Spain feat. Portugal

10 May

A week long holiday is our longest so far, so it's a marathon entry, two album entries if you prefer the picture book approach.

Our trip started early, landing in Lisbon to look around for the day and then head north to Porto. The main theme and expense for our trip would be trains, so we started at the Lisbon station for luggage lockers, to drop off our borrowed backpack for the day. Thanks to Tim and Louisa we had a week to discover the advantages of a 90L backpack over trolley wheeled suitcases - lesson learned, I have to carry even less...

Getting into downtown Lisbon we walked up to the Castelo to see the view of the city, went up a historic street lift and walked through some cathedral ruins. The best part of Lisbon is the beautifully cobbled black and white streets and the vintage trams going through the city and past the waterfront. With a three hour train journey ahead, we grabbed some snacks (fresh station popcorn, yum) and visited the window for our train tickets to Madrid a day in advance. Unfortunately, they didn't have any cabin beds left, so we'd have to sleep in the seated sleeper-carriage - we were excited to find out the comfort that this would entail. So we jumped onto the train up the coast, and enjoyed the view by both reading our books. Travelling by train is preferable to driving, presumably so you can take in the views. But after seeing miles of the same indifferent backdrop, you really just enjoy the break, relax and have some quiet time after racing around a city to see as much as possible. We arrived in Porto late, and after much annoyance at a Google map print out, we found our accommodation and crashed.

Giving up on Google maps, on Tuesday morning we walked into downtown Porto to look for an information centre, but the guidebook map was just as helpful. So we gave up and walked down towards the Douro River to take a boat to see the six bridges contrasting in architecture and connecting the region. The boat trip came with a voucher to visit a port making place (there must be a term for that), so after our cruise in the sun we walk through the medieval area and over the dual storey bridge to find it. And find it we didn't, but we did find another great spot for a view of the city, near the top storey of the bridge which we walked back over. On the other side we attempted to walk along the old city walls, having a siesta in the shade it provided would have to do. Back up the hill we bought our train tickets to head to Entroncamento, the plan for the evening was to get the overnight train from the last stop in Portugal before it headed for Spain. Doing this meant we could get to a town and find a pub to watch Arsenal 'play' Man U. It was a pretty quiet town to be stuck in for a few hours after the game was over, but we had the American seasons of The Office on my iPod to pass the time.

Our first overnight train experience started in upright chairs at 11.30pm, imagine an aeroplane seat, but more uncomfortable. Our train had started in Lisbon and we had caught it about two hours into the journey, and the carriage was half empty and pretty quiet. Quiet except for two tourists with proud maple leafs on their backpacks, I thought at first they were obnoxious Americans, if so this would be a good cover. One of the girls was reading a loud her Sophie Kinsella book to her friend, a recent release I had read at Christmas and after a few chapters I was tempted to go over and tell them to shut up or I'd ruin the ending (hey, who is cheery at midnight after watching football in the Portuguese equivalent of Cambridge). Fortunately the cabin light got turned off, and they had to instead discuss Swiss hotel options a full volume until they tired.

Wednesday morning we got off the night train tired, and mostly grumpy. We tried to check into our accommodation early but only managed to drop our luggage off. So in a tired haze we walked around Madrid's plazas, down to the palace and tried to find some ruins of an Arab wall. Eventually we got back to the hostel for a much needed siesta. Apparently this part of Spanish culture is being lost in the advances of a 'global economy', but it's something we will always try and incorporate into our busy holidays in the future. Later on we headed out for tapas and got a spot in a pub showing Chelsea play Barcelona. It was a great chance to see a similar passion celebrated in another country, the bar went nuts when Barcelona won the game and got everyone in a great mood. On the way home we stopped for gelato, on all our trips we try very hard to speak the language and know that no matter how bad we are, it's always appreciated. Inline in front of us were some very obnoxious American's (hey, they could have been Canadian, I've got it wrong already) ordering everything in English, not making more attempts than plain pointing. Maybe it's another population thing, maybe there are less obnoxious Antipodeans per capita travelling the world and representing this way?

Thursday morning we walked up to the Prado Museum and found a sign telling us to come back later for free entry. So we carried on up to the Naval Museum, and after having our bag x-ray in what looked like a giant microwave, we got free entrance. Carrying on up the Paseo del Prado we saw the Neptune and Cybele roundabouts, turned towards the Independence arches and we found a nice park for our day’s siesta. Here we hired a row boat and had fun looking at all the statues/sculptures on display. After reading some strange story in the guidebook, we headed over to Sol to see the bear and strawberry tree statue, and sneak a bit of shopping in. Eventually we headed back to the Prado and I dragged Kev around the wings there. Unfortunately we both had tired legs by now but seeing the triptych of earthly delights had us both enthralled. I also got to see Velázquez's Las Meninas, which was made relevant after visiting the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, which included a room of paintings interpreting the same painting through cubism.

