Red Wine Express

A couple of final points before we depart The Iberian Intervention.

The CB and I finished our Spain sojourn yesterday after a day in Toledo on Tuesday with another very interesting walking tour through another town steeped in history. After two hours in the heat we were only interested in finding a bar and pouring an ice cold beer over our heads and maybe drinking a bit as it ran down our faces, if it hadn’t evaporated before it got that far. We sat in a bar for an hour or so and watched (and felt) the temperature go from 34 degC to 42 degC.

Toledo should produce the best rally drivers or bike riders in the world. The streets are narrow, winding, stone lined canyons with cobbled surfaces and slopes that would make a mountain goat pause. In fact they are so narrow, a few hundred years ago the locals had to cut the edges out of the corners up to a few feet off the ground so wagon wheels could get round. But the locals throw their beamers and mercs and vespers through the chicanes with more chance of hitting a tourist than a wall.

And you wouldn’t want to put your car into a wall because some of these walls were built by the Romans and they didn’t mess about. The bricks are as big as a Paris Hilton suitcase and almost as heavy.

Yesterday, our fifth day in Madrid, was a down day. We were both knackered and needed to regroup before the Morocco stage of this vacation. In fact, I’m writing this in the bar of our hotel in Casablanca. The next post will be Part 1 of The Berber Bash.

Spain is a bit like Scotland and Ireland in that there is only so much money to restore the countless castles scattered across the landscape. So there are ruins everywhere. Most of them are down to the Moors who sailed over from Northern Africa in 711. It took them about 6 years to get to the Pyrenees and it took the Spanish over 700 years to progressively and then finally turf them out in 1492. Like that relative who comes for the weekend and stays for the summer.

But after a seven hour drive past these and many other Spanish icons like the aforementioned Osbourne Bulls and one or two olive trees we got back to Madrid on Saturday (two days ago) after two weeks circumnavigating Spain and Portugal. Four of us came back – the CB and I and two of our Kiwi mates from the tour with everyone else leaving from Barcelona. The Kiwis left today after our first serious piss-up last night, since getting here. And then there were two.

The CB and I did what we normally do when we have a few days somewhere we are unfamiliar with – we did the hop-on hop-off bus tours – two of them to different parts of Madrid. Actually it was more like a hop-on bus because no one seemed to be willing to hop-off. There was a huge queue at our stop so after a full bus went past the CB and I decided to walk back a stop and get on there. It worked.

I’m reminded of the time I was in India with a couple of colleagues. The airport at Visakhapatnam didn’t have instrument landing capability at the time and there were (and are, I suspect – I haven’t been for a while) a number of immovable hills scattered around so if the weather closed in during monsoon season, you were stuck. Not us. We chose (on a number of occasions) to catch a train for the 10 or 12 hour trip to Madras. You could never really be sure how long it would take. I think this was the only time the train from Calcutta arrived bang on time – it was exactly 24 hours late. Anyway our contacts there had driven three friends back a few stops to occupy three seats to guarantee we had them when the train came in. It worked although one of the seats did belong to the conductor until his meagre wages were supplemented.

There’s a book-worth of India stories around this and other exploits and I’ll get round to relating them in the fullness of time.

Anyway, back to Madrid. It has been well over 40 degC today – something like forty-twelve and I still don’t get how Spaniards and tourists alike can get around in this heat without a hat or sunscreen and not suffer heat stroke. Maybe that’s why we seem to have heard more ambulance sirens here than just about anywhere else we’ve been.

Off to Toledo tomorrow. If anything happens that you need to know, you’ll read it here first.

Okay, after that previous one, back to normal programming and we’ll start off with some school-boy “humour”.

On our way from Valencia to Barcelona we stopped off in a delightful little seaside town called Peniscola. It is nothing like Coca Cola having a completely different taste. Boom boom

It’s also where some scenes from Game of Thrones were shot, mostly those set in Mereen. To the three people in the world who have never watched GoT (two of whom are on our tour and one of whom is the CB), Mereen is one of a number of mythical places and is located in Essos, not far from Minas Tirith. Okay, now that that’s been clarified you’ll understand why the medieval castle on a headland fringed by palm trees is perfect for one of the warmer places in Middle Earth or whatever Westeros plus Essos is called. There’s a famous scene where Varys and Tyrion Baggins talk to a beggar playing herself.

