunday of the month (today) but dad also wanted to go to a market that’s every Sunday morning (today), so that was first.
We took the metro (I felt so comfortable with it!) to the first stop on our day plan.
The market seemed just a place where geeks would hang out. It was an octagonal bulding but the market was on the outside of the building, so you would go around in a circle (well octagon) and end up where you started. It was just filled with books and was plastic Disney toys. It was interesting to go and watch but I didn’t find anything good to buy. I think dad bought a book and mum some gift for someone.
We then headed for the Picasso museum. A lot of the stuff there I dint find that interesting until we came to a particular part of the exhibition. Picasso was taught in Madrid and painted copies of other paintings. We saw a copy of Philippe the IV which we saw in the Museo De Prado. But this exhibition was all Picasso’s really strange style paintings of another painting. There were so many copies and it was of the painting with perfect perspective that we saw in Museo de Prado, and in the science museum of Paris. That was incredibly interesting.
Afterwards we went and had lunch and then back on the metro to Gaudi’s cathedral. Sagrada Familia is a cathedral designed by Gaudi and still isn’t finished. We walked up the stairs out of the train station and turned around. Rhys mouth dropped and I almost fell backwards! Its sooooooo tall for one and then the decoration is stupendous! There were four spires reaching to the sky with bauble bits on it, the front of the cathedral looked as if it was all the religious stories coated with grey icing as their concrete borders looked like they had been dripped all over it.
We walked around to the entrance on the opposite side of the cathedral to go in. Dad and Rhys didn’t go in, they thought it wasn’t worth the money to see inside when you can see all the amazing decoration on the outside for free, plus the inside isn’t finished yet.
So mum and I went in and saw brilliant stain-glass windows. Nothing like St Chapelle or Notre Dame, it was more of a mosaic of colours in the arched windows. The colours blended together to make a sort of rainbow in each triplet of arches. The ceiling looked as if it had flowers carved into it, and a spiral staircase that got smaller as it went down, so if you take a birds eye view of the staircase, it looks like a nautilus shell.
It was amazing but the edge was slightly taken off with the amount of scaffolding inside.
When we came out we met up with Dad and Rhys and we went looking around the nearby shops. Mum bought some more jewellery and also some postcards.
We had seen enough by this time and we went back to our apartment where I cooked tuna casserole for everyone.
Next morning started late. We were heading off to all the houses that Gaudi had designed. We took the metro and started climbing. In front of us was an enormously steep hill. We must have climbed over 500 stairs to get to the top, well I did. Mum and dad took the escalator which was strangely located in the middle of the street, but Rhys and I were determined to climb all the stairs!
When we finally reached the top we had the best view out of the whole of Barcelona. We walked down some curvy little tracks that then lead us to Park Guell, an open courtyard of gravel that roofs a pillared market area underneath. The courtyards boundaries were lined with snake like mosaic covered back rest, for all the benches that sat along the edges.
All around were people busking, and selling things the way they did in Egypt at the pyramids, with their displays laid out on pieces of material on the ground. Though it was unlike Egypt because there was no hassle.
The buskers were the best. There was a Chinese woman on a… a stringed thing that made beautiful traditional Chinese music. There was a band playing, a brilliant man on the clarinet and sax!
Mum and I went into where Gaudi lived, but again, Dad and Rhys didn’t join us. Afterwards I’m glad they didn’t. it was very expensive and not much to see. Gaudi obviously designed incredible things but not for himself so much. Inside was his bed, toilet, furniture, some of the furniture was interesting. The chairs would seem separate to each other, though the chairs would share arms, one between two.
Afterwards we looked for somewhere to eat. We found a nice grassy area and had our sandwiches. Next we walked through the market section, but I don’t think a market has ever actually been held there. On the roof were more mosaics of white tiles, and occasional circles of colour with pictures in it.
As we came out of the market part, we were on-top of a hill, and to get down to the road we had to walk down a path with fountains in the middle. One of these fountains had a lizard on it made from all different colours.
Near the road were two houses. The looked like Hansel & Gretel houses, with gingerbread walls, and iced towers.
We needed to get back to where we began, but I asked if we could go a different way, rather than retrace our steps and see everything we had already seen. So we took a path that seemed to just take us around the edge but we came to a playground. The playground seemed like a normal playground and as simple and boring as a normal playground. We thought, in Parc Guell, they could have come up with something more imaginative!
We kept walking and came to a… a… hmm how to describe it. A walkway I guess, a path that snaked around the side of the hill and had brown pillars. The walkway’s walls sloped which sort of made you walk sideways.
After walking through this great part, we came to the gravel courtyard again so then retraced our steps from there.
We went back on the metro after a long descent down the stairs of the really steep hill as the escalators only go up. We were on our way to Casa Pedera.
Again dad and Rhys didn’t go in so mum and I experienced it on our own. The house is located on a corner of the streets. Inside it was a big loop. When we walked inside we could look up at the sky, but see all the stories of the house circling us.
We took the lift to the top level and looked at the exhibition at the top. The room looked like a spine, rib sections coming into the room forming little rectangular coves against the wall. The exhibition showed us Gaudi’s inspiration, like corn (which was on top of the cathedral), a spine, like the room we were in, and many other things I can’t remember.
We climbed a spiral staircase to the rooftop. On the rooftop was lots of helmet like things. There were squiggly things that looked like blobs of soft serve ice-cream. I looked over the edge to the road and saw Rhys and Dad crossing it.