After picking up our bags, we headed out to our next overnight train; we had secured tickets in our haze of arriving in Madrid the morning previous, so knew we had beds for the night. We did get more sleep this night, but it came at a cost. On the face of it we were sharing a 6 sleeper cabin with three generations of a loud Spanish family: grandparents, mother and noisy adolescent daughter eating something sugary at 11pm. "No espanol" was all we had the energy for before we tried to get some sleep. It wasn't too bad of a trip, compared to our seated sleeper, but we would soon learn in a few days of the joys of bed bugs. I started Friday with a few annoying itchy bites on my feet, not bad enough to complain yet, so we dumped the bags at our last accommodation stop and walked around the old town to see a medieval market set up, look at the Catedral de Barcelona and visit the Catalonia History museum. After our siesta back at the hostel we walked up Passeig de Gràcia to see Gaudi's Casa Batlló and Casa Milà on our way to his masterpiece Sagrada Familia. Getting inside, there was scaffolding everywhere, with the current completion date set for 2026. I was a little disappointed to have spent so much on entry when the best parts were on the outside, which I could have seen from the street almost as easily. It was interesting to see some of the drawings and models in the museum basement however, along with explanations of how nature inspired most of the design elements. Afterwards, Kev finally got to have paella for dinner, starting a new constant craving for the dish when we got home to London. On the way home from dinner we were walking back past the Catedral de Barcelona when we heard someone calling my name. One of those small world moments, Adam, a work mate from my last job in London recognised me and stopped us for a quick hello.
 

Onto Saturday for our last day in beautiful Barcelona, we headed back to the medieval area for some food before splitting up. Kev went to visit the City of Barcelona museum to see lots of roman stuff, while I headed over to the Museu Picasso. The museum was a journey through the artist’s development, from traditional landscape and portrait paintings through to cubism and even some graphical design. After this we had one more Gaudi must see, the Park Güell which is up a steep hill with escalators providing easy access. The park was really interesting, full of people trying to sell things but also some interesting buskers. On the way out of the park Kev noticed some strange bumps on the forehead, by the time we got back to London and more bumps on my feet and head appeared I wiki-diagnosed us with bed bugs. Then on the tube back to the city we saw some tourists get mugged. It was a strange situation that I somehow managed to get caught in the middle of. Kev was on the carriage already, and I was trying to get past a group of 'confused looking' people to get on. Fortunately we are pretty aware of our valuables, to the point where they are difficult for us to get them in and out of bags. The scam was the group pretend they are trying to work out where the train is going to before the doors close. As the doors are closing a few of them pickpocket someone and then they all jump off the train as it pulls out of the station. The two tourists they hit looked shocked and confused as they looked down to their open and empty bum bags. At least we can stop that argument that these things, despite the fashion crime, are secure. The incident resulted in everyone on the train checking for their own valuables, which as Kev pointed out would be great if anyone left on the carriage was planning on pick pocketing too. Before we got our luggage from the hostel we walked along the waterfront, past lots of sand sculpture artist and over to the marina towards a huge Columbus statue. Here we found Las Ramblas, a touristy area we had somehow missed, filled with stalls, touristy stuff and many, many people statues.

Leaving the hostel with plenty of time to get to the airport, we confidently followed the guidebook suggestions of taking the underground instead of the express train. Like most underground maps, it all looked pretty straight forward, we just had to change where two lines were marked to intersect. In reality, when we got to the station to interchange, the signage sent us above ground and then not any further. We walked around a strange neighbourhood, trying to find the station but ended up finding another line. We now were cutting it fine to get to the airport on time, and after our Eurostar experience, we were no better at dealing with it. We got back on the underground and decided to go with the airport train instead, so tried to get to that central station. In the panic, one of our tickets didn't work through the gates, but we were late and only needed to go one stop further. We jumped the turnstiles, and so did karma. We raced down the stairs to the platform and were greeted with no less than 5 ticket officers, all with nothing to do. After a lengthy debate with a few officers that could understand English and our plight I was ready to turn on the tears. We were at breaking point stress and even if we got out of this fine, the train that just came through the station while we argued may have been our last chance to make our flight. Eventually one of the officers took us up the stairs, and past the ticket machine, and out the exit. Pointed to the central station that was within running-with-luggage-distance, and told us next time we are in Barcelona, to have a valid ticket. From here it was sitting on the express train we could have taken two hours earlier, if it wasn't for the guide book telling us how to save €10 and hoping it's time estimate was correct. In the end we checked in our luggage with 15 minutes to spare, and proof that a backpack is much more convenient when running for planes. While Kev lined up for the plane (enjoying EasyJet's first in, first seated policy) I got us a little bottle of champers to celebrate our success of arriving at all. Though we suspected it might happen, given our streak of luck, we didn't get caught and thrown off the plane for sneaking on really, really bad tasting champagne.