I caught a bus from Salamanca in Spain to Porto, or Oporto, depending on which sign you read. It's the second largest city in Portugal, and, unknown to me when I arrived, the place where port wine was invented! I can't say I had spent a lot of time theorising about where this nectar of the gods originated, but I wouldn't have said Portugal. So I was able to do a tour of one of the massive cellar in the town. There are quite a few companies, most of them British, which have been exporting port for hundreds of years from the town.
This is the view from the major bridge crossing the river which runs next to Porto. The wine cellars are on the left hand side, which is technically another city. As you can see, the weather wasn't half bad.
I only had a few days to spend in Porto, but it's a beautiful city and I'm so glad I went there. I spent my time with some other travellers eating tapas, drinking port and just walking around the city. The old part of the city dates back centuries, and it's a fascinating labyrinth of tiny little alleys. It's also bloody hilly! Lugging my pack up the main hill in town to get to my hostel was a bit of a challenge, especially when it was so warm. But the city is great, the food is great (Portuguese chicken is just called chicken) and the port cheap.
After Porto I caught a train south to Lisbon. It's also a seriously beautiful city with lots of hills! It is covered in a network of old style rattling trams and funiculars (I forgot to take a photo, so this is pillaged from another blog).
It has beautiful old streets which are titled and cobblestoned, lovely squares and an amazing old fort on a hill which was built by the Moors before being captured by the Christians in the Second Crusade. It's kind of amazing to visit a place that was part of a campaign in the Crusades! The Christian conquerers, with their customary tolerance, built a church on the mosque in the middle of the fortress. Not much remains of the palace now, and the fortress has been majorly added to and 'restored' by Salazar in the 30s, so it doesn't look too much like what it once might have.
I had been trying Portuguese tarts in Porto and Lisbon, but someone told me about this one place about twenty minutes by tram from the middle of the city. It's apparently well known for having the best Portuguese tarts in the world. I found it, and the line was out the door! I originally was just going to order one, but as the line was so long I ordered two - purely in the name of efficiency. Oh my goodness, I can't describe how delicious they are. The pastry is amazing, it's sort of crunchy but flexible in the middle and the custardy bit is creamy but not too sweet. I actually made a complete pig of myself and went back later in the day to line up for more. I had those two for afternoon tea with some other local produce.
Again, I could have spent longer in Lisbon, but at that stage I was moderately pressed for time, so I had to move on after a few days. I went to Lagos, which is right on the south Atlantic coast. My mate Damo from Katherine has a mate Lars who lives there. I just kind of showed up and he took me in for a few nights! He had a house overlooking the Atlantic ocean, a few dogs to play with, and he makes a pretty sweet lasagne. Happy days. He also took me to play some touch footy with his mates on the beach, which embarrassingly revealed that three months of doing exercise no more strenuous than walking up a Portuguese hill with a backpack does horrible things to one's cardio fitness. Ho hum.
Lagos is a beautiful little seaside town, and the water is amazing. It was quite a hot sunny day, and I did stick my toe in but man, that water was bloody cold! I wanted to take a dip but I was too much of a wuss, so I just admired the view.
One of the weird things about Lisbon and Lagos was how often I was asked if I wanted to buy drugs! I dunno, maybe I look particularly dodgy, but in Lisbon in particular, it seemed like every street corner I walked past there was some seedy character trying to flog me something. I'm not sure what the law is in Portugal, but they weren't being at all subtle about it!
After Lagos I headed back into Spain to check out Seville, Cordoba and Granada. All three were again conquered by the Moors, then taken back by the Christians in the Second Crusade. The cathedrals in Seville and Granada are kind of fascinating in that they're so obviously mosques. They're big, square buildings with a bit of a cathedral stuck in the middle. This is the tower in Seville, which used to be the minaret for the mosque.
This is one of the main plazas in Seville, which is very impressive and pretty, and also apparently used as a location shoot for the last Star Wars trilogy!
I also went to a flamenco bar in Seville, which was very interesting. It was packed to the rafters, and not a touristy show, just a kind of full bar where these guys were singing, and then after a while this lady started dancing. No mics, no PA, you had to be quiet to listen to them. The music itself is kind of repetitive after a while, but the dancing is fascinating to watch. The sangria was also very strong.
Here's the courtyard of Cordoba's cathedral, which has a beautiful orange grove in it with this nifty irrigation system. To my mind, very Moorish.
