The start of my Spanish soujourn - Barcelona & Zaragoza

It's been a while since my last post, and I've recently arrived back home in New Zealand, finishing my 11.5 month journey, to spend Christmas with my family and catch up with old friends.

Last post I'd said goodbye to Lindsay in Italy, almost four months ago. Tomorrow she arrives in New Zealand for a holiday - can't wait - but for now, it's time to update the travel blog from my arrival in Spain...


03 - 10 September

I arrived in Barcelona airport and was immediately slightly confused - the main language in the airport was not Spanish, although something similar. I hadn't thought about it but quickly discovered that Catalan is in fact just as widely spoken as Spanish in this part of the country, and while it is somewhat comprehensible, it is a different language.

It was quite an adjustment being back to travelling by myself and being in a new country with different culture, traditions and language. I'd hoped to be able to use my Spanish again, being able to communicate better with the locals than in countries like Italy, Poland or Hungary. However Barcelona is a very popular destination and there was a lot of English around.

My first evening was a quiet one at the hostel and I had some emails and photo sorting to catch up on the next morning as well, so the second afternoon I headed out to the Sagrada Familia. This church is possibly the most ambitious construction of the modern age, and is still in progress since starting in 1882 (!). The majority of the design was done by architect Antoni Gaudí, whose work is all over Barcelona and is very unusual and innovative in many respects.

La Sagrada Familia (& construction site)

Some of the finished spires against the sun 

Spire detail

The church's design includes concepts such as Nativity, Passion and Glory façades, 18 spires (in increasing height, representing the 12 Apostles, the 4 Evangelists, the Virgin Mary and, tallest of all, Jesus Christ), interior columns designed to look like trees, and all sorts of other symbology. It was quite a bizarre building to look at, not least due to the cranes still covering the building!

Unfortunately I didn't head inside - thanks to outrageously high entrance fees - but instead took a walk up a hill to Park Güell, designed by the same Gaudí as the Sagrada Familia. Named after a Count from the early 1900s, it had some interesting mosaic designs and a great view of the city.

Park Güell entrance

Mosaic serpentine bench and view towards the sea

I then took the metro off to Plaza Spanya in the south of the city and a hill called Montjuïc, which is home to Barcelona's 1992 Olympic centre - plus more of Gaudí's work and another city view. There's also the Castell de Montjuïc, a fortress with a commanding view over the city's harbour.

Looking up to the Catalunya National Art Museum

Looking back down the hill - unfortunately missing the timing for the very impressive Font Màgica (Magic Fountain)

Communications tower on Plaça d'Europa in the 1992 Olympics complex

Castell de Montjuïc

View north over the city

I spent the evening cooking my own dinner - steak! - and the next morning headed into the main city centre of Barcelona and wandered along Les Rambles/Las Ramblas, a succession of streets forming a pedestrian mall and shopping area, as well as roughly bordering the old Barri Gòtic (Gothic Quarter), where I then joined a free walking tour to see some of the inner city. Barcelona has a lot of history, having been originally founded as a Roman city, with some interesting gothic architecture in it's centre, where many more architects other than Gaudí made a name for themselves.

Gaudí's buildings are still the weirdest though.

More recently the province of Catalunya (Catalonia), where Barcelona is based, has been the centre of a lot of debate about seceding from Spain. Much of Spain's economy is driven from Barcelona and it's surrounding area, but reportedly less than 60% of the tax earned there is spent there. Unsurprisingly, many of the locals are very keen to split into a new country - over half the population are considered to actively support independence in polling and about one quarter of the city's population turned out on the province's holiday in 2012, in support of a separate country.

Many of the supporters of Catalonian independence hang flags in their windows as a show of support - they're all over town.

After two full days of gorgeous weather, on my third day I decided it was time to relax and gave up on the "city" sights. I spent most of the day wandering through a park, lying on the beach, getting burnt and writing in my journal (until my pen ran out), but stories of theft from bags on the beach stopped me from going for a swim, unfortunately. Certainly this beach was a true "European" beach with regards to topless bathing though...

