Pebbly Porto

Hola!!

After a brief hyatis (unsure of the spelling) I have returned to cyberspace, although this time I am tapping from Portugal!! : ) I hope you are all relishing the opportunity to eat marmite (we have recently finished our NZ bottle gifted to us in London). I will attempt to deliver the brief conclusion of our salud! to Spain, and yes I CAN hear you schoffing, as my ability to be brief is greatly inhibited by my talent for babble...

I shall put it in sections so you don't feel that you need to read the whole thing...

SO last I wrote I think we were in Valencia...from there we stopped at Gandia, a beautiful white sandy stretch of beach; unfortunately the wind decided to also stop there. This and our lack of cheap accommodation hurried us on the next day (thus the weather decided to shine, laughing at our blackening shoulders as we waited for the bus) to...

Alicante
Here the Castillo Santa Barbara (which we managed to run in with the policeman warning us to be out in half an hour, take some snaps, and run back out with the speaks blaring a message in spanish which was probably saying "get off the mountain"!) sits on top of a cliff overlooking another beautiful beach, right next to the city. It is on this beach that we sat amongst the cigarette butts on a sleeping bag in the cold (apparently it had been 40º until we arrived) and celebrated our one-month-travelling anniversary with a gourmet picnic, of course from the supermercado, with tapas ranging from stuffed cuttlefish (actually stuffed only with its own tenticles), mussels, bread, fresh produce, a couple bottle of Rose´ and Cava, and a melon which we attempted to eat with plastic forks, much to the amusement of passersby.

Elche
Land of palm groves, figs, and pommegranates, amongst which we attended a free concert that turned out to be not so free. Being the budget travellers that we are, we sat outside and listened with the only thing standing between us and being inside was security, palm trees and a bit of metal, so this was quite ideal. It started promisingly with two soulful Spanish guys singing soulful Spanish music, but the next act was a bunch of old rockers that I am sure are much loved, but not particularly by these two kiwis. Unfortunately, we missed Shakira, who was to perform the next weekend. (I HOPE you know that was a joke!!)

TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT
Whilst in the Hort de Sent Placid, a museum containing the different fruit trees and palm groves, we were party to "borrowing" a couple lemons and a sample of the yellow fruit that was growing there. Alas, there were signs around the garden in Spanish that looked alarmingly like "these trees are sprayed with infecticide" signs, so we took caution and didn´t eat them.

We spent a couple hours in Almeria before hopping on the next bus back outta there to........

Granada, where we were greeted by the Holy Week Parade which had apparently been rained out, I geuss the week before. The beautiful city of Granada contains the Alhambra. You leave wanting to run away from all the tourists, but it is well worth the "waiting in line for a ticket at 7am" to meander throught the gardens, and climb thousands of stairs to get amazing views from different parts of the palace.

Seville
Again we were greeted by a parade, this time of bulls/oxen pulling carts carrying people in traditional dress, women dressed in beautiful flamenco outfits dancing, we are not sure what this was for. We looked around the most beautiful bull ring in Spain, and were educated a little on the history....

Which was lucky as in Madrid we saw a bullfight!! After ignoring all the hawkers, and asking the Americans what ticket they bought when we couldn't decipher the Spanish pricing and seating plan, we managed to purchase a seat in the sun, 1900, for that day. This was all going so well until on the way home we couldn't remember what street our hostel was on. An hour later, with half an hour left to cook, eat, catch the Metro, and figure out where our seat was, we plonked ourselves down on the concrete block amongst the ciggarette smoke, knees, and fan waiving just in time. We realised why the seats in the sun were cheaper as even at 7pm the sun is blazing like a charcoal BBQ!! An interesting experience, with no injuries except for the 6 bulls that were killed At the end everyone was throwing their cushions onto the ring and booing, so perhaps it was not the best of fights??

FRIED GOODNESS
As we all know, Madrid has a nightlife to match any. Apart from waking up at 7am to pulsating music from the discotecha downstairs, there are so many other good things to apprectiate. Firstly, the number of people handing out cards for free drinks means that you virtually spend hardly any money and what you do spend buys you triple what you would get in NZ. Secondly, the churro shop that is open until 7am, where you can get a whole plate of churros (long fried doughnuts) which you dip into the cup of syrupy smooth chocolate; not too sweet, and ohhhh so good!! What better way to begin your navigational journey back home through the crazy maze of streets.


Bilbao
Upon arrival, we went straight to the Guggenheim museum. After having our packs put through the x-ray machine (I geuss in case we want to blow up the building?) and then in storage, and armed with an audio tour (you don't actually feel as stupid as you look, even when going around and feeling the walls and staring at the ceiling) we journeyed around this beautiful piece of architecture. It was well worth the trip as it was quite out of the way considering we were going to Portugal.

From here, we took a bus to Vigo and then crossed the border to...........

Porto
My first impressions of Porto were : pebbly, steep, windy; a terrible combination when carting a pack around. But alas, on day three, we have managed to figure it out, and are now walking virtually mapless. Yesterday, we crossed the Rio Douro, the river that separates the central city from the old city and the wine cellars. Of course, you have to taste Portugals produce, and so began many walks up mountains of pebbles in the 100º heat (slight exaggeration) to the various cellars in the most famous area. Quinto Do Noval, Taylors, and W.J. Grahams were our stops. What a sweet memory. At our last stop, we joined a group of "older" and so lovely, British tourists for an english tour of the cellar. I think the guys pushing the barrels around were having a laugh at us : )

HOMEGROWN AWAY FROM HOME
Whilst in Madrid I picked up a Spanish entertainment magazine, and amongst the pages of Spanish, I recognised......Fat Freddy's Drop, and Black Eyed Peas!! Playing in Algarvae on the 18th Junio!!! So with much hope, we went to the ticket office today, and were able to buy the best ticket for only 30euro!!!!! Completely donºt know what kind of seat it is as they didn´t have a seating chart, but we are pretty sure it is in the front : )

So there it is, my not-so-brief brief conclusion. Tomorrow we go to Nazarre, for, hopefully, some beach time, where we will definitely be sitting in the shade before we start to disappear into the night.

Take care, and till next time!!!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxLove Lixxxxxxxxxxxx

PS The whole time in Spain, we kept hearing someone whistling that song that Daryl Hannah (the nurse) whistles in Kill Bill, it was really quite creepy!!! Literally everyday!!