When we went downstairs we went into an apartment. It wasn’t nearly as good as the roof, it was just beds and furniture. But it was still nice.
To finish our Gaudi trip, we headed to the last house; Casa Bailto. And again, Dad and Rhys didn’t go in. Instead they went to the museum of Eroticism… hmmm I’m glad I stuck with Gaudi…
The whole building was designed according to nature. There wasn’t a single straight line in the whole thing, just curves of water. The courtyard of light was my favourite; it’s a square sort of upright tunnel, a square area surrounded by the building, with an open top. The whole area is tiled with blue tiles of different shades. Standing at the bottom of the courtyard, the tiles are much paler than the ones at the top (which you can get to by stairs of lift) because the natural light struggles to get to the bottom, so it feels that the light is evenly spaced out.
Afterwards it was back home to clean up the kitchen for the boys to start cooking.
Tomorrow we are heading to Nice…
6/7/09
Seville-Barcelona. A long one!
Getting into the Seville train station was easy. All we had to do was buy tickets for Cordoba/Madrid and then catch a taxi to our hotel. So we got in line for the queue to buy tickets then realised how far back in the queue we were. We ended up waiting about an hour before we could actually get out of the station. We got a taxi and walked a block to our hotel.
We got hungry after a while and again, couldn’t find anywhere to eat except ice cream shops and a Burger King. We didn’t want to walk too far from the hotel and Burger King seemed to be all that was open so we were leaning towards going there but I thought I’d rather not eat! We luckily found a Chinese restaurant close by.
So after a terrible night sleep for all, me being too hot and mum being sick… again, we went for breakfast. We figured out our directions and mum and I walked across the road into one of the largest Cathedrals in the world. Dad was again being stingy and didn’t think how ever many euros was worth going into the cathedral, but I am so glad I did.
We got ourselves a map and I sort of tour guided mum and myself around. The cathedral was originally a mosque as the moors originally ran Spain. All these little coves from the mosque were turned into lots of little chapels all around the walls of the cathedral. As we were walking around we found ourselves at a tomb of Christopher Columbus. Him and his brother were apparently buried there but some other place also claims that they have his body.
We went into a little room where one of Goya’s paintings was of St Juan and Rafina, the sisters that were killed for being Christians by the Romans and got their feet licked by lions.
We were going to go up the tower, which is the only part of the original mosque that actually exists, but it had been closed and would only open the next day.
We met dad outside afterwards and headed for the Alcazar palace. I got in free and it wasn’t too expensive so dad thought he would come in. Inside we saw the stucco carvings and Moorish tiles that were brought from the Alhambra. There were many rooms and also beautiful gardens. We saw huge tapestries, one of a map of Spain. It was really interesting to see how they thought the world looked. As we would have seen it, it was upside down because the south of Spain/north of Morocco was at the top of the tapestry. We could see that Ceuta was still there, and a variation on Algeciras, Barcelona, some other places that were still called the same today but some places like Madrid weren’t even on it. To the left of the tapestry you could also see the south of France, Italy and a bit of Greece. We saw Nice, Naples, Pisa, Sicily and some other places where our trip would be taking us to soon! J the tapestries were kept upstairs in the tapestry room (funnily enough) in the extension that Ferdinand and Isabella had built on the top with their own tiling design and Christian paintings, one a copy of a painting we saw in the Cathedral earlier that morning.
When we went out to the gardens we read a sign saying there was a musical fountain that ran every hour. We didn’t go and see it at the closest hour (4:00), instead we went into the gardens that looked like a park, where we sat and watched a fountain dribble. We kept going and went into a hedge maze. It was very small and you could see where people had made their own paths through the maze.
Next we went into the grotto which seemed to just be a wall that separated two different areas of gardens where you could walk through while looking over the gardens on both sides of you.
By this time we were getting a bit hungry so decided to get something to eat but dad and I left mum there because we wanted to see the musical fountain at 5:00. So we raced off, but I didn’t seem to be working but I insisted to dad we should stay just a little longer and sure enough, it started. Some water started running, little thin spouts that shot out from the walls of the pond at the bottom, and a piano started to play. It was one of those pianos that has a roll of paper on it with holes in particular spots, and the holes determine which note is played when. It wasn’t a particularly nice tune but it was fun all the same.
We went back to mum and then walked into a little rotunda sort of thing with a tiny fountain in the middle. It was only a small little bit of water that actually came out and there was no decoration, just a sort of birdbath in the ground, which is what it was used for too as many pigeons came to wash and drink from it. I think they mostly came to this fountain because the drainage was broken so the water became quite deep.
Mum began to fall asleep lying down on one of the benches circling the fountain but a security guard came up, who had previously told me to put my shoes on when I had just taken my thongs off to put my hot feet on the cool tiles, told mum it was a seat and you sit on seats so she had to get up. So we didn’t stay there much longer and decided it was time to go.
On the way out there was a pond which had been covered in pale purple and deep pink petals from the Jacaranda trees and another plant. There was a man painting this image and we could see the circular place we had just sitting at maybe saw a few figures in there two. He was a very good painter I thought.
Mum and I then went shopping as I needed some more shirts because my yellow T-shirt I wore so much was seriously dirty and no matter how much I washed it there always seemed to be black spots. When we came out of one of the shops there was a procession on with a religious box at the front with some kids hiding underneath it, walking, and they were being followed by a huge number of men and boys drumming. It was very loud and impressive.