And some of the young ladies lying on the beach in various stages of undress looked remarkably like some of the extras who regularly pop out in GoT.

Bag thieves notwithstanding, Barcelona is quite a place. In fact it’s the only place we’ve been to where what may or may not turn out to be the chief catholic place of worship (Barcelona Cathedral may have something to contribute to that discussion) – Sagrada Familia – isn’t medieval or earlier, is only sort of gothic and isn’t finished. It was originally designed by Antoni Gaudi, a rather famous architect from this region. He was commissioned to build it in 1883 and died after being hit by a tram in 1926. Most of his plans for the building were destroyed in the civil war but some of his models were recovered so after a 20 year hiatus, construction recommenced in the 1950’s on very much a “suck it and see” basis.

Sagrada Familia is now about three quarters finished with some tricky bits still to come and is expected to be completed in 2026, the hundredth anniversary of Gaudi’s death. Good luck with that. And amazingly, the church was given its first building permit in June this year, over 130 years since it was started. That’s one hell of a presumption on the part of the builders – imagine if it was rejected! And that’s a painstakingly slow decision making process that makes the Indian legal system seem like whack-a-mole. By way of explanation, cases have to be abandoned in India when all of the witnesses have died of old age.

When you’re conditioned to looking at Romanesque and Gothic styles in these buildings, Gaudi’s style is a bit confronting. Most European churches and cathedrals have one or two spires or bell towers. This one was planned to have 18. And the front looks like it has partially melted. But it sure is something to behold and it will be something else when it’s done. Not sure what though. A sad wedding cake perhaps.

First, a bit of context. A few weeks ago a friend lost his battle with cancer. We felt devastated for his wonderful wife, three boys and their partners and grandchildren. He was 64. I didn’t know what to say that hadn’t already been said so I sent him a text. It said “RIP mate. Congratulations on a life well lived.” And bugger me if I didn’t receive the following response a few minutes later – “Thanks mate, see you in a few years”. His family appreciated the opportunity to smile and resisted the opportunity to put a specific date in the response which I very much appreciated.

So the child bride having her bag stolen last night, while its a violation and an inconvenience, it’s not such a big deal in the overall scheme of things. We managed to stop the cards before they were used and the phone is password protected so it won’t be any use. Other bits and pieces can be replaced and new credit cards can be issued.

We are reasonably experienced travellers and take precautions against theft and pickpockets and the usual warnings were more intense than usual here in Barcelona which must be the crime capital of Spain judging by the frequency of warnings. If it isn’t it’s certainly the most audacious.

We had returned to our high-end hotel and were sitting in a well lit bar adjacent to a busy restaurant with patrons and waiters constantly moving about. The CB put her bag on the floor next to her feet and when we got up to leave it was gone. Neither of us noticed anyone come close enough to grab it but one of the waiters saw some suspicious people leaving the restaurant in a hurry and took their car registration number …… And didn’t say anything. No one at the hotel wanted to take managerial responsibility despite their hotel being a crime scene. Also they weren’t interested in looking at the recording from the nearby security camera. The police weren’t particularly interested either. Five forms were filled in and we left.

The only positive was the contribution of our Spanish speaking tour director. He took charge of the situation, interrogated the various hotel staff and overall performed extremely impressively and his employer will be advised accordingly. He’s going to go far.

We can add this incident to our thankfully short list of other unfortunate intersections with the criminal class. Our video camera was stolen in London twenty-odd years ago. It was a small hotel in a typical London terraced building. When we left for dinner the receptionist’s boyfriend was loitering. When we got back he was gone and the whole hotel had been turned over. The attending policeman didn’t seem to think that someone having to let the thief into all of the rooms was important. That was the last we heard of it.

Some time before the London episode our house was broken into. They stole watches, jewellery, a video recorder and some booze – kids. Years later the police caught the chief perpetrator via his fingerprints and we received restitution. So the system does occasionally work if you are a permanent resident it appears.