Cascada Monumental, in the Parc de la Ciutadella

The Barcelona beach, very close to the inner city
(What, were you expecting some examples of "European" bathing?)

First thing the next morning I headed to the bus terminal and off to Zaragoza, a city roughly south of the centre of the Pyrenees range (Los Pirineos in Spanish). Not being in Catalonia any more was immediately noticeable, with a much higher reliance on Spanish - most of the tourists here were other Spaniards, rather than Euro-trippers.

My main reason for visiting Zaragoza was a stop-off to plan a trip into the Pyrenees for some hiking for a few days. Zaragoza itself doesn't have much in the way of tourist attractions, though I found the old centre of the city to be a very pleasant place to wander around and eat out, and with refreshingly few tourists. I did go to a local soccer match while I was there - but Real Zaragoza, playing in the second Spanish division after relegation, played pretty dreadfully though and lost 0-1 to CD Lugo.

Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar & the Río Ebro at dusk

The main square and Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar 

A small church tower poking through a gap in the trees

A local walking past a fountain

Odd-looking face decorations on the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall)

The hostel I stayed in had a lot of students recently arrived for an Erasmus placement for the coming academic year - evidently the northern hemisphere summer was winding down. It also had an underground bar, and I arrived on the right day for their jazz jam sessions...

La Bóveda, the underground bar at my hostel

After a few days there, I separated my stuff to take only outdoors gear, stocked up on food supplies, got some information from the tourist office, and headed off early one morning for the few hours bus ride to the town of Torla. It was time to get out of the cities and back into nature in one of the most famous mountain ranges in the world!

The dramatic dream coastline of Amalfi

31 August - 03 September

After spending all of our time in Italy so far in cities, Lindsay and I decided to head somewhere a bit more out of the way for her last three nights before having to head home to Canada. We took a bus south out of Napoli for the Amalfi Coast. The first 1.5 hours or so was pretty boring... Then we arrived onto the coast.

The Amalfi Coast is an incredible stretch of coastline with cliffs diving down into the sea across almost it's whole length. Roads have been constructed winding up, down and around the hills, all of them very narrow; there are gorgeous beaches hemmed in between clefts of the hills; and the views are stunningly dramatic.

It wasn't too surprising Lindsay felt a bit sick when we arrived into Amalfi - the very confident Italian bus drivers send their busses careering around the roads at pretty high speeds sometimes. Until they come across another bus, that is, when they inch past each other with barely a couple of inches to spare between the roadside barrier, each bus and the inside cliff. Honestly, it's that close!

Regardless, we made it to Amalfi and then on another bus to the small locality of Furore, where a lovely family-run B&B hosted us for three nights. The views were stunning...

The upstairs balcony where we got breakfast each day

Me enjoying a beer and the view at dusk

Sunset along the coast

It was a perfect place to relax for a few days and just enjoy the surroundings. From our B&B we went for a walk along the roads one day, just to have a look around. Amongst the fig trees growing left, right and centre, there were also some pretty cool views.

Some of the narrow twisting roads

Me looking down to the sea

While there we also made a day trip back down to Amalfi, along the coast to Positano, and also to Minori. The views along the bus ride were incredible at every corner - lots of people were constantly trying to snap off photos - but the towns were neat destinations in themselves, situated at spots with good beaches, and we definitely took some advantage of those at Positano for a couple of hours!

The narrow main shopping street in Amalfi township

The beach at Amalfi township 

Positano from where the bus dropped us off

Deckchairs at Positano beach (about €20 per day to hire or something!)

Minori township

The beach at Minori at dusk

Lindsay & I got another pizza at Minori for dinner (of course!) to finish off some three weeks of travelling together. We'd seen some pretty cool stuff, I have to admit, but it was time for Lindsay to head back home to Canada to start back at university. Meanwhile I was booked to fly to Barcelona for the start of several weeks in Spain.