On our way back we also saw a puppeteer with an ant and a funny looking man puppet shaking hands with some little kids.
Next morning was sort of early but not excruciatingly. We got to the train station and dad and I had some chocolate pastry thing for breakfast that we bought in Granada but it was still yummy. We got on the train to Madrid but after about 45 minutes we got off because we wanted to stop at Cordoba and see the Mezquita. The Mezquita was, again, originally a mosque, just like so many cathedrals in Spain. But this one was special. It was a very unique building even when it was still a mosque. Inside there are arches all over the places with the same striped pattern on it, red brick and grey/white stone. There were hundreds of arches and I could imagine how it would of looked before the Priests of Cordoba decided to knock out the middle and put a church there, and close up al the sides and create more chapels along the outer wall. Before the whole place would have been filled with men praying on mats to their god Ala, and all around would have been light, but now, because the outer borders were covered up with chapels, there was a lot of lighting needed inside. At the time, even the King said to the Priests, you have ruined something so beautiful and unique in the whole world. Which of course is so true.
So later we got back on the train and finished our trip to Madrid. When we arrived we had to get our tickets organised for going to Santiago de Compostella, which was much easier and quicker than getting tickets in Seville.
We decided to get dinner here because we find it so difficult to find food anywhere. As we were walking over to the restaurant we stopped at the forest and pond that was placed in the middle of the station. It kind of reminded me of Singapore airport. What was really good about this was that in the large pond area it was completely filled with turtles! To extremes! So many I couldn’t have counted them! They were in the water, on the logs and rocks and each other, on lily pads swimming, awww they were so cute J!
So we got pesto for dinner and mum was soo happy to have some pasta! We had had nothing but either rice or couscous for weeks!
We took a taxi to our hostel, and after figuring out how to work the door we eventually got in. They had free internet here so I spent that night watching doctor who on youtube with dad while mum slept. It was very good fun!
Sleep in! except it was kind of destroyed because dad sneezed and woke me up, but I spent the morning talking to friends which was fun J
First we went to the Museo de Prado. We looked at heaps of paintings, so I can’t really describe them all, but we saw a few masterpieces. There were two (but I can’t remember the artist) that were almost exactly the same of a girl lying on a couch except in one painting she was dressed, the other undressed.
I saw a painting by Goya, called Saturn, of Saturn (Roman name for Cronus) eating his children, that I studied in Classics in term 1. I like looking at paintings but I love it when I see things I have seen before somewhere else to connect things together. We saw a painting of “perfect perspective” that we saw in the science museum in Paris.
After a few hours in the museum, we were all getting museum feet and decided to go. on our way out we walked through an area where people just paint. There were so many paintings on display of places we had just been walking through for sale. We were all really thirsty but couldn’t find anywhere that served anything at a reasonable price. So Burger king it was. We all got an ENORMOUS drink each and then dad and I got silly after too much sugar, our equivalent of being drunk on it! ‘Twas good fun! :P
We had to walk back then and mum had booked the computer for internet time, so dad and I went to the closest place for dinner, another Chinese restaurant.
Next morning we got to have a sleep in but we were still going to catch a train. It left around 2 but there was nothing else we desperately wanted to see in Madrid, so, with lots of time we went to the train station. We were going to get a taxi but dad found that the metro station was 10 metres away and it stopped at the station we needed to get to, which wasn’t the first train station we came on. This way we probably saved about 7 euros or something because we only spent a euro each for a ticket. I felt so at home on the metro, missing Paris, but the metro stations are a little different. When we arrived there were 3 train platform levels, one on top of the other, so we took some escalators up and stared at the amazing blue light show wall. Mum and dad said something about the Matrix but I haven’t seen it, so sorry I can’t explain the connection.
It took us a while before we found the long distance train station but we still had a lot of time to spare, so mum and I went shopping. We looked for a small backgammon set we could carry with us, in a big toy shop, and there was every toy I have ever seen… except a small backgammon set.
Dad got his phone working and some credit while mum and I went searching for an MP3 as I stupidly lost mine in Alexandria. We didn’t find anything but I got some face stuff and by then we had to get on the train to Santiago de Compostella.
It was a very long train trip, about 5 hours. I spent the time doing maths until the battery of the computer ran out then I played cards with mum. Dad was watching some Spanish movie that looked like a comedy/murder… not sure how that works but oh well, its Spanish. :P
When we got off we took a taxi to our hostel. We had got a triple but mum couldn’t stand to have a shared bathroom after the queue we had to wait for in Madrid. It was really good and we had a T.V so attempted to watch Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie but it was dubbed and the signal wasn’t so good, we were mainly watching black and white fuzz. So we went out to get some food.
Last nights dinner of a toasted ham and cheese sandwich was good so we went back there for breakfast. We then walked to the Cathedral which was very close. The cathedral had practically been sculptured. Maestro Mateo was the artist. In the original door there was a pillar and at the bottom was a statue of Hercules holding two lions’ mouths open. On the other side of the pilar, facing the altar, was a self portrait/statue of Maestro Mateo. The belief is that if you knock your head on the statues head three times you will receive some of his geniusness. Though over the years there has been some confusion and people have been knocking the head of Hercules. Above Hercules’ head, on the pillar, is a worn away hand print from people holding it. That’s a lot of hands to wear away marble! At the top of the pillar is 24 (I think) musicians that live in Heaven.