The Muslims have Mecca, Catholics have the Vatican, the Irish have the nearest pub and the British have the Costa del Sol. This place represents a sun-drenched place of pilgrimage for Geordies, Scousers, Brummies, Cockneys and everyone in between. Certainly my family has made a significant contribution to the Andalusian economy with a much loved aunt and uncle (who, sadly, are no longer with us) so devout that they used to make said pilgrimage twice a year. Their favoured bolt-hole in Torremolinos was a sanctuary where they could get a tan that may last a couple of weeks and escape from the relatively miserable weather of Manchester.

So we Aussies (Brisbanites, more specifically) who have the Gold Coast an hour to the south and the Sunshine Coat an hour to the north wondered what all of the fuss was about. Our two day stop over on this expedition gave us a clue.

But before we got there we passed through Gibraltar, one of the last remaining bits of the British Empire. However, being Sunday and for all intents and purposes being a part of the U.K., most places of commerce were closed. Fortunately we found one t-shirt place open so I could buy my boganic symbol (see Part 4). We also had a pie with mushy peas and a pint, photographed the Barbery apes and had a spin round the rock courtesy of a guide with an intriguing English/Spanish accent. That exhausted the range of Gibraltar activities so we took the main road out (and in) across the airport’s runway and continued on our way to Torremolinos.

I used to work for a Brazilian company so spent a bit of time in Rio de Janeiro and invariably stayed in a hotel on Copacabana beach. I was told by a local that Brazilians are extremely body conscious. In this regard I could only think of the old anecdote that goes when a woman looks in the mirror she sees all of her imperfections whereas when a man looks in the mirror he sees the potential to get back down to his fighting weight and the emergence of a six-pack, with a bit of work.

Thus it was at Copacabana with the pneumatic female supermodels and their sculpted bodies and the more mature men not afraid to sport the immaculately tanned beer gut hanging over the budgie smugglers (speedos for the uninitiated). Eggs on legs. I have to confess to trending in this direction but hey, six months at the gym and the six-pack will re-emerge and I’ll be able to intravenously absorb red wine again.

Which brings us back to Torremolinos. After a few hours drinking beer and perving, sorry, people watching, I came to the conclusion that apart from some different colours, body image or lack of it is universal. There’s something about 35degC, sand and salt (and beer) which strips away inhibitions (and items of clothing which wouldn’t normally be stripped away on Blackpool beach, for example, in the case of some females) and bravo, I say. Who gives a toss what someone you’ll never see again thinks. The trouble is you’re probably with a group of family and/or friends and there’s a good chance you’re a repeat visitor like my late aunt and uncle were. In these cases you will see some of them again. Tough.

Oh, and the colours mentioned in the paragraph above. White and red. Most Brits start out ivory white and by the end of day one, after strutting around shirtless, are lobster red. If any of them had cause to read this blog I would direct them to the entries entitled “Skin in the Game” and “Skin in the Game – Part 2”. Then they might think a little longer term than which bar to patronise that night and which bird to try and pull.

In Seville we went to see a flamenco show. As rap music is rhythmic talking, this is rhythmic stamping. The fundamental difference between the two is that anyone with a voice box can do rap but not everyone with feet can do flamenco. The only person I have seen stamp their feet faster than these people is my 3 year old granddaughter. It’s Riverdance with army boots and much more sweat. And attitude. Imagine being married to a flamenco dancer. The conversation would go like this:
She – We are going to have an argument.
He (cutting his losses) – You win.

I like to think that there is a difference between being a cultural philistine and not particularly liking various aspects of culture. So whilst I would put flamenco in with opera and ballet as pursuits I would not actively pursue, I do appreciate the talent and hard work that goes into achieving excellence in each of them. This was sheeted home to me when, having assumed Slash had more natural guitar playing ability than me, I read that he actually practised 12 hours a day for years which kind of accentuated the chasm-like divide in our respective abilities. So you need commitment as well.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Córdoba has a cathedral which was built inside an 8th century mosque. The mosque was converted to a church after the Moors were ejected from Córdoba in the 13th century. The cathedral was inserted into the mosque after the Moors were finally driven out of Spain in 1492. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand were so chuffed with themselves for doing this they adopted the view that if today they had taken back Spain then tomorrow it’s the world and promptly sent Christopher Columbus off to find the western route to India and the rest, they say, is history. And that’s a big part of why the child bride and I come to Europe.