The inside is kind of fascinating. There are big long rows of columns, and again, only a kind of 'cathedraly' bit in the middle. Looks very mosquesque to me.
The streets of Cordoba are all whitewashed, with colourful splashes on doorways and architraves, or maybe a plant on a wall somewhere. It's sort of beautiful, in a white kind of way.
After Cordoba it was on to Granada and its amazing Alhambra. It's kind of hard to describe, but it's a series of palaces and other, built within walls and with a massive fortress at the top of a hill looking over Granada. Again, it was built by the Moors and conquered by the Christians. Here's an outside view, I'd recommend clicking on it to see it full size - note the snow capped mountains in the background. Not sure how that works in 35 degree heat!
One of the main buildings is the Nasrid Palace, which was where the Moorish rulers lived. It's an amazing assortment of courtyards and ornate rooms.
The use of water in particular is very interesting. In the first photo of the courtyard, it's supposed to mirror the tower above, to create an even more imposing impression.
This photo is taken in the grounds of another building outside the walls. It was where the court went to relax, and the gardens are beautiful.
And then of course when the Christians conquered it they had to build their own palace too. It's interesting, but nowhere near as pretty!
The other thing about Granada is that it's one of the last places in Spain which does free tapas with drinks. I'm not just talking a bowl of olives here. You can have bagels, stews, paella, hamburgers, salads... the list goes on. For the price of two beers you can basically have a full meal for free. Plus two beers. It's amazing.
My last stop on the Iberian Peninsula was Gibraltar. This is a UK territory, and it's really, really weird. You cross the border and the first thing you see is a bright red British phone box. The bobbies wear their funny hats and you have to pay for things in Gibraltar pounds.
Basically it's a super strategic location because it's right on the Gibraltar Straight (unsurprisingly) which is where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic. The British won in in a war in the 1700s and have held onto it ever since. It became even more important to them when the Suez Canal opened, and during World War II.
After the red phone box, the next thing you come across is the runway! The territory is so small that I guess the only place they could squeeze in a runway was running across the only access road! So you're stopped at a gate while British Airways does its thing. You can see in the background the rock of Gibraltar, which helps explain why the place is so strategic, and also why it might be hard to find a spot to put in an airport. It's an amazing rock, I think about 400 metres high, with forts dating from Moorish times to British WWII pill boxes.
This is the view up on the rock looking back towards Spain. The Mediterranean is to the right and the Atlantic to the left.
And this is the view looking to the south. Yep, that's Africa. Freaking Africa. When I stop and think about it, to be able to look out across a body of water and see an entirely different continent amazes me.
The rock is also well known for its colony of Apes, apparently the only colony in Europe. They're everywhere, obviously very used to people, and kind of stink.
I had planned to explore the different parts of the rock, but I was a little bit sick on this day. I've been travelling for three months now, eaten at places across France, Switzerland, Andorra, Spain and Portugal, but they bloody English pub food in Gibraltar made me very sick. Not quite sick enough to stay in my room all day, but sick enough to make doing anything further than 50 metres from the nearest toilet hard. So I had to make do with a few snaps of the view and then retreat back down the hill.
While I was in Gibraltar I saw an ad for an exhibition of Julian Lennon's memorabilia about his father. I went along and am so glad I did! Here are some highlights...
The Beatles' grammy for Hard Days Night.
John's cape from Help!
Paul McCartney's hand written recording notes for Hey Jude.
John's Afghan jacket from the Seargent Peppers era.
The four track tape recorder John used at home to prepare for recording Sergeant Peppers.
So that's the Iberian Peninsula! I've loved Spain and Portugal, and the sun and warmth have been divine. I have to say that I have developed and inkling as to why the Spanish and Portuguese economies are buggered. I'm no economist, but, as an example, having two people working on a ticket sales counter at the main train station in Madrid while the line is about a hundred metres long probably has a few knock on effects. There's definitely no urgency in these parts in any sort of transaction you make, which is kind of nice as a lifestyle, but kind of frustrating too.
So right now I'm in Morocco! I didn't catch a ferry straight from Gibraltar, but it was only a short bus ride to a little town called Tarifa. I've spent a few nights in Tangier, which is beautiful but crazy. I like it but it is very, very different! But as always, that's a story for another day.
No comments:
Post a Comment