This cathedral is where St. James in buried and so many people were here on pilgrimage. There were many backpackers here who had walked the last 100 km or rode the last 200 to guarantee themselves into heaven. Inside there was a service going on, with singing, praying and turning the wine and bread to Jesus’ blood and body. We looked at an areaAs there were sooo many people inside we decided to come back later when there wasn’t a service on though dad thought he didn’t need to see it.
As we walked outside we heard a traditional bagpipe busker who we took a movie of and gave him a little bit of money.
There was a film crew filming something, asking people about their pilgrimages.
From here we decided to take a walking tour that our bible (the Lonely Planet guide to Spain) suggested. But we hadn’t booked any accommodation for the following night and needed some internet, so stopped at a café to use their Wi-Fi, though the Wi-Fi didn’t seem to work, so we got going again, but we didn’t continue the walking tour, as we still needed that internet. So backtrack to another café.
Mum wanted to take me to see the Cathedral museum and go back to the cathedral, so we left dad at the café but we found out the museum was closed and wouldn’t open again until 4, so back to the café, though mum made a sidetrack to one of the jewellery shops.
Dad was struggling, the internet wasn’t working well and it seemed we the trains didn’t seem to work well either. We couldn’t take the coastal route that dad would have liked to see and to get to Barcelona in time to meet Rhys, was pushing time. So we agrees to leave this café and find another one.
We found one with good internet and some people were watching a self made movie. It was in Spanish, which wasn’t very useful for me or mum but we understood what it was about. It was about a man and a woman going on a pilgrimage. So we guessed that this was what people were filming today. We looked out for ourselves but they didn’t finish it at the cathedral.
When finally got something slightly organised, mum and I left dad to figure the rest our while we went to the museum and have a last look around the cathedral. When we went back inside the cathedral, it was so different. It was a lot darker and there was hardly a soul in there. We could closer to the altar piece and actually see the angels.
At one point we went below it and saw where St James is apparently buried. There weren’t many people out in the other area because they were all in here praying though it was a very small area.
We walked around and saw all the chapels. The alter pieces were pretty impressive. Often I don’t like the altar pieces or statues as I look at it as art. But I saw one I really did like of the mother Mary and child, made from black stone.
After the Cathedral we went into the museum. The first part was very small with musical instruments that had been specially made. They were made as life size and playable copies from the 24 musicians carved in the cathedral.
After this tiny part, we had to go in a different area. Inside was a reconstruction of bit of something that I can’t quite remember but it was impressive and beautiful. I think it was the original church, before it became a cathedral and they discovered St James.
There were heaps of things we got to look at, Tapestries designed by Goya, a huge metal thing (can’t remember the name) for swinging incense through the cathedral, the library, great views of the square and gorgeous jewelled treasures.
We met dad at the hostel at 7 and then went out for tea. Mum and I had Paella and we worked on the internet. We have now booked an apartment in Barcelona.
It was late by this time because it took an awful long time to get that organised so I went straight to bed.
We had to wake up very early this morning. Well it felt like that after a late night. We were gone by 8 and walked to the train station. We got some coffee and then got on the train. The train doesn’t arrive until 10 minutes to 3:00 so I’ll leave it there and tell you about Leon and Oviado later.
So ok, writing this a few days after the stuff above. And, as promised, this one is about Oviado and Leon.
So when we arrived in Leon we got some ice-creams and things after buying tickets to Oviado. The next train wasn’t until 5 something so we just sort of sat around playing cards and watching a nature documentary in Spanish. So we got on the train and I plugged myself into the computer to finish of my maths. Dad watched the dubbed American movie in Spanish and mum read.
The views were fantastic on this trip. We were in the mountains and we could look down into the valleys filled with cloud.
We arrived in Oviado and took a taxi to our hotel. This hotel was a bit of luxury. We got separate rooms and they were both really big.
We attempted to find some food, but as usual in Spain, it was unbelievably difficult. On our way we stopped at a church looking thing but we didn’t go inside as it was closed. It was very ornately built with a few statues around.
I noticed that the people seemed to be a lot less tanned. I thought it was from lack of sun, as it was drizzling and overcast at the time, but dad says that many of the people south have some Moorish blood within them giving them a darker skin colour, but in Oviado there are mountains in the way so the Moors couldn’t get there. Don’t blame them. It would have taken a lot of work marching an army up those hills!
When we finally found some place that sold food at a reasonable price, we sat down and ordered some pizza. I had no idea what to get so I got tropical thinking the same boring thing we get at home of ham and pineapple. Well wasn’t I surprised when capsicum and asparagus bits were decorating my pizza!
We were incredibly tired so went straight to bed after dinner. I didn’t sleep so well. No idea why but after falling asleep after midnight, getting up at 7:30 wasn’t that fun.
So next morning we were up early and taking a taxi to the train station and got a slow train to Santander on our way to Bilbao. It was absolutely freezing!!! It was cold outside but then they put the air-con on in the train... brrrr! I slept as much as I could which was good otherwise I would have died through the rest of the day!
We had chosen this route so we could see some of the coast. We did see it… I think twice. A few glimpses and that was about it, but its what dad wanted to see which was good he saw a little bit :P
So we didn’t have any food except dad’s dates that mum and I were neither very interested in. So until we got into Santander at 2 we couldn’t get anything to eat. Unfortunately our tickets never worked, they were valid but they just never seemed to let us through those little automatic ticket gate things. So dad jumped the fence to get some food. He brought back some food and Fanta, but the Fanta was all that was interesting to me.