The local Muslims occasionally ask the local catholic authorities if they can have their mosque back and the local bishop with the backing of the Vatican routinely says no. If only the argument over the Temple Mount could be resolved as efficiently and painlessly.

Not so long ago it was decreed by the Supreme High Council of Feminist Justice that the word “bossy” could no longer be used to describe a woman. Our female tour guide in Córdoba was bossy. In the nicest possible way, you understand. That attempt at mollification will count for nothing when the Femonazi Inquisition comes knocking. Not to worry. Let’s press on.

When you are told you have no right to photograph a religious icon or a piece of medieval architecture until you fully understand its history and significance, that’s bossy. She was extremely knowledgeable and very protective of her patch and obviously wanted us to share it with her. I’m hoping to finish the 5000 word assignment she set by Friday.

One of the things I’m looking forward to doing on this trip is rejuvenating my t-shirt collection. Given that I’ve worked mostly from home for the last six years, my corporate uniform is t-shirt and shorts and so my shirts wear out rather rapidly. However I have been collecting them for years so the rotation time is still fairly lengthy.

It has been said by people snobbier than me that only bogans buy t-shirts from places they visit. Guilty as charged and pass the mullet wig. But my collection has been supplemented and will be further supplemented as we bogan our way through Europe and Morocco.

But back to Lisbon. We’ve been here before so know the lay of the land but “mop-up” tours are always useful to do or see things you didn’t do last time. What we did do last time was visit the cathedral. Of course every reasonably sized town or city in Europe has a cathedral, usually of gothic design except Cordoba which has a cathedral inside a mosque built in the 8th century – you couldn’t make that up.

We visited the Lisbon cathedral last time we were here but I was hanging out to see Vasco da Gama’s tomb again – not really. It’s well worth seeing – the cathedral that is. And most non-Portuguese people under 50 (especially Australians) wouldn’t have a clue who VdG is. I, on the other hand and my generation learnt about his exploratory exploits (the sea route from Portugal to India in 1497) in primary school. I guess he wasn’t confused about his gender and contributed absolutely nothing to the advancement of the climate change “debate” and he was a bit of a prick so consequently doesn’t get a mention in the school curriculum these days.

It was actually a bit of a struggle to get into the cathedral. First the Lisbon police (all of them it appeared) were practising for a parade past the cathedral and royal palace the next day to celebrate a momentous occasion. Not the centennial of their establishment or the bicentennial. Not even the 150th anniversary but the 152nd anniversary of their establishment. And that apparently justified road closures, mile long queues and rampant crime in every other part of the city. Then we were delayed further by some non-descript ambassador who wanted the place to himself and his naval honour guard. Eventually we got in.

But Portugal’s a great place. The Brazilians love moving here because they speak the lingo and there’s no crime apart from when the annual police parade occurs.

If you stand in the same place long enough, sooner or later you’ll suffer some, to that point, unknown consequence – a piano could fall on you or an earthquake fissure could open up under you. So we keep moving. Not like some sharks which must keep swimming from cradle to grave – we are allowed, in fact required to occasionally pause for breath. Notwithstanding our active aversion to and avoidance of disaster, shit happens. This next point specifically and others generally will demonstrate this immutable fact.

This post outlines a number of things that have happened or been observed thus far on our Iberian Intervention. By writing it now, with quite a while to go is tempting fate, I know. But this section could turn into a book so let’s cut it into bite sized chunks.

We may mock Liverpudlians (those of us who don’t come from Liverpool) but their seagulls, (or one of them at least) are prescient it seems. The CB and I and Cuz1 and Cuz2 were leaving the Slave Museum when I felt a distinct thud as something hit my shoulder. One of their huge seagulls picked me out from the crowd and dropped a wad of seagull shit on my left shoulder. Thank god cows can’t fly. And I hadn’t written a word at that point about the fact Liverpool has never won the EPL and the inhabitants are all thieves (not everyone thinks this). So I decided to go easy on them lest something more serious happen. So I only gave them a serve for a complete failure to understand the concept of hygienic rubbish disposal.