So, the next morning we bussed together to Salerno and headed off separately from the train station. Thanks Lindsay for being an awesome travelling partner for a few weeks and I can't wait to see you again in NZ over New Years!!

Thanks Lindsay!

Napoli & Pompeii

29 - 31 August

We took a afternoon train to Napoli (Naples), several hours south of Rome.

I really have nothing of any particular interest to say about Napoli. It seemed like an industrial town, filled with hooting cars (it actually reminded me of Peru in that aspect) and nothing really to see. Despite being on the coast, it's just a port town, with no real beaches nearby.

The only good thing I can say about the city is the pizza. This world-famous dish is a Neapolitan invention, and the best pizzas in the world (in my opinion) are definitely to be found here. Almost every restaurant was a pizzeria, they serve it fast, it tastes amazing, they're huge pizzas, and they're cheap.

€3-5 for a large dinner-plate size, real thin crust, delicious pizza? Why is it no surprise we ate only pizzas while there? I don't think I'll ever be able to order Pizza Hut or Domino's ever again...

Thankfully we had only two nights there, serving as a base for a day trip in between to Pompeii. Almost everyone knows the story - the Roman town that was covered by ash and pumice from an eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 AD. The town was almost perfectly preserved and has now been archaeologically revealed to give an amazing insight of what Roman culture was like.

First view of the edge of the city of Pompeii

It's hard to really describe what walking around the city is all about. Basically it's all stone paving, with the remnants of most of the houses, public baths, the forum, and even theatres and a stadium all left relatively intact. Amazing details of wall paintings and mosaics are quite well preserved. Archaeologists have now named all of the streets (modern Italian names of course!) so you get a little street map to follow around!

So I think the best way I can describe what it was like to be there is to simply present a photo montage... Enjoy!

Aerial of just part of the site (thanks Google Maps)
The Forum and Basilica are the open rectangular areas around centre left
The "Large Theatre" and "Small Theatre" are the semi-circular shapes near the bottom right
Most of the other constructions are houses, the larger ones being mansions or possibly public baths
There is even a brothel there!

Inside the "Basilica"

Latin carving on remains of an arch in the Forum

A view down the end of the Forum with the daunting shape of Mt Vesuvius behind

One of the busy "main streets" within the compound, named by archaeologists as "Via dell'Abbondanza" (street of abundance) lined with ruins of houses on either side

Me peering down another street

Details of street cobbling
The ruts are made from 160 years of carts travelling down the road
The raised stones are believed to have acted as a sort of pedestrian crossing to avoid rainwater (or probably sewage!) running along the streets, which act themselves as a drainage system

View across part of the town from a small viewpoint, with Mt Vesuvius in the background at right

A number of the buildings were open to look around inside (although many are also not accessible for preservation reasons). The decorations inside are sometimes exquisite and often very well preserved. 

Interior stucco remains

Interior stucco remains

Interior designs in one of the public bathhouses, where condensation from steam was designed to run down behind the white ribbed stucco you can see, as a kind of drainage system

Detailled interior painting - still preserved after so many years!

Interior small sculpture designs

Mosaic floor tiling (depicting a dog in front)

Mosaic floor decorations of a battle

A huge number of various items have been recovered in the archaelogical digs, and a number of these were displayed in a covered shelter. All sorts of jugs, pottery, tables etc were found. There were also a number of petrified people on display, some in various positions of prayer.

A collection of items from the archaelogical dig

A petrified person

Inside the small theatre

Me in the large theatre

Lindsay in the large theatre (with a church spire from the modern-day town of Pompei behind)

All in all, it was a fascinating day of exploring the town, and Lindsay and I spent some 4 or 5 hours wandering around, just trying to take it all in, and imagine people actually living and working here. It really did feel like it could be an actual small town!

Back in Napoli again, the only highlight was the opportunity for more Neapolitan pizza. First thing the next morning we caught a bus south to the Amalfi Coast for a completely contrasting experience!