So we didn’t have to change trains, which was great. The same train we were on was taking us to Bilbao. When we arrived in Bilbao the first thing I saw was a big red bus with Bilbobus written on it. Hobbit land!
We found it very hard to find a taxi but eventually we got one and we found our hotel. ‘twas very nice, simple but everything we needed.
So to the Guggenhein (got no idea how to spell it) museum! The whole building was a piece of art in itself. It was all silver with random bits sticking out all over. Ah so hard to explain! Parts of it looked like the front of a ship but I don’t think a single line was straight.
Inside was the same, no line was straight. Except some of the first art we saw. It was about 10 straight, block stick things reaching the roof. Going up was red writing in English on one side, and Spanish, on the back, in blue writing. The sentences it said were very strange, like: I smell you, I breath you, you did this to me, my mother knows, I feel your pulse, I sleep next to you… was quite disturbing.
So the first room we went into was filled with huge metal mazey thing. Lots of spirals to walk through and metal snake like lines as well. We then went upstairs and saw a ship, a ship that wouldn’t ever sail as I think it was meant to be a ship that had sunken. Filling the ship and surrounding it on the floor was smashed plates and small porcelain statues.
The next room was paintings and pictures made from gun powder. Inside this room were movies of people letting off fireworks. The Beijing Olympics opening was on with all the fireworks ‘cause it was done by the same man. So if Nick, you’re reading this, you need to Google or maybe youtube “Cai fireworks” and see what you get. I think you would have loved that room!
There was a small room off the corner of this one. In here was the room for Rhys. For all that don’t know, my brother’s been working with dog sleds in Canada. In this room were 99 life size and realistic made dogs. They were set up to make them look like they were flying in an arch as if on reigns like on a sled but at the end there is a glass wall that they end up crashing into and falling over themselves in painful positions. There were then some who had recovered who were then running to do it again! The idea of it was to show how dogs can work together but they aren’t really the smartest animals!
By this time it was coming close to 8 pm and it closing up so we had to leave. Plus I was beginning to feel a little faint with headaches as I hadn’t eaten anything all day. So we went across the road and saw a giant green foam thing- the sort they use in the bottom of fake flowers- in the shape of a red panda. We had seen a photo of when it was a red panda, but today it was in reconstruction so we couldn’t really see through all the scaffolding. Just over the road was a Doner kebab place. We saw a photo of the big red panda but in the photo it was a teddy bear covered in flowers. There was also a picture of Sydney up which made me feel at home :P
We made friends with the Pakistani men running the shop as they spoke pretty good English.
We then needed to get a taxi home as it was absolutely bucketing down with rain! Haven’t seen rain in a while! We watched a bit of Spanish T.V and liked one of the phone adds because the music was a young boy singing “Waltzing Matilda”!
Ok, so this morning was too early for me but not actually that early. We were downstairs at 8 to have breakfast as it was included and then we walked a bit to see if we could find a taxi. Well no we couldn’t for a very long time. We finally flagged one down and then he said we couldn’t go with him and showed us the way to the metro station where there was a taxi bank. Luckily, just as we got one, it started pelting down.
We got to the train station a little early, yet later than we had expected from the lack of taxis.
So now we’re on the train now and on our way to Barcelona. Tonight we’ll be staying in an apartment and tomorrow we meet up with Rhys!
We got hungry after a while and again, couldn’t find anywhere to eat except ice cream shops and a Burger King. We didn’t want to walk too far from the hotel and Burger King seemed to be all that was open so we were leaning towards going there but I thought I’d rather not eat! We luckily found a Chinese restaurant close by.
So after a terrible night sleep for all, me being too hot and mum being sick… again, we went for breakfast. We figured out our directions and mum and I walked across the road into one of the largest Cathedrals in the world. Dad was again being stingy and didn’t think how ever many euros was worth going into the cathedral, but I am so glad I did.
We got ourselves a map and I sort of tour guided mum and myself around. The cathedral was originally a mosque as the moors originally ran Spain. All these little coves from the mosque were turned into lots of little chapels all around the walls of the cathedral. As we were walking around we found ourselves at a tomb of Christopher Columbus. Him and his brother were apparently buried there but some other place also claims that they have his body.
We went into a little room where one of Goya’s paintings was of St Juan and Rafina, the sisters that were killed for being Christians by the Romans and got their feet licked by lions.
We were going to go up the tower, which is the only part of the original mosque that actually exists, but it had been closed and would only open the next day.
We met dad outside afterwards and headed for the Alcazar palace. I got in free and it wasn’t too expensive so dad thought he would come in. Inside we saw the stucco carvings and Moorish tiles that were brought from the Alhambra. There were many rooms and also beautiful gardens. We saw huge tapestries, one of a map of Spain. It was really interesting to see how they thought the world looked. As we would have seen it, it was upside down because the south of Spain/north of Morocco was at the top of the tapestry. We could see that Ceuta was still there, and a variation on Algeciras, Barcelona, some other places that were still called the same today but some places like Madrid weren’t even on it. To the left of the tapestry you could also see the south of France, Italy and a bit of Greece. We saw Nice, Naples, Pisa, Sicily and some other places where our trip would be taking us to soon! J the tapestries were kept upstairs in the tapestry room (funnily enough) in the extension that Ferdinand and Isabella had built on the top with their own tiling design and Christian paintings, one a copy of a painting we saw in the Cathedral earlier that morning.