Moving right along, on our first night in Madrid we had a group dinner to meet our fellow travellers and discuss plans for the coming days. As the old saying goes, “when in Rome…” or in this case Spain, you know the rest. So we were all served glasses of sangria – a fruity red wine based local drink. Unfortunately I was seated in the exact location where a waiter carrying a tray of sangria-filled glasses was fated to trip. Fortunately my back or more specifically my shirt prevented much of the icy liquid from reaching the floor. So for the rest of the night I was reeking of red wine without having partaken of the pleasure of actually drinking any.

The next story takes place in Obidos, a cute little walled town in central Portugal and is more about attitudes than actuals. It highlights the difference between our nanny state scolds who’ll be prosecuting six year olds for climbing trees without bash hats and safety harnesses before we know it and the manana of this part of the world which despite the laid back attitude expects common sense and personal responsibility to be exercised by its citizenry.

The medieval castle walls of Obidos are accessible but also quite high. The stone stairs to access the top of the walls do not have guide rails and neither do the walkways at the top of the walls. And both are quite narrow so when you have to pass someone going the other way there’s a bit of a stand-off as to who gets the wall side and who gets the death inducing plummet side. It’s quite refreshing to think you can recklessly do yourself a serious injury without some clipboard clutching bureaucrat issuing an on-the-spot fine and making you sign a blame disclaimer. And the local council would bitumen over the 15th century cobblestones to prevent litigation inducing slips. ‘Elf and safety trumps history every time if you’re a process nazi.

While on the subject of elf and safety, we went to a particularly boisterous seafood restaurant in Lisbon a couple of nights ago. The gypsy fight outside was nothing to the carnage inside the restaurant. Everyone (and there were at least 60 people inside) was provided with a hammer to break crab shells and this task was taken to with particular gusto resulting in pieces of crab shell flying through the air like those metal stars ninjas fling about.

And finally, last night the CB and I had taken leave of our travel companions and were having dinner at a place called Doca which is a series of restaurants and a marina almost underneath the only bridge over the River Tagus In Lisbon. This bridge was built by the same people who built San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and it looks exactly the same. There are two transport levels. Cars above and trains below.

There was obviously an accident of some sort on the bridge because we could see thick black smoke billowing up as well as darting flames. Then the sirens stated and we could see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles and then eventually cascades of foam pouring off the bridge and down the many tens of metres into the river below. And through all of that the trains kept on passing immediately underneath. Individual common sense mentioned above may not extend to systemic common sense it seems.

And of course there was the dog shit incident which has already been covered.

That’s enough for now.

Our cross over into Portugal is off to a smelly flier. First stop, just over the border between Salamanca, in Spain and Oporto, in Portugal, I (and one of our lady fellow travellers) stood in some dog shit. Portuguese dog shit smells as appalling as any other dog shit and when you walk it into a bus you’re in a world of trouble. It was like everyone took off their shoes at the same time. Fortunately that brief sensory assault didn’t spoil our introduction to Oporto which is breathtakingly spectacular.

Before I regale you with our Oporto exploits, more road stuff. Our very knowledgeable and enthusiastic tour director who is as good at cat herding as he is informative (and he’s a Spain based Aussie) has asked everyone for a song to contribute to a tour group compilation. He has uploaded it to Spotify and it is now on continuous loop in the bus. Fortunately there are 30 of us so it’s at least a couple of hours before your song comes round again.

The choices are quite instructive in respect of origin and disposition. We are quite an eclectic bunch ranging from the devout (Amazing Grace) to devil worship (a thoroughly unwarranted characterisation without foundation but the song is Black Magic Woman). A couple of Aussie selections are Cold Chisel and The Bee Gees. We have John Denver and Bob Seger, blues, soul, rock and roll, old and modern. A blessing is that no one has chosen a rap “song”. I’m going to digress here as I am want to do and as regular readers will understand. Do you notice how these rap talkers like to come over all tough and cool with their bitches and hoes (is that the gardening implement spelling or the abbreviated prostitute spelling, I’m never sure) and guns and gangsta personas. But their “musical” genre is called hip-hop which to me sounds like cuddly, bunny rabbit music. Tough guys! HA!