When we went out to the gardens we read a sign saying there was a musical fountain that ran every hour. We didn’t go and see it at the closest hour (4:00), instead we went into the gardens that looked like a park, where we sat and watched a fountain dribble. We kept going and went into a hedge maze. It was very small and you could see where people had made their own paths through the maze.
Next we went into the grotto which seemed to just be a wall that separated two different areas of gardens where you could walk through while looking over the gardens on both sides of you.
By this time we were getting a bit hungry so decided to get something to eat but dad and I left mum there because we wanted to see the musical fountain at 5:00. So we raced off, but I didn’t seem to be working but I insisted to dad we should stay just a little longer and sure enough, it started. Some water started running, little thin spouts that shot out from the walls of the pond at the bottom, and a piano started to play. It was one of those pianos that has a roll of paper on it with holes in particular spots, and the holes determine which note is played when. It wasn’t a particularly nice tune but it was fun all the same.
We went back to mum and then walked into a little rotunda sort of thing with a tiny fountain in the middle. It was only a small little bit of water that actually came out and there was no decoration, just a sort of birdbath in the ground, which is what it was used for too as many pigeons came to wash and drink from it. I think they mostly came to this fountain because the drainage was broken so the water became quite deep.
Mum began to fall asleep lying down on one of the benches circling the fountain but a security guard came up, who had previously told me to put my shoes on when I had just taken my thongs off to put my hot feet on the cool tiles, told mum it was a seat and you sit on seats so she had to get up. So we didn’t stay there much longer and decided it was time to go.
On the way out there was a pond which had been covered in pale purple and deep pink petals from the Jacaranda trees and another plant. There was a man painting this image and we could see the circular place we had just sitting at maybe saw a few figures in there two. He was a very good painter I thought.
Mum and I then went shopping as I needed some more shirts because my yellow T-shirt I wore so much was seriously dirty and no matter how much I washed it there always seemed to be black spots. When we came out of one of the shops there was a procession on with a religious box at the front with some kids hiding underneath it, walking, and they were being followed by a huge number of men and boys drumming. It was very loud and impressive.
On our way back we also saw a puppeteer with an ant and a funny looking man puppet shaking hands with some little kids.
Next morning was sort of early but not excruciatingly. We got to the train station and dad and I had some chocolate pastry thing for breakfast that we bought in Granada but it was still yummy. We got on the train to Madrid but after about 45 minutes we got off because we wanted to stop at Cordoba and see the Mezquita. The Mezquita was, again, originally a mosque, just like so many cathedrals in Spain. But this one was special. It was a very unique building even when it was still a mosque. Inside there are arches all over the places with the same striped pattern on it, red brick and grey/white stone. There were hundreds of arches and I could imagine how it would of looked before the Priests of Cordoba decided to knock out the middle and put a church there, and close up al the sides and create more chapels along the outer wall. Before the whole place would have been filled with men praying on mats to their god Ala, and all around would have been light, but now, because the outer borders were covered up with chapels, there was a lot of lighting needed inside. At the time, even the King said to the Priests, you have ruined something so beautiful and unique in the whole world. Which of course is so true.
So later we got back on the train and finished our trip to Madrid. When we arrived we had to get our tickets organised for going to Santiago de Compostella, which was much easier and quicker than getting tickets in Seville.
We decided to get dinner here because we find it so difficult to find food anywhere. As we were walking over to the restaurant we stopped at the forest and pond that was placed in the middle of the station. It kind of reminded me of Singapore airport. What was really good about this was that in the large pond area it was completely filled with turtles! To extremes! So many I couldn’t have counted them! They were in the water, on the logs and rocks and each other, on lily pads swimming, awww they were so cute J!
So we got pesto for dinner and mum was soo happy to have some pasta! We had had nothing but either rice or couscous for weeks!
We took a taxi to our hostel, and after figuring out how to work the door we eventually got in. They had free internet here so I spent that night watching doctor who on youtube with dad while mum slept. It was very good fun!
Sleep in! except it was kind of destroyed because dad sneezed and woke me up, but I spent the morning talking to friends which was fun J
First we went to the Museo de Prado. We looked at heaps of paintings, so I can’t really describe them all, but we saw a few masterpieces. There were two (but I can’t remember the artist) that were almost exactly the same of a girl lying on a couch except in one painting she was dressed, the other undressed.
I saw a painting by Goya, called Saturn, of Saturn (Roman name for Cronus) eating his children, that I studied in Classics in term 1. I like looking at paintings but I love it when I see things I have seen before somewhere else to connect things together. We saw a painting of “perfect perspective” that we saw in the science museum in Paris.
After a few hours in the museum, we were all getting museum feet and decided to go. on our way out we walked through an area where people just paint. There were so many paintings on display of places we had just been walking through for sale. We were all really thirsty but couldn’t find anywhere that served anything at a reasonable price. So Burger king it was. We all got an ENORMOUS drink each and then dad and I got silly after too much sugar, our equivalent of being drunk on it! ‘Twas good fun! :P
We had to walk back then and mum had booked the computer for internet time, so dad and I went to the closest place for dinner, another Chinese restaurant.
Next morning we got to have a sleep in but we were still going to catch a train. It left around 2 but there was nothing else we desperately wanted to see in Madrid, so, with lots of time we went to the train station. We were going to get a taxi but dad found that the metro station was 10 metres away and it stopped at the station we needed to get to, which wasn’t the first train station we came on. This way we probably saved about 7 euros or something because we only spent a euro each for a ticket. I felt so at home on the metro, missing Paris, but the metro stations are a little different. When we arrived there were 3 train platform levels, one on top of the other, so we took some escalators up and stared at the amazing blue light show wall. Mum and dad said something about the Matrix but I haven’t seen it, so sorry I can’t explain the connection.
It took us a while before we found the long distance train station but we still had a lot of time to spare, so mum and I went shopping. We looked for a small backgammon set we could carry with us, in a big toy shop, and there was every toy I have ever seen… except a small backgammon set.
Dad got his phone working and some credit while mum and I went searching for an MP3 as I stupidly lost mine in Alexandria. We didn’t find anything but I got some face stuff and by then we had to get on the train to Santiago de Compostella.
It was a very long train trip, about 5 hours. I spent the time doing maths until the battery of the computer ran out then I played cards with mum. Dad was watching some Spanish movie that looked like a comedy/murder… not sure how that works but oh well, its Spanish. :P
When we got off we took a taxi to our hostel. We had got a triple but mum couldn’t stand to have a shared bathroom after the queue we had to wait for in Madrid. It was really good and we had a T.V so attempted to watch Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie but it was dubbed and the signal wasn’t so good, we were mainly watching black and white fuzz. So we went out to get some food.
Last nights dinner of a toasted ham and cheese sandwich was good so we went back there for breakfast. We then walked to the Cathedral which was very close. The cathedral had practically been sculptured. Maestro Mateo was the artist. In the original door there was a pillar and at the bottom was a statue of Hercules holding two lions’ mouths open. On the other side of the pilar, facing the altar, was a self portrait/statue of Maestro Mateo. The belief is that if you knock your head on the statues head three times you will receive some of his geniusness. Though over the years there has been some confusion and people have been knocking the head of Hercules. Above Hercules’ head, on the pillar, is a worn away hand print from people holding it. That’s a lot of hands to wear away marble! At the top of the pillar is 24 (I think) musicians that live in Heaven.
This cathedral is where St. James in buried and so many people were here on pilgrimage. There were many backpackers here who had walked the last 100 km or rode the last 200 to guarantee themselves into heaven. Inside there was a service going on, with singing, praying and turning the wine and bread to Jesus’ blood and body. We looked at an areaAs there were sooo many people inside we decided to come back later when there wasn’t a service on though dad thought he didn’t need to see it.
As we walked outside we heard a traditional bagpipe busker who we took a movie of and gave him a little bit of money.
There was a film crew filming something, asking people about their pilgrimages.
From here we decided to take a walking tour that our bible (the Lonely Planet guide to Spain) suggested. But we hadn’t booked any accommodation for the following night and needed some internet, so stopped at a café to use their Wi-Fi, though the Wi-Fi didn’t seem to work, so we got going again, but we didn’t continue the walking tour, as we still needed that internet. So backtrack to another café.
Mum wanted to take me to see the Cathedral museum and go back to the cathedral, so we left dad at the café but we found out the museum was closed and wouldn’t open again until 4, so back to the café, though mum made a sidetrack to one of the jewellery shops.
Dad was struggling, the internet wasn’t working well and it seemed we the trains didn’t seem to work well either. We couldn’t take the coastal route that dad would have liked to see and to get to Barcelona in time to meet Rhys, was pushing time. So we agrees to leave this café and find another one.
We found one with good internet and some people were watching a self made movie. It was in Spanish, which wasn’t very useful for me or mum but we understood what it was about. It was about a man and a woman going on a pilgrimage. So we guessed that this was what people were filming today. We looked out for ourselves but they didn’t finish it at the cathedral.
When finally got something slightly organised, mum and I left dad to figure the rest our while we went to the museum and have a last look around the cathedral. When we went back inside the cathedral, it was so different. It was a lot darker and there was hardly a soul in there. We could closer to the altar piece and actually see the angels.
At one point we went below it and saw where St James is apparently buried. There weren’t many people out in the other area because they were all in here praying though it was a very small area.
We walked around and saw all the chapels. The alter pieces were pretty impressive. Often I don’t like the altar pieces or statues as I look at it as art. But I saw one I really did like of the mother Mary and child, made from black stone.
After the Cathedral we went into the museum. The first part was very small with musical instruments that had been specially made. They were made as life size and playable copies from the 24 musicians carved in the cathedral.
After this tiny part, we had to go in a different area. Inside was a reconstruction of bit of something that I can’t quite remember but it was impressive and beautiful. I think it was the original church, before it became a cathedral and they discovered St James.
There were heaps of things we got to look at, Tapestries designed by Goya, a huge metal thing (can’t remember the name) for swinging incense through the cathedral, the library, great views of the square and gorgeous jewelled treasures.
We met dad at the hostel at 7 and then went out for tea. Mum and I had Paella and we worked on the internet. We have now booked an apartment in Barcelona.
It was late by this time because it took an awful long time to get that organised so I went straight to bed.
We had to wake up very early this morning. Well it felt like that after a late night. We were gone by 8 and walked to the train station. We got some coffee and then got on the train. The train doesn’t arrive until 10 minutes to 3:00 so I’ll leave it there and tell you about Leon and Oviado later.
So ok, writing this a few days after the stuff above. And, as promised, this one is about Oviado and Leon.