The CB chose Easy Living by Uriah Heep, a particularly appropriate choice on a range of levels. I chose my favourite song – Hotel California – but the 1994 version on the Hell Freezes Over album. This sounds extremely wankerish I know but there is a reason. That version’s intro and outro guitar solos have been done in a Spanish style. Very clever writing and very skilful playing.

One of life’s little pleasures PK (pre-kids), was the occasional glass of port. In fact that’s a significant understatement. On Friday nights during our mining town interludes, especially Zeehan in winter, we would polish off a bottle of port with friends. We had a saying that once opened, the cork could not be put back into the bottle.

So we visited the Sandeman port winery in Oporto and, amongst other things found out that once opened, a bottle should ideally be drunk inside two days. Vindication!!! And the best part about this visit was that many people on our tour don’t like port so when it came to the tasting I let it be known that I liked it so much, I bathed in it. So after tasting many more than my share I had the wobbly boots on when we left and I had to stay well away from the River Douro lest I join the idiots jumping into it off an impossibly high bridge.

During a couple of hours of free time the CB and I decided to go for a walk. Turn left out of the hotel, we were told, and that road will take you down to the river. If you’ve been to Oporto you will know this is the place for scenery, beer (and port) and food. So left we turned. There was a left and a slightly left of straight ahead and of  course we took the wrong one and finished up in the same place as Harry Potter when he didn’t say “Diagon Alley” properly in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. You’ll have to look it up or watch the movie. We gradually worked our way back to civilisation past the loitering locals. I hummed Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wildside” to placate them but seriously, never felt threatened as I know for a fact I can run much faster than the CB. Only joking. ONLY JOKING.

The CB and I are sitting in one of the very many tapas bars in the middle of a bustling pedestrian thoroughfare in Salamanca. This town’s very much smaller than Madrid so the even smaller old town where all of the nightly action is, attracts everyone from barely mobile seniors to barely born juniors.

It’s only 8.00pm so we are the only ones eating at this particular place. This allows the waiters to lounge against the the restaurant wall and smirk as the jail-bait flounces past in their barely there cut-away shorts and midriff etc baring tops. We were expecting rain tonight and it’s about 20degC, around 15 degC lower than Madrid so you have to admire these girls’ dedicated following of fashion despite the elements. The boys buzzing around them seem pretty happy too.

This place is famous for a frog. It’s a particular little frog perched precariously on a skull half way up an imposing and incredibly detailed mural carved into a sandstone wall above a 16th century door in the University of Salamanca founded in 1218. It’s the 4th oldest in the world (the university, not the frog) after Bologna in Italy, Paris and Oxford. There are various legends relating to one’s ability to find the frog. These relate to good luck (of course), fertility (of course), passing exams (doubly of course – it’s a university after all) and lust for prostitutes and resultant exam failure (it’s a university after all). It would be virtually impossible to know it’s there if someone (the sculptor perhaps) hadn’t pointed it out at the start. From the ground it looks like a pimple. Until we were told about it I wondered about the obsession with frog themed souvenirs in the tourist shops.

And here’s a conspiracy theory to end them all. Salamanca has an “old” cathedral (building commenced in 1102) and a “new” cathedral (building commenced 1513). In amongst all of the ornate carvings next to one of the main doors is a carving of an astronaut who is the person closest to God – stands to reason why he would be there right? He was originally reported as being on the old cathedral but that was the 12th century so that would be ridiculous. They didn’t even have flip phones then. It’s next to the new cathedral door which makes 400 years more sense.

So this is a mystery that has baffled experts since it was discovered in 1992. Were all of these magnificent gothic cathedrals scattered across Europe built by time travellers or spacemen? Or was the astronaut added in 1992 when the cathedral was refurbished. A truly confounding mystery.