So when we arrived in Leon we got some ice-creams and things after buying tickets to Oviado. The next train wasn’t until 5 something so we just sort of sat around playing cards and watching a nature documentary in Spanish. So we got on the train and I plugged myself into the computer to finish of my maths. Dad watched the dubbed American movie in Spanish and mum read.
The views were fantastic on this trip. We were in the mountains and we could look down into the valleys filled with cloud.
We arrived in Oviado and took a taxi to our hotel. This hotel was a bit of luxury. We got separate rooms and they were both really big.
We attempted to find some food, but as usual in Spain, it was unbelievably difficult. On our way we stopped at a church looking thing but we didn’t go inside as it was closed. It was very ornately built with a few statues around.
I noticed that the people seemed to be a lot less tanned. I thought it was from lack of sun, as it was drizzling and overcast at the time, but dad says that many of the people south have some Moorish blood within them giving them a darker skin colour, but in Oviado there are mountains in the way so the Moors couldn’t get there. Don’t blame them. It would have taken a lot of work marching an army up those hills!
When we finally found some place that sold food at a reasonable price, we sat down and ordered some pizza. I had no idea what to get so I got tropical thinking the same boring thing we get at home of ham and pineapple. Well wasn’t I surprised when capsicum and asparagus bits were decorating my pizza!
We were incredibly tired so went straight to bed after dinner. I didn’t sleep so well. No idea why but after falling asleep after midnight, getting up at 7:30 wasn’t that fun.
So next morning we were up early and taking a taxi to the train station and got a slow train to Santander on our way to Bilbao. It was absolutely freezing!!! It was cold outside but then they put the air-con on in the train... brrrr! I slept as much as I could which was good otherwise I would have died through the rest of the day!
We had chosen this route so we could see some of the coast. We did see it… I think twice. A few glimpses and that was about it, but its what dad wanted to see which was good he saw a little bit :P
So we didn’t have any food except dad’s dates that mum and I were neither very interested in. So until we got into Santander at 2 we couldn’t get anything to eat. Unfortunately our tickets never worked, they were valid but they just never seemed to let us through those little automatic ticket gate things. So dad jumped the fence to get some food. He brought back some food and Fanta, but the Fanta was all that was interesting to me.
So we didn’t have to change trains, which was great. The same train we were on was taking us to Bilbao. When we arrived in Bilbao the first thing I saw was a big red bus with Bilbobus written on it. Hobbit land!
We found it very hard to find a taxi but eventually we got one and we found our hotel. ‘twas very nice, simple but everything we needed.
So to the Guggenhein (got no idea how to spell it) museum! The whole building was a piece of art in itself. It was all silver with random bits sticking out all over. Ah so hard to explain! Parts of it looked like the front of a ship but I don’t think a single line was straight.
Inside was the same, no line was straight. Except some of the first art we saw. It was about 10 straight, block stick things reaching the roof. Going up was red writing in English on one side, and Spanish, on the back, in blue writing. The sentences it said were very strange, like: I smell you, I breath you, you did this to me, my mother knows, I feel your pulse, I sleep next to you… was quite disturbing.
So the first room we went into was filled with huge metal mazey thing. Lots of spirals to walk through and metal snake like lines as well. We then went upstairs and saw a ship, a ship that wouldn’t ever sail as I think it was meant to be a ship that had sunken. Filling the ship and surrounding it on the floor was smashed plates and small porcelain statues.
The next room was paintings and pictures made from gun powder. Inside this room were movies of people letting off fireworks. The Beijing Olympics opening was on with all the fireworks ‘cause it was done by the same man. So if Nick, you’re reading this, you need to Google or maybe youtube “Cai fireworks” and see what you get. I think you would have loved that room!
There was a small room off the corner of this one. In here was the room for Rhys. For all that don’t know, my brother’s been working with dog sleds in Canada. In this room were 99 life size and realistic made dogs. They were set up to make them look like they were flying in an arch as if on reigns like on a sled but at the end there is a glass wall that they end up crashing into and falling over themselves in painful positions. There were then some who had recovered who were then running to do it again! The idea of it was to show how dogs can work together but they aren’t really the smartest animals!
By this time it was coming close to 8 pm and it closing up so we had to leave. Plus I was beginning to feel a little faint with headaches as I hadn’t eaten anything all day. So we went across the road and saw a giant green foam thing- the sort they use in the bottom of fake flowers- in the shape of a red panda. We had seen a photo of when it was a red panda, but today it was in reconstruction so we couldn’t really see through all the scaffolding. Just over the road was a Doner kebab place. We saw a photo of the big red panda but in the photo it was a teddy bear covered in flowers. There was also a picture of Sydney up which made me feel at home :P
We made friends with the Pakistani men running the shop as they spoke pretty good English.
We then needed to get a taxi home as it was absolutely bucketing down with rain! Haven’t seen rain in a while! We watched a bit of Spanish T.V and liked one of the phone adds because the music was a young boy singing “Waltzing Matilda”!
Ok, so this morning was too early for me but not actually that early. We were downstairs at 8 to have breakfast as it was included and then we walked a bit to see if we could find a taxi. Well no we couldn’t for a very long time. We finally flagged one down and then he said we couldn’t go with him and showed us the way to the metro station where there was a taxi bank. Luckily, just as we got one, it started pelting down.
We got to the train station a little early, yet later than we had expected from the lack of taxis.
So now we’re on the train now and on our way to Barcelona. Tonight we’ll be staying in an apartment and tomorrow we meet up with Rhys!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
